A good consequence/reward system for an 11yr old?
My 11yr old has NO work ethic. I have been trying to come up with solutions to this. Her father and I work hard for what we have (we have our own business) but she doesn’t make the connection between working hard and having rewards. Even though we have explained to her that if you don’t want to work hard, you don’t get fun things- she just doesn’t get it. I am considering implementing a new, real-life, reward/consequences system next year when she gets into middle school. What do you think?
The rewards/consequences for grades are as follows:
** Note: she is a smart kid and she ALWAYS has access to help with anything she may not understand. (there is no reason she should get a D or an F)
Any F’s or D’s - No time for playing because she has to re-do any assignments she did poorly or has to complete assignments she didn’t do, this includes re-doing tests at home and getting good grades on them. If she has good grades in all but the 1 class she got an F or D in she might have time to play after she re-does the work. If she has more than 1 F or D, don’t count on any recrational time. When the grade is brought up, she no longer has to re-do work.
Any C’s no electronics: Tv, video games, computer, phone until the grade is brought up. No exceptions until the grade goes up. If a D or F is brought up to a C, she doesn’t have to re-do any assignments but still doesn’t get electronics.
B’s- gets access to all fun things in the house including electronics when homework is done. Has a regular bed time and has to stick to it.
A’s- gets access to all fun things in the house and gets to go out and do something special on the weekends if all other grades are B’s or above.
ALL A’s: Gets special privledges which include staying up a little later, spending money, and will get 1 day off school after recieving a report card with all A’s to just have fun.
If she has all A’s and 1 C, no electronics and nothing special until the C gets up to a B. If she has all A’s/B’s and an F/D she still has to re-do work and won’t get to do anything fun until she re-does the work and her grade goes up.
The purpose of this is to show her that life sucks if you don’t put effort into it and that if you work hard and go above and beyond, you will get great rewards. Anything worth having is worth working for. If she wants to hang out with friends on the weekend and have fun, she needs to take care of her school responsabilities during the week
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honestly, i’d give you an A for effort, but this seems a bit complicated. the more complicated a system the more difficult it will be to follow. and then everything is out the window because without consistency, you won’t get the results you are trying to get.
basically - any drop in a grade lose the electronics. those are probably contributing to the problem in the first place so limit their use to no more than an hour a day (that is actually a lot).
any improvement in grades - she can earn more time with electronics or $ (kids like that) the better the improvement the better the $. I wouldn’t overdo it though.
also - does she do chores? she should be doing something to contribute to the family (personally i think without being paid). but you could give her an incentive like an allowance. but she would need show that she is a responsible member of the family.
good luck.
You are on the right track implementing a reward system but I’m not sure that I would wait until next year to start. What’s wrong with now?
When you do it, make sure that you explain yourself clearly and that she understands what will be happening and why. The system will work much better if she agrees with it. That’s the hardest part.
As for your proposed system, you only mention academics. That is but one component of a string of important things in life. I believe you need to broaden your reward system to cover other areas. While I know it is great to get all As and Bs on a report card, I tend to be much more interested in my children’s social, mental and psychological development.
I suggest you find ways to enhance these areas while helping develop more independence in your child’s life at the same time. Show her that there is more to life than just getting good grades, although of course your child should be getting good grades.
I hope this helps a little. Good luck with it.
For me, I struggle a ton in school. I have all A’s and all B’s but back last year and around 6th grade-ish (I’m in 10th now) I had C’s. Last years average was around 2.7. My average this year is 3.5 GPA. I really really struggled, and that was with working my A double s off.
Any Cs below 75% or anything under you should take away privlages.
What my parents did for my brother and I we got tokens which every I think 10 we got gave us a little prize that was wrapped up (dollar store items, but more than 10 gave us a little more but no more than like $3. It did not work for my brother, but it worked a ton for me. I dicsipline myself now so say I got A’s, B’s, and a C. I would discpline myself so that I have to study/do work for so long for my classes, C’s-B’s mainly or anything I was struggling in and push myself to do better. This past week in English (on homework grades we have S/U grades which is Pass/Fail. S- is for late work. For Grammar and Comp because I have struggled with all of that my whole life, heck I wouldn’t know what a verb is. But I try over and over and over until I get an S. The last assignment I reworked 4x for an S. Normally the reworks stop passed two or one rework but she allowed me to keep doing it because she saw how much I was trying.
I would say use what I said above until she shows she can do it on her own, if it does not help threaten her that you will move back to your routine. Say 1 A 94% and above gives you 2 tokens. Say 1 B 84% and above gives you 1 token. A C gives you .5 or .25 of a token up to say a 84.9-77% will be a C. Anything lower will give you no tokens and anything below say a 75% will take tokens away
The fact that you need to bribe her with a day off from school and so on for all A’s says that there’s a problem here. Your daughter needs to be concerned with her own grades, and should want to get good grades for her own good rather than for the rewards.
There are other ways to reward good work. If she gets a report card with all A’s on it, frame it and brag a little to your relatives to make her feel special, but you don’t have to make her miss a day off of school or have her stay up late.
Every time my son gets a bad grade, we sit down and discuss why he got the grade he got. If he didn’t read the directions properly and didn’t do what the teacher asked, we talk about how he can remember to slow down and do everything correctly. If he doesn’t understand how to do it, we help him and then ask him to explain the problem back to us to make sure he understands. If he nods and seems to understand the explanation, but can’t tell us how a similar problem would be solved, then he doesn’t really get it.
Don’t focus so much on material rewards, but rather do something else to make your daughter feel good about herself. Also, stress the importance of doing well in school. If your daughter doesn’t listen to the words from you, ask someone she looks up to [such as a high school cheerleader] and have them tell her why school is important in a ‘cool’ way that she’ll respect.
Good luck.
Id personally, if it were my daughter do this…
You’re concerned about her work ethic, it says, so start there.
Do a board of rewards, put it uup on the fridge. Give her chores and a spot for doing homework.
At this point, it should count more that she know to begin and finish tasks on her own. Taking the initiative to do homework and basic household chores will be the road to work ethic. Give a star for each task and then at the end of the week, if she’s done 75-100 percent of the tasks on her own work out a reward, like a prefered activity or some allowance.
When she begins to consistantly do her homework every night and is trying actively to get those grades up, then move to a reward system to congratulate her on academic achievement.
Have you actually spoke with the teachers to find out why she is doing so poorly?
Is it because she slopping through the work or not completing it in a timely manner? If that is the case, you definitely need to have a discussion about this. Find out why she is hurrying to get done with the assignment. Is it because the teacher says "when you’re finished, you can visit with your friends". If this is the case, you need to make her correct the work at home. To me, it doesn’t matter if the teacher will accept the corrected homework, I still make my kids do it correctly. They hate this and it has worked. After all, if you are doing the work, they want the credit for doing it.
Is she not completing the homework assignments? If this is the case, you need to implement a system. Require that she bring home her books each night, with a note from the teacher as to what assignment needs to be completed. Require that she come home, have a snack, then work on the homework. Then, you check it after she is done. She should bring the book and assignment home every night, even if she finished it at school.
Does she not understand the work? A teacher of my daughter had a rule that you had to run laps at recess instead of playing if you wasted her time asking questions for something she explained. The result, no one asked a question because they didn’t want to lose recess privileges. Every night, I gave my daughter an hour long math lesson……..until I finally figured out why she wasn’t learning it at school.
Maybe your daughter is purposely doing badly to fit in with the other kids. Maybe she is getting teased because she’s smart. Maybe she is purposely acting dumb to impress a boy or to fit in with friends who aren’t doing well in school.
I think that before you do anything rash, you should talk to the teachers and ask to see examples of her work. Talk to your daughter to find out what the problem is. Maybe institute a rule that she has to do school work for one hour each day. If she has no homework to do, get online and print off some worksheets for her to do or she can sit and read.
Don’t give her a day off school. That is just stupid. You don’t get time off work for doing your job well, do you? She has more time off than she will when she gets a job, so she doesn’t need the extra day. The all A’s and 1 C thing is too harsh, as Cs are not a major problem, especially at that age.