Reward and Punishment for Report Cards

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Let me first say, I am not anti-home school. What I am is one who believes in a balance between what works. If public schools work, then so be it. If home schooling works for your family, maybe one child and not the other, then absolutely, go for it! And, at the same time, if you fall somewhere in between with private schools, co-op schools, or technical school, if it works for you, your child, your family, then by all means, please make it your priority. But this, this is about public school students and the dreaded “Report Cards”.

My father was a teacher and I was never pushed to make exceptional grades. I did though. I made all “A’s” until I was in high school. Somewhere between moving to a new school where I knew no one, being a high school student and not a small grade school student and basically moving from a school where academics were weak to one of the most stringent academic schools in the area, I started to earn a “B” every now and again. And, then, I learned to drive. With learning to drive, I started to see more “B’s” than “A’s” and that final semester of my senior year, I saw my first ever “C” appear on that grading report.

My father was not a happy camper.

But, as I said, he never pushed me to do more than what he thought I was capable of doing. I graduated second in my class, second in an extremely academically focused school, which was so different than my first eight years. And, I say that with a great deal of pride.

My husband is a genius and I know, you’ve heard me beat that drum many times before. He made good grades because he could. No parents pushing him. His grandparents reared him and they simply didn’t get that interested usually. And his didn’t. He is simply gifted and school came easy for him. Now, the two of us have produced two boys. One of them is in the first grade and has yet to make anything but straight A’s. We’ve never discussed it much as I don’t think at his age he can really control it too much. He learns what he learns and that’s the end of it. He is still at an age where we can skip homework if we so choose without his teacher penalizing him. But the other students, the ones with siblings usually, know what the words “A Honor Roll” and “B Honor Roll” and “A-B Honor Roll” means. We had to explain it to my first grader the night after the first awards ceremony.

His father and I both learned from listening in class. We just took it with us. I think I probably had to do more homework than my husband to maintain my grades but either way, we still have the same learning style. And thus far, our first grader has the same style. He comes home on Monday night and he knows all his spelling words, all his sight words, all his vocabulary words and can read his fluency passages and stories without missing a beat. By Thursday night, he is reciting the spelling words and spelling them from memory. He can recite the fluency passages without opening the book. And, with that, he has made straight “A’s”. But, will we push him?

When does motivation become obsession? I refer to another post I wrote about being a parent who rewards or punishes. I grew up in a house were I was motivated by encouraging words but was not rewarded for doing what was expected of me in the first place. Thus, good grades didn’t warrant a reward, but bad ones did make cause for punishment. I only found that out once. That’s the story of my final semester of my senior year of high school and it will have to wait.

That takes me back to the same question, do you reward your children for making good grades or punish them for making bad ones? And, exactly what is a bad grade? Honestly, I never took a class in regular academic school that I should have made less than a “B” and in most cases, I was probably capable of making all “A’s”. I wasn’t punished for the B’s, but I was for that one C. How will my husband and I handle those great report cards that will make their way into this house over the next thirteen years? How do you handle them?

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