MONEY MORAL DILEMMA. Should little sis get a holiday too?

meme_3

Incidentally, my little sis didn't achieve the grades that I did. I think she got just 5 'O' levels. She has always lived in my shadow, still to this day, because she felt (feels) inferior. That is soooo wrong - she's lovely and so are her family. Rewards for only one of your kids can be very destructive! I know.....

scottishgypsie

Something I hadn't thought of was the fact that the inclination to work needs to come from within. If you only work because you'll get a holiday, then you need to keep getting that carrot. My impression these days is that the results are more important to the parents for them to brag about at dinner parties.

It's a shame that!

barri_2

Education is a great privelege. Nobody should be bribed to take advantage of it. There are people on the world who would crawl twenty miles on their belly to be given the chance of learning.

tsuki

I was offered my bribe for A* grades only - I didn't get any, so didn't "win". My younger sister was offered her bribe for A-C grades (I was at a selective school, so I think it was probably fair) and she got the amount she needed.

I never really minded about the bribe though, I just wanted to make my Dad proud, and the look on his face that day (and the day I graduated from Uni) will always be worth more to me than any holiday.

So go on and give little sis the holiday, if that's what motivates her.

If parents insist on bribery then they have to face the consequences. My sister and I are different - she's better at some things than I am, and vice versa. Maybe give little sis a reward for something else she does well if she isn't academically talented?

Syman

sorry, really should read the whole thread.

Anyways,

It would be obvious over time that the younger daughter iwas not quite as academic and i would lower the bar (so to speak) so that the incentive relates to a reachable target.

If the target is too high then the incentive then becomes a tease as she would know she was not going to get it. she may then not bother and do even worse than if no incentive was offered at all

sicandar

Well i don't think the little sister should be put under all this academic pressure to compete with her older sibling -

Just withdraw her from GCSEs altogether - poor dear how would she bear the psychological scars for the rest of her years acheiving a lower score than her sister?

Justamum

ringo_24601 wrote:

I too have worked very hard for exams and receive poor grades (still a bit upset about 38% on my advanced molecular biology exam at uni) and worked very little to receive excellence (3rd highest mark in the county in Information Systems GCSE exam without opening a book to revise)

That says more about the quality of the exam itself rather than your own "excellence" or lack of.

Justamum

I think bribing children to do well in exams is wrong. Surely after all those years at school they should want to do well for themselves their own future, and not for whatever freebie they might get from their stupid parents.

sluggy1967

I remember when I was at school , when we got our school reports we got a grade for "achievement" & a grade for "effort". I always remember my parents telling me that the effort grade was far more important to them (though not necessarily to the outside world) than the achievement grade. Perhaps the parents in this hypothetical question should use the same criteria?

liberty23

Little sis should definately get the reward for putting in hard work.

It annoys me the amount of people who are 'down' on rewarding their kids for hard work in school and on exams. Adults don't go to work for nothing so why should kids? I'll admit having the hard work praised as well is an important part of it, but people saying kids should be motivated without some kind of physical reward are living on another planet. A 14/15 yr old generally doesn't care about the 'rewards' of a good job or a place in collage as they don't think that far ahead. Most kids that age don't know what they want to do with their lives and will do the minimum amount of work possible in order to just scrape through their GCSE's. Rewards are good, be it money, privilages or items you want. Children should be rewarded for their hard work just as much as adults are rewarded for theirs. And telling someone if they do something well or try hard and you'll give them something is not a bribe, it's life and wouldn't life be carp if you never got more than a pat on the head for doing something to the best of your ability?