Rewards are always a performance incentive. Be it in school life or in education in general. However, rewards do not have to be seen in material terms. Of course, you can reward your child with gifts or money for good grades or learning results. But there’s nothing like verbal rewards. Recognition and praise are at least as valuable as expensive gifts or money. At least as much is almost an understatement. In fact, it’s much more important. Warmly expressed praise for great performance goes to the heart much more and motivates immensely. That’s for sure. This is true for big people as well as little ones.
Remember how your child smiled at you the first time he or she ran? That motivated you to keep trying right away, right? Right? So don’t be stingy with recognition, motivate your child as often as you can, spur them on! There is a but. We often read that criticism should be left alone. We don’t think much of that. Criticism is also important. You don’t do your child any favors if you only reward and sweep all mistakes under the table. That is not true to life. Training the ability to take criticism is at least as important as rewarding for good performance. It’s the “how” that matters. If your child shines through laziness or has repeatedly failed to do his homework or something similar, then it is definitely important to talk to the child clearly. But of course in an appropriate tone and please do not “talk down” to him. A calm, factual conversation, in which the child also gets a chance to speak, works wonders.
The balance between criticism and reward is simply important. If there are problems due to deficient behavior, it needs a healthy criticism, a clarifying conversation. With every success or well done tasks a nice and please sincere praise. In this way, your child learns early on that lazy, sluggish or foul-mouthed behavior is not exactly welcome. Neither at home, nor at school, and certainly not later in professional life. It also learns that good performance brings good feedback.
Now let’s stay on the topic of rewards What should that look like? Examples: For every minor success, there is at least one appreciative praise. With good report marks the reward can be determined naturally freely. The possibilities are very diverse. Many give 1 – 5 euros for every grade 1, some hold out the prospect of a nice amusement park visit. In any case, it is advisable to determine the reward long before the report card is issued. This gives your child a goal to work towards. By the way, it’s also easy for lower-income parents to set the prospect of a nice reward. How about a nice bike ride or a picnic in the countryside? There is no reason to skip rewards for lack of money. Children are happy about every nice activity and will also gladly work towards such goals with their performance.
So it is possible for every social class to encourage, motivate and reward children. For good grades, for example, a nice games evening is also a great prospect. Or simply do something together, or there is the favorite meal as a reward, etc. Make your own thoughts, come up with something! One thing is for sure: children whose achievements are recognized are more motivated, more determined, more ambitious. This will help them throughout their school life and these really important qualities will stay with them throughout their later life.