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are willing to do whatever it takes to make them "happy". What our children need more of, from us, is loving attention. This attention is the kind that notices what they are doing and how it is being done. This attention tells them if they are on the wrong track or working in the right direction. This attention notices what they wear to school, how they carry themselves, and who their friends and heroes are. This attention takes time to listen to them tell about their day before sending them to bed at night. This attention makes sure they have their homework done and done neatly and correctly-and that it is taken with them to school the next morning.

No, our children don't need to be rewarded with money for good grades in school. The reward most children cherish the most, especially when they are struggling to make good grades in high school so they can get into college, is the attention of their parents on a one-on-one basis, and their help in making sure the homework is done correctly and neatly. And that the child has been the one actually doing the work, not the parent! True, my children grew up in a simpler time, and I grew up in an even simpler time, but my children all became honest, hard-working, contributing adults, even before they graduated from college and left home. Children who receive "rewards" for grades that were earned through "work" that might have been done mainly by the parents might never know the feeling of accomplishment in actually DOING something well; they won't have learned how to go about it.

Learn more about this author, Barbara A. Black.
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