<p>I might celebrate, but not reward, at this academic level. However, we did have a generous reward policy when my daughter was in elementary school and we now have dozens of Beanie Babies as a result. She has often said that getting the little gifts for a good report card helped develop her work ethic–maybe so. At some point in middle school doing well became its own reward, and she graduated cum laude from a college that doesn’t have a formal dean’s list.</p>
<p>Congratulations to your son on such good work.</p>
<p>No, not for Dean’s List. (not sure my kid’s schools had them.)
Yes for bigger stuff, like Phi Beta Kappa or latin honors, but then there’s plenty of celebrating those kinds of things that gets rolled into graduation.</p>
<p>No, we’ve never rewarded it, nor did my folks reward any of us for it (tho they did encourage & congratulate all of us for EFFORT). As far as I know their friends’ parents never rewarded it either. </p>
<p>My kids were fairly indifferent about whether they happened to make or miss Dean’s List, in HS & college. We were too, as long as they did their best and learned the material as well as they could.</p>
<p>My kids love learning for its own sake, for which I’m very grateful (sometimes wish they would work a bit more on trying to translate their knowledge/mastery into grades, but oh well!)</p>
<p>Not the Deans list , but last marking period I rewarded , or I prefer celebrated my 8th grader with an Itunes card because she made the honor roll for the first time since 6th grade. She struggles with math and has had bad to mediocre teachers the last two years.</p>
<p>I never did that before for any of my girls , but it seemed like she really needed a boost this time</p>
<p>So I’m sitting here with my mouth hanging open. All of you with kids who made deans list all semesters!!! There’s got to be a correlation to you all being on CC. Maybe all the smartypants parents cruise these types of sites. Meanwhile (ahem) at our house and back in the day when we went to college, deans list was not the norm. By no means are we morons, but still our grades were high c’s and b’s. As for our kids, they all do great in elem thru high school but once in college they found they’d inherited the family party gene. Oldest found herself with tons of friends at the end of her 4 years but barely made it through her accounting major. Lucky for her she did learn lots and is LOVING her life working in statistical advertising and accounting. </p>
<p>So I guess we were on the right path with the pat on the back/high five and the occasional dinner out.</p>
<p>with 4 kids I suppose I could have another deans lister in there. As for expectations being high, sorry folks, we held em to the highest and held academics in high esteem all through their growing years. Oh heck, it’s probably all spongebob’s fault, but life without him? Horrors…</p>
<p>No, we have never rewarded for grades, but have a family celebration. S attends a small engineering college and was simply delighted to learn when he received his first all A’s grade report, that THEY rewarded with $100!!</p>
<p>I opened a CD (matures every year, but so far have not removed money from it) for myself with money I received from HS graduation to help save for living expenses during grad school. My parents thought up the following scheme as grades rewards (unexpected but very welcomed): For equivalent of Dean’s List in a given quarter (3.25+ GPA) they make a contribution to the CD; for “Mom’s List” (3.75+ GPA) the contribution is larger; and for 4.0 in a given quarter (difficult to pull off at UChicago, but have done it a few times) I can pick out one frivolous thing in a shopping excursion. I think the CD idea is really quite clever of my mom–it’s a nice reward for Dean’s List or above but isn’t instant-gratification, and the contributions will be much more useful in the long term than a dinner.</p>
<p>My husband and I expected our daughter to do her best and we told her how pleased we were for her when she was acknowledged in some way. I just never felt right about gift giving for what I viewed as a given…her working hard and doing the best that she could do. If her best work turned out not to be at a level that put her on the honor roll during her younger years or the Dean’s List during college, I didn’t want her to think that I viewed it as any less worthy of an effort. Perhaps I over-thought it at the time but there you are. When she was little we did go out for pizza or chinese if something special happened or if she had a particularly great day.</p>
<p>We generally don’t have any idea of whether our kids make Dean’s List, unless the school happens to send something to us. If our kids get something that lets them know they made it, they put it off in a pile of “stuff,” and I’m not sure they even save it anywhere or even if it registers one way or another.</p>
<p>S was happy he just made the 3.5+ to wear the honors cords for college graduation & it indicated honors on his diploma.</p>
<p>At my son’s high school, the kids who got straight As in any given quarter got taken to a local pizza joint for a dinner. This is a school that didnt have many of those kids. My son graduated in the top 5% of his class, and we had no idea that that was going to happen until they announced it at senior awards night. He had about a 3.7 UW gpa. But he acted more like a B student, forgetting to hand in homework, not studying for things that didnt interest him. So as a high school student, when he had a few of those straight A quarters, I made a huge deal about it. Did a happy dance, talked about how grateful I was because it meant the possibility of merit scholarship, etc. Also we did straight A shopping sprees. But those were pretty modest, and usually amounted to a nice dinner and a couple of pairs of jeans or a pair of fancy sneakers. Its pretty easy to wow someone with modest tastes. If he ever made deans list in college, I would spoil him rotten.</p>
<p>I was pretty sure that D’s college did not have a “Dean’s list” designation, there is nothing about Deans list on the school’s website and we have never heard anything although she has earned a 3.8+ all 3 semesters. So recently she asked us if we have received a Dean’s list letter as some of her friends have. Uh…no… </p>
<p>As for rewarding grades, we have never specifically done that.</p>
<p>Agree - making the Dean’s List IS the reward, but receiving a letter from your parents expressing their pride in your effort and accomplishment is priceless. That’s not a buy off, but an expression of love and never inappropriate - as bookworm said above “… it is the words that matter most.”</p>
<p>We don’t reward for Deans’s list, but I did just spring the money for the three honor societies she was just invited to join as a Junior (national Catholic college and universities honor society, languages, and sciences). The school sent us copies of all the invites. She would never have told us, but now she’s laughing over all the cords and medals she’ll be wearing at graduation next year.</p>
<p>I mean, how great is it to work hard, be rewarded with excellent grades, and get a letter from the Dean! And then Mom & Dad find out, give you a huge hug and say to you “you’re my pride and joy, and we think you’re the most wonderful kid on the planet!!”</p>
<p>“Oh, and by the way, here’s a Bon Jovi CD. Nice work!”</p>