(flickr/blake gumprecht)

When I was growing up, I had friends who got paid for their grades: A certain amount for an A, a B, and so on. As a child and then a teenager, I thought that was brilliant. My parents, though? Forget it, they said. Your good grades are the reward. Learning and doing your best are more valuable than a couple of dollars, they told me over and over.

Never once, though, was I paid for my grades.

Much has changed about parenting, though, since I was a child. Babies sleep on their backs, we all strap our children into car seats and kids wear helmets when they ride bikes. So maybe the thought process behind rewarding academic performance has evolved too?

It turns out my parents were on the right track, according to Scholastic.com. Their experts have several tips for rewarding a good report card:

1. Be spontaneous when rewarding good grades. Go out for a family dinner or special activity after report cards, so it’s a nice occasional surprise instead of a planned incentive or an automatic reward every time.

2. De-emphasize the actual grades; praise effort and concentration more. If your child does his best and earns a C or works really hard and improves his math grade from a C to a B, that is often more noteworthy than a child who easily gets all A’s every quarter.

3. Finally, teach your children that the harder they work and the more they learn, the stronger their brains will be. Their minds need exercise, just like their bodies.