Bribery at its finest

BalekFekete

Shared on Tue, 07/22/2008 - 15:22

Let's face it - everything has a price. You want to really feel like you own the road, it's going to cost to have 300hps under the hood. You want to enjoy a really well cooked, well presented meal, you're going to pay $40 for that steak. You want to get laid early in your 20s, well most likely you paid for countless movies, dinners, concert, etc. in hopes of getting into her pants. Well, I figured if its true for all that, then it's time to start bribing my kids for good grades. With summer camps already half over, I saw a commercial for Video Game Summer Camp and thought it was a stroke of genius to use it as a carrot in front of my 13-year old gaming-addicted son.

Guess what? It worked! He is soooo excited over the possiblity of going to a camp where he can learn how to make video games (which he's decided, at least for now, he wants to do as a career...we'll work on something a little more 'stable' in a few years).  He immediately started tearing into his summer work, and after checking through it on the spot, he's actually giving it some real attention and thought to the work.  Yeah, the camp is definately more expensive than I like, but if it will motivate him to keep his grades up - deal is a 3.0 GPA for two weeks of camp, 3.3 for four weeks, and if he can pull straight As and a 3.5 I'll hook him up with the full six week package. Nice thing is its even local to us, about 10 minutes away, so getting him to and from wouldn't be a big deal at all.

And who says positive reinforcement can't work!?! All it takes is finding the right currency...

Comments

wilderz's picture
Submitted by wilderz on Tue, 07/22/2008 - 15:24
That is really cool.
VenomRudman's picture
Submitted by VenomRudman on Tue, 07/22/2008 - 15:40
Wait until he finds out how much work it really takes to make a decent video game. I can't see the interest lasting long if he is building pong and expecting COD4....
jikado's picture
Submitted by jikado on Tue, 07/22/2008 - 15:45
Won't be long before he's programming a game of snake on the side of a building!
Flying_Saffa's picture
Submitted by Flying_Saffa on Wed, 07/23/2008 - 05:57
Good skills. Don't be fooled into thinking this isn't a stable option though. It equips them to be able to move into any sort of design/programming role out there with a bit extra direction.

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