Hard work rewards!

As you might know, one of my favorite topics to blog about, is my kids.
I have 4 children: Melvin (8), David (4), Janella (3) and Sean (7 months).

I would like to share this story with those parents who have kids, but can't seem to figure out why their child is not performing as well as he/she should in school, or behaving badly in and around the house.
Grab a cup of coffee, it might take a while to read it all, but it just might help...

It was about half-way through the school year, when Chariz and I realized that our oldest son, Melvin (then 7 years old), was having issues at school.
Now I know that one might think: "He is in second grade, how serious could it be?", but with kids, these are the kind of things that if you don't nib them in the butt, they could become real issues when they get older.

His grades were steadily going down, and even his conduct in school deteriorated. He was hanging out with the wrong friends, who were distracting him from his school work, and even kept him from concentrating in class.

I never thought that my working late had this much effect on my son, but it didn't take long for me to realize that the fault was actually with me.

You see, I ended up working an average of 13 hours per day, for almost the entire first 3 quarters of 2008. Of course, the effect of that was that I hardly saw Melvin anymore, because by the time I would get home from work, he would be asleep and by the time he went to school in the morning, I was either still sleeping, or already at work again. In the weekends, the two oldest boys usually spend the time with their grandma.
This prolonged distance between us had its effects. One day Chariz and I had a talk, and she confronted me with it. At first I was shrugging it off: "I still see him sometimes" and "it wouldn't have that much effect", but when I had a chance to really think it over (and think back to when my dad used to be away for long periods at a time), I started to see the correlation.

As my eyes were opened to the situation, I also started seeing why David and Janella were becoming increasingly harder to handle. They were naughty, shouted at each other, and in some rare instances, even shouted at their mother.

It was at that moment that I decided that I had to step up and do something.
I had to prioritize my family and make sure that the children could see their father regularly.
I had to listen to Chariz and take charge.
I had to change...

First, I made sure that I would go home at a more "normal" time. I made sure to get home every night before 8PM (the kids' bedtime) so that they would at least see me everyday. I also made it a point to be up in the morning when they woke up, so that they could see me before I left for work. This alone already started having its positive effects within days! David and Janella were less aggressive with each other, and whenever they had the nerve to raise their voices to their mother, Dad would be there to give them "The Look". It helped and whenever I was out, Chariz would not have as hard a time anymore handling them.

Then I had a long talk with Melvin (this was already in the second half of the 3rd quarter of the school year). I talked to him in a suggestive way, so that he would actually answer in his own words what I wanted him to know. It made him realize that the smart kids were "cooler" and that he could learn from them. My presence in the house also had the effect that he was more serious in his school works, and of course I made the time to tutor him when needed.
We made up this point system where he would score points for his test and exam results. Good scores would earn him points, and bad scores would cost him points. Average scores would do nothing to the points total.

Of course you need to put a reward to a system. There has to be a result to the work and actions that you agree upon. Since Melvin had already been asking for months, if he could have a PSP (Play Station Portable), we decided to make that the reward.
The points-bar we made went from 0 to 100. If Melvin would reach 50 points before the end of the school year (keeping in mind that most of the school year had already passed), he would get the PSP, but it could take a while. The closer he would get to 100 points, the sooner he would get his reward after the last day of school. Both Melvin and I were thinking that 60 to 70 points would be reasonably doable, and that 80 to 85 would be exceptional. Especially considering that Melvin had only 3 months to go in school, with not that many tests and exams left.

As a result, he worked extremely hard. He studied wherever he went, and spent hours reviewing materials, doing homework, making sample tests, etc. He would spend whole weekends doing nothing but making sure that he would get good scores in the tests in the week ahead. We would sit for hours working on the subjects that he was having trouble with. He changed his attitude in school and actually started encouraging other students to be better. He started teaching his brother and sister how to be good kids.
He would come home from school with big smiles on his face bringing in nothing but great scores, even a lot of perfect scores. Of course every time when he got home, we would immediately chalk up the points to make sure the points-bar was up-to-date and the progress was visible.

On the last day of school, Friday the 20th of March, 2009, Melvin and I sat down after school and tallied the end result. As we counted everything, we looked at each other in amazement and couldn't help choking up a bit...
He had made 119 points.

Both of us beamed with pride as we went and told Chariz about the result, but of course we could not avoid it anymore...now Chariz and I had the task of buying the PSP. Yesterday evening we were able to get it and as I walked into Melvin's room, with the PSP box in my hand, I asked him if he knew what it was. He looked at the box with confusion as he couldn't clearly see it, and as he came a little closer he realized what I had in my hand.
He looked up at me with what I could only describe as a hesitant mixture of happiness and sadness, completely silent, and tears started to well up in his eyes. Without uttering a word, just by his look, he was asking me if this was his PSP and all I did was nod my approval.
He started crying, jumped up and hugged me without end.
"Thank you papa, thank you papa, thank you thank you thank you, I love you papa, thank you papa". Chariz was looking at us with tears in her eyes, and I could not hold back either. I don't think I have ever seen anyone be so thankful and appreciative. He said: "I am happier now than all the happy people in the world put together!". I told him that he deserved it and that I was extremely proud of him. The result of all the hard work that he had done, had completely exceeded any expectations any of us had. Including himself.

Congratulations Melvin. We love you! Well done!