In 12 minutes, my first and second grader will be walking through the front door. They will drop their backpacks, shed their coats, both start talking at the same time about various awesome things that happened during the day.

I’ll do my best to listen to both of them but it’s really hard when they’re both talking at the same time. We spend about 10 minutes of reacquainted time, I give them a tall glass of water and some fruit and they eat up and continue to talk and then eat some Halloween Candy.

Sometimes, they begin unloading their folders and pile of the tens of papers that come home each day, while I worry that I’m going to miss something important.

But today, today is different. Today is report card day. Now, I know they are good students, I know they try hard but there is something about this day where I can actually see the results on paper, it matters to me and it certainly matters to them.

Here’s my question for you…do we celebrate and reward good report cards (dinner out? $10 to spend at Target) or just give high-fives and tell them to keep up the great work? A grading period is a long time for a young kid and we want to set the bar high now while they are young…

what should we do?

(by the way, they’ve been home for two hours now and they both got straight A’s.)

And also, when I work hard? I like to be rewarded. Please weigh in.