As I sit here writing this, my youngest son is out pounding the pavement. Money motivates him. Not in an unhealthy, consuming kind of way. But in an I-can’t-turn-down-this-opportunity kind of way. And I’m okay with that as long as his ethics and priorities are in the right place.

And they are. This is not the first time this opportunity has presented itself.

There was a flyer on top of his newspaper stack last week (he has a once-a-week paper route). It described a competition to see which carrier could get the most subscribers. Each new subscriber would earn the carrier $20 and the carrier with the most subscribers would win a grand prize. The prize was not indicated but it didn’t matter to Ryan. Whatever it was would be good enough to sell on ebay.

I know this because this is exactly what happened the last time there was a competition. Ryan was the winner and took home a brand new ipod. He immediately placed it on ebay and it sold within hours. He pocketed a bunch of cash.

And that’s why he’s out knocking on doors. He considers this easy money. A few hours of his spring break and he could make hundreds. He called me a few minutes ago and, so far, has signed up two new subscribers ($40) and received a $10 tip. I think he’s clocking in at $100/hour. Not bad for a 16-year old.

So, although I’m not a huge fan of dangling the almighty dollar in front of kids to motivate them, it’s a pretty safe bet that none of these kids will be taking on paper carrier as a career. So I understand why the newspaper needs to offer a little incentive.

But I also know that Ryan is self-motivated. He knows when he has to buckle down and get the job done even if he doesn’t want to do it and even when he’s not getting paid for it.

The sign that the paying-for-a-job-well-done has gone awry is when you find that your kids will only perform when they get paid. And that’s a no-no. We don’t pay kids to do things that they should simply do because it’s their responsibility. Like working hard at school. Or putting away the dishes.

But if shelling out cash to get your kids motivated hits a chord with you, may I suggest that you have them pay YOU for doing the laundry and making dinner. At which point, they’ll probably need to take on a paper route and hope for “easy money” competitions.