No parent desires to be called by the principal due to cheating. However, this is common in the school setting. While your kid’s offense may upset you, you still have to think of strategies on how to discipline your child to avoid problems like this in the future. Hence, here are some ways for parents to remedy the situation.
Listen To All Sides
As a parent, you might have the instinct to defend your child from the student or teacher who accused your child of cheating. However, this should not be the case. You should be neutral in these cases and seek the stories of all those who are involved.
The best way to start this is to set a meeting with the educators alongside your child. Ask for their version of the story. How did the teacher know of the cheating? What’s the story behind the classmate’s accusation? If you cannot understand what they are saying, calmly ask for clarification and patiently listen.
You also have to understand that cheating nowadays goes beyond looking at someone’s paper or copying their classmate’s homework. The rise of the digital age also gave way to more sophisticated means of doing this act. Some examples of this include wearing smartwatches with answers on them or hacking the principal’s computer to have access to the tests. With this in mind, you should always be open when listening to all of their accounts.
Give Out Punishments
Once you have verified that they indeed cheated, you have to hold them accountable for it and punish them for their wrongdoing. However, it is essential to tailor the consequences depending on the gravity of their situation. For example, his or her punishment for copying homework must be lesser than for cheating on an exam.
Some disciplinary actions include the following:
- Welcome school consequences. If the teacher decides to give him detention or a zero on his paper, let them be. Do not stick up for your child since this might only give him the idea that cheating is acceptable for you.
- Encourage him to apologize. He should make amends to those people involved. It may be with his classmate he copied his answers from or to the teacher whom he tricked.
- Create a schoolwork plan. As a parent, you should also help your child cope with the stresses of school. To avoid copying and cheating, you can create a plan for schoolwork. It ensures that he does his homework or reads his assigned readings. The program can include establishing a fixed study time in the house, reading several pages of a book every day, or assigning a tutor for your child.
Find The Reason For Cheating
There is most likely a reason why your child resorted to cheating. It can be because he or she sees older people cheat, there’s too much academic pressure, or his friends force him or her to commit the offense. Whatever it is, you have to pinpoint the exact reason why to be able to address the root of his or her dishonesty.
Always remember that you should send the message that cheating is unacceptable. Do not focus on what punishments to give to your child. If they don’t fully grasp the importance of honesty, they will most likely repeat this act in the future.