No parent wants to deal with a teen who has cheated on school work, but it happens.
Nearly 200 students were involved in a cheating scandal at one Georgia high school recently, while nearly 40 Arizona high schoolers didn’t graduate last spring because of cheating, according to local news reports.
“Kids nowadays are inundated with tons of stuff where cheating is kind of normal,” says Chris Ozarka, a math and computer science teacher at Batavia High School in Illinois. For instance, some professional athletes get away with using performance-enhancing drugs, he says.
Students view these incidents and may think cheating is OK. And Ozarka says that besides cheating being seen as more and more “normal” among teens, pressure from parents for good grades to get into college can also lead to cheating. Decreased pressure from parents may help students feel the need to cheat less, he says.
It’s also important for parents to be proactive about having conversations about cheating, he says.
If a high schooler cheats, parents can take the following steps to remedy the situation.
1. Have a meeting with educators and the student: Families can discuss what happened in these meetings with the teacher, student and perhaps school counselor, says Heather Swope, a school counselor at Fairfield Area High School in Pennsylvania and a licensed professional counselor.
[Find out three reasons why high school parents should attend teacher conferences.]
“Students should be involved in all meetings with teachers at the high school level and their voice needs to be heard,” she says. “So they’re taking an active part in their education at that point.”
Recently, Ozarka has had students who cheat tell their parents over the phone while he’s in the room to take ownership of their mistake, he says.
2. Ensure teens face appropriate consequences at home: Consequences should depend on what the family regards as important, Swope says. She says her own children lose electronics if something is going on — a big deal for them.
Ozarka says he hasn’t encountered many cheaters, but he has had some. He tries to make tests where information students could easily obtain via Google, like formulas, are given, since teens would be able to search online for this information in real life. On these tests, it’s almost pointless to cheat, since the tests focus on seeing if students understand harder concepts, not if they have memorized information.
3. Make a plan to help students regain trust with parents: “Find ways to say, ‘You know what, you made a mistake, OK. Here’s the consequence,'” says Swope. “Basically, let them have a clean slate so that they aren’t constantly trying to battle something that’s over.”
Some parents keep bringing up their kids’ mistakes, but teens are supposed to make mistakes — that’s how they learn, says Swope.
If students continue to cheat in school, perhaps adults need to explore what’s really going on, she says — whether it’s academic expectations at home or something else.
Ozarka thinks parents should focus on being proactive, and teach morals and ethics to students from a young age so they don’t cheat. “It’s really hard to change that habit once a student ends up being in high school,” he says.
[Get three tips for parents to help their kids with SATs.]
Parents can also help teens ensure they take classes that challenge them appropriately and help teens avoid spreading themselves too thin with school, jobs and extracurricular activities, he says.
“The biggest thing is let them make mistakes and help them to not make mistakes again,” says Swope.
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3 Steps for Parents to Take When Teens Cheat in School originally appeared on usnews.com
