Cheating - A Shortcut Through Life

April 10, 2008

Do you have a teenager who cheats?

Cheating is usually a sign of a teen who just wants to take a shortcut. They don’t want to put in the effort of studying and possibly get a bad grade. At least if they cheat, they can blame it on who they cheated from rather than admit to themselves it’s their fault for the bad grade.

So what can be done to help?

Simpler steps so they can get good grades may boost their confidence to make it worth their while to put in the required effort.

They may also have a learning disorder which makes it harder to get good grades no matter how much effort they put into it.

Nowadays it’s easier to diagnose dyslexia and other learning disabilities. You can simply talk with the school to see about trying to diagnose this or talk to your family doctor.

Cheating can also be a result of not having time to properly study. What are the other activities your child is involved with rather than studying. You could take those things away, but that will only cause them to constantly think about it and become fixated and they wouldn’t be able to effectively study anyway.

A compromise can do the trick or a greater sense of gain at the “end of the rainbow” to motivate them and help with staying focused.

For my son, I reward him with things if he “tries” his best, no matter what the grade. As his grades improve, then I make it harder to get the reward. Some people disagree with this and state that a reward system just reinforces the fact that they will receive something only if they try. My answer to that is like this. You have a job. You want to make more money. What do you need to do? Work harder, better, and faster to get a raise. Isn’t that a reward system?

The point is to give something for effort and not just the grade alone. Once they have self confidence in themselves, then you can ease your way into rewarding based on grades. But until they are willing to put in the effort, I strongly recommend not making the rward based on grades. It will only reinforce the begative factor “why try if I won’t get a good grade”.

You’ve probably heard this “why can’t you be more like xxxx?” They are a different person than xxxx and so their learning style, information processing and feeling of confidence are different. Even if they are identical twins.

My mom used to say “why can’t you be like your sister!” Well… I’m not my sister and I have no idea on how she learns or processes information. Expecting someone to live up to someone elses achievements is almost certainly going to fail. Not only that, but it builds resentment with the other person because they get tired of being compard to them. Treat your teen as an individual who has unique traits, skills, ways of thinking. Use those to help them learn and not a “cookie-cutter” approach. Figure out their best traits and skills and use that to be an effective learner. You’ll see great strides in their acedemics if you help them to learn by using things they can relate to.

As an example, my son is obessesd with DVD’s. So when we come to a math problem like “if Jane has 10 apples, michael has four apples and Michael loses his apples, how many are left?” I turn it into - If you have 10 DVD’s and I have 4 DVD’s and I lose my DVD’s, how many do we have left? Using props like this also helps keep him engaged because he loves DVD’s and could care less about apples. Math is not about comprehension and what the subject is about. It’s about dealing with numbers and using different props makes it more fun for him.

Another tip - my son has a difficult time paying attention to reading books whether he or I read it. So I get him involved with the story when I read it to him and replace the main characters name with his. His comprehension is much better this way and it shows in his work. We just need to switch his name with the main character’s before turning in his assignment.

Be creative when trying to help your teen learn. Keeping them engaged is the highest priority. If you don’t have that, then you don’t have focus and if you don’t have focus… well… it’s in through one ear and out the other.

It’s also very important to commend them on new tasks and strategies to help boost their morale. When my son does math and he’s a little frustrated I have him work through the problem. At the end I tell him - hmmmm, that’s a tough problem, let me check the calculator to make sure it’s right. So I punch in the numbers so he can see, hit the “=” button and BAM! He got the answer right. I get a “high-five” from him and we’re off to the next problem. Of course this only works if you can do the problem in your head and you know the answer is correct before using the calculator.

russ