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Is It Cheating?

In the middle of the night last night, I couldn’t sleep. I started thinking about Jason’s Social Studies project that I had read through for him earlier in the day, proofing the final draft so it could be turned in this morning. I suddenly realized that somehow the ethnic background of Austria and Australia had been left out of his report. (I am quite the expert on the statistics of both nations now, thanks to this project.)

I was thinking that I could have him add the information in to the report this morning. It’s his work, and he should do it. Not me.

But what if something was to go wrong? Then what? We are adjusting to the mornings home together, I am still getting used to getting up at 6:15 am, so what if I overslept, and because of that he lost points? The teacher left it off of the second part of instructions, but it was an item he had to list in the first half of the project, and everything from the first half was supposed to be in the second half too.

The dilemna. What to do, what to do…

I finally got up, copied and pasted the sentence from the first report, copied the information on the ethnic diversity from the CIA information website for Australia, reprinted the page and switched it out in his report.

He knows the information. He has spent weeks working on this. It was just an oversight that the information was left off in the first place. If I didn’t fix it, I was going to get even less sleep last night, because I could not stop tossing and turning after I realized it was missing.

I showed him the error this morning, the information I slid in (all of two sentences) and the page I pulled out. He was happy that it was ready to go and he didn’t have to make the changes at 6:30 am.

I’m ok with what I did, but for some reason I keep thinking that I should feel guilty over it. So what does that mean? Am I a bad Mom that helped he cheat or something like that on his homework? Or am I the cool Mom that is looking out for him?

By Christine

Christine is an Avenger of Sexiness. Her Superpower is helping Hot Mamas grow their Confidence by rediscovering their Beauty. She lives in the Heights in Houston, Texas, works as a boudoir photographer, and writes about running a Business of Awesome. In her spare time, she loves to knit, especially when she travels. She & her husband Mike have a food blog at Spoon & Knife.

22 replies on “Is It Cheating?”

That’s not cheating, Christine, that’s being a good parent. Make sure he knows you won’t do this again, he needs to plan his time. 🙂 We are going through this with the youngest who is now in high school and hasn’t really planned her time for about 4 years.

I think you are a cool mom for doing that. I really wish that I had computers when I was in school would of made my life of reports so much easier. I won’t even tell the teacher. At least you go through and help with his homework and correct stuff. There are some parents today that don’t even do that for their kids and then when they get an F on a paper they get all down on him/her.

It was two sentences that he had overlooked. Given the amount of work (!) that he’s put into the paper, and the fact that he knows exactly what was added, I think it’s fine that you did it for him at the 11th hour. (Or 2nd or 3rd hour, depending on the time. 🙂 )

Also, if this had been noticed yesterday, he’d have made the change himself. There’s enough else to do in the morning without trying to squeeze in looking up and adding ethnic information to the report.

It’s not cheating, it’s being a good proofreader. He’d have done it himself if he’d have known. Also, I’m sure that somewhere in his teenage mind your dedication has made an imprint. If MOM can get herself up out of bed to edit a page of a report so she can sleep, maybe he’ll develop the same excellent work ethic. 🙂 I think you did a good thing, Christine.

You’re a really COOL mum. Wish my mum would’ve done that for me ;). What’s important is he understands that –

a) the ethnic background of Australia is Caucasian 92%, Asian 7%, aboriginal and other 1%, and

b) his mum loves him heaps!

I couldn’t get too down on him – he double checked the paper against the teacher’s set of instructions for this half of the project. The teacher just left off the ethnic background part that was in the first half. I’m sure he would have taken off if the data had been omitted. It was just so random to think of it at 2 in the morning!

He did the work already. I think you are just being a good parent. You didn’t research anything that he didn’t already know. He accomplished the task – he learned smoething.

You obviously feel like you did something wrong, and your looking for validation that you didn’t do anything wrong. However, you really don’t need anyone to tell you anything, because you know in your heart of hearts the truth.

Actually, I’ll bet he’ll remember those facts more clearly now than anything else in that report, just because it happened the way it did.

And the final goal, of course, is to have him learn, right? You helped him learn.

Even if you’d written the whole thing for him, but he absorbed all the info, the goal would be achieved. It’s not the effort so much as the retention that’s important!!!

I think in order for it to be cheating you would have to break the rules. It sounds overly simplistic but lets be factual.

Are the rules that you cannot help with the report in any way? Or do the rules specify in exactly which ways you can assist?

In the absence of those explicit guidelines you should feel no remorse in helping your kid. I think a little extra help is better than no help at all.

Completely unrelated – today’s the 2nd annual Blogger Love-In, and I wanted to come by and remind you how much I lovess you! I know you’re so busy lately, and I miss reading you every day, but I still think you’re the bee’s knees. 🙂 There’s something about your writing that really invites your reader into your world, and I appreciate that you share it with us. Yay for Christine! You rock!

I have directed Jason’s teacher to your webpage. You now have to go to the principal’s office. You are in big trouble girlfriend.

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