Character Development: Are Kids Concerned About Cheating?

Source: Elizabeth Dabney Hochman

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Being on the cusp of adulthood is tricky. Parents know that dealing with the enormous emotional, physical, social, and intellectual changes of an early adolescent can feel like wearing a blindfold while careening through space on a roller-coaster. Above all we want kids who are comfortable in their own skin and well-adjusted in spite of the obvious awkwardness of the transition, and we are faced with how to nurture these qualities daily. What conditions can support the growth of a grounded adolescent when faced with tough choices? Can adversity encourage the development of a child's moral compass?

As the pressure to perform in school increases, kids may feel the need to cheat just to keep up with their peers. As kids succumb to this pressure, cheating can become an accepted practice from childhood into adulthood. A salient example from The New York Times article, Plagiarism Lines Blur for Students in Digital Age, recounts the increasing difficulty college students have crediting material they find online. The article contends that information is so easily accessible online, that the distinction between what is public information and the result of someone else's efforts has become blurred. The Times cites surveys in which about 40 percent of college undergraduates said they had copied whole sentences in their written work. The article also points to findings that students are less inclined than they were a few years ago to believe that copying from the internet is "serious cheating."

What this piece and other headline grabbing articles like it don't explore are questions that go to the deeper causes of academic deception, e.g., when attitudes about personal integrity form and whether students who participate in dishonest behavior are troubled by it. It may be more useful to consider ways we can actively support our children as they grapple with this complex issue and others facing them.

Two fundamental approaches that seem to empower kids facing large questions like cheating always strike me: to reflect and to engage. I have worked with young adolescents for several years, leading editorial board meetings in which kids between the ages of 11 and 15 discuss articles about big life questions. In one recent meeting, after reading "The Cheating Plague," an article by a 14-year-old author which detailed rampant cheating at various schools, 20 young teens and pre-teens reacted passionately to the topic of cheating and academic honesty. The author published the article anonymously to avoid possible recriminations from the administration at school and felt that the complicity of teachers, parents and administrators in ignoring flagrant cheating was a significant part of the problem. The article expresses the author's deep concern in witnessing a growing lack of integrity amongst fellow students coupled with the unwillingness or inability of teachers to adequately address the issue.

As compelling as the article itself was the intense interest of every young reader. After a very full silence, an animated conversation ensued about what constitutes cheating--when does taking short cuts on homework become a loss of integrity and how kids and adults should deal with it. While some editors thought that many kids may cheat in order to get ahead academically, or to cope with parental pressure, interestingly, others thought that their peers may do it simply to prove they can. Whatever the motivation, all the kids were highly aware of the problem and eager to better understand it. From listening to the cascading voices of 11- to 15-year-olds, I learned of many approaches to cheating at different schools, both lenient and punitive. What was most striking was the extent to which the kids really cared about the issue and wanted to engage each other about it. While many points of view emerged, the kids were unified in their concern about the implications of building a life of inflated accomplishments or half-truths.

With an opportunity to reflect and openly share a wide variety of views, these kids felt supported in fully exploring a complex issue. Repeated exposure to this dynamic helps adolescents to think through their perspective on a broad range of issues they encounter every day. If reflection exists in a vacuum, kids may not develop the social confidence necessary to handle difficult situations as they arise with their peers. Mere conversation without reflection inhibits the ability to be grounded in their unique experience and point of view. If we foster both of these faculties with our kids, I believe they will be empowered to make choices they feel good about and moreover, will have a positive approach for handling difficult issues as they grow.

Elizabeth Dabney Hochman is the Founding Editor of KidSpirit Magazine and KidSpirit Online, an award winning magazine and community center for youth.  A graduate of Princeton University, with a Masters degree from the Mannes College of Music in New York City, she has over fifteen years experience as an opera singer.  Ms. Dabney Hochman comes from a family of writers and has broad experience writing and editing.  Being a parent underlies her belief that KidSpirit can play a transformative and empowering role in the lives of today's youth. She and her husband live with their two daughters in Brooklyn, New York.