What to do if your child cheats

The likelihood is, at some point, your child will try to cheat. Like anything in life, they will be testing whether cheating is acceptable behaviour or not.

So how should you act when you catch your child peeking at someone else’s work, or starting before the whistle? 

We’ve asked some parents and teachers how they reacted when it happened to them.

Are they cheating?

If your child is caught out, the first question you need to ask yourself is: are they aware they are cheating? Some younger children don’t even realise what they are doing is wrong, as Carol from Hertfordshire found out when her four year old daughter, Grace, continually cheated at her nursery sports day. Carol told us: “Grace kept cheating. She’d start before the whistle, take the other children’s bean bags and lie about her place. Basically she caused havoc – I was so embarrassed.” Unlike Carol, though, Grace didn’t seem ashamed or guilty when she got caught out. “She just didn’t seem to get it.”

Like Grace, lots of young children have not yet grasped the concept of cheating. Therefore they don’t realise it’s wrong.  Researchers have found that most children do understand that it is unacceptable behaviour by the age of three, but some take as long as six to fully comprehend that it is bad. If you’re uncertain whether your child knows they are cheating, watch them when they are caught. Do they show guilt or shame, or do they try to conceal the fact they aren’t playing by the rules? If they do, then they understand that cheating is wrong.  

Prevent and prepare

It may sound a little like a battlefield mantra, but prevent and prepare is a great phrase to use if you want your child to stop cheating when doing their homework.  We sought expert advice from Mr Hunter, a primary school teacher from Suffolk. Mr Hunter explained that, “a handful of my children do cheat when doing their homework. They might copy and paste things from the internet or copy other children’s work.  When we ask them why they did this the usual reason they give is that they did not have enough time.”

A lack of time can bring out the worst in all of us. To prevent your child from cheating make sure you sit with them or stay close by when they do their homework. Try to establish a regular routine that they know about. Setting a specific period of time that they should spend doing homework each night is also beneficial.When they know they are expected to use an hour of the evening to complete their homework, they may be less likely to rush through assignments so that they can watch TV.

Why are they cheating?

Vicky, a 24 year-old mum from Edinburgh, has a 13 year-old son, Adam, who wants to be a rugby star. Vicky and her husband Simon were worried about Adam when he continued to cheat during rugby training.

“Adam would cut corners, lie about the number of sets he’d done and he’d even try to put his team mates down. It wasn’t on. We didn’t bring him up like that, but even when we punished him he kept on cheating.”

Vicky and Simon were so worried about Adam’s behaviour that they went to speak to Adam’s coach, who asked them whether they might have been putting pressure on Adam to do well. Vicky explained that “although it was hard to admit it, his coach was right. We’d actually been coming down to hard on Adam and made him think that winning was everything.”

To help, Adam’s coach asked him to train the under 10s rugby team. Getting involved in an activity he was good at, but being unable to directly influence the game, did frustrate Adam at first, but eventually he began to enjoy it and realised that you could still have fun without winning.

What to do when they are caught

It can be very easy to turn a blind eye to cheating. However, if you ignore your child’s behaviour it will just teach them that they can get what they want when they cheat. We asked Sarah, a mum of three, to tell us how she acted when her 11 year old daughter, Rachel, cheated in a spelling test:

“I was furious and embarrassed to be honest, but I’ve always believed that kicking off at your children doesn’t work. After I’d calmed myself I sat Rachel down and told her that if you cheat you are only cheating yourself. Doing well because you have put hard work in and achieved a good result yourself is a very rewarding feeling, but if you cheat you will always know that you don’t really deserve your grades.” While it might seem a softly-softly approach, Sarah believes that the talk really got through to her daughter, more so than the punishment.

Act like Mary Poppins

Trying to use your umbrella as a method of transport to and from work is probably not the best way to overcome any cheating issues you and your child have. However, acting as perfect as Mary Poppins will. Sue Atkins, a child behaviour expert, explains that, “You are a role model for your children in everything that you do,” so if you cheat, they’ll cheat too.

Changing your behaviour is manageable, but a more complex problem many parents face is the influence of their older children on their younger ones. Laurie Kramer, a University of Illinois researcher, has studied sibling influences and found that “siblings are closer to the social environments that children find themselves in during the majority of their day, which is why it’s important not to overlook the contributions that they make on who we end up being."

David, a single parent, found out that his older daughter Lucy, aged 12, was encouraging his youngest daughter, Abbi, to cheat. It took him six months to figure out why his well-behaved daughter had suddenly started misbehaving. Once he realised, he was able to assess the situation and appropriately punish each child. “Abbi soon stopped cheating,” David explains, “but I can’t believe it took me so long to work out.”

At the heart of Team Mum is the video series Raising an Olympian, sponsored by Proctor and Gamble, profiling athletes from across the world, their dedicated efforts to make it to Olympic Games, and the mothers who had tremendous impacts on their lives. Watch the videos on Yahoo! Lifestyle Team Mum.