If “everybody’s doing it,” it must be okay. This kind of peer pressure can lead teens to try alcohol or drugs. What parents may not realize is that it can also lead to academic cheating.

Today, many teens think cheating is normal. In one survey, nearly three-quarters of the teens who responded admitted to cheating at least once. Half who responded thought they could copy answers from someone else’s test without having it count as cheating.

To discourage your teen from cheating:

• Say that never cheating means always doing your own work. That means no copying answers from a friend. No copying from a book or from the Internet and passing it off as your own original effort.
• Don’t do your teen’s work for him. This sends two bad messages. It says that turning in another’s work is sometimes okay. It also says that you don’t think he can do good work on his own.
• Encourage your teen to be proud of himself when he accomplishes things on his own. This tells him he can do it—without cheating.

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