by Larry Wadsworth

Created on: March 18, 2009   Last Updated: March 19, 2009

Why would anyone want to know the characteristics of a cheating child? It is more interesting to know the factors existing in a child's life that would make them feel the need to cheat. The most dominant characteristic in both adults and children who cheat is a deep seated fear of failure. Failure is seen by these individuals as diminishing their worth as happy, healthy participating individuals in our society. The cheating individual feels that others will not appreciate them unless they are successful at whatever task is before them.

When a child cheats it would be interesting to know more about the parents or the significant adults in that child's life. Children often come to school, sport or the arts with expectations that others hold for their achievement. We see this time and again as parents try to live vicariously through the exploits and activities of their children. We see this with college students who are pressured to achieve at high levels so that they can get an excellent job on graduation and make the sacrifice of the family in sending them to college worthwhile. One only has to watch the sickening spectacle of the little girls preparing for beauty pageants and the antics that their mothers go through to make sure that their child is the most advantaged. If you want to see parent involvement at its worst, watch organized sports, hockey, baseball, etc., where winning at all costs is drilled into the heads of the young boys participating. In some extreme cases parents have even got into fist fights over disputes of what happens on the playing field. There have even been reports of referees of some of these games being threatened with bodily harm if wrong calls are made.

If you want to have your heart broken, comfort a child who so stressed about over achievement that they are not able to function. To not experience the sickening depths of that emotion again, anyone might be driven to attempt cheating. You cannot imagine the terror that invades your body when after passing exam after exam all the way to the Ph.D. level you sit in a test room one day, break into a sweat, shake uncontrollably and are totally incapable of writing your name on the paper. Or when it comes time to do the oral defense of your research, you think about smashing your car into a tree on the way to the exam thinking that the committee will pass you because they feel sorry for you.

One of the problems is we do not train or educate our children about the advantages of failing from time to time. Failure enables us to find those things that we are good or exceptional at doing. We cannot do all things equally well. Plain math is easy, algebra goes right over my head, makes no sense so is best left to those that do understand it and enjoy symbols and numbers that make little sense.

If an enormous amount of pressure is applied to an individual to succeed, to make an activity pay, to not be perceived as wasting money or other valuable resources, then the individual might resort to cheating to ensure that success. The problem comes when the cheaters get caught and all is lost.

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