A Slight Case of Cheating

I'm sure this happens to everyone eventually, but I was not prepared for it to happen to us. The Crafter cheated on her school work.  Here's how it went down.

There was a play that she disparately wanted to attend.  It was at night.  The Historian works at night.  Wild Thing and Sweetie do not do well being out past their bedtime.  The Crafter's best friend's mother graciously invited her to attend the play with them and to spend the night afterward.  We gratefully accepted the offer on the condition that the Crafter diligently complete her work for the week.  I even got organized and made a color coded spread sheet listing each assignment for each day.

Everything was going well.  The Crafter completed her work on Monday in only 3 hours—including piano practice.  The Historian and I strongly encouraged her to work ahead a bit.  Thursdays and Fridays are difficult school days because I teach at the college.  She didn't want to work ahead; she wanted to have extra play time.  Tuesday and Wednesday passed in a similar fashion.

Thursday was not good.  I wasn't here to stay on top of her work.  The Historian was busy with Wild Thing and Sweetie and couldn't help as much as he would have liked.  I arrived home and saw what was happening.  We gently reminded the Crafter that going to the play depended on getting her work done. She said she understood, but the diligence of earlier in the week was gone.  She messed around and spent two hours on math instead of the 30 minutes it should have taken.  She didn't finish Thursday's list. There was still time though.  Her Friday list was short with only math, reading, piano, and a spelling test. She could manage the undone items from Thursday and do Friday's work with time to spare.

If only she had asked for help with her math.  I arrived home to the Historian looking at some math problems or rather some correct answers to some rather involved math problems with no supporting work.  We knew some mischief was afoot.  We asked her to redo the problems and show her work this time. Thirty minutes passed with no math.  I point blank asked her if she had copied the answers from the answer key.  She said no.  After another thirty minutes, she began to cry.  The Historian finally got her to confess to copying the answers and then lying about it.

Daddy handled the discipline.  There would be no play, no spending the night with her friend, and she would have to apologize to her friend and tell her why their plans changed.  The Crafter shed many tears.  I believe that the toughest part of the punishment was when she actually had to confess her sin to her friend.   I pray that we handled this appropriately.  The answer keys are now in a less accessible area.  I hope this doesn't happen again.