Cheating

So two weeks ago on Wednesday night discussion ended up on cheating. Our student ministries staff and leaders realized via a poll that all but one of our students cheated on a monthly basis. When we started talking about the reasons why my heart broke. The biggest reason they cheat is so they can please there parents by the grades they get. Our students are feeling as though they are not good enough for their parents. So if they peek at someone else's paper to get an answer they do not know it's okay because they will not get yelled at at home for bringing home a bad grade. The students feel that they would rather cheat than be yelled at or feel as though they have disappointed their parents.

I never had this trouble because as long as I tried my best my parents were proud of me and I knew it. In college at one point I felt like a failure and called home scared of how my parents were going to react at the sound of my bad grades and I was so scared that my parents were going to fuss about the money they had taken out of retirement to pay for my semester. Instead my Dad was so loving and said "Oh well, what's one more semester!" I was in tears because I realized that my parents loved me supported me no matter what! So when I see my students craving this attention from their parents it breaks my heart to see the extremes they are going to just to please their parents.