5-yr old DD was so anxious about her spelling test today, she decided to try to cheat by hiding the word list so she could refer to it. She did two things wrong. First, she lied because she told me she was leaving the word list in the car because she "didn't need it anymore." Second, she tried to cheat on the test.

The teacher discovered what she was doing and sent her to the principal's office.

DD doesn't think being sent to the principal was a big deal because "...He didn't spank me or anything. It was easy!" And she only 'pulled one card'. I tried to explain to her going to the principal's office is what happens when you pull 3 cards so that's how serious cheating is.

She definately knows she did something wrong. Praise be, she is at least acting like she has a conscience about this. At this age, she is appropriately worried about what punishment will follow.

At this point, I have decided that she will write a letter of apology to both her teacher and her principal. But I want something else that she has to do that will stick in her mind how important it is to be honest. She admits that fear drove her to this bad decision. She was worried she'd get some of the words wrong on her test. I'd like her to one day understand that we can't allow fear to motivate us to take 'the easy way out' and she needs to find other ways to handle her fears.

Earlier this week I caught her watching older kid shows on TV. It was the Disney channel but still they weren't appropriate for a 5-yr old in my opinion. I'm thinking of telling her that the kind of TV she was watching contributed to her making the wrong decision. I'd then ground her from all TV for a week. While that would be an effective form of punishment for DD, I'm not completely satisfied that grounding her from TV would be an effective form of DISCIPLINE.

I want the punishment to fit the crime. The crime is cheating and lying, plus allowing fear to drive her decisions. I want the discipline to re-enforce the importance of honesty. Any ideas?

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Wow, cheating at the age of 5! It is weird because I remember the first time I tried to cheat. It was actually in 1st grade on a spelling test. Though I did not get caught I remember how nervous I was about it. I also got the word wrong because the boy I cheated off of did not know how to spell "Bird" either.

I think it is good that you are stressing how wrong it is to cheat. It is a very bad habit to get into especially at such and early age. It is amazing how many kids cheat in school. If you can encourage your daughter to know it is wrong now, it will help her in the future.

I agree that consequences that revolve around the nature of the bad behavior are best, but that's a hard one. I do agree with the writing apology letters, and then just what other punishment suits her. If taking away TV would be torturous to her...then take it away. Just as long as she's punished I would think that's the point. Good luck!

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