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In today’s fast pasted, dog eat dog world, parents play a major part in they’re children success, or at least that’s how parents see it. In his article “A Slippery Slope”, San Francisco Chronicle’s C. W Nevius Talks about Adults aiding and giving an unfair advantage to children and how, in the long run, it sets them up for failure. For a lot of families, parents helping their children with home work or a school project isn’t that big of a deal, most schools and teaches would agree, that’s fine. Some parents, on the other hand, have stopped believing in their children’s abilities and start taking matters in to their own hands.
Parents have the best intentions for they’re children.. “they [parents] want their son or daughter to get in to X,Y,Z college, and a B won’t make it”, former school teacher under the alias “Alice” explains, “high school is a means to get in to college”(Nevius pg. 303). They don’t help their children cheat just for the sake of cheating. More and more people are choosing higher education over blue collar jobs, prestige colleges become more competitive to get in to. Nevius writes, “Parents are convinced the stakes are so high that they can justify doing almost anything to give their child an advantage”(pg. 02) With so much at stake, parent’s are afraid of their children failing and let their anxieties take over. They think their children will be failures, start taking drugs and end up in prison if they don’t get in to a good college. Rather than trusting in in their children’s capabilities, they feel like they have to do what ever in necessary to help their children get ahead. Cheat isn’t as simple or morally wrong as writing answers on your sleeves; it has become more complicated and elaborate .
Instead of lending a helping hand with their child’s work, parents have decided it’s more convenient to just do their work for them. Parents would do their child’s science projects for them and when they went to the districts science fairs, they wouldn’t know what say or how to explain their science projects. When the assignment was too petty to do they would complain to the teachers “Alice had parents stop by to tell her that their kids were just too busy with after-school activities to turn in assignments that week” (Nevis pg. 304). Parents would go to therapist and physicians to get their child diagnose with a learning isability in order to get them more time during test, if the physician or therapist didn’t say what the parent wanted to hear then they would just find another one. It’s not just exclusive to academic fields ether, in Iowa’s state fair, they’ve started to test the teenage 4-H (4-H is a youth organization run by the department of agriculture) contestants for steroids in the teens livestock. Parents have been also concern about unfair treatment of school sports teams, and have reacted by bringing stop watches to make sure they’re child gets the same amount of practices during soccer, or just out right suing they’re child’s couches.
When former high school student Jawaan was a sophomore his family sued his high school for 1. 5 million because he was unable to play for his varsity team. His parents justified the outrageous by saying his couch cost him a professional basket ball career. Parents will do anything to give their child that extra advantage, regardless of rather what they do is morally right. If they’re child makes it to a good college, then whats the problem with that? Parents fail to see the long term actions of they’re overbearing parenting.
Wemberly, a high school women’s basket ball couch still remembers when a girl was driven incessantly on the basket ball court in order to get in to a college, but once she got there, she’d only last a year. With so much of the students grade based on their parents fighting and working for them, they find them selves ill prepared for independent life. “he [the student] get into a big program, rides the bench, has a stressful experience and feels like a failure”(Nevius pg. 307) says Former high school counselor, Mike Riera.
When they get in to college, and find out that a 70 on a paper means you got a 70, they find that real life, the one with out the benefit of their parents doing everything for them, its a lot harder then what they are use too. Or consider parents that got learning disabilities for their children. According to the College board, extra time on a text only helps if you actually have a learning disability, but if you do, there’s really no difference other then they got extra time. “if you don’t know it, you don’t know it” says educational psychologist McClure.
By constantly providing an unfair advantage to your child, your setting them up to fail once they’re on equal footing and on their own. Its hard to see your child fail, but that’s apart of the learning process. You can’t expect to be there for your child for everything, so you should set them up to be independent, not depended on you. Nevius has an important point, not only about the ethics of cheating but also the consequence. Life is a learning experience, no one born knowing what to do, and we make mistakes so we know what not to do.
There’s a fine line between cheating and helping, but is not a line of morally ambiguity. Its not just moral, your also setting them up to fail by helping them cheat. Its not just a problem with parents though, is also a problem with society creating such a competitive environment, where you intelligence isn’t as important as your degree. Denzel Washington’s character in David Ayer’s movie “training day” summons it up pretty well, “Its not what you know, its what you can prove” and until we change that, their will always be people trying to prove what they don’t know.