Saving Your Teen

Question

I have an ethical problem. Is it ever a situation where helping a teen cheat school is the best thing to do? Here is my situation. My daughter is not good at school. She is not interested in school. I am desperately trying to get her to at least graduate high school. She is a private international school in Holland. The system is that she has an opportunity to do a redo assignment to make up all the failing grades she has had over the past year so she can graduate. We also have to pay a sizable amount for this privilege (We already have). As far as we knew she was up to date on this but it turns out she hasn’t started yet and this project needs to be turned in in 5 days. She will never make it on her own. This means I will lose my money and she will have to redo her senior year. I am not sure we can go through this again so I think this will mean she does not graduate. Should I do this work for her so she can graduate and just get her degree? She is very used to having people pick up after her so I hate to do this but I just want her to move on.

Rabbi Raffi Bilek · Accepted Answer

As a counselor, I cannot tell you what is ethical and what is not. You will have to weigh this course of action against your own values and decide whether they are in line. That is something I can help you do; I can't tell you what your values should be.

Now, if you were asking whether this is developmentally appropriate, that is a different story, Generally it is not a good idea to "rescue" children by taking care of their responsibilities for them. However, every situation is different. I would need a lot more information about this one before I could think about what the best course of action might be.

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