AITA? because I tried to teach my son a lesson not to cheat on exams, but now he is being bullied at school for being a “cheat”?

A Reddit user, a high school math teacher, tried to teach her son a lesson about cheating but now feels she may have gone too far. When she found out her son was sharing her exam answers with classmates, she decided to put incorrect answers in his study materials to show the consequences of cheating.

While her son learned his lesson, it backfired: he’s now being bullied by classmates who blame him for their own academic struggles and accuse him of cheating. Now, she’s wondering if she crossed a line. Read on for the full story!

‘ AITA? because I tried to teach my son a lesson not to cheat on exams, but now he is being bullied at school for being a “cheat”?’

(I am not from America and English is not my native language) I will be brief, I am a high school mathematics teacher, my son was in his first year and had become popular among his classmates, he was doing well in my classes and so were his classmates.

One day I asked my son to send a message to his mother about something since she couldn’t find my phone, but he was too lazy to do it and asked me to do it myself. I saw that he had a WhatsApp group called “Exam Answers” of course, I had to check it out.

My son was sending the answers to his classmates for my exams, I have a notebook where I write down the answers and my son discovered it and was taking photos of them without me realizing it.

I was very disappointed so I decided to teach him a lesson, I wrote down all the answers incorrectly, if the students really paid a little attention they would realize that they were terribly wrong, but even so, in the next exam they actually EVERYONE used the wrong answers.

At home I ended up telling my son that I discovered what he was doing and I did it to teach him a lesson. Of course I punished him and he and his classmates they had to take summer classes since I gave them a surprise exam and they were very behind.

That was last year and now they are in 2nd year, I am no longer their teacher but now I am worried, after that, all his friends stopped talking to him and they all called him a c**ater who made them fail on purpose, now also in the hallways They call him an i**ot who must copy in class to pass and constantly call the teachers’ attention during exams by saying that my son is cheating, just to annoy him.

I know that my son no longer cheats, since after last year’s reprimand I have been very strict with him regarding his studies, but now he has a very cold relationship with me, he has never directly blamed me, but I found out All this recently when a colleague told me how worried she was about my son,

I talked to him about this and he said that “it’s not my problem” we held a parent meeting to try to solve this, but I still don’t know how to avoid the b**lying. I had good intentions but I think I didn’t measure the repercussions he could have on the school, any advice?

Here’s what Redditors had to say:

Accomplished-Board72 −  I’m going against the grain and saying YTA. Yes he needed to learn a lesson. But completely making him a pariah in the process was a bad idea. Since you were their teacher you could have made a different test.

Tell the students ahead of time there had been a rumour about answers being leaked and you made a new test. They would have scored accordingly to what they knew and probably not pass if they didn’t study. They still would have had to take summer classes. But your son would still have a social life.

RedditUser123234 −  INFO: Why were you allowed to teach him at all? This seems like such a huge conflict of interest. When I was in school, I had classmates who went to the same school that one of their parents taught at, and the schools went the extra mile to insure that their kids were never being taught by their parents.

corvidfamiliar −  Whelp I may get downvoted here but ESH, your kid for obvious reasons, but oh man OP, I have some words for you. Dude, you’re a teacher. You should have taken a class in child psychology. You should know that public humiliation is a cruel and unacceptable type of punishment.

Teens will push boundaries and f**k up. Then you as a parent step in and enforce consequences and bring them back to the correct path. But publicly humiliating him to the point of being completely socially ostracised by his peers is horrid on your part. It feels incredibly cruel and malicious.

Curious-One4595 −  NTA. Finding out the scope of the cheating was important, to the school, to students who weren’t cheating, and to make sure students somehow made bad and unethical choices got the chance to catch up with their studies.

You should have worked with your son more since last year on teaching ethics and figuring out ways to address the collateral effects of what he did, including social blowback. Being strict with him about his studies will prevent him from cheating now, but it doesn’t address the underlying issue and may ultimately be counterproductive.

You will want to have parent child therapy. You might want to brainstorm projects for him to give back to the school and community and work on them together. You may want to move your son to a new school, where he can get a fresh start. 

cadaloz1 −  YTA and surely you, as a teacher, knew that this was (these days with the power of b**lying not only on campus but on social media) putting your child in danger of serious repercussions. Our job as teachers is to help students succeed, not humiliate them so brutally for being human and making mistakes.

Punish yes, in a fair and open way, but humiliate them with this secretive entrapment? Cheating is a much bigger problem in 2024 than it was when you were trained, with all the e-tools available, and post-COVID, well, I could go on.

Please apologize to your son fully and completely, admit that you made a really unprofessional and unnecessarily melodramatic trap for him and his friends when your first step should have been an open, loving conversation with him about why he made such a serious mistake.

FWIW, I was in your son’s situation and refused, but that was because I’d already been bullied so fully by the askers, and also because my mother taught me that cheaters are weak, and also foolish, because are setting themselves up to fail when it turns out they don’t know what their school records say they do.

However, given how much the world has changed, and how cheaters succeed these days, and how being ethically flexible has helped a lot of people succeed in a much more rapidly changing world, I’ve come to think saying cheaters are foolish is now kinda iffy. I still think they are weak and challenge-avoidant, and that won’t change.

LittleFairyOfDeath −  YTA. You gave them a surprise exam they all failed anyhow so why couldn’t you have done that in the first place?

No-Names-Left-Here −  YTA. You should have taken care to keep all work materials you bring home secured. You wouldn’t leave them in an unlocked desk at work, why would you at home? This is a failure on your part.

Yes, he was wrong to do what he did. Yes, he would have lost popularity once the answers stopped coming. You just had to make a big show of catching all of them just to feed your ego and hide your failures to be both a responsible parent and teacher.

Phantom_Dave −  YTA, this should’ve been dealt with at home not by making your son the pariah of the school, enjoy him going NC soon. Why did you even have the answers written down at home anyway, were you unsure of the answers yourself!?

[Reddit User] −  YTA. Your intentions were good, but the way you went about it caused a lot of harm. Publicly humiliating your son and his classmates wasn’t the right approach. Now, your son is dealing with the fallout, and it’s affecting his relationships and school life.

You need to apologize to your son. Acknowledge that you made a mistake in how you handled the situation. Let him know you understand the consequences it had on him. Offer your support and talk to the school administration about the b**lying. Consider getting him counseling to help him deal with everything that’s happened.

Most importantly, work on rebuilding your relationship with him. Show him that you’re there to support and help him, not just to punish. Discipline should teach and support, not humiliate. Good luck, and I hope things get better for your son.

thiccbitche −  The f**k is up with this dad so he values being a teacher above communicating with his son. YTA

Do you think this mom’s approach was a fair way to teach her son about integrity, or did it have unintended consequences that crossed a line? How would you handle this situation? Share your thoughts below!