The following is a selection from the book Raising Children Who Think For Themselves by Dr. Eisa Medhus. From the chapter titled "Specific Child Rearing Challenges - How to Handle Them to Encourage Self-Direction", the following introduction is offered.

"The best way to make children good is to make them happy." - Oscar Wilde

Here are some inner-directed suggestions that will help with some of the most trying child-rearing difficulties we may stumble upon. All of these approaches are designed to preserve your children's ability to rely on internal dialogue instead of external influences to assess and correct their behavior. Using this section as a ready reference will help you raise a self-directed child, even if it means carrying the book, tattered and tear-stained, to the market, in the car, or at home. There are some challenges that, I hope you will never have to face, but others will be as inevitable as a pimple on prom night.

To get to self-direction, there are a few universal caveats for every one of the situations that follow. First, our children need to understand and agree with both the need for the furl and the consequence for breaking it. Only when they come to agree with our rules, through their own internal dialogue, will they become self-directed. Second, look to your own parenting strategy as the possible source of some of the problem. Are you over-controlling or over-protective? Either trait can elicit an externally directed response, as your children react to an unhealthy situation. Third, remember for all these parenting challenges how important it is for you as parents, to model the right behavior. If you're expecting your children to act one way and you act another, the double standard will throw a monkey wrench into their whole internal dialogue machinery.

And lastly, don't forget to laugh.

Why they do it

Children cheat to gain acceptance from their friends, teachers, and parents. Society places so much importance on winning and getting good grades that there's a lot of pressure to do whatever needs to be done.

Logical consequences

If your children are caught cheating, they can do one or all of the following:

· Restudy the material until it's mastered. No play or leisure time until then.

· Apologize to the teacher.

· Accept a failing grade, even if they're the ones supplying the answers to someone else.

· Require them to be heavily monitored while taking tests, until the teacher and you feel comfortable that they won't cheat.

· Make them drop all extracurricular activities (football, karate, pep rallies, parties and so on) until they show mastery of the subject without cheating.

Solutions toward self-direction

Raise your children to understand that the grades are not the real goal. The knowledge attained and the perpetual thirst for learning are. Eventually, they'll internalize this concept as their own belief, which will then be fodder for internal dialogue concerning the subject.

Use questioning: "Why do you think some kids cheat?" "What do you think this accomplishes for them?"

Teach your children about the benefits of upholding their integrity through honesty and about how integrity is all tied into their overall happiness.