Could Your Kid Be Cheating in School?

7. Your child's grades are all over the place. You want to give your kid the benefit of the doubt. Wide swings in grades could be because she puts in uneven effort or because some subjects capture her interest more than others. This is why it's so important to be involved and monitor what's going on with your child, Dr. Anderman stresses. If you know your child went to school ill-prepared for a test, and then brought home an A, you have reason to question her.

8. Your child's smartphone is practically an appendage. Between playing online games and sending Instagrams, it's a wonder any kid finds time to study at all. But every parent needs to be aware of how smartphone and Internet access make it easier to cheat—and harder to identify cheating. The ability to connect instantly with answers to questions by Googling or texting a friend and the simplicity of cutting and pasting can blur the lines in a young person's mind about what's unethical. Dr. Anderman acknowledges that families have different policies when it comes to dealing with technology, but he advises remembering that a big factor in whether or not a child is tempted to cheat is how easy it is to do.