Most American students cheat.

In nationwide surveys on college campuses, about seven in ten students admitted to some cheating.  Three in five high school students admitted that they had cheated on an exam, and more than four in five admitted copying another student’s homework in the past 12 months.

There is a cheating crisis in our schools, and the problem is not confined to low-achieving or unmotivated students. Cheating is common among most types of students—boys, girls, athletes, smart kids, student leaders, even those with “strong religious beliefs.” Why are so many students cheating?

Our culture has become preoccupied with achievement. Pressure for grades—to win parents’ approval and gain admission to colleges—leads many students to cheat. While many students are pushed to succeed by parents and a grade-based system that starts naming winners at an early age, students also feel pulled by a desire to get on a path to top colleges and high-paying jobs.

But there are serious ramifications to ‘winning at any cost,’ including lack of character in students, and also the lack of self-esteem.

Never kid a kid. They will never misread our true expectations of them. They know we have created an educational system that values their aptitude more than their attitude, their ability more than their effort, and their talent more than their character. They are surrounded by signs that tell them that what they can do is more important than who they are.

Unfortunately, an environment that values only achievement can make it extremely easy for test scores and awards to lure good kids into a false sense of fulfillment. This is not the genuine self-esteem that is earned from the learning process—which includes mistakes and some hardship—and it can leave kids feeling empty.

In a character culture, achievement is valued, but principles are valued more. That is, what you stand for is more important than merely how you stack up against others.

In addition to this pressure for external achievements, there is another debilitating grip on today’s kids, which is the result of a prevalent mindset in our homes, schools, and culture, that asserts that kids need to feel good about themselves all of the time.

Applied to education, this mindset seems to say, ‘If we make kids feel good about themselves, they will do great things.’ But, in fact, it’s the other way around. When kids do well, and do it honestly, they will feel good about themselves.

Character is inspired, not imparted. We cannot pour it into our kids or our families. Self-esteem—real, authentic self-esteem—is essential, and once earned, it can never be taken away. Our children should graduate from schools with a healthy amount of it.

When trying to assess our children’s adjustment to and experience of school, we typically turn to the obvious indicators — grades, participation in extra-curricular activities, social involvement, moods — and these are all pertinent.

But what are some important indicators parents can look for that would inform them about how their children are really adjusting?

One area that we may neglect as parents is our children’s attitude. Attitude is the true barometer when measuring how the school year is going. But it requires some effort on our part to pin down. If our children’s grades are where they need to be and they’re doing well on tests, it is easy to overlook what appears to be simply a prickly mood.

Our kids are growing up in a culture where aptitude and achievement have become the main focus of education. Young students today are under extraordinary pressure and are learning to define themselves by test scores, grades and awards. However, these things will not define them in the end.

The achievement culture complicates things for parents — parents value achievement and want their children to succeed because they know it reaps rewards. And while those rewards are important for hard work well done and often have the immediate effect of boosting self-esteem, it is a strong character that will carry children through life’s challenges, as it will for them.

Parents need to trust their instincts. Most know there is so much more to children — and real success — than grades. And an unchecked attitude can lead to trouble for children as they grow into adults, regardless of their academic prowess.

If our children are going to fulfill the potential of their aptitudes and live their lives to the fullest, they will need the right attitude.

In this light, I offer a few simple, effective tips for parents:

1. Challenge the off-track attitudes. Don’t ignore them. Ask your child about what’s really going on – even if he or she can’t articulate it. Allow your child time to think about it until he or she can put words to it, return and discuss. You will send the message that the attitude is a roadblock. Many children and adolescents will focus on surface issues as reasons for off-track attitudes, such as grades, busyness, or frustration over a challenge they are facing. Try to help your child identify the underlying issues, which is the attitude toward challenge. Use examples of how you may struggle similarly and offer up ways you work to overcome your own unproductive attitudes.
2. Celebrate the positive attitudes. Let your child know when you’re inspired by his or her attitude. If you have learned something by watching how your child handled something, say it. If your child handles something better than you believe you would or did at some point in your life, let your child know.
3. Work to improve the family attitudes. These are the everyday little ones that can get in our way — that we learn from one another — as well as the deeper attitudes that block our greatness — and they belong to everyone in the family. We owe it to ourselves and the ones we love to project the best attitudes we have. Parents, ask for help when you are struggling with an attitude. Be prepared to look at yourself. Many of the attitudes our children carry come from what they have learned at home. Ask yourself “How can I expect my children to change their unproductive attitudes if I am not prepared to look at and change my own.” Modeling daily character for our children is what will inspire them to make positive change in their own lives.

In the end, it is our attitude that helps us to learn, to grow, to form healthy habits and to succeed in ways beyond material means.

Nothing can help the person with the wrong attitude. Nothing can stop the person with the right one. It’s an amazingly rewarding experience to watch the kids embrace that concept and run with it, even the kids who were already performing in school at a high level. Many of them experience the kind of success that will carry them through life.

For at least three different families whose lives were irreversibly changed by the suicides of their young sons, last April was a tragic month in this country that starkly illustrated the dangerous consequences of an act that goes on at our schools, in our homes, and on the internet: bullying.

In response to these sad stories and sobering statistics, anti-bullying campaigns and intervention programs have sprung up all over the country, offering training and support to help adults intervene in bullying situations.

But there is a different kind of approach to addressing this ongoing crisis. The solution to America’s bullying problem doesn’t lie in adult mediation of incidents. Instead, we need to focus on prevention.

Suppose, in our families and schools, we began to train children to help each other…much like we train them to do anything else. Suppose we taught them that they were responsible for expecting the best out of each other, and they were expected to become both students and teachers in that learning process.

Children begin life naturally dominated by an inherent self-centeredness, self-gratification, and self-protection instincts.

However as they enter adolescence, they are ready for parents, mentors, and teachers to develop their deeper character.

Adolescents have not completed their emotional growth and, as a result, their self-confidence is shaky. They may easily become dominated by peer pressure, which feeds the desire to experience power, not just in the bully, but in those being bulled.

This approach is based on the Hyde School philosophy. It serves to ease adolescents through the “shaky period” of their emotional development, while promoting mutual support and accountability, resulting in an environment in which bullying could not thrive.

It creates what we call at our schools a positive peer culture, where students are actually looking out for the good rather than the flaws or weaknesses in one another.

A radical change such as this would prove very difficult at the outset; it takes strong adults to model it, but children would slowly come to recognize that their peers could be some of their most effective teachers, and that they in turn could significantly help others.

These efforts will develop the leadership potential in children, rather than leave them vulnerable to their more base instincts, which can lead to bullying.

Parents can help their teenagers through the oftentimes stressful waiting game of college acceptance. How?  Here’s how parents can help their college-bound children understand that a rejection is not personal and not a judgment on their character or abilities.

1. STAY CALM. If parents remain calm, it is likely their children will, too.  Adopt a ‘let’s wait and see’ attitude about the other applications. Let your child know that a letter of rejection does not invalidate him or her in the least, just as a letter of acceptance will not validate.  Don’t treat rejection as a personal failure.
2. STEP BACK AND LET YOUR CHILD LEAD THE PROCESS. The college waiting process is an important and anxiety-ridden time in your child’s life, but allow him or her to take ownership. This sends a clear message that you are confident in his or her ability to get through it. Stepping in and over-managing only diminishes your child’s own sense of ownership of the process and does nothing to build confidence through a challenging time.
3. STAY FLEXIBLE. This is really the first adult decision your kids will make. You can help out by reminding them that (1) There is no one perfect school, even if they have their heart set on one; (2) If they are accepted into their second- or third- or fourth-choice school, they will still enjoy the benefits of a good education, they will meet friends, grow, and have life-changing experiences. That happens wherever we go to school. So encourage kids to stay flexible about the plan — after all, plans can change.
4. TURN OBSTACLES INTO OPPORTUNITIES. Parents can help their children do this by reminding them of what is really important in life. That is, the kind of adult they become, their health, how they stand up to their future successes and challenges — and that this is one in many important phases of difficult decision-making that will pass and make them better equipped to face the next.

Adolescence is a time when kids can be off-track.  Moods swing in all directions, experimentation and rebellion against authority are commonplace, and kids are often misdirected, misguided, and believe they have all of the answers.

And parents are often ineffectual in their efforts to reign in bad behavior and address off-track attitudes with their adolescent children. They can lower the bar, expecting less from their children as long as their grades are okay, they’re performing well in sports, or everything seems okay on the surface. Somewhere, somehow parents stop paying attention to the kind of people their children are becoming and more attention to what their children can do.

So how do we help kids navigate their way through this time…guide them, support them, offer them enough structure and discipline without robbing their right as “adulthood testers” opportunities for growth and learning? How do we raise the bar high enough so that they can emerge on the other side with the tools they need to succeed in life as good, decent people? Laura and Malcolm Gauld say we help kids by helping the parents, the kids’ primary influencers.

As a parenting expert and head of Hyde Schools, a group of public and private schools that focus on college preparation and family-based character education, my approach starts with letting kids know immediately they are responsible for themselves. At Hyde, kids find out fast that who they are is more important than what they do. Parents find out that the best they can do for their children at this time is to let go of their (children’s) potential and take hold of their own.

1. Understand your job as parents. This is the foundation of parenting. Like any job, one must understand the duties and responsibilities that go along with this biggest job of all. Most of the unproductive actions we take stem from the strong desire for playing the roles we want to play in our children’s lives, rather than accepting the role we need to play. Some specific action steps parents can take include: Examples: a. We can be friendly, but we are not friends; b. Love your children, yet resist seeking their love; c. The more you talk, the more you lose; d. Do not engage with a terrorist attitude; e. You are the primary teacher.
2. Raise your children to be accountable to life. We have only a short time to instill the values and principles that will assist our children in putting their lives together. If we tie them to us, we may not be able to fully teach the lessons that life requires. Examples: a. Do not do for your children what they can do for themselves; b. Value success & failure; c. Teach your child to work; d. Look for the positive but don’t “gush;” e. Allow your children the same struggles that shaped you; f. Look for humor and laughter g. Parent from principles; not from fear, guilt, or control.
3. Build family traditions. The big picture of raising children is done with the actions, routines, and practices that make up lifetime memories, habits, and character. It is never too late to start a family tradition and often the value of these actions is seen looking back at one’s upbringing. Examples:   a. Reach out and give back as a family b. Value and expect manners; c. Hold family meetings; d. Light candles at the dinner table; e. Make attitude everything.
4. Have faith in your child’s unique potential and the larger forces at work. Every child has a unique contribution to make in the world. We must believe in that potential even if we cannot understand it and we must allow the larger forces (people, faith, etc.) to play their role in our child’s journey. Examples: a. Allow obstacles to become opportunities; b. Give others permission to challenge your child;   c. Resist labels of any kind; d. Who you are is more important that what you do;   e. Hold onto both the reality and vision you have for your child.
5. Your own personal growth will be your true legacy to your child. We will be parents until we breathe our last breath. As Jung states in his powerful quote, “The greatest impact on children are the unlived lives of adults.” Our growth will trump any successes and talents we think will inspire them. Examples: a. Lead by example; b. Respect yourself; c. Take risks in front of your child; d. Get up every day and model character in the little moments; e. Do something each day for pure joy; f. Tackle the deep attitudes that hold you back; g. Accept what your own parents gave you, what they tried to give you and what they were unable to give you.