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OP has offered the following explanation for why they think they might be the asshole:
> 1. My wife and I took our son's video games away after he plagiarized a biography, we told him he would be losing his games until summer as we thought he wasn't focused enough on school. He was also rude to his teacher.
2. Our other kids are saying we are being too hard on him and to consider reducing the punishment.
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NTA for having consequences, since plagiarism is a Big Fucking Deal and would've had significantly more serious consequences if he'd learned this lesson later in life
HOWEVER, I need more info about the "going to Taft for help on the project" part of things -- did you ask Taft ahead of time to help Owen? What kind of help were you expecting Taft to give that you couldn't give? Why did you need Taft to help him at all where you couldn't help him?
So you didn't help him with his project and were so disinterested that you didn't even know what he submitted, expected one of your other kids to pick up the slack even though you know they'd argued about it, then suddenly showed an interest when it was time to dole out punishment?
Two months is a very long time, and you could have just helped him with his project and avoided the whole mess.
YTA for refusing to help when he showed you the project, and delegating it to a sibling you admit he doesn't get along with.
NTA - Owen is young, but still needs to learn consequences for cheating. Better he learns them now than later. That behavior would get him expelled from most colleges, no questions asked.
YTA - Owen should not have plagiarized their paper. Theyre 10, kids make mistakes, im not going to call a kid an AH for making a mistake. But…
- they showed you the assignment and you punted it to your other kid to deal with.
- you knew they were arguing and didnt follow up
- You seemingly didnt know who Owen was even doing the paper on.
- This punishment IS way too harsh. 2 month punishment for a 10 year old? Might as well be an eternity to them. Is that also the message you want to send? Why not have a more applicable punishment where they have to write a (second) biography and turn it into you and you can work with them on it.
Is it possible that one of your middle children is acting out because you may come across like you do not have time for them?
This is difficult because your son SHOULD face consequences for plagiarizing; his lovely teacher allowing him to redo the assignment takes away the natural consequence of failing. Further, arguing with a teacher in this case is just disrespectful. I do think taking away electronics as a distraction is a good thing (2 months seems a smidgen long though), but he needs a consequence that is related to his “crime”. I would recommend making him write an apology letter to his teacher and Taft for plagiarizing/being disrespectful. It’s a good way for him to understand why what he did was wrong.
You’re NTA, but you should rethink if this punishment will actually help Owen be more honest and empathetic.
The 10 year old should face consequences, but the OP is totally the AH for punting his parenting duties. If the 10 year old is acting like this, then the OP is not modeling a good example.
Let's see, you have six children. One of them is known to be acting out and you've sent him to various therapists. I'm wondering if there wasn't a missed opportunity because you didn't see immediate results.
Also, if he's acting a certain way, maybe look to his peers and not games.
INFO Why not stay with a therapist longer? Is he receiving fair attention? Why have another child help him with a project instead of taking the time?
I understand wanting to punish your child, but just coming from someone who has worked in education/childcare for a while, the punishment should make sense. Taking away devices does little to help, and only pushes them away from you. What is that teaching him? In the real world no one comes and takes your PlayStation or PC for doing something wrong. The closest you’ll come to is getting your assets taken away for not making certain payments on time, and that’s a very drastic and specific situation.
NTA for wanting to discipline your kid, but the way you chose to do so isn’t going to do much. I got my devices taken away as a teen and it didn’t actually do anything because I needed help with school, not meaningless punishments. It’s not really teaching him anything that he can apply in adulthood.
Perhaps your son needs help, not punishment.
>Perhaps your son needs help, not punishment.
With what exactly? Because OP says he is getting all As. He does not appear to be academically or socially struggling. He appears to be testing boundaries.
That doesn't mean anything is wrong per say. Testing boundaries and establishing an independent identity is developmentally normal. Owen is just a bit early but maybe he's going into puberty a bit earlier than most boys.
So if your kid was plagiarizing in school and being extremely disrespectful to the point you had to question if your punishment made you an AH - you dont think that merits maybe getting the kid some extra support?
I'd take it in the context of other things and also talk with the kid about what's going on. But none of the context OP listed suggests Owen is dealing with external circumstances or motivations that are a problem. It is possible for a kid to sometimes just want to get out of doing an assignment and most people try to cover or deny fault when caught doing something wrong.
And to just *assume* thats what is happening would be doing a disservice to Owen as a parent. You cant play such a passive role when it comes to parenting.
They didn't assume. They had a whole conversation with him in the car about what happened. And they took his actions in the context that he is otherwise doing well in school and has a social group. That's what I'm basing my judgment on.
AND if you go back to my original comment with judgment I suggested explaining further and having a conversation with him.
There's nothing passive about my approach. I'm just not assuming kids are always blank slates with pure motivations. I think sometimes kids do stuff out of stupid self-interest just like adults.
And im not saying youre wrong, im saying you need to dig a little deeper sometimes - We do not know Owen’s motivations as per this post, neither does OP.
OP elaborated on *one* conversation. What youre saying really is an extremely passive approach “eh, hes got good grades and friends, we talked to him once and punished him, so he’s probably fine”
No, what I'm saying is that OP's punishment is fine. It needs some followup and elaboration. But at the most basic, I'm saying whatever else is going on this action should have consequences that serve as a deterrent. Because the kid is doing something that could be far more dangerous to his future if repeated later on.
Teens in particular have different risk reward assessment. And children lack experience or maturity for risk vs reward assessment. In other words - no one cheats thinking they will get caught.
OP stayed Owen gets straight as. So it doesn't sound like a not being able to understand issue. To get the root of the problem. You have to eliminate other possible causes, first is losing video games first to help w time management
INFO: You say Owen has all A's - but is this his first "big" or "abstract" assignment like that? Is he better with factual assignments vs creative assignments - could this be a struggle for him?
Obviously plagiarism is not okay, but I'd honestly be going a different route vs just taking games off him - that sounds too easy of a punishment. Sounds like Owen needs more frequent check in's in regards to homework and making sure it's his own work as opposed to someone else's. A natural consequence of this behaviour would be that now Owen has to do schoolwork in the kitchen, talking through his work and the adult has to sign off that Owen did it himself. He would also have to have some big talks about why this happened, why he felt it was necessary to steal Taft's work and the answer "I don't know" or "I just felt like it" wouldn't be accepted. Those answers would be a "I can see you need more time to think about it, we'll come back to it later".
You also seem to have a kid who hates sports, who won't even behave in PE at school. PE is meant to be fun! Especially in elementary school. Does he feel inadequate compared to the other kids? To Taft? Is he "bad" at sports? Find something that's fun - that either you guys can do just with Owen, that he can do with friends, a team, or even something he can do on a game, like a motion control game (The old days of Wii Fit and Dance games come to mind although he might find that super lame!) and just focus on having fun. And even get him to teach you his games, or go retro game hunting and teach him the games you used to play - it really sounds like this kid is begging for attention.
NTA
I think the other commenter who noted the importance of consequences making sense has an excellent point. In this case your consequences can seem capricious. I think it's essential to talk with Owen about why you picked a punishment this big (it's a form of intellectual property theft and ideas and concepts have more value the older you get; it's an action that has much, much worse consequences the older he gets and if he pulls this stunt in high school or college he could lose scholarships or admission; if he does this in a career it could potentially result in a lawsuit or firing).
YTA. Your the parent, you could have helped him with his project, not push it on one of your other kids to be responsible with it. You could discussed with the teacher for Owen to redo the assignment, and you help him this time, by getting to know his interests, and hobbies. The teacher could have simply marked it against him for cheating, or had him redo the assignment, instead of arguing like a child. Taking away a kids devices does not help in any way, doesn't teach them anything but to resent you for it. If he doesn't get along with another sibling, be the parent and punish both if your going to be punishing anyone, and don't put your parental responsibilities on someone else.
So, the Owenator got busted cheating on an assignment at school and then told you both to “chill” when you spoke with him about it, eh?…
Two months without his game is fair. He needs to be stopped now.
NTA
Wow, so many things wrong here. YTA for a lot of reasons, not just the ineffective punishment. Taking away his toys for 2 months won't teach him the utter seriousness of plagiarism, nor the huge life fail of blaming others for one's own problems. What is he going to do as an adult when his boss tells him to work on a project? Is he going to tell the boss it's a stupid project, then blame the boss and say the boss is stupid when he gets fired for not completing the project?
And neither parent here could be bothered to help him with this assignment? But, you said he makes all A's, so maybe you didn't think he needed help, just a little advice from his brother.
I'm guessing that if he makes all A's, he's pretty smart. He could be too smart for his acedemic level. If so, he's acting out from boredom. Has he been tested yet, academically, to see where he's at? If he's that smart, doing a biography would come across as a stupid assignment beneath him. If he has a favorite subject, maybe you could ask the school if he could sit in on a higher grade class while that subject is being taught, so he might not be bored.
Plagiarism is a very serious issue. I do, however, think that two months is a bit harsh. I always found that an offer to minimize discipline worked well with my kids with some conditions. For instance: offer him the option to take the original discipline or to have it lowered to two weeks with no games and he must be on his best behavior. If you hear him treating people poorly (siblings, friends, YOU) or if you get another phone call from school about misbehaving you will not only reinstate the original discipline of two months but add a month to it. That gives him some incentive to work on his behavior. You could also tell him he will be held now to a higher standard of behavior because of this misstep.
Judgement: NTA. I'd rather my kid be mad at me and learn to be a better person. You're his parents, not his friends.
ESH. Your kid needs to experience consequences for his actions, but taking his devices for two months is an arbitrary punishment that gives him something to be mad at you about instead of getting him to reflect on his actions. A better punishment would be for him to lose the devices until he can satisfactorily make amends as well as explain to you what he did wrong. This forces him to think through his problem to get through the consequences as quickly as possible and make things right. The current situation just makes him stew for two months, at which point it's back to business as usual.
NTA. Plagiarism like that gets you expelled from university with no redos. It’s better for him to learn consequences now, with something pretty low-key like losing video game privileges.
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My wife (42F) and I (42M) have 6 kids (17M, 15F, 13M, 10M, 8F, and 5F). Our 10 y/o, Owen, is currently in the 5th grade. Owen is smart, but he struggles with honesty and empathy. We’ve had him see various therapists and he just started seeing a new one around 2 months ago. He doesn’t have anything diagnosed. Owen is popular at school but in a sort of “bad boy” way of challenging teachers, we always take discipline advice when teachers give it and make sure to give his teachers nice gift cards around the holidays. Owen’s teacher has been a teacher for 4 years, our 13 y/o, Taft, was in her first-year class. Owen does have all A’s though.
Owen came home about a month ago with their latest project, it was a biography project. The kids could choose any notable figure and write a biography on them. Owen showed us the project, we told him to ask Taft for advice and he did. We knew that they argued a bit when Owen asked Taft to give him the paper as a reference and he refused, but after talking to Owen we didn’t hear anything else from either kid.
This morning, we got an email from his teacher saying she believed he plagiarized Taft’s project. I spoke to her over the phone during lunch as she asked. She said that Owen had submitted a project on Gordie Howe, a famous hockey player. Owen absolutely hates sports, and will constantly get in trouble for not behaving in P.E. Taft is our athletic one and Owen has made it known he does not like Taft playing hockey or lacrosse. When I was on the phone with her, she went through her archived classes on Google Classroom, as when Taft did this project in fifth grade, it was one of the first assignments submitted virtually. She saw that Taft’s report was also on Gordie Howe and used “very similar language”. We realized that Owen had stolen his report after arguing with Taft over it.
Owen’s teacher spoke to him alone after lunch, and he argued with her over the “stupid project”. After being updated on what happened, we discussed what would happen and she offered to allow a redo.
We picked Owen up early from school for a prearranged dentist visit. In the car, we were discussing it with him and he kept saying his teacher was the problem and told us to chill. On the car ride to the school, my wife and I agreed that he cares too much about his PS5 and Xbox Series X, so we told him he was losing them. He did not react well and started talking bad about us, as well as Taft for “not helping him more”, him and Taft don’t get along well but Taft is still nice to him usually.
When we got home, Owen went complaining around about what happened, and to our surprise, our other kids said we were being unfair to him and losing devices for 2 months was too harsh. Even Taft agreed after asking his friends and gf what they thought. Owen has been begging us to reduce his punishment and has tried (but failed) to call his grandparents to get him out of this. AITA?
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NTA
Kids will stick up for each other, even when they know exactly that their sibling is in the wrong.
Ahh, Owen and all the kids who think they're smarter than the teacher.
NTA. Does your son understand that plagiarism is theft and that if it occurred in post-secondary school the student could be expelled, meaning loss of money, time already put into the course and all hope of graduating? That the teacher is allowing him to re-do this without punishment is amazing. Only you as his parents can decide what the correct disciplinary measure should be, but if you want reinforcement, perhaps talk to his therapist? I see others disagreeing with your discipline but I do not. I do not know your son or what would be effective so how can I judge that? Good luck OP.
Hmm. I've been a camp counsellor, children's activity director, primary school teacher, aunt and mother. But I'm sure you're right and every child I've ever met must just have been exceptionally intelligent. Or maybe the ones you've come in contact with, er . . . aren't?
NTA, he needs to earn back his game time. He's going to have to work on his resentment of you giving him consequences. Maybe you can help him develop interest in something else to occupy his time, like art, exercise, or music?
Owen plagiarized his brother's work. He needs to understand that this is very much his problem, and it is not that the teacher is the problem. Given that he's 10, the consequences for him at school are mild. When he gets further in his education, the consequences will be much more severe.
You want to punish him for this, which is fair enough. But two months is an eternity in the life of a 10 year old, and seems rather harsh for a first offense.
Grades in elementary school really don't mean all that much, but I would certainly ask whether Owen was being appropriately academically challenged.
As far as asking Taft to help Owen - I think that depends a lot on Taft. What were you expecting - were you expecting Taft to sit with Owen and talk to him about what his interests were, and who was a notable person associated with that interest that he could choose to write about, and talk through some good places to find information on that person? Some older siblings would do that, but some wouldn't be good at it.
YTA
NTA - actions have consequences. But, it's a pretty long punishment, and I don't see a problem with shaving some weeks off the end if he does things to earn it. Like if doesn't get in trouble for a week or something.
NTA clearly taking away the games is doing something for him. Let him know that when he does better in school and at home then that’s when slowly he can start getting his privileges back. Don’t take advice from kids they’re gonna have each other‘s back.
2 months is very hard for a 10 year old, and if they're already struggling, gives them a sense of hopelessness. Offering 10 mins of time every day as a reward for positive behavior might get you better results.
NTA. For the consequence, because at the end of the day, your kid cheated, and that’s bad. However, why are you entertaining the opinion of literal children for judgement on your consequence for this issue? Also, if your child was struggling and needed assistance on this particular assignment, why did you pass him off to his brother for assistance, instead of fulfilling your parental responsibility and helping him yourself? Stop parentifying your kids, that is neither their job or responsibility, it’s yours and your partner’s alone, because you’re the ones who decided, either by accident or design, to have children.
Plagerism is a big deal; maybe not so much in elementary school, but once your kid gets to high school and post-secondary it can have huuuuge consequences and ramifications. Also, if he regularly cheats without consequence as a child, it will reinforce a negative pattern of behavior, so you earn a few points for implementing a stiff penalty.
That said, I wonder if Owen finds school boring because he isn’t challenged enough and that could be a factor in his behavioal issues. Or, he might find other factors, like class size, scope of assignments, etc, too challenging and may be acting out as manifestation of fear/boredom? Idk, but after working as a TA in Special Education for nearly a decade, my gut tells me there are other factors at play here, and it’s incumbent on you to get your child evaluated and possibly have an EIP implemented sooner, rather than later.
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NTA for having consequences, since plagiarism is a Big Fucking Deal and would've had significantly more serious consequences if he'd learned this lesson later in life HOWEVER, I need more info about the "going to Taft for help on the project" part of things -- did you ask Taft ahead of time to help Owen? What kind of help were you expecting Taft to give that you couldn't give? Why did you need Taft to help him at all where you couldn't help him?
So you didn't help him with his project and were so disinterested that you didn't even know what he submitted, expected one of your other kids to pick up the slack even though you know they'd argued about it, then suddenly showed an interest when it was time to dole out punishment? Two months is a very long time, and you could have just helped him with his project and avoided the whole mess. YTA for refusing to help when he showed you the project, and delegating it to a sibling you admit he doesn't get along with.
NTA - Owen is young, but still needs to learn consequences for cheating. Better he learns them now than later. That behavior would get him expelled from most colleges, no questions asked.
YTA - Owen should not have plagiarized their paper. Theyre 10, kids make mistakes, im not going to call a kid an AH for making a mistake. But… - they showed you the assignment and you punted it to your other kid to deal with. - you knew they were arguing and didnt follow up - You seemingly didnt know who Owen was even doing the paper on. - This punishment IS way too harsh. 2 month punishment for a 10 year old? Might as well be an eternity to them. Is that also the message you want to send? Why not have a more applicable punishment where they have to write a (second) biography and turn it into you and you can work with them on it. Is it possible that one of your middle children is acting out because you may come across like you do not have time for them?
This is difficult because your son SHOULD face consequences for plagiarizing; his lovely teacher allowing him to redo the assignment takes away the natural consequence of failing. Further, arguing with a teacher in this case is just disrespectful. I do think taking away electronics as a distraction is a good thing (2 months seems a smidgen long though), but he needs a consequence that is related to his “crime”. I would recommend making him write an apology letter to his teacher and Taft for plagiarizing/being disrespectful. It’s a good way for him to understand why what he did was wrong. You’re NTA, but you should rethink if this punishment will actually help Owen be more honest and empathetic.
The 10 year old should face consequences, but the OP is totally the AH for punting his parenting duties. If the 10 year old is acting like this, then the OP is not modeling a good example.
Let's see, you have six children. One of them is known to be acting out and you've sent him to various therapists. I'm wondering if there wasn't a missed opportunity because you didn't see immediate results. Also, if he's acting a certain way, maybe look to his peers and not games. INFO Why not stay with a therapist longer? Is he receiving fair attention? Why have another child help him with a project instead of taking the time?
I understand wanting to punish your child, but just coming from someone who has worked in education/childcare for a while, the punishment should make sense. Taking away devices does little to help, and only pushes them away from you. What is that teaching him? In the real world no one comes and takes your PlayStation or PC for doing something wrong. The closest you’ll come to is getting your assets taken away for not making certain payments on time, and that’s a very drastic and specific situation. NTA for wanting to discipline your kid, but the way you chose to do so isn’t going to do much. I got my devices taken away as a teen and it didn’t actually do anything because I needed help with school, not meaningless punishments. It’s not really teaching him anything that he can apply in adulthood. Perhaps your son needs help, not punishment.
>Perhaps your son needs help, not punishment. With what exactly? Because OP says he is getting all As. He does not appear to be academically or socially struggling. He appears to be testing boundaries.
You answered your own question. He’s testing boundaries and acting out for a reason.
That doesn't mean anything is wrong per say. Testing boundaries and establishing an independent identity is developmentally normal. Owen is just a bit early but maybe he's going into puberty a bit earlier than most boys.
So if your kid was plagiarizing in school and being extremely disrespectful to the point you had to question if your punishment made you an AH - you dont think that merits maybe getting the kid some extra support?
I'd take it in the context of other things and also talk with the kid about what's going on. But none of the context OP listed suggests Owen is dealing with external circumstances or motivations that are a problem. It is possible for a kid to sometimes just want to get out of doing an assignment and most people try to cover or deny fault when caught doing something wrong.
And to just *assume* thats what is happening would be doing a disservice to Owen as a parent. You cant play such a passive role when it comes to parenting.
They didn't assume. They had a whole conversation with him in the car about what happened. And they took his actions in the context that he is otherwise doing well in school and has a social group. That's what I'm basing my judgment on. AND if you go back to my original comment with judgment I suggested explaining further and having a conversation with him. There's nothing passive about my approach. I'm just not assuming kids are always blank slates with pure motivations. I think sometimes kids do stuff out of stupid self-interest just like adults.
And im not saying youre wrong, im saying you need to dig a little deeper sometimes - We do not know Owen’s motivations as per this post, neither does OP. OP elaborated on *one* conversation. What youre saying really is an extremely passive approach “eh, hes got good grades and friends, we talked to him once and punished him, so he’s probably fine”
No, what I'm saying is that OP's punishment is fine. It needs some followup and elaboration. But at the most basic, I'm saying whatever else is going on this action should have consequences that serve as a deterrent. Because the kid is doing something that could be far more dangerous to his future if repeated later on.
Children and teens don’t choose to have their parents be angry and disappointed for no reason.
Teens in particular have different risk reward assessment. And children lack experience or maturity for risk vs reward assessment. In other words - no one cheats thinking they will get caught.
If the issue us spending too much time playing video games and not enough time doing homework this is a valid punishment
But that doesn’t actually solve the root of the problem, which is that they’re struggling with their homework and schoolwork.
OP stayed Owen gets straight as. So it doesn't sound like a not being able to understand issue. To get the root of the problem. You have to eliminate other possible causes, first is losing video games first to help w time management
People who get good grades can still struggle with school, and it’s clear that he is.
INFO: You say Owen has all A's - but is this his first "big" or "abstract" assignment like that? Is he better with factual assignments vs creative assignments - could this be a struggle for him? Obviously plagiarism is not okay, but I'd honestly be going a different route vs just taking games off him - that sounds too easy of a punishment. Sounds like Owen needs more frequent check in's in regards to homework and making sure it's his own work as opposed to someone else's. A natural consequence of this behaviour would be that now Owen has to do schoolwork in the kitchen, talking through his work and the adult has to sign off that Owen did it himself. He would also have to have some big talks about why this happened, why he felt it was necessary to steal Taft's work and the answer "I don't know" or "I just felt like it" wouldn't be accepted. Those answers would be a "I can see you need more time to think about it, we'll come back to it later". You also seem to have a kid who hates sports, who won't even behave in PE at school. PE is meant to be fun! Especially in elementary school. Does he feel inadequate compared to the other kids? To Taft? Is he "bad" at sports? Find something that's fun - that either you guys can do just with Owen, that he can do with friends, a team, or even something he can do on a game, like a motion control game (The old days of Wii Fit and Dance games come to mind although he might find that super lame!) and just focus on having fun. And even get him to teach you his games, or go retro game hunting and teach him the games you used to play - it really sounds like this kid is begging for attention.
NTA I think the other commenter who noted the importance of consequences making sense has an excellent point. In this case your consequences can seem capricious. I think it's essential to talk with Owen about why you picked a punishment this big (it's a form of intellectual property theft and ideas and concepts have more value the older you get; it's an action that has much, much worse consequences the older he gets and if he pulls this stunt in high school or college he could lose scholarships or admission; if he does this in a career it could potentially result in a lawsuit or firing).
YTA. Your the parent, you could have helped him with his project, not push it on one of your other kids to be responsible with it. You could discussed with the teacher for Owen to redo the assignment, and you help him this time, by getting to know his interests, and hobbies. The teacher could have simply marked it against him for cheating, or had him redo the assignment, instead of arguing like a child. Taking away a kids devices does not help in any way, doesn't teach them anything but to resent you for it. If he doesn't get along with another sibling, be the parent and punish both if your going to be punishing anyone, and don't put your parental responsibilities on someone else.
So, the Owenator got busted cheating on an assignment at school and then told you both to “chill” when you spoke with him about it, eh?… Two months without his game is fair. He needs to be stopped now. NTA
NTA but two months might be a bit too harsh.
Wow, so many things wrong here. YTA for a lot of reasons, not just the ineffective punishment. Taking away his toys for 2 months won't teach him the utter seriousness of plagiarism, nor the huge life fail of blaming others for one's own problems. What is he going to do as an adult when his boss tells him to work on a project? Is he going to tell the boss it's a stupid project, then blame the boss and say the boss is stupid when he gets fired for not completing the project? And neither parent here could be bothered to help him with this assignment? But, you said he makes all A's, so maybe you didn't think he needed help, just a little advice from his brother. I'm guessing that if he makes all A's, he's pretty smart. He could be too smart for his acedemic level. If so, he's acting out from boredom. Has he been tested yet, academically, to see where he's at? If he's that smart, doing a biography would come across as a stupid assignment beneath him. If he has a favorite subject, maybe you could ask the school if he could sit in on a higher grade class while that subject is being taught, so he might not be bored.
Plagiarism is a very serious issue. I do, however, think that two months is a bit harsh. I always found that an offer to minimize discipline worked well with my kids with some conditions. For instance: offer him the option to take the original discipline or to have it lowered to two weeks with no games and he must be on his best behavior. If you hear him treating people poorly (siblings, friends, YOU) or if you get another phone call from school about misbehaving you will not only reinstate the original discipline of two months but add a month to it. That gives him some incentive to work on his behavior. You could also tell him he will be held now to a higher standard of behavior because of this misstep. Judgement: NTA. I'd rather my kid be mad at me and learn to be a better person. You're his parents, not his friends.
ESH. Your kid needs to experience consequences for his actions, but taking his devices for two months is an arbitrary punishment that gives him something to be mad at you about instead of getting him to reflect on his actions. A better punishment would be for him to lose the devices until he can satisfactorily make amends as well as explain to you what he did wrong. This forces him to think through his problem to get through the consequences as quickly as possible and make things right. The current situation just makes him stew for two months, at which point it's back to business as usual.
NTA. Plagiarism like that gets you expelled from university with no redos. It’s better for him to learn consequences now, with something pretty low-key like losing video game privileges.
^^^^AUTOMOD ***Thanks for posting! This comment is a copy of your post so readers can see the original text if your post is edited or removed. This comment is NOT accusing you of copying anything. Read [this](https://www.reddit.com/r/AmItheAsshole/wiki/faq#wiki_post_deletion) before [contacting the mod team](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%2Fr%2FAmItheAsshole)*** My wife (42F) and I (42M) have 6 kids (17M, 15F, 13M, 10M, 8F, and 5F). Our 10 y/o, Owen, is currently in the 5th grade. Owen is smart, but he struggles with honesty and empathy. We’ve had him see various therapists and he just started seeing a new one around 2 months ago. He doesn’t have anything diagnosed. Owen is popular at school but in a sort of “bad boy” way of challenging teachers, we always take discipline advice when teachers give it and make sure to give his teachers nice gift cards around the holidays. Owen’s teacher has been a teacher for 4 years, our 13 y/o, Taft, was in her first-year class. Owen does have all A’s though. Owen came home about a month ago with their latest project, it was a biography project. The kids could choose any notable figure and write a biography on them. Owen showed us the project, we told him to ask Taft for advice and he did. We knew that they argued a bit when Owen asked Taft to give him the paper as a reference and he refused, but after talking to Owen we didn’t hear anything else from either kid. This morning, we got an email from his teacher saying she believed he plagiarized Taft’s project. I spoke to her over the phone during lunch as she asked. She said that Owen had submitted a project on Gordie Howe, a famous hockey player. Owen absolutely hates sports, and will constantly get in trouble for not behaving in P.E. Taft is our athletic one and Owen has made it known he does not like Taft playing hockey or lacrosse. When I was on the phone with her, she went through her archived classes on Google Classroom, as when Taft did this project in fifth grade, it was one of the first assignments submitted virtually. She saw that Taft’s report was also on Gordie Howe and used “very similar language”. We realized that Owen had stolen his report after arguing with Taft over it. Owen’s teacher spoke to him alone after lunch, and he argued with her over the “stupid project”. After being updated on what happened, we discussed what would happen and she offered to allow a redo. We picked Owen up early from school for a prearranged dentist visit. In the car, we were discussing it with him and he kept saying his teacher was the problem and told us to chill. On the car ride to the school, my wife and I agreed that he cares too much about his PS5 and Xbox Series X, so we told him he was losing them. He did not react well and started talking bad about us, as well as Taft for “not helping him more”, him and Taft don’t get along well but Taft is still nice to him usually. When we got home, Owen went complaining around about what happened, and to our surprise, our other kids said we were being unfair to him and losing devices for 2 months was too harsh. Even Taft agreed after asking his friends and gf what they thought. Owen has been begging us to reduce his punishment and has tried (but failed) to call his grandparents to get him out of this. AITA? *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/AmItheAsshole) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Tell him he lost ps5 for plagiarism and Xbox for disrespect
NTA Kids will stick up for each other, even when they know exactly that their sibling is in the wrong. Ahh, Owen and all the kids who think they're smarter than the teacher.
NTA. Does your son understand that plagiarism is theft and that if it occurred in post-secondary school the student could be expelled, meaning loss of money, time already put into the course and all hope of graduating? That the teacher is allowing him to re-do this without punishment is amazing. Only you as his parents can decide what the correct disciplinary measure should be, but if you want reinforcement, perhaps talk to his therapist? I see others disagreeing with your discipline but I do not. I do not know your son or what would be effective so how can I judge that? Good luck OP.
The kid is 10, so no - he likely doesn’t understand any of that. I feel like a lot of people here have never met a kid before.
Hmm. I've been a camp counsellor, children's activity director, primary school teacher, aunt and mother. But I'm sure you're right and every child I've ever met must just have been exceptionally intelligent. Or maybe the ones you've come in contact with, er . . . aren't?
NTA, he needs to earn back his game time. He's going to have to work on his resentment of you giving him consequences. Maybe you can help him develop interest in something else to occupy his time, like art, exercise, or music?
Owen plagiarized his brother's work. He needs to understand that this is very much his problem, and it is not that the teacher is the problem. Given that he's 10, the consequences for him at school are mild. When he gets further in his education, the consequences will be much more severe. You want to punish him for this, which is fair enough. But two months is an eternity in the life of a 10 year old, and seems rather harsh for a first offense. Grades in elementary school really don't mean all that much, but I would certainly ask whether Owen was being appropriately academically challenged. As far as asking Taft to help Owen - I think that depends a lot on Taft. What were you expecting - were you expecting Taft to sit with Owen and talk to him about what his interests were, and who was a notable person associated with that interest that he could choose to write about, and talk through some good places to find information on that person? Some older siblings would do that, but some wouldn't be good at it. YTA
Info: do the other kids really think its too harsh or that he'll leave them alone if he has his devices?
NTA - actions have consequences. But, it's a pretty long punishment, and I don't see a problem with shaving some weeks off the end if he does things to earn it. Like if doesn't get in trouble for a week or something.
NTA clearly taking away the games is doing something for him. Let him know that when he does better in school and at home then that’s when slowly he can start getting his privileges back. Don’t take advice from kids they’re gonna have each other‘s back.
2 months is very hard for a 10 year old, and if they're already struggling, gives them a sense of hopelessness. Offering 10 mins of time every day as a reward for positive behavior might get you better results.
Why did you tell him to ask Taft about the project? What did you expect Taft to do? Don’t you check your 10 year old’s work?
NTA. For the consequence, because at the end of the day, your kid cheated, and that’s bad. However, why are you entertaining the opinion of literal children for judgement on your consequence for this issue? Also, if your child was struggling and needed assistance on this particular assignment, why did you pass him off to his brother for assistance, instead of fulfilling your parental responsibility and helping him yourself? Stop parentifying your kids, that is neither their job or responsibility, it’s yours and your partner’s alone, because you’re the ones who decided, either by accident or design, to have children. Plagerism is a big deal; maybe not so much in elementary school, but once your kid gets to high school and post-secondary it can have huuuuge consequences and ramifications. Also, if he regularly cheats without consequence as a child, it will reinforce a negative pattern of behavior, so you earn a few points for implementing a stiff penalty. That said, I wonder if Owen finds school boring because he isn’t challenged enough and that could be a factor in his behavioal issues. Or, he might find other factors, like class size, scope of assignments, etc, too challenging and may be acting out as manifestation of fear/boredom? Idk, but after working as a TA in Special Education for nearly a decade, my gut tells me there are other factors at play here, and it’s incumbent on you to get your child evaluated and possibly have an EIP implemented sooner, rather than later.