Parents laughs at BIL after he helps kid cheat, and they fail project at school. AITA?
No parent wants their child to fail, but trying to protect them from failing can prevent them from learning and growing.
In a popular post on the AITA subreddit, a parent asked if they were wrong for laughing at their BIL after he tried to help his son cheat on a project and it backfired. They wrote:
"AITA for laughing at my BIL for when his son got a zero on his project he did?"
So my child is three grades ahead of my sister's kid. I’m going to call the teacher Mrs. Cat. Now personally I don’t really like her but I do respect her. She is a very no-nonsense woman and she will make sure that you learn. She has the highest test scores for years. Very clear in her expectations with parents and that she won’t put up with our crap.
I’m a bit ashamed to admit, that I sent her a whole list of question about her class and she literally sent back, the pdf of her handbook that I already had and told me to read. Every question I had was answer in the first few pages. There are other stories about her but really is a no-nonsense teacher and she truly doesn’t care about the parents' feelings. She taught my daughter extremely well.
Now there is a project where you make a model of some Native American group home and write a small paper about it. Well my BIL did that whole project. Mrs Cat made a quiz about the paper that was written and gave it to his son. Well, son failed it and admitted he didn’t do it. I saw the email that was sent and in a very professional way ripped my BIL a new one.
His son got a zero and is allowed to redo the project at school. He went in and person and according to him got ripped a new one. He was complaining and going to take it to the principal and I started laughing. I told him this was hilarious and I hope he learned his lesson. He’s now pissed at me.
The internet had a lot to say.
catskilkid wrote:
NTA. Some parent complaining when he cheats for his son and is caught and his son has to pay the price...except he can redo in school. Was your BIL more upset he was caught, or that he got a 0? He needs to apologize to the school and have his son with him so his son can see that cheating is not allowed and even an adult must accept punishment and doing it with grace.
OP responded:
I think he is mad that she ripped him a new one and truly didn’t care about his feelings. Or he got mad he was caught.
sjw_7 wrote:
NTA. Hopefully he has learned a lesson here and while it's absolutely fine to help your child with their project it's not ok to do all the work for them.
No_Mathematician2482 wrote:
NTA. Teachers give assignments for the kids to learn. If a parent does it for the kid, they learn nothing. If you do it WITH your child, you get fun bonding time and your child learns something. Looks like your brother-in-law learned something here too.
9shadowcat9 wrote:
NTA. I wish teachers did what she did for me when my dad would take over my homework and do it for me. I’d ask for help formatting, cause I didn’t know how to do things like add pictures to word, and instead, he’d edit the entire thing. Change the words, google and add his own images.
And he would tell me to be quiet when I tried to ask him to stop. And teachers didn’t care if I told them, telling me to take the A. She sounds like a good teacher who actually wants her students to learn.
Rupert217 wrote:
NTA, Mrs. Cat sounds like a very competent teacher, and your BIL tried to game the system. In my view, it is better the kid fails and recognizes that he has to get started on it and not wait until the day before. Agonizing for the parents but good for the kid.
OP is NTA, their BIL is actively making life harder for his child's future.