Her comments are cruel and insulting. My child is only nine years old, and he deserves to be treated with more respect. He's also very intelligent. I know that he didn't copy his work from another student. He found the information on the Internet all by himself. It's not really copying if you take it from the Internet. Everybody does it.

I've tried talking to the teacher, but she refuses to accept what I say.

Please give me some advice on how to handle this woman. She doesn't deserve to be a teacher.

Mother

Dear Mother,

It's true that the teacher could have dealt with the problem in a better way.

Instead of writing a note on top of the report, she should have talked with your son and explained why what he had done was wrong.

For you, here is what I have to say. First, whatever you find on the Internet was written by someone, and that writing belongs to him or her. Taking someone else's possessions is wrong. Copying someone else's writing without indicating where it came from is stealing, whether that writing comes from a book, a magazine or the Internet. The writing belongs to a person, and that person is not your son.

Second, a teacher assigns a report so that her student will learn about a subject. The student should also gain experience writing and forming ideas into a coherent report. Copying from someone else doesn't teach him much of anything except how to locate information - an important skill, I'm sure, but not the main point of the exercise.

Third, I've never cared much for the "everybody does it" excuse, which doesn't clear anyone of stealing or avoiding hard work on an assignment.

Everybody is born and then dies. That's universal. What a person does in between is what makes him a person.

Sorry to be so harsh, but your son is quite old enough to know right from wrong. You, as this boy's mother, should already know the difference and be teaching him the right way to behave.

Dear Khun Melanee,

I am a foreigner. I've lived in Thailand with my husband for five years now. My husband works for a multinational company, and he works extremely hard. It's true that they pay my husband a good salary with lots of perks, but my children and I have made lots of sacrifices so that my husband could carry out his duties for the good of this company.

One of these perks is that every year the company gives us air tickets so that we can stay for a week in a nearby country at a very fine hotel.

The company pays for everything. It's a wonderful break for us.

They always choose our destination, and it's always the same place. After a few years, my husband changed the destination to another place and, of course, a different hotel.

When he worked out the monetary difference in all these changes, it came to Bt500 more per trip. My husband, of course, offered to reimburse the company for this sum, but the assistant VP in charge of accounting just laughed and said not to worry.

Now the head office abroad has changed management, and the new executives started an "anti-corruption sweep". After investigating, they accused my husband of cheating the company of Bt2,500 (five years, Bt500 per year).

My husband is mortified. He's the most ethical person I know, and the accusation that he would cheat the company has hurt him deeply. He's even thinking of changing jobs.

I don't know what to do to make him feel better. He's put in so much time and work that what the company is doing to him is absolutely unfair.

Any advice?

BV

Dear BV,

Please forgive me for shortening your letter. It's difficult for me to understand how any organisation would spend so much time fighting for such a small amount of money. Either other employees are committing fraud on a really grand scale, or the new management is extremely petty.

If the first case is true, let him relax. He will be exonerated. If it's the second, he needs to start looking for a new job. No one should have to face this kind of treatment.

Problems that Melanee can advise you on? Fax (02) 751

4446, or e-mail her at melaneepetra@hotmail.com.

By Melanee Petra