Above All Else Teach Your Child Integrity

To look in a mirror and like what they see…

My 3-year-old daughter a shoplifter? Come on!

It was a Friday night. Late opening in our city, a night when it is de rigueur to shop after work, and then enjoy a simple meal out.

My husband needed some business clothes, and we went down to the basement of a large store in the men’s section. It was a store where he always found clothes that he liked, so we spent a fair bit of time looking. Our daughter, quite young at the time, perhaps three or four, was with us.

She was always a good little girl, well-behaved, and patient for the most part.

We duly met up with friends later and enjoyed a meal together, then made our way home. On the way, our daughter spoke up. “Nobody’s allowed to look in my bag,” she said.

“Why is that?” I asked.

“Just because,” she answered flatly as she tightly held onto the said bag. My husband and I exchanged glances but said nothing.

So we got home, did all the preparations for bed, and ten or so stories later, she was fast asleep, still clutching the bag.

Some time later, I carefully took the bag and looked inside, and there was a significant cache of Easter eggs.

So where did these come from?

Now the only shop we had visited was the men’s department. So I called them the next morning and asked if there might have been eggs on display in the basement, and sure enough, there were (and as it turned out, all displayed knee-high to a grasshopper, a small child’s veritable Garden of Eden!).

I then talked to my daughter about where she’d got the eggs, had she paid for them, and if she hadn’t, what did that mean? Eventually, she conceded that she’d stolen them…and yes, she DID know the word and understood the concept.

“So, if you didn’t buy them, what do you think we should do?” I asked.’ You can’t eat them.”

By this time, she was in tears. “Take them back?” she quivered.

And so we did. Sounds cruel, I know, but I left it to her to explain to the assistant that she had taken the eggs and hadn’t paid for them. The young girl smiled kindly and told my child she was such a good girl for bringing them back.

I had to bite my tongue

There I was trying to teach my child the fundamentals of integrity, yet the blame was not hers. The ploy on the part of the retailer was deliberate. Easter eggs in a clothing department are tantamount to saying: Look what we have for you kids. Now just go and badger your parents. They’re a bit preoccupied, so they’re likely to give in. We will have made a sale, and you can enjoy your eggs. What do you think?

The temptation for children is pervasive, at checkouts, in supermarket aisles, junk food displayed at child eye-level, and the options are few, either buy the junk and shop in peace or put up with some ear-piercing screams. It’s the reason why many mothers shop sans children.

Building integrity takes time and patience

It takes time and perseverance to build integrity in young children. BUT it’s also the best time to start.

Build integrity in your child, and you build a principled character, a decent human being, one who is fair, one who works hard and does the right thing even in the face of difficulty, regardless of circumstance or consequence.

And it’s our job as parents to up-skill them with the rhetoric to enable them to be so.

More than ever before, acting with integrity demands courage

There is much hypocrisy in the big bad world today. Corruption and fraud are rife, eye-watering deals are made in complicit situations, and many people suffer.

“The world will not be destroyed by those who do evil, but by those who watch them without doing anything.” Albert Einstein

Building integrity is one strength that will not only augur well for our children but enable them to remove themselves from, or rise above those whose values are wanting.

‘Acting with integrity means understanding, accepting, and choosing to live in accordance with one’s principles, which will include honesty, fairness, and decency. A person of integrity will consistently demonstrate good character by being free of corruption and hypocrisy.’

And that often is not easy. It demands moral fiber and courage, and it can sometimes be isolationist.

“People are fond of saying that you learn ethics at your mom’s knee,” says Wharton’s School professor, Tom Donaldson, “but my mother didn’t tell me about highly leveraged derivative transactions.”

And this mom didn’t either. I’m not even sure that I fully understand the term, yet I have managed to live my life without either the knowledge or the skills.

The thing is this. We can’t prepare our children for every eventuality or situation. Still, we can give them the skills and the intuition to deal with sticky situations, because bet your bottom dollar, in the future, this ability will be tested.

Think about how this has crept into acceptability

‘Whether responding to a stranger’s Facebook post about a social issue or a friend’s unkind comment about a public figure, quick, off-the-cuff, and nasty replies are the new normal for adults and kids. Many see it as a fun, entertaining game with few consequences. Similar face-to-face conversations play out in homes across the country.’

Nobody wants to take the fun out of family and friendship, but there needs to be a defined line between fun and abject meanness. It’s why now is a vital time to assess and teach family values to our children.

The unfortunate consequences

If we fail in our duty, there is a danger of our children growing up morally stunted. Integrity, which stands as a ‘collection of virtues, including honesty, courage, honor, respect, responsibility, restraint, and authenticity’ also ‘ plays a critical role in civil society as well as democracy.’ Dr. Marilyn Price-Mitchell

“In looking for people to hire, look for three qualities: integrity, intelligence, and energy. And if they don’t have the first one, the other two will kill you.”

And just as a little sample of absolute integrity, I read a few months ago about a man in London who was riding home from work when he spotted a wallet on the main road. As you might imagine, trucks and cars were pounding over it. He got off his bike and managed to rescue the wallet, which was intact.

When he got home, he went through the wallet to try to find some contact details. There were none. I’m a little hazy on how he actually did this, but it’s still worth relating. He managed to take one penny out of the man’s bank account every day and leave a cryptic message for the owner. After a very short time, the two managed to catch up. Believe it or not, in a place the size of London, the two lived a short distance from each other.

It’s a small but significant story for clearly, the cyclist’s parents had done a darned good job of instilling values in their son.

May integrity be with you…