National Honesty Day is April 30th

April 30th is National Honesty Day. Honesty and integrity are dying virtues in today's society -- as readily evidenced on the nightly news or in the level of fraud on the Internet. We could all use a little more focus on honesty and April 30th is a reminder of it. In order to instill integrity in the rising generation, Sarah Newton, parenting teens expert, gave the following tips:

 

"Integrity is not an easy thing to teach our children; mainly because it is not something we have fully mastered ourselves. I think the most effective way we can teach integrity is to be role models for it. Ensure that our children know and understand what morals and principles we live by and why they are important to us. When they see us living in integrity they will follow suit.

Here are some tips for you:

1. Always keep your word - if you say you are going to do something then do it. Sticking to your word is one of the most powerful ways you can teach children to do the same.

2. Walk your talk – if you tell your teenager that being truthful is important, then walk your own talk and always tell the truth. If you go on about how important responsibility is, then always take responsibility for yourself and your own actions.

3. When your child is angry, sad, happy, or whatever, then question them a little more about why that is. Are they angry because someone has done something that they see as unjust? Is justice an important thing to them? Is that one of the morals they live by?  If they are sad because someone has been dishonest, is honesty then important to them?

4. Have a family set of morals – sit down together and discuss as a family what morals and ethics you are going to live by as a team. What are you going to do if someone breaches one of them? (That means you too.) Will it just be a gentle reminder or something else?

5. Remind your child that they have a choice – in every situation they can choose and if they don’t like what is happening, support them to choose a different response that is more in line with who they are and who they want to be as a person." Learn more about Sarah Newton and her resources for parents at www.SarahNewton.com .

Comments

[Tanja Cilia]

This is the first time I heard of "National Honesty Day"; what a wonderful thing to celebrate. I have just posted a blog about plagiarism, which, of course, is another type of not behaving with integrity: http://www.timesofmalta.com/blogs/view/20080418/tanja-cilia/bearing-false-witness

[Yelena Williams]

National Honesty Day. Never knew it existed but what a great thing to promote. The tips are common sense but not always realised or carried out. We all need to practice what we preach.

[Marnie Pehrson]

Now that we have two children out of high school (Caleb graduates this month), I really see the impact of parents' examples on children. They really do follow in our footsteps so it's important that we demonstrate integrity. Whatever a parent values, the children tend to value and whatever parents consider unimportant, the children do as well.