The next morning while we were having breakfast, I found my son to be awfully quiet. He is normally chatty, but not that morning.

So I asked if something was bothering him. He said no.

The morning passed, the afternoon passed, and he was still not acting himself. He was too quiet and, knowing him, I knew something wasn’t right but he would not tell me what it was. He is usually very open to us, especially to me.

I had to go out that night and I asked my husband if he could speak with our son about what was bothering him. He opened up to my husband.

“What’s wrong, son?”

“Nothing.”

“Anything bad happened at the party last night?”

“No”

“Anything weird happen?”

“You smoked.”

At the party that night, my husband, who does not smoke, was asked by the host if he’d like to smoke a cigar. The dads at the party were outside in the front yard smoking cigars, while we – the wives and children -- stayed in the house.

Everything was okay until we drove back home. With my big mouth, I asked my husband if he had had fun smoking the cigar.

My nine-year-old overheard it and he was upset that his father had smoked. He did research on Google about cigars and discovered that they are as bad as cigarettes.

We had to explain to him that it was not a habit and that it was just a “guy thing” that men do once in a while.

That night, we failed our son in the lessons of integrity.

As parents, we constantly teach our children about responsibility, fairness, self-reliance, respect, honesty and integrity. All of these good and positive attitudes, especially honesty and integrity, are not just one-off acts of goodness. It is about character.

C.S. Lewis, the author of the Chronicles of Narnia, once said that “integrity is doing the right thing even if no one is watching”.

Having integrity means you are true to yourself and will do nothing demeaning or dishonorable.

Many times we talk about the word integrity without really grasping what it really means.

After that night, I asked myself if I really believe in the importance of modeling a life of integrity that our children can follow.

The question remains, how do we as parents teach our children about integrity? The answer is simple, we need words and actions.

Words

When we speak to our children, they need to be able to trust that we will be true to our words. We must speak the truth and follow through on what we’ve said.

We must not make them promises that we cannot keep. We must not tell them things that we don’t mean. We must keep that integrity intact with us all the time.

Action

The most important way to teach them honesty and integrity is in what we do and how we do it.

We must lead them by example.

We were at the San Diego zoo last year and there was a big lemur cage that visitors can walk through. There is a sign in front of the cage that says only adults and children aged five and older can go inside.

Our daughter, who was only two months away from being five-years-old, technically could not get in. However, she is very tall for her age. We thought, what harm can be done if the four of us go inside the cage?

My son read the restriction and objected that his sister, who was not five, should go inside. We assured him that it was okay. He insisted that we broke the rules by taking her inside the cage, he insisted that we were being dishonest about her real age. Of course, we didn’t have any real intention to break the rules or be dishonest, but that’s not how he perceived it.

We teach him honesty and he followed through. We’re pleased.

The restriction at the zoo was there to keep young children from misbehaving and our daughter is well behaved and we were there to keep an eye on her. That restriction was arbitrary, but our son did not understand that.

Young children can only perceive black and white. As they grow older, we as parents need to help them navigate through the gray areas of life.

We often remind our children about being honest, yet at the zoo we cheated a bit about age. We teach our children that smoking is bad for our health, yet he learned that his father smoked a cigar at a party.

How often do you tell your kids to drive within the speed limit, yet you drive too fast with them in the car? Ever tell your children that electronics are not allowed at the dining table during dinner, but then you’re sitting with them in the middle of dinner only to check important work e-mails?

The cigar and the restriction at the zoo were moments of parenting epiphany for us. We had one of those “teachable moments” between parents and children but at that time, we were the ones learning the lesson.

I realized that when my husband and I told our kids to “tell the truth” or “not to do something bad”, we were sending an incomplete message.

As parents, we can go beyond “it’s wrong to tell lies”. We can teach our children that telling the truth is good, but living the truth is better.

What do you do to teach your children about integrity?

***

Erita Mann is a proud mom of two children. She was born and grew up in Jakarta and moved to Los Angeles in 2003. In her spare time while her children are at school, she enjoys sewing and she has a clothing store at Etsy.

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