INTEGRITY! - CHALLENGE #9

As parents, we are continuously reminded by self-help books, advice columns, and child psychologists that our kids are constantly watching.  But who and what are they watching?  Sometimes it’s us (no pressure, eh?) and sometimes it’s the role models they’ve discovered out in the big bad world. 

When you work in the school system, you see first hand, not only how inappropriate kids can really be, but also that the apple often doesn’t fall far from the tree.  That’s when you realize how much our kids really are watching us.  Modelling us, actually.  Like it or not, often the worst traits in our kids are things that they learn (directly or indirectly) from us.  Now that’s a downer.  I guess we can find enough reasons to excuse or overlook that thought but sometimes it’s a hard pill to swallow.  I know, from personal experience, I can find a boat load of them:

 “I did my best with what I knew at the time.”

 “They have to take some responsibility for their own actions, too.”

 “I'm just all out of energy and I can't deal with it.”

 “I never claimed to be perfect.”

 “Parenting doesn’t come with instructions.”

 “I’m having to do this by myself most of the time.”

Teaching the wrong vs right concept is not always easy in this day and age.  Most people would probably agree that this is what we should be doing.  Unfortunately, many aren’t.  We have this slippery-slope thing happening.  It might not exactly be wrong, but we know in our heart of hearts, it’s not exactly right either.  The little white lie is like being a little bit pregnant.  We aren’t fooling anyone, except maybe ourselves. 

If you spend any time on the internet, facebook, or e-mail, you have probably come across posts of catchy slogans or quotes that you find inspiring.  In fact, you may even want to remember them because they resonate with your soul. Remembering them and living them are two different things.  Being intentional about something is work.  Hard work often.  It’s so very easy to slip into our old patterns without giving our new mantra a second thought.  However, the more we immerse ourselves in the idea (reading, journaling, talking about it, praying or meditating on it, etc.) the more we are likely to start keeping it in the forefront of our thinking.

I love the word, “INTENTIONAL”.  To me, it says, “I’m committed to this idea and I will try to follow it through.”  There’s something very powerful and pro-active about this “action” word.

Integrity is a way of living … it’s not just some nice sentiment. Who wouldn’t want their kids to respect them and appreciate their values.  Like most things, that won’t happen all on it’s own.  You know that saying, “Walk the Talk” – it’s all about being intentional in our actions and words. Our kids need to see it to believe it.  Lectures don’t roll with them.  Besides … you’d have to have a zillion short lectures to make a dent, I’m thinking.  Research shows: 

Average Attention Span of a Teen in 2012 – 8 seconds

Average Attention Span of a Goldfish – 9 seconds

Kind of curious how they were able to come to this conclusion about the goldfish. J

Getting most teens to listen to an 8 second lecture on integrity is like trying to get a knot out of fine link chain.  Not impossible but after awhile you begin to wonder if it’s ever going to happen.

If someone is going to emulate you, chances are they won’t if they are questioning your sincerity.  Sometimes we don’t even realize the skewed messages we send others – it’s amazing what we do out of habit.  Telling your child repeatedly that what they are saying is rude and disrespectful doesn’t hold much water if they see you mimicking the same behaviour to your spouse.  How they see you interact with sales staff, servers in restaurants, people at Customer Service, telemarketers, teachers, coaches, etc. sends a huge message.  Not completing jobs that you’ve promised to do and even justifying our speeding, screams … “do as I say, not as I do.”  If you’ve ever heard someone accused of being a “hypocrite”, there probably is some history there.

Actually, it’s really a simple concept just not an easy one.  That’s why I like the phrase, “Intentional Integrity” – it means we are taking ownership of behaving and thinking a certain way and making it a daily priority.  Never mind daily . . .  it’s an on-going life long priority.  But like anything – if you don’t make the effort, things are never going to change. For those of us that need encouragement in this area this week:  integrity is a learning process – we attempt, we fail, we push on and keep trying.   

I think if we are intentional in working on making something the right thing to do when we are all by ourselves, then it becomes second nature to doing it around our kids, spouses, friends and everyone else.

Food for Thought:

                        Be the person you think you are.

Next week I will attempt my Take Time For Yourself Challenge - see you then!

Images by: emilygrecco’sphotostream; everydaycourage.net; pininterestwomen.org; http://www.statisticbrain.com/attention-span-statistics/