Teaching integrity

The message at church last week was about integrity and it got me thinking about the topic…

On a cold and rainy Saturday a couple of years ago my son and I decided to take in a movie. This is not an unusual thing for us since Saturday’s have traditionally been father/son-days for us. There were few people in the theater and as we walked out of the show I noticed the movie next door to us was about the start.

Suddenly the idea of popping right into another movie sounded like a lot of fun. I quickly made the suggestion and the look of excitement on his face was priceless. When we got in the theater we noticed another dad and his kids had done the same thing.

I don’t remember the movie being particularly good. The enjoyment from my son had to be that we were getting away with seeing two movies for the price of one.

Oops!

Suddenly I realized what I was doing. In a way I was teaching my son that it was ok to steal. Sure it was only movie but the reality was we were there and had not paid for it.

On the way out we stopped at the kiosk outside. Conner of course asked, “What are you doing dad?” I responded by telling him that I was paying for the extra movie we saw because it was the right thing to do. “But no one saw us and we are even out of the theater” Dad—“True son but that is an even a better reason to pay since it is what we do when no one is looking that defines who we really are”

He simply responded by saying “oh” and I did nothing more to drill in the point or make a big deal about paying. In fact, I pretty much forgot about the whole thing.

Now comes the cool part that I will especially not forget. Several weeks later I heard Conner tell a buddy about the day we saw two movies back to back. There was a little bit about the movies of course and then he also made a point to brag about the fact that we had paid for the second movie. Bragging about integrity? I will take that any day.

How often do we as parents miss real opportunities to teach our kids? The fact is we teach everyday with all of our actions. Even the little things we do can send a big message even if we do not realize it at the time.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

How to make money work for you

I can still remember when I first read The Millionaire Next Door. I was new in my career having moved from my small hometown to "the city" (Oklahoma City) to start my adult working life. This was the early 90's and there was a recession going on. For some reason, there did not seem to be much of a demand for people with a degree in Government from a small college and work experience that consisted of being a janitor at a hospital.  I had tried to find a job for many months before I finally was offered one by Cellular One as a call center collections agent. The starting pay was $14,000 base with a possible $3,000 bonus which turned out to be the absolute minimum I thought I could survive on.  Flash forward just a couple of years later and I hear about this book that tells stories of how average people with an average income ended up being very wealthy. At the time, the primary learning I took away was that most millionaires did not drive Porsche 911 or wear an Italian suit
Read more

A life well lived

Image
This week I read the wonderful obituary of a man known simply as "H". His actual first name was Harold but based on the description of his life I get the feeling that he lived it with such gusto that he simply did not have time for the formality of his full name. "H" Now that is a man you can hang out with on the front porch while sipping a cold one or bushwhack through a jungle on a grand adventure. I kind of imagined what it would have been like to meet him for the first time. Hello, my name is Harold and I move pretty fast so all my friends just call me "H" and since pretty much everyone is my friend that is what you can call me". Nice to meet you "H" Here are just a few facts there were listed about his life: Born 1934 Met the love of his life in 2nd grade and was married to her 54 years before her passing Grew up on a 125,000 ranch near Mexico Started work as a roughneck at the age of 12 Went to college on a scholarship
Read more

“You have bigger boobs than me”

Image
“You have bigger boobs than me” Ouch! This was said to me in jest by a girlfriend of mine back in the spring of 1989 as we were eating a big tray of nachos. I was 21 years old at the time and in my fourth year of college. I am person that has struggled with my weight as long as I can remember and it seemed no matter what I tried it would just not come off. As a youth, I remember the teasing from the other kids very clearly. I also remember the feeling as I stood there at gym or recess knowing I was going to be the last person to get picked for whatever sport we were being forced to play. My fear of athletic failure kept me from doing any sports. Exercise was a truly was a stranger to me. Really, up until that moment in 1989 I don’t think my heart had ever risen above 100 BPM unless I was running to grab the last ding dong from the box. The boob comment for some reason though lit a spark in me. I decided at that moment that I was going to change my life. I was going to learn to eat ri
Read more