Integrity

One of the best ways to build integrity in children is by example. A close second would be in what we say. We already know how children emulate us as parents. That fact puts so much pressure on us, as parents, to do and say the right thing.  As much as possible, we should strive to set the example of correct behavior so that our little people model that behavior as they grow up. One of the things that was always stressed when I went to school was honesty.  Honesty ranked near the top or possibly at the top of coveted behavior. My mom used to always say to me “I can’t stand a liar or a cheater” – so naturally, I, always wanting to please my mother and be in her good graces, took that to heart and tried my hardest to live that perfect upstanding life. As with all of us, we sometimes fall short; however that shouldn’t keep us from trying to stay on the straight and narrow. I remember as a young child my sister and I would threaten each other with “a billion marks” when and if we missed the mark. You see my godmother had told us that when we sin God has a big book where he gives us a mark when we do something wrong. That fear of admonishment definitely worked for me. So consequently each day I would try to do things right in addition to doing a good deed. What usually wound up happening was that if there was some wrong behavior to consider, either I was the one leading it – or I would try to convince others to “do the right thing”. If there was a logical explanation why the rules shouldn’t be followed, then I was all in.

Right from the very beginning I knew that my son shared a lot of my characteristics and therefore, I knew I was in trouble!  Restless, energetic, definitely an oppositional learner. When he first went to school, it was so hard for me to get him to settle down. I would have to put him in Nayda’s high chair, strap him in, just to get him to focus on his school work. That’s when I found out just how different boys and girls are. Boys tend to develop their gross motor skills much quicker than girls – thus the climbing and jumping off of things. They usually don’t do things the conventional way. Girls will walk up and down the stairs whereas boys will slide down the banister or try to jump from the top step down to the landing. It’s a wonder that any of them make it through being toddlers, not to mention through adolescence, in one piece.  It was so much harder for me to get my son to concentrate on his schoolwork then my daughters. The girls tended to be a lot more cerebral – interested in reading and writing. Maya was quite chatty at a young age – oftentimes catching on to her brother’s schoolwork before he would. One day we were practicing the letter sounds and simple words like A T is AT.  Yamil was about six years old and Maya about 4.  I repeated probably a million times that A T is AT. Then I would ask “Yamil, what is A T?”  He would look at me as if I were speaking a foreign language – silence!  Meanwhile, Maya would shout out the answer. After what seemed like a half a day of drilling that A T is AT,  I moved on to “so, if you put a H in front of AT, what do you get?” Answer, Yamil = silence. OK I would say “what does a H sound like?” He would answer and then I would say….”so if you put a H in front of AT what do you have?” Yamil = silence.  Maya – HAT!!!!!!! OMG it was the absolute worst experience for me.  Not only was I frustrated, but I was really worried about that boy child of mine.  Well, we finally get through the first grade with him being able to successfully recognize some key words. He could actually read a little so I started feeling a little better about things. Enter the second grade and now it’s time to learn to write and write legibly. One thing for sure however, is that Yamil was always very neat. So, he had been practicing is letters and actually doing a good job. Every day he would come home from school and I would look at his schoolwork with him. This one day he had written some sentences and was very excited that he had gotten a “star” on his paper.  I looked at the page and every letter was written perfectly. His paper was extremely neat; however, every letter was written BACKWARDS!!!!!! I was mortified!!!!! I’m thinking something is definitely wrong with my child. I almost ran to my room to cry. The next day I went to talk to the teacher. She assured me that he would eventually turn everything around the correct way. She told me not to worry and that a lot of children do that same thing and there was nothing wrong.  So I tried to relax a bit but I was still worried. She was right because shortly after that he began to print his letters beautifully and correctly. I was also encouraged that he was doing well with his math. Except one day he came with a math paper where the teacher had given him a 100%. When I investigated it a little further I realized that something was wrong. I had gone over some of that math with him just the day before and clearly he didn’t know ALL the answers.  So I asked him, “Yamil, how did you know what to put down?”. He announced so proudly…. “I looked at John’s paper and wrote down what he did” WHAT???????? You can imagine my alarm. I guess this was one of what would be many “teachable” moments.  I calmly said to him “do you know what that’s called?” He looked at me very quizzically and said “no”. I almost shouted “THAT’S CALLED CHEATING!!!!!” I went on to explain to him why we shouldn’t cheat and how it’s important for the teacher to know if he knows the work and that knowing the work was much more important than getting 100% or a star on his paper. I talked to him about being proud of his accomplishments even if he didn’t get 100.  We talked about the joy of knowing that when you’re honest and work hard and you get 100% how much more satisfying that is then cheating. I immediately reflected on what my mother had said to me about liars and cheaters. It was just that previous year when we had the whole debacle about stealing and lying and now I find out that my 7-year-old is cheating. I was convinced that I was failing as a parent. It was those kind of moments that led to a series of lectures which lasted at least 10 years, about correct behavior. It got to the point that when the children knew I was going to start one of those lectures they would collectively roll their eyes up in their heads and say,  “oh brother – not again”.