How do we teach honesty?

Honesty is one of the “core values” of a person’s character. The level that one practices reveals that person’s integrity and personal maturity. Like all other “core values” honesty is learned. As parents our task is to guide our children towards a strong conscience, a commitment to truth, and the ability to think for themselves. But how do we teach honesty?

A child in the earliest years has no internalized sense of right or wrong, only a fear of consequences. The child will answer what he feels will please the parent. Will he receive a spanking or praise? By elementary school age, however, the child’s conscience has begun to mature. Actions begin to be judged by internal moral standards.

The concept of honesty must be repeated numerous times. It is an ongoing process. Show your child examples of honesty in stories and elsewhere that illustrates this value. Tell your child realtolife stories. Ask, for example, what the child would do if he saw a friend slip a candy bar into his lunch sack while in a grocery store. Discuss the results. Ask why he answers as he does.

A child learns best from the models that surround him. When you practice honesty, the child will observe it and desire to imitate the same. Even a young child observes and understands much more than you realize about your commitment to integrity. Do you tell your child one thing than practice something else?

By junior high and high school age, children should have a welldeveloped conscience and should be thinking about the values they hold.
Now is the time to discuss honesty from reading about various acts of honesty and dishonesty, both by individuals and by groups, in business and in government. This will reenforce the value and also have them discern motivations for such acts.

Roleplay realistic situations appropriate to your child’s age. Why is cheating on an exam bad? Should you use someone’s ID card to get what you want?

Is lying to your parents good, even though it gets you off the hook? Explain how one lie leads to another to cover up the previous one.
As Paul Lewis in 40 Ways to Teach Your Child Values states,” Without honesty, we can’t get along with others in a healthy waywhether in school, home, marriage community, or government.”

Teaching “core values” to anyone is not an easy task. It is a neverending process. The best we can do is explain and show why one decision will be better than another even if it appears to be a disadvantage to us. When we make the “right choice” we feel good about it.
Also the correct decision does not bring pain or sorrow to others. Everyone is a winner.

At times the decision is extremely difficult because our feelings or our welfare become involved. However if we can truly say to our reflection in the mirror, ” At least I know I have done my best in the most honest manner.”
There is nothing more to say.

Your child is your mirror. What he sees he will imitate. When he sees you honestly admitting to your own failures, such as not arriving home when you said you would, or not keeping promises, he will learn better than any lecture you or anyone else can give him.
He needs to see honesty in practice to want to practice honesty himself.

Paul Lewis recalls when one parent told him that his kindergartner would never confess his sins to God in his bedside prayers until his dad began to confess openly his own shortcomings. Is there a better way to teach honesty?