Do We Live By the Ethics We Teach Our Children?

Even at 10 years old, I knew what integrity meant. Maybe I couldn’t articulate it; however, I knew when I was doing something wrong. I remember a time I had a fight with my 8-year-old brother and wanted to get back at him. This usually meant hitting him in his arm since my ability to talk things out had not quite fully developed yet. He was a smart kid and he knew I was going to hit him, so he stayed away from me. I remember being frustrated that I couldn’t catch him and eventually I said, “Hey, if you come back over here I won’t hit you.” He trusted me and returned within striking distance. As soon as he was close enough I hit him in the arm. While I was only 10, I knew what I did was dishonest and compromised my integrity.

Certainly, the fact that 8- and 10-year-old boys fight in families is nothing revelatory. The part of this story that bothered me was that I gave my word and broke it. I basically compromised my integrity to get back at him at that moment. My desire for settling a score helped me justify something I knew wasn’t right. I had been raised with a sense of ethics and morality and went against them to justify my actions at the moment.

This brings me to the reason for this self-confessional. We all have a moral and ethical code in our lives. It may not be the same code, but we have one just the same. That means we know in our gut what feels right and what feels wrong. Sometimes we disregard those feelings, however, when we do, we often know we are not living up to our standards.

In fact, it seems that putting a value on having consistent ethical clarity is something that is fading away in many areas of our society. I am struck by how often there is video footage of a politician saying something he or she clearly feels strongly about, showing a strong display of integrity and clarity. Then, immediately after seeing that video, a newscaster plays another video from a few years ago where the same politician is seen espousing the exact opposite view with the same fervency. I often shake my head and wonder why people accept this hypocrisy in our elected officials, and even sometimes in our own lives.

What prompted this article on ethics was a discussion I had this week with an old high school friend. He told me a story that had disturbed him. After he told it to me, it got me thinking about how important it is to raise children who have clear ethics and morals, and the ways in which we do it. Some details of the story have been changed; however, the moral and ethical questions are clear.

My friend is a teacher who discussed a recent football game he attended at the high school where he teaches. As a prank, a few of the players stole a wooden team mascot that was on display and belonged to the other team. I know this may sound like an old movie plot, however, once the kids had taken the mascot, the other team was understandably upset. After the game, the coach of the team that had taken the mascot told the teens it had to be returned. He said that if the mascot were returned by the next day, the person (or persons) who took it would not receive any punishment. The next morning the kids who took the mascot elected one of them to return it.

The boy who was chosen did exactly what he was asked to do and returned it to the designated spot in the school as he had been instructed. When he arrived, he found a police officer waiting for him and he was taken to juvenile hall. He then spent a number of days in a cell to apparently teach him a lesson. However, what was the lesson he learned? He already knew that taking the mascot was not the right thing to do. It was part of a school prank that others had participated in previously. He had been promised by an adult that he trusted that there would be no penalties if the mascot was returned.

It is unclear whether the coach had the authority to promise that there would be no repercussions for the mascot theft, however, if the coach did not have the authority to do so, why would he make that promise? Perhaps he thought he had the authority and did not. Regardless of how it happened, the teen wound up paying the price for the coach’s broken promise.

The bottom line is that the teen sat in a jail cell, possibly sharing time with more hardened offenders, and most likely wondered why he was let down by someone he trusted. When the boy’s parents complained to the school authorities, the school justified their actions by saying they did it to deter these types of pranks from happening in the future.

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While police officers may use deception as a way to bring dangerous criminals to justice, this was not a dangerous criminal. This was a teenage boy, who was one of a group of kids who perpetrated a prank. Maybe they deserved to be punished. Maybe, even, they deserved to spend some time in a cell to teach them a lesson. What they did not deserve was to have an adult they trusted promise them they would be safe and then end up in jail after doing exactly what the teacher said to do to make things right.

Perhaps the real-life lesson that boy (and his teammates) learned was that adults can’t be trusted to keep their word. The mascot was returned voluntarily after assurances that the boys who took it would not be punished. Maybe the lesson that is instilled in these boys is that people’s words don’t matter and the very idea of trusting someone’s word isn’t the intelligent thing to do. I’m pretty sure that wasn’t the goal of the school officials, however, it may very well have been the result.

As someone who believes that the world would be a better place if people who gave their word were invested in keeping it, I believe strongly in the importance of personal integrity. If we were all invested in honoring our commitments, we could have a world where our word is truly our bond.