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How can we teach kids to have integrity when we can no longer collectively agree on what it means? Photo: iStock
Maybe it’s me. Maybe it’s the age of my kids. But recently, they have been asking me some really tough questions, and I’m not talking the AP Calculus variety. Their most recent was about the murder of Charlie Kirk. To say I was surprised they even knew who he was would be an understatement (how naive of me). To think they had formulated opinions about his death was, quite frankly, something I hadn’t even considered (again, mea culpa). So I found myself fumbling around, giving half-baked answers to questions that hadn’t even occurred to me just a few hours earlier, in an effort to shepherd my kids’ curiosity safely through the moral landmines of this contentious discussion.
What I noticed through our back and forth — and from the media firestorm sparked by the murder — were the two distinct sides that arose: those who exalted him and those who condemned him. Rigidly rooted, clearly divided perspectives like these don’t surprise me anymore, as we seem to have a tendency to two-sides everything these days. But it was still unsettling to listen to them, another sign that defining what is “good” or who is “righteous” is not as simple as it used to be. And it left me to wonder: How can I teach my kids to have integrity when we can no longer collectively agree on what integrity even means?
So I reached out to a few of ParentMap’s 2024 superheroes, “The Unifiers,” to get their perspectives: Mayor Salim Nice of Mercer Island; Rabbi Jay Rosenbaum, rabbi emeritus of Herzl-Ner Tamid Congregation; and Dr. Linda Smith, an ordained American Baptist preacher — three people who have thought a lot about moral clarity, both personally and professionally.
What does having character mean?
While I wasn’t encouraged to learn that all three agreed that something seems to be amiss when it comes to kids’ integrity, I was buoyed by their insistence on its importance. As we work to raise our kids to be good and kind, Nice offers this definition as a starting point: “Character is consistency under pressure. It is the ability to take a stand when it is inconvenient or unpopular, to tell the truth when there is a cost, and to treat others with dignity even when we are frustrated or angry. … Character today means being steady in a world that rewards extremes.” A valuable starting point in light of the conversation that sparked this, at least for me.
‘Youth are navigating influences powerful enough to rival addiction. Our job as adults is to help them recognize manipulation, understand incentives and separate identity from algorithm.’
What’s causing the confusion?
It’s often these extremes — amplified and monetized on social media and other platforms, creating and exacerbating information silos (Kirk was one of many who benefited from these mechanisms) — that muddy the waters that used to be clear.
As we wade into the muddied waters in our search for moral clarity, “it is important not to frame this as something kids have caused or failed at,” cautions Nice. “Young people are a reflection of the inputs they receive, and those inputs have changed dramatically. … The result is not a loss of character, but a flood of noise. Youth are navigating influences powerful enough to rival addiction. Our job as adults is to help them recognize manipulation, understand incentives and separate identity from algorithm.”
Rosenbaum explains, “Today’s youth are facing a crisis of moral clarity because we adults are confused about right and wrong.” He cites slavery and Nazism as examples of issues we all agree are unequivocally wrong, and offers the following as a reason for today’s confusion: “... solutions to [today’s] challenges are complex and good people should be allowed and encouraged to disagree about the solutions vigorously without being attacked personally. We need to model holy argument for our children and youth.”
What parents can do
In an effort to lead our kids out of the cacophony of the modern world, our superheroes offer these inspiring thoughts:
If parents could start by doing one small, consistent thing to nurture moral strength in their children, what would you recommend?
Dr. Linda Smith: Compliment and affirm good action. Having open conversation with them every day as much as possible, and help them to make small decisions in their life and recognize the importance of those decisions.
Mayor Salim Nice: Talk about the moment before the decision, that quiet space where your instincts and conscience wrestle with what to do next. Kids need to hear about that hesitation and what helps you push through it. Whether it is standing up for someone, admitting a mistake or telling an uncomfortable truth, that is where moral strength is built. In our family, we try to name small daily examples: telling the truth, owning a mistake, helping someone else. It turns morality into practice, not performance.
In an age when public figures and institutions often appear morally corrupt, how can parents help their children stay anchored in values like honesty, compassion and courage?
Nice: We lead by example, but we also need to teach discernment. Parents can model integrity through their own behavior, but children also benefit from seeing how history provides perspective. Talk about figures who changed the world through quiet courage, not just power or success.
And help them understand incentives. Ask, “Who benefits from this message?” “Why would someone say that?” Once kids can see the motives behind actions, they become harder to manipulate and better equipped to stand firm in their own values.
Many parents believe they are raising good kids yet may participate in systems that perpetuate inequality or injustice. How can parents — and faith communities — help bridge the gap between personal morality and social responsibility?
Rabbi Rosenbaum: Societies that value continuity, stability and loyalty can sometimes enshrine inequality and injustice because to question long-held moral positions, even if they are wrong, is too disruptive and threatening.
The mistake we are making today is assuming that commitment and change are opposite values, belonging to opposing groups of people. The truth is, these complementary values live within each of us. There is a liberal and a conservative living inside each of us, and the sooner we make peace with that, the sooner we make peace with each other.
Moral character building starts in the family. Our children learn most from what we do. How do we treat each other? How do we expect brothers and sisters to behave towards each other? No amount of preaching the value of social justice is worth anything if we tolerate selfishness, cruelty and small-mindedness within our own family.
But, our children also need to learn that there is a world beyond the family. We need to teach them that every human life is of infinite value and back up that belief by how we behave towards others. No great moral progress has ever been achieved by one person acting alone. The great leaps forward for humanity have always been achieved by communities acting together over time. America is a great example of this.
When children witness hypocrisy, cruelty or corruption among adults, how can parents guide them to maintain integrity and hope rather than cynicism?
Nice: Call it out directly. Children see more than we give them credit for, and pretending otherwise erodes trust. Then show them what repair looks like. Integrity is not the absence of failure, it is what we do after we fail.
When adults acknowledge mistakes, apologize and make amends, it restores hope that good character is still possible. The lesson should not be that people are perfect, it should be that they can change course. That is where optimism is built.
Humility, kindness and honesty may sometimes seem at odds with being ambitious and successful. How can parents teach both confidence and conscience — raising children who are driven and decent?
Smith: Build your child’s confidence to make decisions early on. Use every day experiences to encourage critical thinking while promoting humility, kindness and honesty.
Nice: Ambition and humility can exist in the same person when success is tied to purpose. Teach children that achievement is not just about winning, it is about how they win. Celebrate effort and integrity as much as results. Confidence built on service lasts longer than confidence built on praise. When children understand that their talents are tools to help others, ambition becomes a force for good.
What role does faith, spirituality or a sense of the sacred play in shaping a child’s moral compass, even for families who do not identify as religious?
Rosenbaum: We need to teach our children and youth what it means to value diversity of thought. The best way to do that is to model it ourselves. Do we encourage our kids to talk about the moral issues of the day at the dinner table? Do we encourage them to seek out opposing points of view? Do we find ways for them to get to know people who are different from themselves? These are all ways in which we can grow in our children a sense of moral clarity that is balanced with moral humility.
Faith communities, when we are at our best, offer this creative balance. Sanctity at its core is about commitment. For any relationship to be called loving, there must be a sense that we cannot simply walk away anytime there is trouble in paradise. Children who see how committed their parents are to them are getting the best education in sanctity.
But, sanctity must always be balanced by its spiritual twin, humility. All of the great religions today teach the equivalent of the idea that we are created in the image of God, but we are not God. And, because we are not God, we sometimes commit to the wrong course of action, and are morally certain when we should be asking hard questions.
Finally, it’s important that we teach our children to be forgiving---forgiving of themselves, forgiving of others, forgiving of America, and most of all, forgiving of their parents! We are human beings, not angels. Let not the perfect be the enemy of the good.
What would you say to parents who feel uncertain or unworthy as moral guides, who worry they are unequipped to model the virtues they want their children to embody?
Smith: I would encourage them to collaborate with a spiritual guide to help them as they work with their children. When parents live outside of virtues that are not morally grounded, they need to be able to be authentic with their children and let them know that [their behavior] is not okay, but that they are trying to do better, and that they do not want [their children] to emulate their behavior or attitude.
Nice: None of us get this perfect. What matters is not flawless execution, it is honest effort. When parents admit what they are still learning, it gives children permission to grow without fear of failure.
Kids do not need idealized parents, they need consistent ones. Be present, tell the truth, apologize when you should and keep showing up. Character is not something we lecture into existence, it is something we live together, one decision at a time.
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