Lessons in Integrity
One of my favorite and, I feel, one of the most important concepts to teach to teenagers is integrity. It’s a word we hear often, and if you ask a teenager what it means to them, they know they know the word and the sense of the word, but they don’t really know what it means. Often, the opportunity to talk with them about integrity is when they tell us of a situation when they were either in their integrity or they were out of integrity. Then we get to talk about it!
Holding secrets and Docket the dog
Seth, who had just turned 13 years old, shared with me that he and his brother were going to be getting a dog.
“Oh wow! That’s great, Seth! I know you both have really been wanting one!” I said. “What kind of dog is it? When will it be coming home? ”
Seth laughed and said, “I don’t know. I looked at my mom’s phone and read her messages. She doesn’t know I know. But I told my brother and told him to keep it a secret.”
“Mmmhmm,” I answered noncommittally. “So it’s a secret, huh?”
“Yeah.”
“What do you think would happen if you told your mom that you already knew you were getting a dog?”
Seth shrugged, “I don’t know.”
“Do you think you should tell her?”
“Nah. She’ll be mad I took her phone and read her texts.”
“Mmmhmm. So she’d be mad. Maybe she wouldn’t let you have the dog?”
Seth looked down at his feet, not nearly as defiant as he was a few minutes ago, and said, “Yeah,” with a deep sigh.
“Maybe it doesn’t feel so great holding on to the secret? There are lots of secrets here, aren’t there? You took her phone, you read her messages, you know about the dog, you told your brother, and your mom doesn’t know any of this. Maybe that’s all kind of hard?” I said.
“Yeah,” he said without looking up.
We left it at that. When Seth returned the following week, he excitedly showed me pictures of his new dog from his mom’s phone, which she had given him to bring into the session for this purpose. He said, “I told my mom that I knew about Docket.”
“How was that?”
“She was mad, but we still got Docket!”
And now we can have a conversation about acting out of integrity and with integrity.
So how do we teach kids to have integrity? And really, what does it mean to have integrity?
How to talk about integrity with teenagers
Whether we’re talking with a young 13 yr old about secrets and a new family pet, a 15 yr old who took alcohol or their ADHD medication to school to share with friends, or an 18 yr old who lied on a college application — it’s the same kind of conversation.
Explore with them how they feel about the infraction. What was it like to do this?
Help them unpack and understand what was going on inside of them and around them to lead them to this behavior. What parts were active in their system at that time? Do they know why they held the secret, brought the illicit substance to school, lied, cheated, stole, betrayed, stood by, and did nothing while a classmate got bullied, etc?
Rewind time and find out what they would do differently if given the chance.
And then introduce the concept — integrity.
As usual, I like to start with the etymology of the word. The root of the word is from the Latin word that we associate with whole numbers in mathematics: integer, which means “wholeness.” From there, integrity is derivative of other concepts: soundness, blamelessness, correctness, and completeness. The working definition that best fits my approach to integrity is: “the state of being whole and undivided.”
From an Internal Family Systems perspective, this means that we are acting in a Self-led way, which essentially means, being in a cognitive and emotional state of some measure of calm, curiosity, and the ability to hold perspective and have choice during challenging situations.
Integrity is a concept that covers a wide range of other desirable traits, including honesty with one’s self; sound decision-making; an aspect of taking accountability for one’s actions; a measure of emotional literacy; self-awareness; an internal locus of control; and an internal moral compass. It’s a powerful place in which to stand!
Take a moment and think back to a time when you were acting with integrity. What does that feel like in your body? What is happening in your thinking processes? What emotions are present? Which ones are absent? Knowing what integrity feels like for you and what being out of integrity feels like are great ways to begin helping kids understand what this abstract concept is in an embodied way.
Here are some ways that I’ve described it to the kids I’ve worked with over the years.
If we can look ourselves in the eye at the end of the day, without any twinges of guilt or remorse, we know we’ve acted with integrity. (This, of course, rules out those kids who display symptoms of conduct disorder — a topic for another post.)
Integrity is when we do something beneficial for someone that might require self-sacrifice, even if no one knows and we get no credit for it.
We know what the right thing is to do and do it, even if it’s the most difficult thing to do.
Integrity is the feeling that we’re okay no matter the consequences, that our motives make sense for us, and that we can defend those motives soundly.
We can take accountability for our actions without shame.
We honor what is important to us and our values. (This might require helping kids discern what their values are. Another topic for another post.)
We have self-respect and respect for others.
Conversations around integrity can lead to broader conversations on ethics, morals, values, respect, accountability, trustworthiness, and many other beneficial traits we want to foster in our kids.
Seth
In my follow up conversation with Seth, given how young he was, I didn’t go into a big discussion. I reminded him of our conversation from the week before and how he was looking down at his feet. I invited him to try looking me in the eye this time and tell me about his mom’s phone, the secret, and Docket. He did just that. We talked about what that was like for him and how he felt. [The Mixed Emotions Cards are my go-to tool for this question about feelings for clients of any age.]
Then I said, “You acted with integrity – a great word to describe “doing the right thing” – when you told your mom. You made it right! I’m so proud of you! High five!”
And that was that.
And that was enough this time.
Photo by: Prostock-Studio