Honesty, fairness, humility and forgiveness are intimately entwined together in parenting. It is difficult to teach one without the others. Almost all of these are taught by  parents by example. Children see how you treat others and observe this carefully. If you  want an honest, fair, humble and forgiving child, let them see you do it. These qualities  are marks of maturity and are hard for many of us to be consistent with. I believe these  make parenting a very introspective process. Are we honest? Fair? Humble? Are we  sharing these qualities with our children? Do we cheat and are we pleased with  ourselves? Are we out for ourselves or do we grant others a fair share? Do we think we  are better than others or are we “only human”? Are others always at fault deserving  criticism or are we forgiving of others’ mistakes? Are these questions difficult? Do we  naturally believe we are honest humble and forgiving?

To answer these questions think of daily occurrences. Let’s say you find a watch.

In traffic, someone wants to move into your lane. Are you gracious in allowing  the move or do you begrudgingly give up the space? Do you curse or criticize the other  driver?

Someone cuts you off in traffic. Do you call names? Are “stupid” and “idiot”  part of your vocabulary? Are you a better driver than everyone else?

You act out in anger towards your children in an inappropriate manner. Do you  later apologize? Do you ever admit fault?

Kids are very perceptive. They watch how we drive and even more how we  interact with others. They watch to see how fair we are. They question constantly if we  are fair to them. How we are “fair” to our kids varies with age, circumstance and level of  maturity and is subject to interpretation – that is another whole subject for another  column.

Kids watch to see if we are able to admit when we are wrong. They see if we are  able to admit we made a mistake. This takes maturity and humility on our part. Parents  who view apologies as a sign of weakness are still horribly immature. How can we be  viewed by our children as honest if we cannot be honest about our own mistakes and  admit them? And if we are wrong and apologize, don’t we expect forgiveness. Of  course we do. Conversely, we need to act properly and forgiving others as well.

Honesty, fairness, humility and forgiveness – such important lessons. These  complex lessons are taught in daily scenes at home and in public. They are taught by  example. They are taught by practicing them. They are taught by parents taking an  honest look at themselves and how they treat others. These are actions that involve love  and respect for all people and demonstrating that daily in our actions.