Honor means we possess the traits of honesty, fairness and integrity. These are high goals to be sure. They are truly challenging to exhibit consistently as we are all flawed human beings. But somewhere along the line striving to be honorable went from being required if you were to be admired to being seen by many as an impossibility and thus not even worth working toward. Cynicism not only crept in; it took over. As a result, when we look around, we see few cultural messages left in the United States that reinforce honor as a value. Public figures from celebrities to statesmen seem to have given up on the notion that they need to set an example, tell the truth and act with integrity. Even superheroes in movies and comics, once the bastions of honor (with the luxury of fiction on their side), are now portrayed as brooding, dark and even outright broken people. Is this an example we want children to follow? We don’t think so.

Rather than treating the inevitable slips in our personal honor as signs that it isn’t even worth pursuing, we will extend our general advice for dealing with the failures that will occur as we strive to be honorable. As parents and simply as people it is important to learn to handle failure and it is a fitting discussion for this value. When we see our own children fail to exhibit honor, and when we fail to be honorable with them, we do right by everyone by remembering the following.
– Failure is allowed and we learn from it only when we admit (are honest) that we have failed.
– Our values help us determine when it is that we have failed. If we don’t value honor, then treating others unfairly will not bother us. That would be very unfortunate.
– Reinforce values to frame the behaviors you want to see in your children and demonstrate them so they can see that you do as you say. Integrity matters.
Your actions and commitment to the traits of honesty, fairness and integrity that comprise honor will trickle down. But more importantly, so will your attitudes about the importance of values informing what it means to fail and failure informing where it is that we need to grow as people. We will never be perfect as parents, but the above strikes us as a simple set of things we can keep in mind to help us work toward continuous improvement.

For our part we do a few things to work toward exhibiting honor. We also think the phrase “work toward” is appropriate as the paragraph above should make clear.
– We consider and balance regulations and what is best for our families when we make our policies and then we adhere to them. This fair application of well thought out standards is honorable. If we change them for every circumstance then we are continuously creating an environment of dishonesty.
– The above doesn’t mean policies aren’t changeable over time. We strive to admit when something doesn’t work and then we change. Ultimately that is honorable and it is aligned with how we talk about handling failure.
– Our employee policies focus heavily on proper behavior. We will try and work with staff on issues under normal circumstances, but we will and have parted ways quickly with even the most senior staff if we feel that there is an issue that will affect the stability of the environment we create for the children. Ultimately, we want to be trustworthy and to do that means we are aware we all need to act honorably.

There is an immense competition for influence when it comes to our children. The sheer number of external influences does nothing but grow as our children age. As owners, administrators and professional educators we are committed to being as honorable of an influence as we can be for your children. To us, we couldn’t hope to be true partners in parenting if we didn’t. If we don’t follow our own policies and exhibit the integrity we teach, please speak with us and do us the honor of working with us. Just as it is with children, this is how we learn and grow – and we value doing both.