Knight or Knave?
Full of integrity or not to be trusted?
That is the challenge to issue to your boys that I lay out in Knights in Training and it is what we are going to focus on now. How you conduct yourself forms your identity. What you practice determines how you play.
Giving our kids a mental picture to aspire toward and one to avoid is helpful as they face opportunities each and every day to choose the path of honesty, or traverse the path of self-preservation, and self-interest.
As we focus on this aspect of the code, we are going to circle back to our primary goals of loving God and loving others as we recognize that choosing to speak truth enables us to live this out.
For this month’s download, I personalized the section in Knights in Training that talks about pursuing the path of a knight or a knave so that you can read it directly to your kids. The handout has discussion questions to circle back to what it means to be a truth teller.
As with the other aspects of the code, we remind our children that what they practice, determines who they become. Talk to your kids about the importance of coming clean. The mark of an honest person is one who desires to communicate truth and one who is quick to come clean if they do deceive – whether out of self-preservation, for selfish gain, or inadvertently. We also have a powerful opportunity to talk to our kids about the importance of coming clean. They need regular reminders that telling a lie, does not make them a liar. Heart attitude and habit are what matters.
There is so much we can talk to our kids about in this area as we give them things to think about and ponder and as we challenge them to put this into practice! Pursue the practice of honesty, live out this #ChivalryMovement!
Ready for another phase in the Chivalry Challenge? If you want to join us for this month’s Chivalry Challenge, you can snag your printables here.
Looking for picture books to read with your kids that inspire pursuit of honesty?
- In the Time of Knights (the Story of William Marshal). Tanaka, Shelley.
- The Boy Who Cried Wolf. from Aesop’s Fables.
- A Day’s Work. Bunting, Eve. A boy learns the importance of truthfulness and making things right.
- The Empty Pot. Demi.
- Being Frank. Earnhardt, Donna W.
- The Boy Who Held Back the Sea. Locker, Thomas
This post is part of the Chivalry Challenge where we spend a month focusing on an aspect of the historic code of chivalry as laid out in Knights in Training: Ten Principles for Raising Honorable, Courageous, and Compassionate Boys. We inspire our boys by recognizing how they are wired, and by reaching them where they are at and challenging them to become the men they long to become and the men our culture so desperately need.
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