Actions speak louder than words

As I was preparing for a workshop on Trust, which I have written about in my blogs before, I came across a brilliant quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson. It hit me like a brick. It is a powerful statement that we as parents and adults need to remember as we deal with our youth.

It reflects the meanings of commonly known quotes like:

Actions speak louder than words.

A picture is worth a thousand words.

These are wise sayings but sometimes I think we forget about the impression we are creating in our children's and teen's minds when we try to "cheat" the system. Small lies about ages of a child/teen to save money on a ticket (to a show, on a bus or ferry, or for whatever the age specific ticket may be) tell our youth that it's okay to lie in order to get a better price. What about being charged less for an item at the grocery store or in a restaurant and not saying anything to the server? What's our message here?

As parents, we're trying to set examples.

As parents, we're trying to be role models.

As parents we need to remember this:

"What you do speaks so loud that I cannot hear what you say."