To influence them we must give them an experience that will change the “cause and effect” map they already have established.

To change that map we must use stories, experience, and vicarious experience instead of merely talking to them.

To be effective, the message must not only describe the problem but include the solution.

We want to help our kids see their choices as moral quests or personally defining moments using baby steps and gradually introduce tasks that require increased effort and persistence.  Thereby, transform the difficult into easy, the aversive into pleasant, and the boring into interesting.

We could spend our time coping:

“We’re not happy with the school…”

Complain and get a tutor for your child.

“Our company’s IT department is underperforming…”

Outsource it.

“There’s too much crime…”

Build a bigger prison.

It’s done all the time. We tend to be better copers than influceners. It’s like the Serenity Prayer, except we want to change it to “the wisdom to make a difference”.

“God grant me the serenity

to accept the things I cannot change;

courage to change the things I can;

and the wisdom to know the difference.”

 Out children are speeding in cars toward the end of a cliff and we have assembled the ambulances and medic team at the bottom to help with the damage created. We need to put our resources ahead of the cliff, before they go over.

Let’s stop coping and choose influence.

Moral courage is essential not only for a virtuous life, but a happy one. Without courage, we have no control over our lives. Our fears corrode our spirit and confine us like a barbed wire fence. That’s why they say a coward dies a thousand deaths, a brave man but one.

Integrity is essential to self-esteem and the admiration of others. It requires us to put our comforts, possessions, friendships, and even jobs at risk in the defence of deeply held principles.

It takes moral fortitude to be honest at the risk of ridicule, rejection, or retaliation or when doing so may jeopardize our income or career. It takes boldness to be accountable and own up to mistakes when doing so may get us in trouble. It takes backbone to stand tough with our kids when doing so may cost us their affection.

Mark Twain said, ‘Courage is not the absence of fear but the resistance of fear, the mastery of fear.’ To paraphrase President Franklin D. Roosevelt, the enemy is not what we fear; it is fear itself. If our insecurities and anxieties cause us to lose confidence in the power of virtue, we will lose something very precious.

People with moral courage rarely get medals, but it is the best marker of true character and a virtue others can be proud of.

Written by Michael Josephson