Talk to Your Kids About Cheating Now (Send the Right Message About Tiger Woods’ Actions)

Have you talked to your kids about the recent actions of Tiger Woods yet?  If your answer is no, you had better put it on the family meeting schedule for RIGHT AWAY.  You have an opportunity right now to send the correct message to your kids about what is right and wrong, before they start getting the wrong idea from the media and society in general. 

Whether you’re a Christian parent or not, you no doubt feel sad when a popular hero of kids around the world is caught in bad behavior.     

It’s time to talk to your children about what Tiger Woods did.  And before you interject your excuse for not talking to them about it (e.g. “They’re too young to understand”, “They won’t know the difference”, “They won’t hear about it anyways”, “They don’t know who Tiger Woods is”, “It’s not appropriate for them to hear about it”), consider this:  There is always a chance that your excuse is wrong! 

You might think your 10 year old doesn’t hear about celebrity scandals, but how do you know what other kids are talking about around them during recess?  There’s a good chance that your children will hear about it from DJs on the family radio station, from snippets on the news while in the waiting room at the doctor’s office, or on a magazine cover at the store.

If you don’t tell them your family’s views of right and wrong and connect it to this situation immediately, your kids will form their own opinion about a super popular role model having an affair and destroying his family.  They’ll do the best they can to take in all the opinions from different media outlets and even their friends and make their own opinion.  Do we trust that our kids can really know right from wrong when wrong is so pervasive an influence in our society?  NO!

Do We Send the Message to Our Kids that Cheating is Okay?

You may be saying, “I’ve never told my kids cheating on your spouse was okay.”  But did you every specifically tell them that it’s not okay?  It may seem like a silly question, but it’s an important one to consider.  You, as parents, are the number one role model to your kids.  Believe it or not, what you say is held with more regard than their teachers, friends, or even *gasp* their favorite stars on TV!  Best you use this position wisely to teach them what is right while you still have a say.

Even if we don’t know it, we may be sending the wrong message to our kids about our moral views on marriage.  What are some ways we might send the message that cheating is okay, and not even know we are?

• When we don’t talk about it with our kids, we make it okay.
• When we make jokes about it around our kids, we make it okay.
• When we stand in line with our kids at the grocery store and they read the headlines on the magazines about it and we don’t use that moment as a teaching opportunity, we make it okay.
• When we let our kids listen to joking remarks about it on the radio, we make it okay. 
• When we let our kids watch TV comedy sketches about it (e.g. Saturday Night Live), we make it okay.

Cheating on your wife (or husband) is NOT okay! 

Our Society Gets Worse Every Time We Don’t Speak Up

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know that the society we long to have back (of good manners, the golden rule, and mom and dad growing old together) is eroding slowly. We take for granted that it’s too far gone and that we can’t fix it.  Well, guess what?  We can! 

In each family we have the unique opportunity to create a reality we are proud of for our children, and then send them out in the world to spread those values.  As moms and dads, it is our job to teach our children and mold them in our image, just as we were created in God’s image.  Every time we let something bad happen and don’t teach our kids the right way, our society gets a little worse. 

One bad thing slips in, then another, and another, until there is so much wrong and the bad is all around.  At that point, it’s hard to sift through what’s wrong and what’s right.  No wonder kids today are so confused!  No wonder that parents can get so confused that they aren’t sure what to bring up with their children anymore.

To all you young parents – and older parents – out there, I’m begging you desperately to use this opportunity to teach your little (and big) ones now. 

How to Talk to Your Kids About Cheating

Here are a few easy points to use when talking to your kids about Tiger Woods cheating on his wife (multiple times) and hurting his family.  This applies to any similar situation/person too; the talking points are the same.  You don’t have to use all the talking points, these are just good topics to get your discussion started:

• Let them know that you and your spouse are very sad about Tiger Woods’ recent actions.  Cheating is wrong.
• Let them know that when you get married, you make a promise to each other and to God to love and be true to each other. 
• God makes you and your spouse become one person.  Husbands and wives should never have secrets from each other.
• Let them know that when one person doesn’t keep their marriage promise, it hurts their whole family, including their kids.
• Tell your children that when adults cheat in their marriages, they might get divorced, which causes their family to break in half.
• Teach your kids that our families are so important that we never want to do anything to break them apart.
• Let them know that we can’t judge other people – only God can do that.  But we can recognize that their bad actions are not okay things for us to do, and that we don’t want to be around people who do bad actions or look up to those bad behaviors.

This conversation will be different in every family and based on the different ages of your kids.  But please – don’t put it off because you’re embarrassed to talk about it or think it’s not important.  It IS important that your kids learn the proper moral view from you, their most influential teachers, not from the media!