Setting a good example: A puzzle

This morning I took my dog for a walk, as usual. What was not usual was that on the sidewalk at the bus stop were the broken pieces of beer bottle. I clucked my tongue and carefully walked the dog past the glass.

On the return trip, the bus stop was crowded with middle schoolers. As I steered the dog around these kids, he kicked a shard of glass. The noise made me stop. I picked up the piece of glass (luckily, the dog was not hurt) and stood there a second with the glass in my hand.

What to do with it? Do I put it on the curb? Drop it back in the street? Hide it in the bushes? And then there was the rest of the broken bottle. What to do with that? I realized the middle schoolers were watching me. I took a baggie out of my pocket and filled it with all the glass, pocketed it and walked on home.

So here's my puzzle. I didn't feel I needed to pick up any of the glass on my first trip down the sidewalk. I picked it up only when my dog tripped over it and, even then, only because kids were watching. I doubt I would have done the good-citizen thing of picking up all the glass if the students hadn't been there.

I can tell you that I was acutely conscious of setting a good example. The reason why I didn't just drop the glass my dog had hit was because I realized that how I handled the situation would be a lesson, if you will, for the kids who were watching.

So, along with a whole host of ethical and socially-aware considerations this little incident brings to mind, how important is it to model what we want our kids to do while they are present? When we do the responsible thing - whatever that is - should we be sure to do it when we have an impressionable audience?

... happens first at home.