I’ve been thinking a lot lately about behaviour, specifically, how we observe the people around us, interpret what we see, and then sometimes carry those lessons forward without ever realizing that what we learned may not have been what the other person intended to teach us.
Parents. Mentors. Teachers. Friends. Colleagues. Leaders.
We watch them. We absorb their behaviour. We form conclusions.
But here’s the interesting part:
Not everybody sees the same behaviour the same way.
Two people can witness exactly the same interaction and walk away with completely different interpretations. And sometimes, years later, we repeat a behaviour believing we are following what we were taught — when the original intention may have been something quite different.
Parenting is a perfect example.
We live in a world where positive behaviour is often rewarded.
Do well at work and perhaps you receive a bonus or a promotion. Make a meaningful difference in someone’s life as a therapist, lawyer, doctor or other professional and you are compensated financially while hopefully also receiving the emotional fulfillment that comes from helping someone.
So it isn’t particularly surprising that parents often do something similar with their children.
Your child works incredibly hard at school, so you celebrate with a special dinner.
They accomplish something meaningful, so perhaps there is a gift.
They demonstrate responsibility, maturity or kindness and you praise them.
The intention may simply be:
I see you. I recognize your effort. I’m proud of you.
But what does the child actually hear?
That is where things become interesting.
One child may internalize it exactly as intended:
Hard work deserves recognition.
Another may interpret the same experience as:
If I perform well, I am rewarded.
And another may take away something more complicated:
If I do things the way my parents want, good things happen. If I don’t, there are consequences.
Years later, that child becomes a parent themselves.
They may use rewards and consequences with their own children because, in their mind, that is how they were raised. They may even become much more rigid about it.
And the original parents might look at this parenting style and think:
That isn’t what we taught you at all.
Except, in a way, it is what their child observed.
That distinction matters.
It doesn’t necessarily mean the parents were controlling. It doesn’t mean the adult child is controlling. And it certainly doesn’t mean anyone had bad intentions.
Parents generally have more life experience than their children. They are trying to guide them, protect them and prepare them for a world the child hasn’t experienced yet.
But intention and interpretation are not always the same thing.
And I don’t think this stops with parenting.
Think about mentorship.
Someone may have mentored you by being extremely demanding because they saw your potential and wanted to push you. You may remember that mentorship as the reason you developed an incredible work ethic.
Someone else exposed to exactly the same mentor may have learned that nothing they did was ever quite good enough.
Same person.
Same behaviour.
Completely different lesson.
We do this in families, friendships and business relationships too.
We observe someone who is extraordinarily generous and decide generosity is one of the most important values we want to carry forward.
Someone else may watch that same person and conclude that generosity sometimes resulted in people taking advantage of them and decide they need stronger boundaries.
Neither person necessarily misunderstood what they witnessed.
They simply experienced it through a different lens.
I think this is particularly important as we get older and find ourselves becoming the mentors, parents, employers, colleagues and advisors that other people are watching.
Because whether we realize it or not, people are learning from us.
And we don’t completely control what lesson they take away.
Perhaps that’s why communication matters so much.
Instead of assuming someone understands why we are doing something, sometimes we need to actually explain it.
“This is why this matters to me.”
“This is what I’m hoping you learn from this.”
“This is why I made this decision.”
And perhaps we also need enough humility to recognize that when someone interprets our behaviour differently than we intended, it doesn’t automatically mean they are wrong.
They may simply have been standing at a different angle.
After all, experience teaches us that there is rarely only one way to see something.
And sometimes the most valuable thing we can do is stop asking, “How could they possibly see it that way?”
And start asking:
“What did they experience that made them see it that way?”
That question can change a conversation.
It can change a relationship.
And sometimes, it can change what gets passed from one generation to the next.
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