Most of us can remember something a parent told us over and over. Fewer of us realize how much more we learned from what they did. We noticed how they talked about someone in their friend group or whether they did the right thing when no one was looking. We noticed what happened at the dinner table when someone raised a subject nobody wanted to discuss.
Psychologists call this observational learning, or modeling. In the early 1960s, Albert Bandura showed preschoolers an adult hitting and kicking an inflatable doll. When the children were later left alone with the doll, many copied the adult almost move for move. No one had told them to; they had simply watched.
A later study hits even closer to home. Children watched an adult play a game, win prize certificates, and then either donate some to charity or keep them all. Along the way, the adult talked about either the value of giving or the value of keeping what you earn. When the children played, their giving followed what the adult had done, not what the adult had said.
That should give us pause; people can learn to say the right things, but they do what they've seen.
Families pass along values the same way. We may say honesty matters, but if we shade the truth to avoid an awkward conversation, others learn that honesty is optional when it gets uncomfortable. We may say we want open communication, then go quiet for days after a disagreement. We may tell our kids to own their mistakes while we explain away our own. The people around us notice, including spouses and grown children. They pay closest attention to how we handle the moments that cost us something.
Most of our habits formed long before we noticed them, usually by watching someone else. Modeling works in both directions, though. Each time we do the harder, better thing in front of others, we show them it can be done.
That might sound like, "I was short with you yesterday, and I'm sorry." It might mean answering a difficult question directly instead of changing the subject. It might mean telling a sibling, "I'm frustrated, and I'd rather talk about it than let it sit." These moments rarely feel significant, but they carry more weight than a lecture ever could.
Here's a question to consider this week: If someone in your family learned your values only by watching you, what would they conclude?
"Children have never been very good at listening to their elders, but they have never failed to imitate them."<br/><span class="body-2 opacity-80" style="padding-top:0.75rem">~ James Baldwin</span>
"Example is not the main thing in influencing others. It is the only thing."<br/><span class="body-2 opacity-80" style="padding-top:0.75rem">~ Albert Schweitzer</span>
