This puts into perspective why there is a divide between father and son and offers insights into their relationship. .
The tone of Hal's relationship with Falstaff is very different than his relationship with Henry. Much of this is because Henry and Falstaff are very different people. Falstaff is greedy, lazy, selfish, witty the opposite of Henry. Although one looks at Falstaff's personality traits as negative, their influences on Hal provide him with traits he would not have ever learned from Henry. For example, Falstaff teaches Hal to be thankful for the smaller things in life. This can be said because Falstaff lives life with intensity, enthusiasm and appreciation. Hal demonstrates this when he is asked by Poins in Act II Scene IV where he has been and Hal responds saying "With three or four loggerheads amongst three or four hogsheads. I have sounded the very base-string of humility. Sirrah, I am sworn brother to a leash of drawers and can call them all by their christen names, as Tom, Dick, and Francis" (II.IV.4-8).
Another example is that Falstaff is the only person in the play that can match Hal's wit and his intelligence. It can be argued that this is where Hal learns how to manipulate people with his wit, which is one of Hal's most important attributes as a leader. Hal does not notice and seems to be clueless about the positive traits Falstaff has contributed to the shaping of his own character even when Hal uses these traits in his rise from the streets to nobility. In Act I Scene II Prince Hal makes an important speech saying, .
"So when this loose behavior I throw off/ And pay the debt I never promised,/By how much better than my word I am,/ By so much shall I falsify men's hopes,/ And like bright metal on a sullen ground,/ My reformation, glitt'ring o'er my fault,/ Shall show more goodly and attract more eyes/ Than that which hath no foil to set it off./ I'll so offend, to make offense a skill,/ Redeeming time when men think least I will.