The Serve and Return of Healthy Communication

When I was a kid, I remember my father talking a lot about wanting a ping-pong table. It felt like a milestone moment when he could finally afford to buy one. The giant table took up one whole side of the basement. And boy, did we have fun using it.

I don’t remember my mother ever playing—with my father or with us. Back then, I never gave her lack of participation a thought. It was a thing we did with our dad. His enthusiasm was all over it.

Source: Melanie Lim

Now, as I think of her listening to the click-clack of that hollow ball hitting paddles, then table, I get it. She must have been relieved to be alone upstairs. Knowing someone else was in charge of their four kids. All of us together in one place, there was no need for her to serve and return the ball. No need for her to go back and forth conversing with anyone.

Why We Do What We Do

Whether you’re talking about a great game of tennis or good communication, the hallmark of successful relationships is how good you are at what’s called serve and return.

From the time we are born, we learn about the world based on the to-and-fro dynamic of responsiveness. If mother smiles, baby smiles. If baby cries and father soothes, baby calms. There’s tons of research to suggest that it’s this kind of communication that helps us learn about the world. More importantly, it’s how we learn to feel safe and cared for. If our connection needs are met, only then can we take positive risks to learn new things. From the toddler learning to walk to the teenager learning to drive to the young adult learning to date… serve and return is critical to our ability to step out of our comfort zones and build novel skills.

Harvard University’s Center for the Developing Brain has identified five steps you can practice to get better at serve and return. If you’re interested in learning more about how to: 1) share focus, 2) offer encouragement, 3) name it, 4) take turns, or 5) recognize beginnings and endings, take a look at the video below.

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What about adult communication, you ask? We know that in childhood, healthy brain architecture is built with appropriate input from stable, engaging relationships with caregivers. Sadly, the opposite is also true. If adult responses to children are unreliable, inappropriate, or absent, the developing brain may be disrupted, and subsequent physical, mental, and emotional health may be impaired. Yet this applies to all of us, no matter our age.

Source: Moises Alex

Back to the ping pong metaphor. Young or old, it’s not so easy, not so fun to play the game alone. No one wants to talk to themselves! When the experience of communicating with anyone else becomes frustrating or boring, it leads many to quit trying to connect.

As a family counselor, I’ve seen lots of people with very different communication styles. Yet I’ve come to believe that at every stage of our lives, the absence of the serve-and-return interaction in our relationships is troublesome for two reasons. When one person fails to respond to a ‘serve’ in a connected way, with an appropriate, kind, or compassionate ‘return,’ not only do our brains not receive the positive stimulation they need, but our fight/flight/freeze response is activated, flooding our brains with stress hormones. Did they hear me? Does he agree or disagree? Does she care what I’m saying? Does he care about me?

For many, serve and return interactions are more challenging because of issues with focused attention, or limited energy, or inconsistent abilities to read the room. However, having these vulnerabilities doesn’t make responsiveness any less crucial to healthy interactions. In fact, if one person in a family struggles, increased conflict is more likely. And a commitment to get better at serve and return is the only solution for all.

Remember how my mother opted out of ping pong in order to be by herself? She was, in effect, carving out time for self-care, taking the opportunity to refuel. This is completely understandable, and it’s this very act of making space for yourself that will give you the energy you’ll need to be as present and responsive as possible once you come back together with family and friends.