[Topics: Serve & Return; Who Is My Neighbor?]
Serve & Return - for ALL ages
Updated: Oct 31, 2021
Healthy relationships are marked by something some scientists call "serve & return" - connecting with others, talking with others, responding, playfulness, making one another laugh... For children in their first 5 years starting from conception, this simple principle is critical: when one serves, a loved and loving one should return, and vice versa. These are basic dynamics for building relationships, optimizing mental health, and teaching the most important life skills.
I work as a curriculum director for a Preschool. If I ever witnessed an adult not returning a child's "serve", this would be cause for a serious talk between us adults. The main responsibility we have, working with these little ones, is to actively engage, to respond to their overtures for attention and care. Ignoring these bids can be abusive. But I think that such needs, expressed from earliest months of human life, needs for "serving and returning" with other humans, are actually lifelong needs.
Although the first five years are critical for human development, and particularly benefit from "serve and return" dynamics, as early and as often as possible, I am proposing in this blog post that for relationships, we should treat one another with the same care that young children require in order to thrive. Kids should "thrive by five" but the healthy dynamics that have enabled them to thrive shouldn't then disappear. They thrive by us establishing healthy dynamics for mutual care and interaction that should last and build relationships throughout our human life.
After all, Jesus admonished us to be as little children. Little ones are hard-wired to seek out meaningful connections - they make bids for attention from significant people in their lives, and if the bids are ignored, or their "serves" are not "returned" - the results are confusion and stress; calmness, safety, and trust are jeopardized in a way that can have lifelong impact.
I believe children beyond five years old, adolescents... and even ALL ages desperately need "serve and return" dynamics to fill our daily lives, to have healthy and meaningful relationships being built up.
I am pairing the 7-minute TED Talk by Molly Wright (2021) featured here in this blog with a 45-ish minute talk called "Making Marriage Work" by John Gottman (2018) - the link for his talk (which I highly recommend watching, even multiple times) is provided below. The point he makes that I am highlighting here is mainly discussed between the 21:15 - 24:00 minutes of the talk.
John Gottman, a scientist who studies marriage, speaks of a similar dynamic, that is indicative of whether a marriage will work or not. He calls it a "bid for attention & turning toward" the bidder.
"Every moment together is an opportunity to connect, talk, and play. Imagine the difference we could make if everyone everywhere did this." -Molly Wright (7 years old), July 2021.
"When people are just hanging out, the way they build intimacy is in very tiny moments; they make little bids for emotional connection" (John Gottman, January 2018). If a person doesn't turn toward the one making the bid for emotional connection, that lack of response is very painful. Turning toward a person making a bid for your attention builds credit in an emotional "bank account" that helps relationships to endure. Turning away from them inflicts pain.
If a person reaches out to a family member or church member and receives no response, this can be highly distressing and painful. I understand the need in some cases for "no contact" and for loving detachment, especially in cases of abusive dynamics, when the bidder is lying/manipulating, etc. But generally, when there is a bid, there should be a response to that bid, as best as we are able to give.
[Later in the talk, Gottman speaks about the greatest sources of conflict in a relationship can become the greatest sources of intimacy. I love this. I hope this can occur among many relationships in conflict, in many lives.]
Serve & return dynamics build relationships, from parent-child relationships to meaningful friendships to life-long marriages. Let's learn from, and become as, little children, seeking and finding connection with one another, early and often, to build safe relationships, to attain (or restore) mental health, and to better learn and teach important life skills.
Serve, return.
Bid, turn toward the bidder.
Repeat. Often.
"Who is my neighbor?"
Updated: Oct 24, 2021
A lawyer (or an expert in the law) asked Jesus what he must do to inherit eternal life. Jesus answered that he must love the Lord his God... and love his neighbor as himself. The man wanted to justify himself, so asked Jesus who his neighbor is. In defining a neighbor to this lawyer, Jesus described a Samaritan who had time and compassion for someone beaten up and left on the road, stripped and half-dead. In this parable in Luke 10, there is no mention of God, and the Samaritan, a name implying someone looked down on in society, is in contrast to Levites and priests who are highly regarded by many as religious men "of God."
These religious men in the story were no help; they passed by on the other side of the road, avoiding the injured man. They were going the same direction as the one needing help. They couldn't (or wouldn't) help.
The happiest and healthiest I have seen my son in a very long time was when we recently visited a family with whom my husband and I have been close since elementary school... if not before. (My husband was in first grade with the wife's brother.) The couple we visited have a son also named Nathan and only a few months younger than my son Nathan; he has Angelman Syndrome. He may be limited in many ways, but his love and its healing effects are boundless.
With the other Nathan's mom's permission, I want to share the photo from that time, to share the joy and healing it brings me. This picture portrays the effects of someone not religious, not pretentious, and with time and a heart to be wholly present and truly, genuinely human with another human. How healing is such social connection!
Nathan S. did not say he lacks the training to help someone with depression or anxiety. Nathan S. did not criticize my son for face tattoos. Nathan S. was just a friend to my son during that visit. Nathan had time to spare for my son. He sat on the chair swing and joyfully interacted with my son. Both could be as children together, loved and loving and accepted and accepting... how we all must become to enter the kingdom of God, the Bible says.
And we both - my son and I - left so happy and comforted, feeling hopeful and loved, that life was good. So very good.
Thank you, Nathan S. and your precious parents, who have also been real "neighbors" to us all of these years.

I would say with certainty that my son Nathan is in the hospital (again) because there are not enough people in our lives like Nathan S. and his family.
[Adding a note on August 3, 2024, as I re-post this entry - When I was up in Seattle this summer, my son asked me on a brief phone call to please say hi to this family (the only ones outside of his biological relatives he thought to greet). Their love continues to impact him, and in turn, all that love my son. Thank you, Nat and Jenn and Nate and Anthony, for being our neighbors.]
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