Tappers and listeners

Shared experiences can make listeners tune in so much more easily

I love those first letters home when kids go off to college. It’s that moment when they realize you know so much, they know so little, and they’re so grateful for you. Finally, after years and years of trying to teach them what they might need to know (how to balance a checkbook or work out a disagreement) or tell them things to beware of (too many late nights or poor nutrition), they finally get it. Suddenly, your words make sense, and it’s payday for parents.

A couple decades ago, as part of her doctoral research in psychology at Stanford University, Elizabeth Newton divided people into two groups: “tappers” and “listeners.” From a list of 25 familiar songs, the tappers were asked to choose a song and tap out the rhythm by knocking on a table so the listener could guess the name of the song. The listeners performed dismally, guessing only 2.5 percent of the songs accurately. More noteworthy, however, was that, before beating out the song, the tappers predicted the listeners would guess correctly 50 percent of the time. In other words, because the tappers could hear the song in their heads, they assumed the listeners would be able to easily translate the disparate table knocks into music. Not so.

In much the same way, parents are often tappers and children are listeners. We’re convinced what we’re saying makes complete sense, but our children often just hear isolated words. Experience is the melody that gives meaning to our words. For example, when a woman has a baby, she is often suddenly awestruck by her own mother whose words (taps) about maternity come flooding back into her mind, and old lessons feel unexpectedly new and relevant.

Sometimes we parents tap, but children are too busy hearing the beat of their own drum to listen to us, and our tapping is of no interest whatsoever. This pattern of independence can begin very early. When KaRynn was just a year and a half old, we went on a fairly strenuous hike where the terrain was quite steep in places, especially for a child of her age and stature. But in spite of my worries and warnings, she hiked up and down those hills almost completely by herself. I later wrote, “I finally gave up trying to help her and just positioned myself to be there for any falls.” This has proven to be almost the perfect metaphor for parenting our children. They push our "tapping" aside and plunge ahead to cut their own paths and learn from their own mistakes. We’re simply there to catch them when they fall.

Why is it that with some people, we seem to get our messages across so easily, whereas, with others, explaining ourselves feels so laborious? Quick mutual understanding can be explained, in part, by having shared experiences, some of which are turned into oft-repeated stories. For example, my brothers and I can simply say, “Porky,” and we’re overcome with laughter about a disastrous trip home to California from Lake Powell when a repairman named Porky left us abandoned on the side of the road for hours. (No extra tapping needed.) Similarly, a friend recently began describing a piece of art that really moved her, and, before she could finish, I named the artist. It turned out that at separate times we had each had similar Gestalt experiences upon seeing the piece. (No more tapping needed.)

More often than not, though, we have to really work to get our messages across. Some call it "the curse of knowledge." So, to become better tappers and listeners, it helps to spend time together. We need to go on vacations and share funny jokes, great books, and movie recommendations. (It took me 25 years to get around to watching Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, but ever since I did, I’ve been picking up on witty references around the dinner table that I never realized I had been missing.) Reliving shared experiences can turn a single word into an abbreviation for a whole symphony of meanings.