4 reasons why ‘disconnecting’ benefits you and your teenage daughter

Mothers have amazing ability. Since her daughter was a baby, she has learned to tune in to every look, movement, and sound she has made. By the time your daughter is a teenager, her ability to “tune in” is highly developed. Now, it seems like you can tune in to your daughter’s emotional state from hundreds of miles away. You know the mood she is in by the way she closes the door, opens the refrigerator, and the clothes she puts on.

There are so many positives to this “tuning in” skill.

1. ‘Tuning in’ allows you to protect your daughter. You are “tuned in” and you know if she is telling you the truth. You know when things don’t add up. You know what he needs and when he needs help or protection.

2. “Tune in” encourages empathy and compassion. This is necessary to have a secure attachment and close loving relationship with your daughter. She gets you to know what she’s feeling and to care. This allows you to feel loved.

But there is a negative side of “tune in”.

3. Mothers can get stuck in hyper “tuned” mode.. You can be so ‘in tune’ with your daughter that, by default, she disconnects from everything else, including you. Your daughter detects your hyperactive ‘tuned in’ mode and will react. She will throw a fire dart at you or avoid you by hiding in her room.

Look, it’s very important that you learn when tune in and when disconnect. A happy and healthy mother finds a balance between tuning in and disconnecting. You don’t want to be too “in tune” and you don’t want to be so distant that you are always “off”.

There are many benefits to disconnecting. The main benefit is that it lessens the unnecessary drama between you and your daughter.

Your daughter is going to have dramatic moments. She can’t help it. She is programmed for drama with her hormonal surges, undeveloped prefrontal cortex, and concrete thinking. She is a triple threat to the drama.

His drama is like a fire. When mothers become hyperactive with their daughters, it is as if you put gasoline on a fire. When you “disconnect”, you are not fueling the fire and eventually the fire will go out.

You’re very ‘in tune’ with your daughter when …

• She gets in the car after school and you immediately say, “What’s wrong?
• She reads a text message and cries and you say with great emotion: “Are you okay?”
• It’s Saturday morning and she stumbles out of bed and you ask her to clean her room and she closes the door. You decide to lecture him at that point on manners.
• You take her to school the first day and remind her of 7 things to do. And she yells at you to shut up. You yell at her that she can’t talk to you that way.

These scenarios will turn into one great dramatic scene. Can be avoided disconnecting.

4 reasons why ‘disconnecting’ benefits you and your teenage daughter

1. Your daughter needs space to feel her own feelings. It’s okay if he cries or gets angry. Many of your depressed moods will pass quickly. They are like summer evening rains in Colorado. There may be heavy rain and lightning, but they will pass quickly.

*** If your depressed mood lasts for more than a few days, you can step in and see what is happening.

2. You won’t take it personally. When you are very “in tune” with your daughter, you take things personally. If he’s in a bad mood, you think he’s directed at you. If she’s not happy, she thinks she’s not doing a good job as a parent. If she’s ungrateful, you feel like she’s taking advantage of you. Nothing can infuriate a mother faster than taking it personally.

When you are “offline”, his bad mood will not affect you.

3. Disconnection decreases anxiety.

If you are very “in tune” with your daughter, then you are prone to fear. When you are very “in tune”, you are usually not tuning in to your strengths and successes. Most likely, you are tuning in to your sad, stressed, or angry moments. Your imagination will make mountains out of these “sand mountain” moments.

4. Timing is everything. A normal teenager will have happy times, quiet times, sad times, and stressed times every day. There are predictable times when your daughter will be in a bad mood or stressed. If your daughter is sleepy, hungry, or stressed, she will not be happy.

Disconnect from it when you are having one of those moments. Most likely, the storm will pass. Tune in when she’s back to being herself. This will save you a lot of headaches.

This morning my daughter and I went on vacation. My daughter and I are not morning people. He was running around the house and looked like he was in a bad mood. If I were hyper “in tune” I would think, “Why is she mad at me?” or “She is so ungrateful. Here I take her on a trip and she acts like that.” But I unplugged her, knowing she’s not at her best in the morning. Thirty minutes later, we laughed and thoroughly enjoyed each other.

Unplugging it saved me from unnecessary drama.

This week, give yourself the gift of disconnecting.