I bring my teenager out together so that we can reconnect

As a mother of three, juggling with work, chronic disease and household work, most of the time, I feel outdated and overtimulated.

These days, when my teenage daughter tries to speak, one of us ends up frustrating, or that my daughter stalls in her room. It is the same conclusion every time. She feels judged and I want to give up.

My daughter and I have always been very close since the day of her birth, but adolescence tested us both. I didn’t want to lose it because of our Egos or because it would grow up and never spoke to me.

It was at this point that I realized that I had set up “mom and me” dates with my twins, each alone with me because sometimes we forget that the twins have separate characters with different needs.

But I never prioritized to do this with my teenage daughter; Maybe I just felt that she was older now and didn’t need my help as much, but in reality, she needs me now even more when she sails in these strange and difficult years.

We have monthly dates

I started planning monthly dates with her, just us. We started to make short journeys and stop in a cafe, where we sit down and talk about random things for about an hour.

Slowly, I felt our conversations change; His tone and behavior have even changed. I did my best so as not to make it feel judged or trapped. It was mainly the time to get closer to each other while working on our differences and discussions.

While it became more relaxed on these dates, we started to spend longer periods together. I would plan a whole day of shopping, to eat, then to walk.

Even when we discussed really heavy and difficult conversations, I was able to listen to it better and it was reciprocal.

We were both vulnerable

One thing that helped us both is that I am comfortable talking with her of my emotions and showing vulnerabilities, what I fought, mainly in my life and as a mom.

I was afraid that sharing all vulnerability that I have or fear or worry, I could hurt him more, mentally and emotionally. But this fear prevented me from having many significant conversations with it.

She told me that she felt a lot of pressure as the oldest and that she always feels that she needed to be perfect. I told him that I felt a lot of burden on me as a mom too to do everything correctly.

We were clogging heads because, in substance, we both felt the same need and the same emotions, but our Egos or our fears prevented us from opening up to this subject. We had to be outside a neutral area to understand how similar we are.

This experience with my daughter taught me never to keep my feelings sealed because there is a lot at stake if you do not communicate. I do not stop our dates as soon as we both draw a lot.