Mom, I can’t match your energy right now.

Have you checked your social battery levels today?

They say that your children can be your greatest teachers. This was evident when my youngest schooled me in my kitchen a few months ago.

After a period in my office, I had just come downstairs feeling extra productive about something. Honestly, I can’t even remember what I had just accomplished. But, I come bouncing into the kitchen talking about this and that as my daughter is curled up in a chair, snacking and reading something on her phone. Nothing about the scene was unusual.

Until she said this:

Mom, I can’t match your energy right now.

Whoa, what? 

She made this statement in the calmest voice, with no low-grade teenage lack of patience, spite, or eye-rolling. She simply expressed the current level of her social battery at this given moment. 

The most amazing part was that I got it. Immediately. Without a hint of an ego hit or a twinge of parental anger. She simply let me know that while she cared about what I was talking about she just couldn’t handle having a conversation about it at this moment in time.

Talk about setting boundaries and self-care. She was so tuned into her current capacity for interaction that she could communicate it to me in the healthiest of ways. No one’s feelings got hurt, and there was zero miscommunication. Bravo!

Now, I want to ask you, are you tuned into your social battery like this, or have you lost it on someone because you couldn’t match their energy but didn’t have the right words?