IMPACT: Parenting with Perspective

How to Reset your Parenting Thermostat

• Ben Pugh • Episode 230

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Think of your parenting style like a thermostat - it's set to run at a certain temperature no matter what. In this eye-opening episode, we explore how these 'parenting presets' work and, more importantly, how to change them.

We'll cover:
 • What parenting presets are (using a simple thermostat example)
 • How to spot your own parenting patterns
 • Four simple steps to change your parenting auto-pilot:

  • Becoming aware of your current settings
  • Understanding where they came from
  • Separating yourself from old habits
  • Creating new parenting patterns

Perfect for parents who find themselves stuck in reactions they don't want, like yelling or being too controlling. Learn how to reset your parenting thermostat to the temperature you actually want!

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If you have a teen you should take this Parent Trap Quiz .

It will help you uncover specific parenting patterns that might be hindering your relationship with your teen.
By identifying your Parent Trap, you gain the tools to have better communication, resolve conflicts, and build greater confidence in your parenting decisions.
This self-awareness ultimately strengthens your relationship with your teen, which leads to a more open and harmonious connection.

This quiz is your gateway to becoming the parent of your dreams and paving the way for a happier and healthier family life.

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Ben:

I'm Ben Pugh and you're listening to IMPACT! Parenting with Perspective, episode 230. This podcast is all about helping parents manage the mental and emotional drama that comes with parenting teens. So they can focus on what's most important, building rock solid relationships and having a powerful impact on their teen's life. Join me each week as I dive into real tools to help you and your teen turn struggles into strengths. Hello, welcome back to the podcast. Thank you for joining me today. We are going to be talking about your parenting presets. So these are kind of, kind of like the settings that you had installed. Very young. And if you're like me, and if you're like most people at some point in time, you fallen into the trap of just parenting according to your parenting presets. So that is what we're going to talk about today, real quick, before we dive into this episode, all about your parenting programming, I would like to invite you if you had found. This podcast to be helpful. If you have found any of the episodes to be helpful for you as a parent of teenagers, would you please do me a favor? Will you please leave me a review? A written review really helps people. know, what this podcast is about, and it helps attract parents just like you to this podcast so that they can get the help that they're looking for. If you would be willing to leave me a written review and even a five star review, that will help me. Help more parents just like you and my goal is to help as many parents of teenagers as I can and I can't do it without you. So if you're the type of person who likes to help other people, here's a simple, easy way it'll take you less than a minute. Go leave me a five star review. Go leave me a written review and I would greatly appreciate that. Okay. Let's dive in and let's start talking about your parenting presets. So first, let's just discuss what is a parenting preset. Now, I want you to imagine entering a room. That is too hot, like 80 degrees. Like sometimes this happens at my mother in law's house. We'll go in and we're like, Oh my goodness. It is so hot in here. And she'll come in and be like, it is so cold in here. And we just don't agree on what is a nice, comfortable temperature. So imagine you're entering a room that's too hot. Maybe it's like 80 degrees. And you walk over to a window and because it's cool outside, like, I don't know, 65 degrees, you open the window to cool down this room. That's too hot. Now imagine that just as the room starts to cool off, like now it's down to like 78, the heat kicks on and starts blowing warm air into the room. To warm the room back up to its preset temperature of 80 degrees. Doesn't matter how many windows you open in this room. The thermostat is set to keep the room at 80 degrees. You can leave the door open. It doesn't matter. The heat will kick on. And work extra hard to keep the temperature in the room at 80 degrees. Now your parenting preset is similar. If your parenting preset is to be controlling, or if your parenting preset is to be a doormat parent, or lost and confused, or constantly disappointed. No matter how hard you try to change your parenting, your parenting preset will eventually take over and it will have you parenting according to your old habits in no time. So, I hope this helps you understand what a parenting preset is. We actually have a lot of these presets in our library. In our lives, our health, like a lot of people who are struggling to lose weight and be stronger and be healthier. They're struggling with some old health presets. Like their setting is like, man, if this is one that I've struggled with, I have a hard time turning down free food. That's an old. Way of programming. That's an old preset. A lot of times when it comes to money, some people have presets to have high credit card debt and to go buy what they want right now with no consideration for long term payments, So this isn't a concept unique to parenting, but it is a concept that I feel like most parenting experts and most parenting gurus never really address. They never help parents understand, Oh, maybe I'm parenting this way because I have some presets. I've already been programmed to parent this way. So let's take a minute and let's explore what is your parenting? Parenting preset. Now, if you've followed me for very long, you've probably already taken my parent trap quiz. If not, you totally should, because eventually I'm going to replace it with something else. The parent trap quiz is free. It's easy. It will take you three minutes or less. And the best part is it will totally help you understand your parenting presets. You can go to Ben pew coaching. com slash parent trap quiz, and you can go take the parent trap quiz. Like I said, it'll take you three minutes or less, and it will seriously help you understand your parenting precepts. So basically. If you want to understand what your parenting preset is, and I'll be honest with you, there's probably multiple presets. It's kind of like, I don't know, in a new car, like you can preset the radio, like, Oh, number one is this station. Number two is this one number. You have a number of things that are preset in your life. And when it comes to parenting, it's really important to explore your natural ways of being when it comes to parenting. Are you quick to judge? Are you quick to anger? Are you always stressed out? These are part of your parenting programming. You can also explore some of the good things like, are you easygoing? Are you always up for an adventure with your teen? Are you genuinely curious? These are part of your parenting programming. The nice thing is about your parenting programming is that it's usually pretty simple to explore And to better understand why you parent, how you parent, it isn't super hard. It's not like rocket science. You don't have to like go to years of therapy and tell all your life's secrets. No, it's pretty easy. For example. I am way less strict than my parents were. At one point, in fact, I remember multiple points where I decided, you know what, I don't want to be as strict as my parents. Now, when I made that decision, from that point on, in the strictness arena, I've been much less strict than my parents. Now, to be fair, I have some parenting presets that are actually pretty awesome. I don't remember really getting yelled at too bad by my dad. I don't remember him like cussing me out and yelling. He's pretty calm. And oftentimes when people are meeting me for the first time, but they know my dad, they're like, Oh my goodness, I know exactly who your dad is. You act just like him. I've got some good parenting presets as well. So I want to invite you to start exploring. Where did this come from? Where did this style of parenting come from? Once you start seeing your parenting presets, when you can see them actively running your life. And running your parenting, then you're ready to start reprogramming your parenting presets. And here's the thing about reprogramming. You don't always have to change everything about your parenting. Maybe, like I said, like my dad was super calm. Didn't really yell too much. There's mannerisms that I picked up from him. Those are some of my parenting presets. I don't necessarily. Want to change those. I don't want to reprogram those, but I can accept that old programming as the programming that I want to embrace right now. So, like I said, once you start seeing old programming at play in your life, that's when you can start. Either reinforcing programming that you want to keep or start reprogramming areas that you would like to change. So let's talk about how to reprogram your parenting settings. Here are some simple steps that I think are super important to help you. Jumpstart your reprogramming of your parenting. Step one is awareness. You have to be aware of the program that's running. If you want to be able to change it. Like if you had an old iPhone first, they have to identify, well, what program is it running? Like what's the latest update? Okay. From there, we can update it to the most up to date update. And it's important to understand you can't update something that you're not aware of. So if you are completely unaware that you yell and that you scream and that you're constantly feeling stressed out, it's going to be really difficult to update that programming because you're just not aware of it. Okay. So step one, awareness. Step two is understanding. If I were to change the phrase, too bad I already have my show notes written. If I were to change it, I might change this to acceptance, but I'm not going to for today. Uh, if I did change it to acceptance, it would be far more important. Right now I have understanding. I think it's helpful. I think it's important, but it's not mandatory. I have to understand. Why your phone is updated to iOS four. You just need to understand, Oh, it is iOS four. Let's update it to the most current one, which I believe is 18 right now. For me, it's been helpful to understand why I have certain parenting presets. It helps me better understand me. And where I came from and where I want to go. But as far as understanding goes, I don't think it's vital. Um, you can totally skip understanding if you'd like, and you can jump straight to the next step, which is disassociation, but real quick. I'm just going off script here for a minute. If I were to change step two to acceptance, that is important. Uh, you can't change the past. You can't change what you were programmed with. Like maybe your parents were drug addicts and you had to fight addiction. You can't go back in time and change the parents that you have and change your struggles, but you can't accept it. And you can't realize, Oh, Well, thanks to my experience with this, I now know that I want to completely avoid this, or I want to change this. So understanding is not super vital in my opinion, but acceptance is, and I'm just going to let them share the number two step. So to recap, we've got step number one, which is build awareness. Step number two is understanding and in parentheses, put And now let's move on to step number three, disassociation. This one is very important. And this is one of the many things that I teach that I don't feel like any other parenting expert, like not to say that I'm the parenting expert. I actually think you are your parenting expert, not me, but most parenting gurus do not teach us. And it was super powerful when I started reading, um, secrets of the millionaire mind. He taught this exact same step by step process and he has disassociation. I was like, Oh my goodness. I'm the only one who teaches that. I do believe that disassociation is very, very important. As long as you think that you are the old programming and that the old programming is you, it will be impossible to change when the old programming. Comes into my awareness. Like, it doesn't happen as much, but it used to, I would say certain phrases and it would come into my awareness and I'd be like, Oh my goodness. Why am I saying that? I sound just like my mom or just like my dad or just like my old football coach. Now, when the old programming comes into my awareness, I like to think something like, huh, that's some of my old parenting programming. It's not me. Another thought that I like is that I am not my parenting program. I am the programmer. I'm the one who acts out the program. It helps disconnect me from the very programming that I want to change. And there's areas where I feel like this is super important. If you want to quit smoking, but you identify as a smoker. You need some disassociation in your life. You need to realize, Hey, I am not a smoker. I am a person who is smoking and I can change from a person who is smoking to a person who is not smoking whenever I want. You're disconnecting yourself from the old programming. Now, step four is intentional. Reprogramming. And this is where you make the effort to intentionally reprogramming your parenting programs. I like to use a principle that I call the wheel of life. Now I'm not going to go deep into the wheel of life. This training is in the membership that I have for parents. If you want to work with me one on one, I teach this all the time. In fact, you could probably find this training for free somewhere in my podcasts, but the principle of the wheel of life is basically that there's a top of the wheel when life is easy, a bottom of the wheel when life is hard. And I think it's important to practice new thoughts, new beliefs, new skills. And new habits during top of the wheel moments. Don't wait until like your worst parenting moment and think, okay, that's when I'm going to change. That's when I'm going to practice being a better parent. No, do the easy moments when you and your teen are just laughing together, having a good time and realize, Oh dang, this is super easy. I'm going to practice the new programming. And it gets easier. And the more you practice on the top of the wheel moments, the easier it gets for, for when you encounter a bottom of the wheel moment. So let's talk about being the parent of your dreams. If you want to be the parent of your dreams, you've got to reprogram the old programming. If you're tired of being the parent who always yells and screams at your teen, Identifier, what kind of parent do I want to be and start developing that programming? It's similar to like if I look at my life, there's some areas of concern right now. Like. My personal health, I can see old programming in play. Now I can't just say, Oh, well, I don't want to weigh 245 pounds anymore. I don't want to be out of shape. I have to actually identify, well, what kind of health do I want to have? And once I can identify, Oh, well, this is the kind of health I want to have. Then I can start creating the programming. That belongs to that way of being. It's the same with finances. This is another area that I'm working on. Do I want to be the type of person who is in debt? Do I want to be the type of person who works for someone else? Do I want like so many old ways of programming impact where we are financially? How comfortable are you with debt? How comfortable are you with starting your own business? So for me, when I can take the time to identify, Oh, well, this is the type of dad, the type of man, the type of entrepreneur that I want to be, then I can go to work developing the programming for that. If you want a better relationship with your teen, start being the parent of your dreams and start figuring out what programming is keeping you from being the parent of your dreams and start identifying, well, what programming do I need to start developing so I can be the parent of my dreams? And you can go through those four easy steps. Build some awareness. Develop some understanding and some acceptance. Disassociate yourself with the old programming and intentionally reprogram and intentionally develop the programming that you need to be the parent of your dreams. So I want to invite you go take the parent trap quiz before it's gone. It's not too late There's still time. It's still there. In fact, you should hurry as if I were gonna take it away tomorrow I'm probably not I'm still in the process of developing what I have coming next which is going to be awesome Awesome. But for now, go take the parent trap quiz. It'll take you three minutes or less. It's as simple as step one, just going to ben pew coaching. com slash parent trap quiz. Step two, in three minutes or less, just answer the questions. And step three, go open your email. You'll have an email from me saying, Hey, congratulations. Thanks for taking the parent trap quiz. You are falling into this parent trap and it will also give you all three of the parent traps and exactly how to get out of the parent trap. It's super awesome. It's a super simple quiz. It'll take you three minutes or less. And then it has. A free course called parenting from the inside out that will help you get out of your parent trap. So for now, I want you to take this episode and go start to understand what is my parenting preset. Think of it as if it's like the thermostat that's keeping you parenting the same old way. And as simply as I could go reprogram the thermostat, my living room, I can also reprogram my own parenting preset with that. I'm going to let you go. I look forward to seeing you again next week, and we'll talk about something that will help you start being the parent of your dreams. I'll talk to you soon.