Help! My Teen Refuses to Go to School

In this episode, we talk about a tough problem many parents face: when a teen refuses to go to school. We look at a question from a mom in a parenting Facebook group. She shares her struggle with her 15-year-old son, who won't go to school and gets angry when she takes away his phone.

As parents, it's easy to feel like we can't do anything in these situations. But the key is to focus on what we can control, not on trying to change our teens. We talk about using a "T-Chart of Control" to figure out what we can and can't control as parents.

We also talk about why grounding teens can sometimes make things worse. Instead, we suggest having honest talks with your teen to build better rules together.

If you're having a hard time with a teen who won't listen, this episode will give you some helpful tools and a new way to think about these challenges. Remember, you're not the only one going through this, and there is hope for a better relationship with your teen.

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Transcript

Speaker: 0:00

I'm Ben Pugh and you're listening to Impact Parenting with Perspective, episode 235. 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.

ben_1_12-03-2024_211752: 0:35

Hello, welcome back to the podcast. Today we are going to be talking about, a real life parenting example. I'm going to share a question that was asked in one of the parenting teens groups that I'm a part of. And I can't really answer this question in the group because, basically it's prohibited for like life coaches and people who do this for a living to solicit, business basically in these groups. So I just kind of have to sit on the sidelines. in the past, in these groups, when I have offered help, I don't even offer like coaching or anything. And it's still been flagged. So I thought, you know what, this is a question that I get asked all the time. And this is a question that I see a lot of parents dealing with, and I would like to address it. So. Today I'm going to read this real life question and I'm going to kind of help you understand what you can do Rather than trying to control your teenager. So I want you to tell me does this sound Familiar. is this something that's happened with you and your teen, or do you know teens who have done this, or maybe you can even relate with the teenager. So I'm just going to read the question that was posed in this group. I did make a few changes. It was posted anonymously, so I'm not like stealing anyone's identity or like pointing someone out. This is just from one of the many groups I'm a part of. It was posted anonymously, and I did change a little bit just to help it read a little bit more easily. So, let me know, does this sound familiar? This mom, I'm guessing she's a mom, maybe it was a dad, but this parent said, I need advice. My 15 year old son refused to go to school today. He locked himself in his bedroom, then in the bathroom after I broke into his bedroom. He's doing this because I blocked his phone at 1am when I heard him on the phone in a snap conversation on speaker. I can't physically get him dressed and in the car. This is the second time he's done this in a year. He's doing this in retaliation to me enforcing consequences, like blocking his phone, or Or grounding him. She then goes on to say, what am I to do? I drove to work in a full blown panic attack. Last time I went to counseling over this, he's already lost his X Box due to poor grades. He hasn't had it in months. I blocked his phone for a consequence. Now I tell the school that this is an unexcused absence so that he'll have to serve detention or ISS. I thought about removing the handles from the doors, but I'd have to do that to every door in the whole house. And he has nearly straight Fs and needs his sleep. How do I handle this and prevent it from moving forward? I don't want to risk losing my job by staying home and trying to convince him to go to school. I've considered online school, but not sure if that is a good solution since it would be like a second job to me to stay on top of it and make sure he wakes up and does his work. I'm at a loss. And I feel like a terrible mother. All right. That is the question or that is the problem that was posed. First, if I could talk to this mom, first thing I would say is, look, you are not a terrible mother and this might come as a surprise, but your teen is not a terrible teen either. Your teen just is refusing to fit in. Inside the norm to fit inside the boxes that we've kind of established that teens need to fit into nowadays. And your teen is pushing back, your teen is rebelling, and that means nothing about you as a mom. The next thing I would say is, hey, I truly feel for you as a mom if you're going through this. I've been here as a foster parent. Now everyone is like, well, Ben is not the same. Yeah, I agree. It's not the same, but I'm the father of four kids. I've had dozens of foster kids come through my home. I remember having kids refuse to go to school. I've also been here as a principal and as a teacher. And I remember having students who refused to go to school. So. If this is you, I feel for you. I am sorry that you're having to go through this. I also feel for this young man. I've been there as a young man who hated going to school myself. And I hear from this mother's question, That they both feel like they're powerless. I remember as a young man, I got grounded all the time. I got my privileges taken away. I was given extra chores. That was one of the big things. When you're grounded in my home, you had to do a bunch of extra chores. And when people, especially teenagers, when they feel powerless and they get desperate, they try. To regain their power using desperate measures. And I don't want to come across as if I'm like being judgy with this mom or like saying, Oh, I can't believe she did this. This is just literally what I would tell a mom who was struggling with the same thing. I know how tough it could be, but this is where I would tell you to start. And we're going to talk about some of the things in here later. Like the grounding that's going on. I'll give you my two cents on that, but where I would start, if you listen to that text, or if you can go back and read through that in the show notes, one of the questions I would ask is, Hey, where is your focus? Is your focus on changing your teen or is your focus on being the parent of your dreams? And in my opinion, this mom is focusing. On her teen and how to get him to change, how to get him to get dressed, how to get him to go to school, how to get him to get better grades, how to get him to not be on the phone at 1 a. m. This is understandable. This is how we've been taught to look at these types of situations with our teens. The problem is this focus of the mom focusing on her teenager. This is disempowering to her as a teen. And it might. I just misspoke. I'm reading my show notes and getting ahead of myself. This is disempowering to her as a mom of a teen, and it's also disempowering to her teen. And this mom is starting to realize that she doesn't have the control that she used to. I love where she said something like, I can't dress him and I can't force him to get into the car. To that, I would say bingo. That is exactly right. The next question I would ask is, so what can I control? I think this mom is on a pretty good track. She's doing a lot of things that I myself would do and that I would encourage any parent that I'm working with to do. The problem is her focus is more on her teen and on changing her teen than it is On being the type of parent that she wants to be. She mentioned that she's restricted her teens access to his X Box to his cell phone. The only problem with this is that she's doing it with the focus on changing her teen. Like, man, if I take his X Box away or if I don't let him be on the phone, then he'll go to sleep or then he'll get better grades or then he'll go to school. The problem is, this is when you get into manipulation. You start parenting in a way, hoping that you can manipulate your teen to be a teen in a certain way. Instead of this, I would recommend that this mom shift her focus. From changing her teen to managing only what is within her control. For example, I can't control my son. I can't make him get dressed. I can't make him get in the car. I can't make him get good grades at school. But I can control whether or not I let him play the Xbox. Thanks for watching. I can't control how he responds to that consequence. Like if I say, Hey, no Xbox, I sold it on eBay. I can control that, but I cannot control how he responds to the consequence, but I can control how I show up in that tough parenting moment. Am I patient? Am I thoughtful? Am I curious? Am I loving? Or am I mad and manipulative? So, um, One of the things I would recommend to this mom, use the t chart of control. If you haven't heard me teach this before, it's super simple. You just create a t chart, on the left hand column you put things that I can control, and on the top of the right hand column you put things that I cannot control. And then you just make a list, as long as you can on each side. I like to start on the side that I can't control, because usually that's what you're focusing on right now. Well, I can't control his grades. I can't control whether or not he gets dressed. I can't control whether or not he locks himself in the bathroom or the bedroom. I can't control if he refuses to go to school. That's a pretty good long list of things that you cannot control. And then shift your attention and be like, well, what can I control? You know what? I can take the doorknobs off. You know what? I don't actually want to do that on every single door. I'm just going to take the doorknob off of his door and the bathroom door. Like you get to shift your focus. What can I control? And then only control that. This is a powerful little tool to help you really shift your attention to things that you can control, which is empowering to you. And when you empower yourself as a parent, you will automatically start empowering your teenager. Now, I do want to talk briefly about my problem. With grounding. I am not a big fan of grounding. I'll be honest with you. I am biased. I was grounded all the time when I was a teenager, I remember being grounded from going to a school dance after I had already asked the girl and she had answered and she had gotten a dress and like, it was just, I remember feeling so embarrassed. And, uh, I just, I personally am not a fan of grounding. One of my biggest reasons is that usually grounding is more focused on changing your teen than it is on you being the parent of your dreams. Usually grounding is more disempowering to your teen. And if you think about it, it's actually disempowering to you because someone's got to stick around and make sure that your teen is miserable and being, uh, Impacted by the grounding and that's usually you. So usually grounding is more disempowering than it is empowering. And here's something I've learned. When you take things from your teenager, it makes them overvalue those things. If you always go to, well, I'm going to take your cell phone and this is one of the traps that I fall into. It will make your teen overvalue cell phones. Well, if you think it's important enough to take it away, well, I think I need to have it. I need to keep it. It just shifts their focus from where we'd like it to be. Instead of grounding, and this is a big topic, I don't think that we could do this in this little podcast. Maybe, ooh, that would actually be a good podcast episode. Alternatives to grounding. But here's what I would say. Instead of grounding, Grounding your teen, I would invite you to start building better boundaries with your teen by having empowering conversations with them. So, for example, some of the things that I would ask would be, Hey, why do you hate school so much? Like, what is it, what's going on with school that you just can't stand to be there? I might ask something like, Hey, what do you think would be fair? If you choose not to go to school, what is a fair alternative to school? My kids all know that they're like, well, if I stay home and do a bunch of chores and I clean the house and we have gravel that needs to be shoveled. Yeah, if you want to stay home and do that, sure, I'll let you. You can also ask, well, what do you think is a fair consequence on days when you refuse to go to school? To that, I would probably follow up. Like they'll probably say, I don't know. The next thing I would ask would be something like, well, what do you think would be a fair reward on days when you go to school with no problem? Like I would try and like, there's always different angles that you can take. The key is, or the principle is having the empowering conversation. And. I've talked with enough parents that they're like, well, Ben, that's easy for you to say. You started when your teens were younger, they're used to having empowering conversations and you're right. I got lucky. I started experimenting with this. With my foster teens before my kids were even teenagers. And then I just naturally kind of used it with my teens, but here's what I'll tell you. I got foster kids that came to my house, like 17 years old, almost 18. They knew that they were leaving soon. And they had never had an empowering conversation in their lives. And yeah, that's a little too late. I wish someone would have started earlier, but you can't go back in time when They got their first empowered conversation is out of your control, but how you have that empowering conversation today that is within your control. And so for this young man, from the experience that I read, if I were his coach, the first thing I'd ask is, dude, uh, number one, why do you hate school so much? Number two, if you hate school so much. What do you think you could do instead of school that would prepare you for the future? I would just start asking some empowering questions. And if he's never had an empowering conversation, I know what teens go to answers are. It's either, I don't know, or I don't care. And the thing is, I am okay with those answers in the beginning. As a parent, it isn't my job to get the right or a good answer out of them. It's my job to provide an opportunity to have a conversation. And it's my job to be the parent and be in charge. If I asked this young man, and say I was his dad, and I'm like, dude, I know that you hate going to school. Help me understand what am I missing about school? And if he just looked at the ground, shrugged his shoulders and was like, I don't know, that's okay. I'm just going to assume, man, there must be something bad going on in school. Until you tell me I can't help you solve that problem. But if you choose not to go to school, I just want you to understand. I can't. I'm not going to dress you. I'm not going to pick you up and put you in the car. But if you refuse to go to school, I will turn off your cell phone. I will get rid of your Xbox, not because I'm mad, not because I want to force you to go to school. But right now this is the only thing I can think of. This is the best option that I have. And I'll tell you, I've seen parents where their kids have refused to have a conversation with them. Guess what? The parents that I've seen that are just like, well, he won't give us any input. So you know what, we're just going to go with what I think is best. So you know what, if you refuse to go to school, I'm going to stop paying for your cell phone and I'm going to lock up the X Box. The kid can be like half teens. I'll be like, Oh, that's okay. I don't care. Do whatever you want. That's okay. You be the parent that you feel is most appropriate. Do it with calmness. Do it with curiosity. Do it with kindness. And eventually your teen will come around and be like, Okay, you know what? I think it's a little over the top that you take my cell phone. I need my cell phone. I think it'd be fair, if I refuse to go to school, that we do blank. And then Eventually they'll come around, they'll have these conversations, but you have to start giving them opportunities early on to have these conversations. Um, with this mom, one of the things that I would also say, um, I realized that I sound kind of anti school sometimes, and I'm okay with that. I feel like school is a one size fits all. It's given to us as, no, this is the only thing that kids should be doing during school age years is going to school. Who cares if they could be solving real world problems? No, they're not allowed to do that yet. They have to go to school. So, at the risk of sounding kind of anti school, which I assure you, I am not anti school. All my kids are in public school because they don't want to do anything different, and I'm like, whatever. I would not look at this teenager as being the problem. I remember being viewed as the problem when I was a teen and it's scary. You started to wonder, geez, what is wrong with me? And I would just be like, man, you hate school. I get it. Let's tackle this together. If you don't want anything to do with school, Help me come up with some options and you're just treating them like, no, this is okay. This is normal. Lots of kids hate school. You're just lucky enough to have a parent who is willing to empower you. To come up with solutions to this problem, rather than trying to mold you and make you fit inside of the box that has been prescribed for you, if this sounds familiar, and if this is something that you are struggling with, I'll be honest with you, your teen is probably not going to be a good fit for my coaching program. My coaching program is typically for teens that are doing pretty well and they. are ready to do, I don't know, above average things. Like I, I actually have coached one young man who decided to drop out of school and started flipping dirt bikes. He made a YouTube channel and eventually he got a job at a car dealership. That's awesome. He was a good candidate because mom was willing to work with me first. And then we were able to empower her son to embrace the consequences of dropping out of school and to come up with a better alternative plan that worked for him. So if this is your son and he refuses to go to school, or I have another client who her son goes to school and then towards the end of the day, he just doesn't Disappears from school, which was kind of funny when I talked to the son. I'm like, dude, where do you go? How do you leave? He's like, I don't know. I just end up not at school and I'm like Like you were abducted by aliens And you have no recollection, like no ownership at all. That is an indication that they're not going to be a good fit for coaching. But here's the thing. You as a parent have more power than you realize and how you parent will impact your teenager's life more. Then whether or not you get them to go to school or to stay at school or to get good grades, I promise you being the parent of your dreams is far more important than controlling your teen. And with that, I'm going to let you go. I'll be back next week. I'll talk to you soon.