4 Principles for Parenting Teens

In this episode, we dive into the four key principles of effective parenting that can help you navigate the challenges of communicating with your teen.

We explore detaching from your teen's outcomes, opening communication, being willing to roll with the punches, and letting your teen be responsible for their own consequences.

Learn how to create a safe space for your teen to discuss their actions, set clear boundaries, and empower them to make better choices.

Tune in for practical strategies to implement these principles and foster a stronger connection with your teen.

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1. Go to benpughcoaching.com/debrief
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Transcript

Ben: 0:00

I'm Ben Pugh, and you're listening to IMPACT! Parenting with Perspective, episode 236. 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 guys. Welcome back to the podcast. I am super excited to have you here listening to me today. And it really doesn't matter where you are in the world. There are parents all over the world who want to improve their parenting and have a better relationship with their teens. Now I'm excited for today's topic because we're going to be talking about how to Set boundaries. As a parent and how to have empowering conversations with your teen. One of the biggest mistakes that I've made in the past and that I see other parents making is that they don't have empowering conversations when it comes to setting boundaries and they kind of just dive into boundaries from the perspective of, Hey, I'm the parent, you're the teen, you're going to do what I say. And I'm going to teach you some simple principles that will help you set better boundaries. And have empowering conversations with your teenagers. Now, I know that we've talked about this a lot, or maybe I just feel like we've talked about it a lot. I know we've done a podcast episode on it not too long ago, but. I'm working with a lot of parents and this is coming up. I've got one parent whose teen leaves school early. I've got another parent whose teen refuses to go to school. I've got a parent who their teen just hates school and goes, but doesn't really try. These are common things that teens are struggling with. And I have teens that are struggling with other things, not just school from like sports relationships. Yeah. School's part of it. And what I want to do is I want to help you as a mom or as a dad, podcast too, but mainly I'm talking to moms. But I want to be able to help you set boundaries that work for both you and your teen by having empowering conversations. I'm going to teach you some simple principles. Now, I want you to understand these are not step by step processes. There are people that want me to go through like a step by step process and tell me how it's going to work. Tell me what to do, how to do it and how my teen's going to respond. I can't tell you any of that. I don't know how your teen will respond, but I can tell you that if you experiment with these Key principles. And if you practice with them, the process of creating boundaries and empowering your teen will become easier and easier. And in your relationship, you will shift from. Trying to control your teen and you'll make the shift to having connection with your teen. And I can hear, I don't know, maybe you're thinking to yourself right now, well, yeah, well, one of my teen refuses to engage and set boundaries. I'll even teach you what to do if your teen refuses. So let's just, let's talk real quick. Let's dive into principle number one, which is detach from your teen's identity. This is one of the biggest problems that I'm seeing with parenting. And it's one of the things that parents are really struggling with. They don't know how to detach from their teen's outcomes. recently I'm working with a mom who's like, yeah, but Ben, you don't understand my teen could go to jail or detention or court. I know I know that it's serious. I know that it's hard But those are things that you can't control at the end of the day Like what are you willing to do to control your teen? Are you willing to? Ride the bus to school with them. Are you willing to sit in their classroom and go from class to class to class to make sure that they stay in class, to make sure that they are respectful to their teacher, to make sure that they do their work and they pay attention. Now, this is what it means to detach. From your teens results. You realize that you can't control your teen. You, well, I guess you could go to school with them, but they, my teens are probably faster than me now. Like they could just run away and I'd have a hard time catching them. So when I talk about detaching from your teens results, That's kind of this process, and this could be an additional principle, like this is just a principle within a principle. If you need to detach from your teen's outcomes, do the principle that I teach, that I call the T Chart of Control. And look at, what do you control when it comes to your teen's outcomes? Do your teen go to school or not go to school? And identify what can't, can't do. What can I not control and what can I control detach from all the things outside of your control. And that will help you have more energy and focus on the few things that you can control. Now, the problem with being attached is that your happiness. Depends on something outside of your control. You might be happy when your teen does what you want, and they go to school, and they participate, and they work hard. Sounds amazing, but if your happiness is dependent upon whether or not your teen does what you want, that is disempowering to you. And you'll only be happy until your teen stops doing what you want them to do. Which, spoiler alert, When you're raising teens, there's a very high probability that at some point your teen is not going to do what you want them to do. I want you to understand something. You can be a quote unquote, perfect parent and still have a teen who makes mistakes and struggles. And when you can shift your focus and detach from things outside of your control, like your teens outcomes, you can better be the parent that you want to be. Now. It isn't always just that easy, but if you can give yourself the assignment of writing down a list of the things that you're trying to control right now, but you can't, and then if you'll, once you've written down the list of all the things that you're trying to control, that you cannot control, also come up with a short list of the few things that you can control and then remind yourself. To let go of the things outside of your control and to focus on the things that you can control. And also remind yourself, Hey, me letting go of these things outside of my control. That's part of me detaching from my teens outcomes. Your teen can still hate school. They can still be a knucklehead in school and guess what? You have the power to be the mom. That you've always dreamt of being. So that's the first little principle that I want to teach you. Detach from your teens outcomes. Start by identifying things outside of your control and the things inside of your control. All those things outside of your control, let go, detach from those. Principle number two. Start opening up communication with your teen. I want you to really emphasize the importance of talking things out and You can really understand the importance of empowering conversations. When you start to see your teen embrace the power that they have. Now I've talked about empowering conversations in other podcast episodes, and, Basically, what I want you to understand is that empowering conversations, means that rather than lecturing or telling your teen what to do, or doing a lot of parent talking and teen listening, that is not empowering conversation. Instead, what I'd like you to do is to try asking your teen empowering questions, and then you sit back and listen. I get it. At first, your teen might not understand how to respond to empowering questions. Because, If you're anything like me, and sometimes you get stuck in the lecture parent trap, I like to call like my alter ego that is not being the dad that I want to be. That's usually when I'm stuck being lecture dad. And if you're lecture dad. Your teen might have some common responses like, I don't know, or IDK, which is just short for, I don't know. Or they might say something like IDC, which means I don't care. And that's okay. As long as you've given your teen the opportunity to have this empowering conversation, it really doesn't matter if they say, I don't know, or I don't care, or just get the heck out of my room, leave me alone. Like doesn't really matter. What your teen says, because you're giving your teen the opportunity to have this empowering conversation. Now we'll talk later on about what to do if your teen refuses to have this conversation with you. I know I can hear some of you thinking right now. Yeah. Easy for you to say, Ben, like my teen won't even talk to me. We'll talk about what you can do if that's the case, but we'll talk about that a little bit later. Right now, when we're talking about empowering conversations and opening up this dialogue with your teen, there are some go tos that I think are really powerful places to start. And one of those. You could just start with the question, Hey, do you know what the difference is between rights and privileges? This way you can start having a conversation with your teen about rights and privileges. This is wildly misunderstood. Not only. Among teenagers, but also among adults in our world. They don't understand what their rights are. They don't understand what privileges are. They don't understand that privileges can be taken away. They don't understand that we should be trying to defend certain rights. When you can have this conversation with your teen and ask, Hey, what's the difference between a right and a privilege, or maybe you could ask what rights and privileges do you think you have here at home, here in our house? One of my favorite ones is to ask my teens, Hey, are there any privileges that you'd like to have? Are there any privileges that you would like to earn? I wish my boss would come and ask me like, Hey, Ben, are there any privileges that you'd like to have when it comes to working here? Yes, I would like to have one paid week off every month. No questions asked. Like. That'd be an awesome privilege. Now, does it mean I'm going to get that? No, probably not, but at least I voiced it and that's something powerful. I love it when my teens are like dad. I think I should be able to have the privilege of staying out late this weekend, because guess what? I've got really good grades in school. I've been doing my chores like crazy. Like go check the bathroom right now. It's clean. That is the result of having had lots of empowering conversations with my teen. The fact that they know that they can bring up, Hey dad, there's a privilege that I think. I deserve, and if you don't think I deserve it, I get it. Let's talk about how I can earn it. There's another component to this. When it comes to rights and privileges, that, for me, is like a starting point. Which, by the way, I've had parents, it's like they want me to tell them exactly what to say, how to say it, how their teen will respond. I don't know. Just start practicing with your teen. It's powerful. Once you have the rights versus privileges conversation, I like to discuss natural consequences. I like to talk about like, Hey, well, what are some of the benefits of this right? Or this privilege? What are some of the costs that come with this right? Or this privilege? So what I would like to invite you to do is to have a rights versus privileges conversation with your teen. I promise you it'll be easier the longer you keep trying. One of the biggest problems that I see is that parents try and open up the line of communication, and their teen just gives little one sentence answers like, I don't know, or sometimes just three letter answers like IDK. Don't give up. Keep having the conversations. We're going to talk about it here in a minute. About like what to do if your teen doesn't participate. But right now I just want you to start opening up the lines of communication. Every teen that I've ever met wants more privileges. That's an important start to. Or starting point, because you can understand what your teen wants and what they don't want. Okay. Let's talk about principle number three, and this is being willing to roll with the punches. Now you've given your. Teen, the opportunity to have these conversations. One of the things I've talked about a couple of times is that parents kind of want me to tell them what to say, how to say it, how it's going to be received by their teen, what to say next. I can't tell you any of that. I don't even know. I. And not your teen's parent. Your teens probably haven't had to deal with an annoying dad who studies parenting and used to be a foster parent for years. And so I've made my teens practice since about the time there were two. It's okay that you don't know how your teen's going to react. It's okay that you don't know what to say. That's just part of parenting parents want to know, Hey, what's the perfect plan or what's the step by step process? And the truth is there is no perfect plan. There is no step by step process. There's just guiding principles. So be willing to roll with the punches. Because parenting, it isn't linear, you're not going to just be like, okay, well I'm going to start here and tomorrow it's going to be this much better and the next day it's going to be this much better, there's ups and downs, it's practice, it's trial and error. If you've been listening to my podcast for a while, You've heard me talk about the wheel of life. You're always practicing. You're always learning. So I want you to just roll with the punches, trust yourself. Now I can hear you asking a few questions like, well, what if my spouse isn't on board or what if my partner doesn't support me or what if they're not really involved in parenting or what if they're always gone, be willing to roll with those punches. I would hate for you to not do something as powerful as having empowering conversations because you're waiting for your spouse to get on board. I would hate for you to keep waiting to improve your relationship because you're waiting for your husband. Be committed. To being the parent of your dreams. That's powerful. You can create more change than you realize, and your teen might not participate. That's okay. Basically, because you're practicing principle number one, and you're detached from your desired outcome and from your teens outcome. And because you're practicing principle number two, you're just opening the lines of communication. You know, you can't control whether or not your teen participates in this conversation or whether or not your spouse supports you or participates, but you can be the parent that you want to be and you can give your teen a safe space to explore these basic ideas like rights versus privileges, possible consequences. You can talk about positive consequence. Versus negative consequence. And I want to invite you, your teen doesn't know what they are going to say. And I don't want you to know what you're going to say, because who knows what your teen's going to say? I want you to be able to roll with the punches. I want you to trust yourself and just start practicing being the parent of your dreams. So we've talked about principle number one, which is detach from your teens outcomes. Let go of these things. Are outside of your control. Principle number two is start opening communication with your teen. And even if they refuse, give your teen the safe space, the safe opportunity to explore what it is that they're doing. That is impacting their life. And then principle number three, be willing to roll with a punch. I can't tell you exactly what it's, what it's going to look like. so in my business, like I have to do sales, I have sales calls with parents. Like, If you want help with your teen, here's why you should work with me. One of my biggest pet peeves is when people are in sales and they're like, well, give me a script. Tell me what to say. Tell me how to say it. It comes across as inauthentic and someone who doesn't really know how to help you and they don't really care about you. They're just worried about making the sale. The same thing is true with parenting. If you want the exact script on how to do it, you'll come across sounding like a robot. Be willing to roll with the punches. Be willing to be vulnerable. That's how your teen will know that you love them. Now, let's talk about what if your teen refuses to talk with you. That's okay. You've given them the opportunity. You're the parent still. So. You get to make a choice. Like, Hey, you refuse to talk to me. So as long as you're failing this class, I've decided you don't get a cell phone. You don't get video games. You don't want no screen time at all until your grades are up. Your teen might be like, well, that's not fair. That sucks. Say, well, you refuse to have this conversation with me. So I'm just doing what I think is best, but you know, I would be happy. To revisit this with you tomorrow or in a week or however you want to do it. Remember, you can't control whether or not your teen participates in the conversation. You're just going to give your teen the opportunity. And if they refuse to talk, that's okay. You'll make the best decision that you can. And you'll remind your teen this can be reevaluated at any time. So keep that in mind. And as we talk about this principle, number four, let your teen be responsible for their actions. Own consequences. That means if you refuse to talk to me, that's okay. I can't control you, but you're responsible for the consequence. I'm not going to change. My mind, I'm not going to change the boundary or the consequences until you are willing to have a conversation with me, that's you letting your teen be responsible for their own consequences. Um, one of the biggest fears that parents have is that, Hey, if my teen doesn't change, they'll end up. Blank like you can fill in the blanks. However, you want some of the ones that I've heard are they'll end up in jail Or in court or in detention or dead on the side of the road? I understand it's hard and the world would tell you that the stakes are high I also want you to understand that the best way to help your teen Appreciate rights versus privileges and appreciate the power that they have when it comes to making choices in their life is by letting them deal with the consequences of the change or the choices that they've made. We've talked about having empowering conversations. that's Part of this process in how to let your teen be responsible for the consequences that they create. Teens need to understand that life is full of consequences, positive consequences, and negative consequences, and that that's a natural part of life. And you're giving your teen the ability to understand that when your teen refuses to go to school, or maybe they went to school and they just left early, they like. Skipped out after lunch, or maybe they stayed the whole day at school, but they refused to do any work. That's okay. Let your teen make that choice. And try your best to have conversations about like, Hey, if you ditch out of school early, what do you think would be a fair consequence? They'll probably say nothing. Like it isn't a big deal to which you'll say, Oh, I disagree. I think it'd be fair if every day that you leave school early without my permission, you don't have access to the car that weekend and let your teen reevaluate that, let them practice being responsible for their own consequences. If your teen misses curfew, you might have an earlier curfew, but ultimately what I want to invite you to do, let your teen take responsibility for their own consequences. Let them explore what they think would be fair, what they think wouldn't be fair. Watch how they respond. So let's do a quick recap. Here are the four principles that we talked about. Number one, detach from your teen's outcomes. You can't control that. That's their responsibility. Number two, I want you to start opening up communication with your teen. I know it can be hard in the beginning. They might, you know, Say, I don't know. I don't care. Whatever. That's okay. Just start opening up communication. Principle number three is be willing to roll with the punches. I can't tell you what parenting is going to look like. I can tell you that these principles are powered or geez, I can't talk tonight. I can tell you that they're powerful and they are tried and they're tested by real life parents, just like you. And principle number four, let your teen be responsible for their own Consequences. So this week, go have a conversation about rights versus privileges. Go have a conversation about, Hey, what do you think would be fair? Consequence wise, when it comes to this. And just remember, you don't have to change your teen, how your. teen chooses to behave doesn't matter when it comes to what type of parent you are. Be the parent of your dreams. Just focus on what's within your control and let go of the things that aren't. I want to thank you for listening. Thank you for being a fan of my podcast. This is super, this is something that's really important to me. I want to help as many teens as I can. And I know that the most powerful way for me to do that is by helping you, the parent, to start being the parent of your dreams, to help you. Be the parent of your dreams. I want to introduce something. This is completely free to you. This is just a part of listening to my podcast. I want to introduce something called fan mail. I'm going to turn it on in my podcast. I can't even remember what it's called, but buzz sprout is what I use to produce my podcasts and get it on air. There will be a link wherever you listen to podcasts, like it might be on Apple podcast. It might be on, I can't even remember the other ones right now. It might be on buzzsprout itself, but there'll be a little link called fan mail. And what I'd like to do is I'd like to invite you to answer this simple question when it comes to parenting, what type of parent do you want to be? I know if someone asked me. I could tell them right now, I want to be a parent who parents with love, with confidence, with curiosity. And I know the, I know the parenting is fun and easy. That's the type of parent I want to be. So right now, go click that fan mail button. It's just like sending me a text and let me know what type of parent do you want to be. I'll talk to you next week.