How 3 Decisions Improved My Parenting Forever

In this episode, I’m sharing three decisions that completely changed the way I parent. These simple choices helped me build a stronger relationship with my teen, let go of stress, and become the parent I’ve always wanted to be.

You’ll hear about:

• The #1 book that changed my perspective on parenting.
• Why letting go of control can actually help your teen.
• How creating a parenting identity makes parenting easier.

Parenting doesn’t have to feel overwhelming. Tune in to learn how these three decisions can make parenting simpler, more fun, and more effective.

Don’t forget to leave a review and share this episode with other parents of teens!

Want a Simple Step by Step Parenting Debrief Guide?

Go download the FREE Parenting Debrief Guide.

It’s simple and quick. It will help you uplevel your parenting. And, it’s completely FREE!

1. Go to benpughcoaching.com/debrief
2. Download the debrief
3. Start with your own internal debrief.

Transcript

Ben: 0:00

I'm Ben Pugh and you're listening to IMPACT! Parenting with Perspective. 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_02-26-2025_071915: 0:33

Hello, welcome back to the podcast. Thank you for being here with me. You might notice that Cortni is not here with me today. She is traveling today and couldn't make it so. You get me, I'll buy my lonesome, but Cortni should be back soon. Today we are going to be talking about three decisions that changed my parenting forever, and some of these were very much accidental or maybe even coincidental, like I didn't. Do all of these with the purpose of being the best dad that I could be and to really uplevel my parenting. Some of them are just because it was where I was in life and I happen to go down this path and it really helped me in my parenting. So today as we talk about the three decisions that really helped me uplevel my parenting, I want you to explore. What are some decisions that you could make that would really help you uplevel your own parenting? So decision number one that we're going to talk about is there was a time where I had heard about leadership and self-deception, and I remember that was on my. To read list and I can't remember what happened, but that got bumped all the way to the top of my list. And if you've been following me for very long at all, you've probably heard me talk about leadership and self-deception multiple times. I know Cortni and I have talked about that. I think we even did a podcast about that. Probably two-ish years ago. Anyways, I love this book. Leadership and Self-Deception is the number one book that I recommend when people ask me what could I read? Or oftentimes people will be like, man, I can't make it work in my life right now to work with you. What's something that I could do to help me? In my parenting, and I always tell people, read leadership and self-deception. I feel like this book has helped me in my parenting probably more than anything else at that time, like this book helped me take responsibility for me and it helped me really commit to being the type of parent that I wanted to be. It helped me. Commit to being the change that I wanted to see in others. And to this day, I actually read this book at least once a year, sometimes twice a year because I love it so much and there are powerful reminders that I need in my life. To help me be the dad that I want to be. So if you are the type of parent who wants a better relationship with your teen, or if you're the type of parent who wants to up your game in parenting, or maybe you just love personal development like I do, this book, like I said, is the number one book that I recommend to parents, and I highly recommend it to you if you want to uplevel your parenting. After reading leadership and self-deception, there were some relationships in my family that completely changed, like my extended family, like me and a brother and sister-in-law, we. It started getting along better. We became the best of friends in my own immediate family like me, my wife, my children fighting and arguing decreased dramatically. And I remember this really helping me shift my focus from my teen and other people back to myself and. In leadership and self-deception, there's a concept of being in the box. And for whatever reason, this really made sense to me and I started noticing that when I experienced conflict with my teen, or with my spouse, or with other family members, or even with coworkers, I was in the box toward these people. And when I realized, no, I'm in charge of whether I'm in the box towards someone, it really helped me. Get outta the box. It helped me choose to think differently. So the number one decision that I made made that really changed my parenting forever is reading leadership and self-deception. And I just wanna reiterate this is, so I, I recommend a handful of books. Um, one is, gosh, it's by Brene Brown. It's like. Oh, I can't even, the gift of imperfect parenting, that is also a really good one. But leadership and self-deception, I would recommend that over the gift of imperfect parenting. I really love Brene Brown. I just like the results that I've seen. Um, lots of times when I recommend leadership and self-deception, people will come back to me. Like Cortni, she didn't read it for a long time, and then when she finally read it, she's like. This changes everything, so go check it out. If you haven't yet, that might be one powerful decision that will completely change your parenting. Okay. Let's talk about decision number two. I stopped trying to control my teen, and I'll be honest with you, I still struggle with this from time to time. I think it's human nature to try and control things, especially. When it comes to our teenagers, we just, we want to control'em. But over and over, I have found that when I recognize that I'm trying to control my teen, and when I let go of that control, it empowers my teen and it helps my teen make better decisions. It helps me get along with my teen better and if. I refuse to control something that's actually in my teen's control, that empowers my teen to control whatever that thing is. Now, I hear a lot of parents that are like, well, what if my teen refuses to control those things? Like one example that I can see is teens who choose not to go to school. Like I'm working with one mom. She's like, I can take my kid to school. Then he leaves with his friends, like, I can't control whether or not he stays. And she has been letting go of control. And she's like, man, I thought when I let go of controlling whether or not he went to school, he would take control of that and he would go to school. Well, he's kind of taking control of that and he's chosen not to go to school, which I like to remind parents. We're empowering our teens to make that decision. We're also empowering our teens to deal with the consequences that they create. So like I said earlier, I am not perfect at this, and if you are anything like me, you might slip up from time to time and try to control your teen. But if you commit to letting go of things outside of your control, I promise you will have more clarity. You'll have more focus and you will have more energy to control the things that are actually within your control. Now, one of the exercises that I like to do, I personally do this mentally all the time, but sometimes with the parents that I'm working with, I'll draw it out and we'll walk through, but I like to create. A T chart that I call the T chart of control. And with this T chart on the left hand side, I like to write things I can control and I explore all these things within my control. On the right hand side is where I write things outside of my control or things I cannot control. And this is where I explore all the things outside of my control. Typically, I actually start on the right hand side because it's far easier to identify all the things that I'm trying to control that I can't actually control. And then to go back on the left hand side and be like, okay, well I can't control whether or not my teen goes to school. What can I control? You know what? I can just call the phone company and turn off his cell phone if he chooses not to go to school. I can't control whether or not he goes to school, but I can definitely control whether or not I allow him to continue using the cell phone or whether or not I continue paying for it. So. I love this exercise because it helps me identify where I'm wasting my energy on things outside of my control. And then it helps me move my attention from the things I can't control to the things that I can control. And then that's where I place my energy. And this has really changed my parenting because this is one of those decisions that when I made it. Like, Hey, I'm not going to control things outside of my control anymore. It really helped me have the energy to be the parent that I want to be because all the energy that I was wasting on things outside of my control, like who's my son dating? Is he behaving when he is out with his friends? Like what's he doing on a sleepover? Those are all things that I couldn't control. Like what grade is he getting? How's he behaving for his teachers? But when I shifted my attention and I was like, oh, you know what? If I get an email from your teacher that you're being rude and disrespectful, you're going to lose some privileges that I control. It just helps me be the dad that I want to be, and without the emotional attachment. And I'll also throw this in. I talked about the mom earlier who's like, Hey, I am working with my teen. I can get him to school, but I can't make him stay at school. And she kinda thought, well, when I let go of control, he'll take control of that and he'll do what I want him to. That's another attachment. That is an attachment to the desired outcome. So you're thinking, man, if I let go of control, then my teen's gonna take control and he'll do exactly what I want him to do. Yeah. It doesn't always work that way for me. My desired detachment would definitely go on that right hand column of things that I cannot control. And so I'm gonna let go of that desired detachment and I'll let go of how my teenager behaves.'cause I can't control that either. And I'll just reign in that energy and reapply it to myself. Well, you know what? If my teen chooses not to go to school, then this is who I'm going to be. This is how I'm going to feel and how I'm going to behave. So let's go ahead and let's move on to the third decision that drastically changed my parenting, and this is when I decided to define my parenting identity. I don't remember how I stumbled on this. Um, I know I was working with Jim Fortin at the time, who I, I love Jim Fortin. He is. Probably my all time favorite coach. He'd be really cool if he ever listened to this podcast, but he is a big, he's a big time coach. I don't know that he would ever listen to mine. But anyways, I think part of the 10 word vision statement, the activity that I like to help parents really define their parenting identity, I think a lot of that was inspired. By Jim Fortin when I was working with him, and I was really working to clarify and define my own role as a coach, as a human being. And I was like, wait a second, what if this applied to parenting? So there was a time, like I remember feeling lost as a parent. if you have parented teenagers, you've probably experienced that before. And if you haven't yet, don't worry, it's probably right around the corner. But I remember not being sure if I was doing things right and I would second guess myself. And parenting felt really overwhelming and I struggled to parent consistently. One day I was super soft and lenient, and the next day I'd be super. Critical and really harsh. And that's when I realized, you know what? I need to have a clear vision and I need to define the kind of parent that I want to be. So I created my 10 word vision statement, and I've got it here in front of me. It's parenting with love, confidence, and curiosity is easy and fun. And by the way, I'll be honest with you, that took me. A long time before I settled on that one. And here's my little secret. I was doing a group coaching thing with a handful of parents and I kind of, I was able to see all the parents 10 word vision statements. I was like, Ooh, that's really good. Ooh, that's really good. Oh, I like that one. In fact, I should do another group 10 word vision statement, um, activity, because it really helped me and it helped the other parents. Define their role as parents, and this simple statement, parenting with love, confide, and curiosity is easy and fun. This statement has helped me stay grounded when parenting has gotten tough. This statement has reminded me to respond with love instead of frustration. It helps me remember to trust myself and to approach parenting with. Curiosity instead of judgment. And one of the most important things is it really helps me commit to having fun in my parenting. If parenting for me, if it's not fun, I know I'm not being the parent that I want to be. I'm not parenting in alignment with my identity and. The thing is, once I had a clear parenting identity, everything started changing. I stopped reacting out of fear, out of judgment, out of anger, and I started parenting with a purpose. I knew who I wanted to be. The best part is that my teen noticed a change. Like one of the funniest stories that I share is there was a point where I was parenting my teen and I wasn't necessarily parenting the way that I wanted to parent. And my teen was real quick to point out, dad, I don't feel like you are being loving. I don't feel like you're parenting with curiosity right now. And I was like, dang. Why are you using my own stuff against me? I actually didn't say that, but I realized, dang, he is right. And so I was able to recommit, no, this is not who I want to parent. I want to be loving. I want to be confident in my decision. I want to be curious, and it has helped me be the dad that I want to be Now. In these three decisions that have changed my parenting forever. I want you to understand how easy these are. Um, you can get leadership and self-deception. I listened to the second edition. I've heard they've made some drastic changes in the latest one and that some people don't love it. I haven't read the latest one, but I really love leadership and self-deception. The second edition, my dad prefers another book by the. Same writers. The Arbiter Institute called the Anatomy of Peace teaches the same concepts just in a different way, but leadership and self-deception. You can get that on Audible and you can listen to it while you're doing chores around the house, while you're driving to and from work, whatever. It's super easy letting go of. Your attempts to control things outside of your control or trying to control your teen, I promise you, when you let go of the illusion of control, especially when it comes to your teen parenting will get easier. And the 10 word vision statement, I have done multiple podcasts on that. I do free. Trainings on that fairly often. I need to get back into that. I need to do more. But that whole process of the 10 word vision statement, that's gonna take you like five, 10 minutes of the most. And then you'll have this parenting identity, which I recommend you write on three by five cards and hang them throughout your house so that you have a constant reminder. But that's gonna take you like five, 10 minutes maybe. It has the power to radically change how you show up as a parent for the rest of your life. That's how powerful that is. So the thing I want to point out, I didn't make all of these decisions the very same day, and then my parenting was just easy for evermore. No, this was. Process, leadership and self-deception. I read that years before I became a parenting coach and I just, I read it when I was a high school principal and I wanted to be the best high school principal I could be. I was also a foster parent at that time, and I realized, oh my goodness, this is helping me be a better foster parent. The t-chart of control, that's one that I'm still working on. I started when I was a principal again, but as I've let go of things outside of my control, I've better mastered the things within my control. I was just part of the process. And then the 10 word vision statement, I was definitely a parenting coach at the time and a teenage coach, but you don't have to do all of these in the same day. Master them all. Take time. If you wanna start at leadership and self-deception, do it. Go read the book. It might take you a week or two if you want to just start at the T chart of control and you're like, you know what? I can do that. Start there, and if you'd like to do the if 10 word vision statement and clearly define your parenting identity, that's also a perfect place to start. Now if you want. A free, simple, step-by-step guide. To help you do a parenting debrief, go check out the show notes for this podcast. Download the parenting debrief. It's as easy as three simple steps. Step one, go to benpughcoaching.com/debrief. Step two, start with your own internal debrief and just explore, Hey, what am I doing as a parent? And then step three, enjoy being the parent of your dreams because that debrief is gonna help you understand where your. Missing the mark and where you're hitting the mark. With that, guys, I will see you next week. I believe Cortni will be back and we'll talk about something amazing and until then. If you've enjoyed this podcast or any other podcast, please go ahead and leave me a review on iTunes and share this podcast with any parent of teens that you know so that they can get the help that they're looking for to be the parent of their dreams. I'll talk to you soon.