Your Teen Doesn’t Actually Hate You

Does it feel like your teen wants nothing to do with you? The truth is, they don’t hate you—they actually want to connect with you, even if they don’t show it! In this episode, we dive into why teens act distant, how parents can misread their behavior, and the simple changes you can make to build a stronger bond.

We’ll talk about how your beliefs about your teen might be affecting your relationship and why connecting through shared values is so important. You’ll also hear real-life examples, practical tips, and advice for making invitations to spend time together—even when your teen acts like they’re not interested.

If you’ve ever felt frustrated or stuck when trying to understand your teen, this episode will give you the tools and mindset to reconnect and strengthen your relationship. Don’t wait for your teen to come to you—it’s time to take the first step!

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_04-18-2025_101212: 0:32

Hello guys. Welcome back to the podcast. Thank you for being here. Cortni. I need to come up with a new thing to say when we start, because I feel like every single time I'm like, hi guys. Welcome back. Thanks for being here.

cortni_1_04-18-2025_111216: 0:47

Yeah.

ben_1_04-18-2025_101212: 0:48

Yeah,

cortni_1_04-18-2025_111216: 0:49

a a 10 word vision statement for, you know, what you should when you start.

ben_1_04-18-2025_101212: 0:54

that's a good idea. It'll be something like, welcome to the jungle. No. That's my favorite intro songs when like, so when you coach football, you play like lame music when the other team comes out of the locker room and then when your team comes out it's like, enter Sandman or Welcome to the Jungle, or anything from ACDC. Anyways, welcome back to the podcast guys. Thank you for being here. Just it's, it's always the same. Anyways, today we are going to be talking about one of my favorite parenting secrets, and the reason why this is one of my favorite parenting secrets is sometimes it's a little bit controversial, so, so I'll bring it up. Parents all the time will argue with me and be like, well, no, no way. Not my teen. It's kinda like when you go to Thanksgiving and you don't even care about politics, but you start talking about politics just to annoy your family and like get into a discussion like, oh no, let's raise the temperature of the room. Come on guys. So. This little secret. See if Cortni were my family member, I don't care about politics. I'd show up to Thanksgiving dinner and just be like, so Cortni, no. Anyways, the secret that we're going to talk about today is your teen wants you to connect with them, and parents argue with me all the time. They're like, not my teen. My teen hates my guts and. I can see how that's easy to believe. If your teen is anything like my teen and probably Cortni's teen, sometimes they act like a complete porcupine. Like they don't want you to touch'em or be near'em or anything. Cortni, would you agree with that?

cortni_1_04-18-2025_111216: 2:57

Okay. I've never heard my son described better. I love that porcupine.

ben_1_04-18-2025_101212: 3:03

Yeah, it just, does he like, what are some of his favorite ways to show up as a porcupine?

cortni_1_04-18-2025_111216: 3:12

Just doesn't respond when I speak to him. saying, I don't know. I don't care. Can you leave so friendly?

ben_1_04-18-2025_101212: 3:23

Can you leave? Okay,

cortni_1_04-18-2025_111216: 3:25

Do you need something?

ben_1_04-18-2025_101212: 3:27

Yeah. with that tone.

cortni_1_04-18-2025_111216: 3:30

Mm-hmm.

ben_1_04-18-2025_101212: 3:31

Uh, have you ever been guilty of using that tone on him?

cortni_1_04-18-2025_111216: 3:35

Oh, I'm sure I do. Unfortunately. I'm sure I do.

ben_1_04-18-2025_101212: 3:40

Uh, he learned it somewhere.

cortni_1_04-18-2025_111216: 3:44

I know.

ben_1_04-18-2025_101212: 3:45

Prob probably his favorite aunt, no. Um.

cortni_1_04-18-2025_111216: 3:51

She's so sweet. She would never talk like that.

ben_1_04-18-2025_101212: 3:54

So my teens like, they'll get short, they'll get snappy, but it's really easy to fall into the trap where you believe that your teen wants nothing to do with you. And if you fall into that trap, here's the reason I think this is so important, I believe. Your perception of the world is very much dictated by how you think. So if you think that your teenager wants nothing to do with you, your perception of your relationship with your teen is gonna change, and your teen might be avoiding you. That's just part of being a teenager. But if you buy into this belief that, oh, my teen hates me, they want nothing to do with me. Now on top of them avoiding you, you might start avoiding your teen and that is a recipe for disaster. But if you can change, go ahead.

cortni_1_04-18-2025_111216: 4:58

No, I was gonna say, if you believe that, then you're gonna approach them, you know, and interact with them as though they want nothing to do with you, you know? Or walking on eggshells. It's just gonna change the way you are with them, if that's what you believe.

ben_1_04-18-2025_101212: 5:11

Yeah, it's gonna change the way you behave around them. It's gonna change the way that you interpret how they behave around you.

cortni_1_04-18-2025_111216: 5:19

Mm-hmm.

ben_1_04-18-2025_101212: 5:21

one of the most powerful things that you can do as a parent is to buy into the belief that your teen. Not only do they want a connection with you, but they want you to connect with them. And I feel like far too often parents sit back and they're like, well, when's my teen gonna come ask to hang out with me? When's my teen gonna ask me to go to his ball game? When's my teen gonna come sit down next to me and say, Hey, can we have a movie night? Uh, probably never. So stop waiting for that and understand that your teen wants you to invite them. Um, interesting thing. So my second oldest, and hopefully his girlfriend, hopefully the girlfriend's parents don't listen to this podcast'cause that might be awkward and weird. But if they do, hi Anyways, so they're over at our house just the other day. And I'm like, Hey, do you guys wanna play foosball?'cause we have a foosball table at my house. And they're like, yeah, sure. We played like four or five games. It was so much fun. It was awesome. And then after that I'm like, Hey, you guys want to come play a card game upstairs? They said, sure. If I were to believe the assumption that, gosh, he's with his girlfriend. My son wants nothing to do with me, the girlfriend probably wants nothing to do with us. Like, it's weird, it's awkward. I wouldn't extend the invitation. But guys, I know the secret, my teen wants me to connect with them, so I'm gonna do my best. I'm gonna. Make offers, I'm gonna ask, Hey, do you wanna do this? Do you wanna do this? And here's what I'm also going to understand. As much as my teen wants me to connect with them, they still wanna look cool. So a pretty high percentage of the time that I offer to like, Hey, you want to hang out? You wanna play games? You want to go get a burger? They're gonna say no. And act like it's the lamest idea that has ever been invented. I just understand That's okay. They want to connect. They want me to connect with them, but they also wanna look cool, so I get it. It makes sense.

cortni_1_04-18-2025_111216: 7:48

Mm-hmm.

ben_1_04-18-2025_101212: 7:49

what do you think about all that?

cortni_1_04-18-2025_111216: 7:51

I think I was meant to hear this today. Um, my son's girlfriend

ben_1_04-18-2025_101212: 7:57

I.

cortni_1_04-18-2025_111216: 7:57

over to our house too much and it came out a couple weeks ago.'cause I asked him, I was like, well, why doesn't she come over? Um, and he went to her house and like they had a conversation and he came back and he's like, do you thinks you don't like her? And I was like, I don't ever see her. Like, how, how? I have no reason to dislike her, I think when she does come over, I need to make an effort.'cause I usually just leave them alone. But maybe, maybe not. I think you're absolutely right. I just need to offer and if no, then I go back to doing what I was doing. It's a great idea.

ben_1_04-18-2025_101212: 8:29

You are welcome.

cortni_1_04-18-2025_111216: 8:30

Thank

ben_1_04-18-2025_101212: 8:31

You're,

cortni_1_04-18-2025_111216: 8:31

appreciate that.

ben_1_04-18-2025_101212: 8:32

yeah, yours. I, I don't know if we we're like protecting your son's identity. I can't remember if you've ever mentioned his name, but maybe he reached out to me and was like, Ben. Seriously, bro. My mom needs to, he did not do that. But we could take the, your teen wants you to connect with them a little bit deeper, and you could totally say your teen's girlfriend wants you to connect with them. But I think the real truth of the matter is human beings. Need connection, and people don't want to talk about this. Like we are still healing from covid, not the side effects. So I do know some people that are like, I still can't smell a thing, but the emotional damage that we received from over a year of a lack of connection. And the cool thing about Covid was. I feel like I saw a lot of people that were desperate for connection. Like all of a sudden parents are like playing video games with their kids. Kids are playing board games with their parents, like out of desperation. We're like, well, I gotta connect to someone and I can't go to school for connection. So you are it. The truth is, human beings thrive on connection and when you start to understand, oh, my teen wants me to connect with them, it. Positions you as the hero of your story instead of the victim who's at the mercy of your teen. Whether or not they want to connect, you're just always going to make that invitation. And sometimes they'll participate, sometimes they won't. Like the day that you and me and your son and all the other people, like you're all there. It was awesome. I. I could see some of those teens having a really good time and doing their best to act like, uh, it's okay. They'd like crack a smile and then be, oh yeah, it is. Okay. That's okay. Teens are gonna do that as much as teens value hanging out with you. The value of being cool or like fitting in is probably slightly higher. So just operate from the belief that, oh, they want me to connect to them and don't take it personally when they're like, no, you're lame. Why would I, why would I want to go to the store with you? Uh,'cause I'll buy you a milkshake or.

cortni_1_04-18-2025_111216: 11:09

my son would be like, just bring me back a milkshake. another thing too that I think is really important, um, and connecting with your teen is trying to connect with them in something that's in alignment with their values, things that they like to do, not necessarily things that I like to do, like I couldn't get him to go shopping, but maybe I could get him to go downstairs and play pool. asked me to play pool or ping pong, and there have been times where I was like, eh, not right now. Or I have to do this to do this. And in hindsight, I wish I would've because that was, he was actually trying to connect with me and to be better at that. But yeah, I think connecting, doing things that are, that are important to them.

ben_1_04-18-2025_101212: 11:49

Yeah, there was a mom, she used to be in the membership, I think at the same time as you. She played video games with her son

cortni_1_04-18-2025_111216: 11:59

Mm-hmm.

ben_1_04-18-2025_101212: 12:00

one of my favorite video games, it's called Portal two. It makes me so motion sick. Like after 15 minutes of that, I am on the verge of barfing anyways, like she had spent so much time trying to get her son to value things that she valued. And like doing things her way. And the one time that she's like, oh, you really value this video game, can I play? He's like, yeah, mom, you can play. And they played and she sucked at it and she got sick. And then the next thing, her son is drawing this map like. Mom, this'll help you for the next time we play. You gotta on a portal here. You gotta do, like when you start building values-based relationships based on your teen's values, that's when you can really start to connect with your teen, and that's what your teen is hoping for. Let me give you an example of this, Cortni. You know that I love football. Do you know any two year olds that just naturally love football?

cortni_1_04-18-2025_111216: 13:13

Can't say that I do. No.

ben_1_04-18-2025_101212: 13:14

No, they don't really care. But my oldest, I remember when he was two, I'd be watching football. He would come sit on my lap and he would start cheering for the team, yelling at the refs. He didn't care about football. What did he care about in that moment? I.

cortni_1_04-18-2025_111216: 13:34

Connecting with his dad, hanging with his dad.

ben_1_04-18-2025_101212: 13:37

exactly. Like we know how to build values-based relationships. Like little children are the best at that. Like they don't care about cleaning, but they see mom cleaning and they're, I wanna come help clean. Like, let's do this. This is awesome. As parents. Two little secrets. Secret number one, I promise you, your teen wants you to connect with them, so stop waiting for them to connect with you. And the second te secret, I guarantee you, you and your teen have a lot of values in common that are going unnoticed, and parents make such a big deal when they're like, oh my. Teen just went and got a tattoo. My teen is sleeping with a girlfriend. My teen, like all the things that are out of alignment with your values. I'm not saying you're just okay with all of that, but guess what? That's probably outside of your control. If you can start identifying the values that you have in common with your teen, you can start building these connections based on shared values instead of building disconnection based on. Values that are in conflict with each other. And seriously, if you wanna uplevel your parenting, just go work on those two things. Let those could be a complete game changer in your life.

cortni_1_04-18-2025_111216: 15:05

Yeah, and I speak from experience, like, just be careful with how you respond if they do shut you down.'cause it's really easy for us to pivot back and be snappy with them and be like, well fine. Like,

ben_1_04-18-2025_101212: 15:16

Yeah.

cortni_1_04-18-2025_111216: 15:18

Um, don't make them feel bad for not wanting to connect with you.'cause at first they're probably gonna be like, whoa, is this a trap? Like, what are you trying to do?

ben_1_04-18-2025_101212: 15:25

Yeah.

cortni_1_04-18-2025_111216: 15:25

if it's not something that we've done. So just be careful with how you respond.

ben_1_04-18-2025_101212: 15:31

Yeah, and I would almost say like be really intentional. I. To not have an attachment to the desired outcome.

cortni_1_04-18-2025_111216: 15:41

Mm-hmm.

ben_1_04-18-2025_101212: 15:41

I hear this all the time from parents, like when that mom played video games with her teenager for like six months after that, parents had like send me an email or they'd bring it to a coaching call or they'd reach out in some way and they'd be like, I did what you said. I played the video games and my St my kids still won't. Do X, Y, and Z. That's manipulative guys. You're like trying to be this great mom and like do this stuff so that your teen will change. That's not why we're doing this. I want to just really reiterate that fact, like trust that your teen wants you to connect with them and reach out to make connections without an attachment. That they're all excited and they're like, oh, heck yes, mom. I've been wanting to hang out with you. Be okay if they like look at you and roll their eyes and they're like, I can't believe you'd even ask me that in front. My in front of my friends. Really? Now they think we're friends too. It's not bad enough. You're my mom. But now everyone thinks we're friends. Be okay with that. Just know that you are being the mom that you want to be, and when you can allow yourself to be the mom that you wanna be, it'll be way easier to let your teen be the teen that they want to be. Even if they wanna be a knucklehead today or a porcupine or a knuckleheaded porcupine, those are the best kind.

cortni_1_04-18-2025_111216: 17:12

Yeah, yeah. That's great.

ben_1_04-18-2025_101212: 17:15

Okay. Well I feel like we, I don't know, covered this topic really good. Um, what's something that most people wouldn't think about? Like, give us an example from your life. What is. A value that you and your teen can connect on that other people might be able to be like, oh yeah, well I could connect on that and I hope you don't steal mine.

cortni_1_04-18-2025_111216: 17:43

um, I mean, likes to play ping pong and pool. I. And he kicks my butt every time, which might be part of the reason I'm hesitant to jump up and play, but I shouldn't worry about that. Um, and then like his sports is, I mean, I, that's watching him is one of my favorite things, and that's a really big value to him.

ben_1_04-18-2025_101212: 18:07

Yeah, awesome. There's another cool one. The girlfriend right now, if he's anything like my kids, like girlfriends at this age, they jump up to the top of their values really quick. So like last month I would've told you that my son's value, the top value was basketball. He would still tell you the top value is basketball, but he's got a practice that he can go to multiple times a week and he's now skipped out on that practice twice to hang out with a girlfriend. So that tells me the girlfriend is now a higher value than basketball. That just helps inform me like, oh, he really likes his girlfriend. I'm gonna try and really like her too. Which, I'll be honest with you, I've got two teenagers, sometimes I. I meet their girlfriends and I'm like, seriously, dude? Like if they like him, I want to try and find a way to like them as well so that we can share that value. Um, the answer I was gonna use that I was hoping you wouldn't steal hamburgers. I have yet to meet a teen that does not value hamburgers. If you're having a hard time, wait, he doesn't.

cortni_1_04-18-2025_111216: 19:23

doesn't, no, he does not eat beef, red meat, nothing. so picky.

ben_1_04-18-2025_101212: 19:29

Wait, like if I took him to get like a ribeye steak, he wouldn't be interested,

cortni_1_04-18-2025_111216: 19:36

Nope.

ben_1_04-18-2025_101212: 19:38

man. Wow. I'm starting to question whether I can still be friends with it. No.

cortni_1_04-18-2025_111216: 19:44

You should come out here and like break the ice between his girlfriend and I, because I'm kind of awkward, so I'm sure if you come out it would be so much fun.

ben_1_04-18-2025_101212: 19:52

Oh yeah.

cortni_1_04-18-2025_111216: 19:52

have a total in then if.

ben_1_04-18-2025_101212: 19:55

Well, usually, I don't know why I can connect with teens so well, half the time they make fun of me. Uh, this morning I was playing basketball and there's a bunch of teens that are on the high school basketball teams, which sucks for an old fat guy like me because not only are they in better shape than I am and I have to chase'em around and try and stop'em, but they're also better than I am anyways. I was on one team, which by the way, we played six games today. My team won five outta the six. That was awesome. And this one kid, he is probably the best player there. He's gonna be a senior this year. He's a little older than my son who's pretty good, I'd say. Number one, then number two, anyways, he had a shirt that said, cheer on it. And I was like, oh, when he makes a basket, I'm just gonna say, nice shot cheer. Have you heard the thing where? And then the other person says, that's not my name, quarterback. Anyway, he drains this three. And I'm like, nice shot cheer. And he looks at me and he is like, what? And I'm like, bro, you're supposed to say that's not my name, quarterback. And he is like. How do you even know about that? You're like older than 40. And I'm like, yeah, I have a 9-year-old who keeps me up to date with all the brain rot. So, uh, I'm pretty sure my 9-year-old, if he was in charge of this podcast, he would rename my podcast to the skippity toilets or some brain. Not like that, but

cortni_1_04-18-2025_111216: 21:33

I've heard of that.

ben_1_04-18-2025_101212: 21:35

yeah. Okay, guys, if you're listening. Your teen wants you to connect with them. Just identify some of their top values that you can have in common and go build connections right there. All right, with that, we'll let you go. Cortni, anything you wanna add?

cortni_1_04-18-2025_111216: 21:55

And if you have any questions about today's topic, go to your podcast and click Send Ben a text.

ben_1_04-18-2025_101212: 22:01

Yeah, we should add you to that too. Send Ben and Cortni. Send me all the easy questions. Give Cortni all the hard ones. All right guys. Well, yeah. All right. We'll see you next week. Thank you for being here. Go connect with your teen.