IMPACT: Parenting with Perspective
IMPACT: Parenting with Perspective
How to Simplify Parenting by Fixing Just Two Problems
How to Simplify Parenting by Fixing Only Two Problems
Parenting often feels overwhelming—like you’ve got 117 things to fix at once. But what if the secret to real change wasn’t fixing everything… but focusing on just two?
In this episode, Ben shares how a lesson from football and his time as a high school principal transformed into a powerful parenting principle. You’ll learn how to:
- Identify the two core problems driving most of the chaos at home
- Stop wasting energy trying to fix all 117 little issues
- Empower your teen by involving them in finding solutions
- Make parenting simpler, less stressful, and way more effective
Listen now and discover how simplifying your focus can transform your family.
Are You Caught in the Parent Trap?
Discover the hidden patterns that are keeping you stuck—and how to break free.
Take this quick (and eye-opening) quiz to uncover which common parenting trap you’re falling into with your teen.
Get a personalized roadmap to help you parent with more clarity, confidence, and connection—starting today.
https://benpughcoaching.com/parenttrapquiz
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_7_08-22-2025_103116:hello guys. Welcome back to the podcast. Cortni and I usually talk for a minute before I hit record. Sometimes we even talk about like what we're going to talk about today. I was like, I have a good idea. I'm just gonna hit record. Cortni, keep up. Cortni has no idea what we're talking about today.
squadcaster-c1e7_1_08-22-2025_113116:I know it.
ben_7_08-22-2025_103116:I have friends that are very, so have you ever done a Myers-Briggs personality test?
squadcaster-c1e7_1_08-22-2025_113116:no, but I think my sister and I were talking about doing it, and I don't think it ever happened.
ben_7_08-22-2025_103116:Oh, I love Myers-Briggs When I was a high school principal. This was the best training. I still keep in contact with most of my teachers from back when I was a principal and just the other day, one of my teachers was like, remember when we did that two day Myers-Briggs training? And I was like, yeah, that was my favorite. They're like, that was the best educational training I've ever been to, and I love Myers-Briggs. I am an ENFP, which means I'm kind of more extroverted. I. Like one of the ways that they describe ENFPs is that they don't know what they're thinking until they start talking. Like, I have to talk to process things out. Deb is like the opposite of me and likes to have things planned out. But one of the things about me is I'm really good at attracting people that are the opposite personality.
squadcaster-c1e7_1_08-22-2025_113116:Mm-hmm.
ben_7_08-22-2025_103116:And they always tell me, like, Ben, I love hanging out with you, but you always make me anxious because I don't know what you're gonna do. Like, I don't know what's coming up. And I'm like, well, neither do I. It'll just be fun. Let's go on this. So,
squadcaster-c1e7_1_08-22-2025_113116:Oh.
ben_7_08-22-2025_103116:so Cortni has no idea what we're talking about, but I'll give you a little sneak preview. It has to do with a story about my time as principal. A story about my football team that I am helping coach that we just got our butts kicked the other day. And a powerful concept that I don't feel like I've ever taught this, but I talk about it all the time. So this is probably a concept that we haven't talked about on the podcast yet. I don't even know what we'd call it, but basically, well, I'll just lead in with this story. Cortni, are you excited for whatever we're gonna talk about?
squadcaster-c1e7_1_08-22-2025_113116:can't wait.
ben_7_08-22-2025_103116:One part excited and like three parts nervous.
squadcaster-c1e7_1_08-22-2025_113116:No, I trust you, and you'll fill in any gaps. It's all good.
ben_7_08-22-2025_103116:Okay. Yeah, this is gonna be awesome. So we'll start with a story. Back when I was a high school principal, the first year that I took over as principal, the state came in and they're like, Hey, your last principal didn't do all this stuff. Your school was under review. You are on the verge of being shut Down here is a list of 117 things that you guys need to fix. I can't remember the exact number, but it was over a hundred and this document was like 500 pages. And I'm like, seriously, you expect me to read all this? Anyways, so they give us this thing of like 117, that that's the number I used when I. Told this story to my football players. But anyways, they're like, Hey, you gotta fix all these things or we're gonna shut you down. Fortunately, we were also being reviewed for our special ed services and they're like, Hey, how many of your kids that are in special ed. That have graduated, have gone on to hold down a job and work in a job, and our school was really small, so I was like, well, let's just survey all of our students and find out. It was like 0% of our graduates within the past 10 years had jobs. We live in a unique area where some of these people get dividend from the tribe so they could totally live off a dividend.
squadcaster-c1e7_1_08-22-2025_113116:Mm-hmm.
ben_7_08-22-2025_103116:It is completely normal to live with your parents until the day you die. So like they, they're we're just factors. But when we talk to our students, we're like, Hey, if you have had a job and you no longer have a job, why don't you have a job? And they're like, oh, well, I just got in a fight with my boss, or I yelled at a customer, so I got fired. The other reason they didn't have a job was because they're like, oh, I slept in and just didn't go to work. And so they fired me for some reason, or I was constantly late, so they fired me for some reason, and we identified two common themes. It was either their behavior that kept them from keeping a job. Or it was their attendance that kept them from keeping a job. So we identified those two things and we're like, Hey, we're gonna change our grading system. We're gonna focus on behavior and attendance, and the academic portion is just one third of this pie. So we graded them one third on. Behavior. One third of their grade was based on attendance, so 33%, 33%. And then because everyone loves academics, we're like, fine, I can have 34%. But when we focused on attendance and behavior, our graduation rate went from 55% up to 88%, and our suspensions went from over 200 a year to less than 20 a year. And people are like, yeah, but you weren't actually teaching them anything because you're basing their grade on attendance and behavior. Well, our SAT testing or a CT, I can't remember which one we do out here. Anyways, that went up, like our students learned more. Anyways, fast forward to yesterday, we were watching film with this freshman football team. I'm the head coach of the freshman team. Then I still get a help with varsity. I didn't want to be head coach of the freshman team. It kind of just was thrust upon me, but whatever. We got our butts kicked and it was one of the worst football performances that I've ever been a part of. It was following one of the worst practices I've ever been a part of, and we only have 16 kids on this team, so it's not a big football team. In the game, like we had kids that just didn't wanna play. Like our offense would go out onto the field and we were missing two linemen. And I'm like, bro, like you're supposed to be in there. And he's like, ah, I'm not feeling it right now. I'm like, we need some anyways. So I'm sitting here watching film for this ugly, ugly loss and there's like 117 things that we need to fix. I'm talking to my wife and I'm watching film, and even my 10-year-old was watching a little bit of film and I'm like, they're not even trying. And I'm like, oh, well that's effort. And it came up over and over. They're not giving good effort. Well, then the other problem was. There were plays where the kids didn't know the play or they didn't do what they were supposed to. And in football we call that a lack of discipline. And so anyways, we go to watch film and these poor freshmen, they all think I'm gonna yell at'em, which I'm not really a yeller as a coach though. I did come UNG glued on one of the rest.'cause anyways, anyways, we're sitting there watching or we're getting ready to watch film and I tell'em that story. I'm like, Hey. And there was a time in my life we had 117 things to fix and it was just super overwhelming. And then we identified two things to fix. I was like, guys, I watched your film. Guess how many things I noticed that we need to fix? And they're like, hundreds. I'm like 117, but I've boiled it down to two things and then I put'em in groups. I'm like, what do you think those two things are? And so these little. 15-year-old dudes are talking in their groups and they're like, oh, what do you think they are? One group came up with discipline and listening, and the other group came up with physicality and effort, and I was like, this is perfect. Like I didn't even lead them into this. They just talk and came up with this on their own, and so I was like, no, this is great. Could it be possible that physicality could go underneath effort? And they're like, yeah, totally. I'm like, could listening go underneath discipline? And they're like, yeah, totally. And I was like, what else could go under discipline? And they're like knowing the plays, like they just started talking about this and we went from. Like that film was bad. Like there were, there was one play. We had one player do the right thing and we had 10 other guys all doing the wrong thing and we're like, or nothing at all, which is still the wrong thing. Anyways, it would've been really, really easy to get overwhelmed and think, man, how are we going to address every single problem that we have in our football team? But when we shifted the focus, like when we started watching plays, the kids were like, oh, that's just effort. Like even if we do the wrong thing, if we do it with a hundred percent effort, the play will still turn out okay. There's one play where we lost two yards and we're like, look at this, bro. Just standing there watching the play, doing nothing. Like if he had a little bit of effort and just gets in this dude's way, we go from losing two yards to gaining six yards. And they're like, yeah, like we could give more effort. And there was a play where one person. Did the wrong thing, like he didn't know the play. That was a lack of discipline. We're like, look, he could have gotten like 20 or 30 yards if this other dude knew what he was doing, and these kids kind of caught the vision. So now I'll let you guys know how this goes, but in practice when we move from one station to another or we go from one activity to another, we like get together and put our hands in the middle and we we're like, kick butt on 3, 1, 2, 3 kick butt. And we do this cheer. I told'em, guys, you only have two cheers that you can do for the next until we figure this crap out. You can cheer effort or you can cheer discipline. And these 15-year-old kids are all bought in. They're like, yeah. We only have to do two things. We gotta have effort, we gotta have discipline. And I think in parenting sometimes we look at all the things that we have wrong in our lives, in our relationship, and we're like, I got 117 things I gotta fix. I got like this 500 page. It is funny when the state sent me that, this was like back in the old days when you couldn't send files that were too big. It was like 14 emails. Like, seriously, and you want us to do this? Within like the first three months of school, it was so overwhelming, but when we narrowed it down to two, it gave us focus. It gave us purpose and it felt easy to do and it completely changed our school, and I'm really excited for this football season because these boys, they were defeated. They're like, man, how do we fix all this? When we narrowed it down to two and they caught the vision, they're like, oh, we can totally do this. So Cortni, how on earth could we apply that to parenting? Now that you know what we're talking about.
squadcaster-c1e7_1_08-22-2025_113116:Yeah. I was thinking like looking at all of the issues that you have with your teenager. Pick the ones that the most troublesome or most difficult to handle, or, I don't know, but narrow it down, like, don't try to solve all of your problems narrow it down, and like you said, subcategorize and things will just start to fall into place. I would imagine once. things start moving better. I don't know how, how do you apply it to parenting, Ben? Because like, I have my theory, but I'm sure you'll explain it
ben_7_08-22-2025_103116:No, I, I, I like yours. I think yours is really good. one of the things, so back when I used to do courses, which guys, I'm gonna start doing that eventually, I just. They haven't prioritized that yet, but I would often tell the moms that I worked with, like, you're gonna hear lots of things. Just pick one thing, like pick the one thing that you think will give you the biggest bang for your buck. And the crazy thing is like I have prob, I don't know how many moms I've worked with. I should go back and count, but it always. They're able to identify, oh, well this one thing would change everything, and it's not always the same. One thing, like I remember working with one mom, she's like, if I change my inner talk, like she was so hard on herself. Like she would yell at her kids and say mean things, and she's like, to tell you the truth, that's how I talk to myself in my head. She's like, I call myself an idiot all day. I look at myself in the mirror and I'm like, gosh, I can't believe how fat and ugly I am. And it just broke my heart that she treated herself this way. And it made complete sense like, well, this is why you treat your kids poorly because. You're constantly treating yourself this way. And she picked, Hey, that's the one thing I'm gonna work on. And that completely changed everything. And she was surprised. She's like, I can't believe all the different things that it's changed. Like I have more confidence at work. She was a teacher and she's always, it is hard being a teacher. Like you worry about what these little. Knuckleheads, think about you and what their parents think about you. And she's like, when I had better conversations with myself, I had more confidence. I yelled at my kids less. I had a better relationship with my husband. Like when you can pick one thing and when you can identify, hey, this is the one thing that will give me the biggest bang for my buck. It's powerful because it simplifies your life. Now, for the sake of my school and for the sake of the football team, which by the way, if we go back to the school thing, the state board of education was like, Ben, you can't grade kids based on their attendance and their behavior. So any of you guys that are listening and your teachers and you're like, that is so illegal, you can't do that. I know. They told me that too. The nice thing is I was working for the tribe. And I'm a really good salesman. If I believe in something, you're gonna believe in it too. Like if I can just have a little quick conversation, you're gonna see things my way and you're gonna be like, yeah, this is awesome. I had presented our findings and our plan to the governing council of the tribe, and they're like, yeah, your plan makes sense. Like we need more of our tribal members to get jobs and be good employees. Like go ahead, focus on those things. And then the state office calls me and they're like, yo, you can't do that. I may have slightly manipulated the situation cause I told the tribal business committee. I'm like, yeah, the state says we can't do that. They're just trying to tell us how to raise our kids again. Oh my goodness. They're like, oh, we'll call those people. What's their phone number? Like who is it? And the state called me back. They're like, we're sorry, we misunderstood. You can do whatever you want. Just don't have the tribe come get after us. Anyways, the thing is like. And when you can simplify it, others will also buy in. If you can simplify it, if you can believe in it, if you can be bought in, your husband will be able to understand it. He'll be like, oh yeah, this is doable. Your teen will be able to understand it. They'll be like, oh yeah, this is doable. Like the cool thing about the school, we didn't just. Have this little secret thing as teachers and principal, where we're like, okay guys, we know we're focusing on behavior and attendance. No, it was a school wide thing. We did incentive trips and incentive trips back when the other principals did it. It was like you had to have like a degree in calculus to decide whether or not someone could go.'cause it's like, oh, well what about your attendance plus your behavior? Plus your grades, plus, do you have any office referrals? Plus this? Plus that plus. And it is like, no, let's just say if you have less than 80% attendance, it's a no. If you have less than this citizenship grade, the behavior portion, it's a no. All the kids knew, oh, it's attendance and behavior and you knew we were making a change. When we would get parents who would call and complain and be like, your stupid attendance program, we were gonna go outta town, and my kid said, no, I gotta go to school. I wanna go to school. Mom, take me to school. Like everyone was bought in because of how simple it is.
squadcaster-c1e7_1_08-22-2025_113116:Yeah.
ben_7_08-22-2025_103116:And if you're like me, like I see like my oldest just went off to college and I have this long laundry list of all the things that I wish he would fix and do differently, and I wish before he'd have left, I'd have had this conversation and thought, oh, let's just pick two things and make it simple. Make it something that we all understand and we agree to work towards. Go ahead, Cortni.
squadcaster-c1e7_1_08-22-2025_113116:I, I was thinking when you were talking about just the fact that they're showing up more, they're learning more, you know, so they say you can't base their grade off of attendance, but the, the fact that they're in class, they're absorbing more. I think Williams School, they dock points off if you wear the wrong shoes to like PE or something like, and if you have gum, you get points off. So like if you're chewing gum and you have Crocs on, that affects your grade. So.
ben_7_08-22-2025_103116:Yeah, and the cool thing is like when I look at the school, it was really awesome. There was a period where we were the. Oh, they called us a turnaround school, and I can't remember the term that they used, but we had the biggest change in graduation rate in one year, and that was really cool. Like we got awards from the state. We got recognized for doing that when we dropped our suspensions from over 200 a year to less than 20 a year. They're like, we gotta send someone out because you guys aren't tracking. Stuff, right? And they came out and they're like, dang, you guys are doing this? And people would ask me all the time, they're like, geez, Ben, you must be an amazing principal. How do you do this? And then I'd tell'em, oh, we just focus on attendance and behavior. And they're like, no, that's too easy. Like what's the complex formula? The secret formula that no, no one knows about. And I think part of that is because we live in a society and in a culture where we love to overcomplicate things, we love to sound smart and inventive and like, oh yeah, I have this new crazy thing. And when you can simplify it. That's where the real power comes in because I guarantee you, your teenager, when they go to school, they've got 117 things that their teachers want'em to do or that they need to do for football or drama or whatever's going on. Don't add to that. Simplify it. And if you can find a way, like the nice thing about my football players when we were, so we're watching film and I'm like, listen guys. Effort and discipline. Like, I'm your football coach, so we're focused on football, but look how many of you guys have this coach as your teacher. And some of the kids are like, yeah, I do. Effort and discipline. How's that going to affect you in the classroom? And the kids are like, oh, well, the more effort you put into an assignment, the better you learn the thing. If you're disciplined enough to turn it in on time, you get more points. I'm like, oh, amazing. It applies there too. What about work? And these kids are too young, but I'm like, Hey, you're gonna have a job someday when you have a job. How is effort and discipline going to impact? Where you work and when we can help our teens. Or if you're a mom and you're like, man, we have 117 things we gotta fix in our family. If you can identify the two simple things that have the biggest bang, meaning, not only are they going to address issues in your family, but they'll also address issues at their job, in their relationship with their friends in their sport. You get more buy-in from them and if you pick the right ones, like I get lucky, like I was diagnosed with like A DHD and dyslexia and all sorts of things, and they like told me like, Ben, your brain doesn't work right. That's probably why I see things differently and I can just simplify'em like, oh, these are just two simple problems. Let's do that. Like if you can help them start to see the world in a more simplistic way. Like, oh, I feel like my world's falling apart around me. Maybe if I just do this one thing, and whether that's like going to church or maybe finding a new friend group. I'm coaching a young man who's in college and we've done, like, we're almost done with our coaching. And just the other week he's like, you know what? When I go back to college, I think the biggest thing is I need better friends.
squadcaster-c1e7_1_08-22-2025_113116:Hmm.
ben_7_08-22-2025_103116:He's like, I have a friend group that is like an alternative friend group. They're not as cool and as fun as the other friend group, but if I just started hanging out with them, I'd get drunk less. I'd go to school more. Right. I'm like, dude, that's a simple fix. Like, why don't you just do that one simple thing? He is like, I'm going to, like, I'm not even gonna talk to those clowns. They just drag me down, like make it simple.
squadcaster-c1e7_1_08-22-2025_113116:Yeah. I think even for us as parents, like you were giving the example of the mom where she just wanted, she started talking to herself, Just us as parents, narrowing down one or two things that we can fix, and then having the same expectations of our teenagers. You know, there's, I'm sure there's a list of things that annoy us of things that they do or say or don't do, but if we can just simplify it and only focus on those, like oftentimes teenagers. Our goals are unattainable because we have so many things we want them to fix, and so
ben_7_08-22-2025_103116:Yeah.
squadcaster-c1e7_1_08-22-2025_113116:never gonna make us happy, so they're not gonna make an effort. So just narrowing it down to one or two things that they can focus on, it would help them, it would help the relationship, I'm sure. yeah, I like the idea of simplifying, definitely.
ben_7_08-22-2025_103116:and I feel like part of the secret sauce that I didn't appreciate until just when you were talking, like when I talked to the football players, I put'em into two little groups and I'm like, you guys identify what? If there were only two things, what do you think the two things would be? And I already knew what I wanted the two things to be from watching film. I wanted effort, I wanted discipline. It was way cooler that the kids came up with that. And they think they're the ones that like, they don't think, oh, coach Pugh was home watching film. These are the ones he wanted. In their mind, they're like, man. This is what we identified. This is what we need to fix. And the cool thing is when we did the survey for the kids, like at my school when I was principal, like, are you working? Are you not working? Like they weren't intentionally trying to help us find a solution. Like they didn't know they were a part of that. But you can see how we looped them in and empowered them. And they did help us come up with solutions. I. We live in a society that's very prescriptive. Like, Hey, you need to do this. And look, I'm your parent. I'm way smarter than you. I'm gonna tell you what you need to do. If you could empower your teen, if you could be like, like maybe just facilitate the conversation like, man, you're struggling with your girlfriend, you're struggling at school, you're struggling with this and this. Like, what's one thing that would help improve all of these things? If your teen is like my teen, you ask'em that question and they're gonna say, I dk, or I don't know, like it is just gonna be something stupid, but that's okay. You plan to deceive. Give'em time to think and then maybe revisit it later. Hey, have you thought of just one thing that might help improve it? And just be persistent, but you don't have to like force them to come up with a beautiful answer. I don't know is okay. At least you planted a seed.
squadcaster-c1e7_1_08-22-2025_113116:Mm-hmm. And they might think about it and they might do something differently and they probably won't tell you,
ben_7_08-22-2025_103116:Yeah.
squadcaster-c1e7_1_08-22-2025_113116:they might try.
ben_7_08-22-2025_103116:Yeah. You know, there are so many places I could apply this in my current life. I am unintentionally, like in solar right now. I'm like, I don't have time to go knock doors. I don't have time to do all this other stuff. What is one thing that would help the whole, that whole component of my life improve? And so like right now I'm running, anyone listening? If you live in the basin, you've. Possibly heard me on the radio. I'm running radio ads. I'm getting interviewed on the local radio because we're already running Facebook ads and I'm like, what's one thing I could do that will help the whole big picture? Yeah, I'm gonna apply this to more areas in my life. I just need time to explore it.
squadcaster-c1e7_1_08-22-2025_113116:Good. Well, I'm glad we could help you out.
ben_7_08-22-2025_103116:Yeah, thank, thank you guys for coming to this podcast as an ENFP. I don't know what's going on in my life until I think about it. Actually, I don't. I have a hard time coming up with solutions until I can talk to someone about it, and this podcast probably benefits me more than it benefits you guys. And so thank you for giving me a place where I can talk. And Cortni, thanks for being here so I don't have to talk to myself like I normally.
squadcaster-c1e7_1_08-22-2025_113116:Yeah, anytime.
ben_7_08-22-2025_103116:Okay. Well, anything you want to add before we let the good people go?
squadcaster-c1e7_1_08-22-2025_113116:Oh, I think that's good. We'll keep it simple. The theme of the day.
ben_7_08-22-2025_103116:Yeah, keep it simple because guess what, your teens, they're simple minded creatures. Okay.
squadcaster-c1e7_1_08-22-2025_113116:Heck yeah. No, they are.
ben_7_08-22-2025_103116:I think all people are, we just try and pretend that we're way more complicated and complex than we really are, but
squadcaster-c1e7_1_08-22-2025_113116:Yeah.
ben_7_08-22-2025_103116:okay. And know who else is a simple creature. All you mothers out there listening, all you wives, I guarantee you your husband is a simple creature as a husband, like I feel like sometimes when me and Deb like have disagreements. She thinks that I've thought about it way more, and I'm like, no, I hadn't thought of that at all. So just
squadcaster-c1e7_1_08-22-2025_113116:Bless her heart.
ben_7_08-22-2025_103116:I know seriously.
squadcaster-c1e7_1_08-22-2025_113116:Mm-hmm.
ben_7_08-22-2025_103116:And you gotta see her today before we hit record.
squadcaster-c1e7_1_08-22-2025_113116:know what a wonderful lady
ben_7_08-22-2025_103116:She is. And she's a saint because she puts up with me so.
squadcaster-c1e7_1_08-22-2025_113116:that's what I mean. Mm-hmm. Yes.
ben_7_08-22-2025_103116:Okay guys, well we will be back next week. I'll for sure be back. I don't always know until the day of with Cortni'cause I forget to text sometimes. So sometimes if Cortni's not here, it's usually my fault and I forgot to coordinate with her beforehand, but I think we'll be back next week. Right Cortni?
squadcaster-c1e7_1_08-22-2025_113116:Yeah, that's kind of you for taking responsibility for that. But no, it's, I'm gonna set my alerts, like to do the day before and then maybe a couple the day of,
ben_7_08-22-2025_103116:I, if I had a personal assistant, her number one job would be, Hey, make sure me and Cortni schedule align on one day so we can record a podcast.
squadcaster-c1e7_1_08-22-2025_113116:that's all you would use your personal assistant for.
ben_7_08-22-2025_103116:no, that would be her main job.
squadcaster-c1e7_1_08-22-2025_113116:Oh. All right, well, I'll, I'll work out. I'll simplify a way that I can make sure it works every Friday.
ben_7_08-22-2025_103116:Okay. We'll be back on Friday unless we're not, in which case I'll be back. But anyways. Okay. See y'all next week.