Your Teen Can Hate You… and You Can Still Have a Great Relationship

Your teen might hate you sometimes… and you can still have a great relationship with them.

Most parents think their relationship with their teen is something they both share. But that’s not how it works. You have your own relationship with your teen, and your teen has their own relationship with you—and they’re not the same.

In this episode, you’ll learn:
 • Why your teen’s thoughts and feelings are NOT your job
 • Why trying to make your teen like you actually hurts the relationship
 • How to stop being a “doormat parent”
 • How to set calm and clear boundaries
 • How to focus on the things you can control
• How to improve your relationship with your teen even if they don’t change at all

If you want more peace, more confidence, and more connection with your teen, this episode will show you where your real power is.

Full show notes for this episode: benpughcoaching.com

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

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_12-09-2025_104738: 0:32

Hello and welcome back to the podcast. And thank you for being here. I realize that there are other things that you could be doing, and I just am grateful that you are willing to come visit me and, let me help you make the most out of your parenting experience with your teenager. Now, today we will be. Working on something that has been coming up lately in my coaching sessions with parents. even some free consultations and some people have reached out to me, and this is a common theme. I have talked about this in the past, but I haven't talked about it for a while. So today we are going to talk about the difference between your relationship with your teenager and your teenager's relationship with you. And the reason we're going to do this is because a lot of parents have come to me telling me that they feel. Handcuffed. They feel like they can't do what they feel like they should do as parents because they're so worried that it will ruin their relationship with their teen. Or if they say no, or if they don't give in, then their teen will hate them. And I want to help you be able to connect with your teen without letting your teen walk all over you. And if you've been following me for a while, you know that I talked about three parenting traps. I talked about the controlling parent trap, and there's this pattern that I often see where parents go from the controlling parent trap to the doormat parent trap. They go from one extreme to the other. They used to try and control everything their teen did, but now they let their teen walk all over them, and that's what I call the doormat parent trap. once you've tried the controlling parent trap and you've tried the doormat parent trap and you're like, what? Neither one of these two work, then parents often get stuck in the lost and confused parent trap today. We will dip into a little bit of the controlling parent trap, but this is a lot to do with the doormat parent trap, and one of the things that I. Really pride myself in is being able to help parents improve their relationship with their teenager without their teenager even having to lift a finger. So this will help you even if your teen like you know that they're not going to do anything on their part to improve, and that's okay. So what I teach, it does have a slight twist and I have had people reach out to me that wanted to argue this point. And yeah, I can see different perspectives. I'm okay with that. The thing is, for what I teach and how I teach it, the way that I teach about relationships, it's unique. It's the most empowering way that I've found for you and your teenager and this little twist is that most people look at relationships as if it's like this shared thing or this shared space, oh, my wife and I, we have this relationship that we work on together. That's fantastic. I can see the value in that, but the way that I teach it is that relationships aren't really shared spaces. They are more personal and they're more internal, individual experiences. For example, you have a relationship with your teen, and your teenager has a relationship with you, and those are two separate things. You can have a fantastic relationship with your teen. You can think they're amazing. You can love them. You can just do all the nice things for them, and they can still have a terrible relationship with you. They can think you're the worst parent. They can hate you, and they can do all sorts of rude and disrespectful things to you. The power comes in when you realize. You don't have to manage your teens relationship with you. You only have to manage your relationship with them. So let's dig into this a little bit more. What exactly is a relationship? I believe that your re or a relationship, specifically your relationship is your thoughts. Your feelings and your behaviors when it comes to someone else, and all of this exists in your mind and in your nervous system, so we can think about it and we experience feelings. For example, your relationship with your teenager is shaped by. What you think about them, how you feel towards them, and how you choose to behave towards them. And no one else can control your relationship with your teen. No one's in charge of what you think, how you feel, or how you behave. Not even your teenager, only you. Now, at the same time, your teen also has a relationship with you. And based on their thoughts, their feelings and their behaviors, that is their relationship with you, and that is their model. If you've been working with me for a while, and you know that I teach a concept called the self coaching model, which means that you have circumstances, they're neutral, they're factual, they're outside of your control, and then. You have thoughts about those, and those thoughts create your feelings, and those feelings drive your actions and behaviors, and those actions create your results. Your team's model is basically a representation of their relationship with you. It's internal, it's theirs, it's inside of them. Now, these two relationships, so your relationship with your teen and your teen's relationship with you, they don't always match. Like I said earlier, you can have a fantastic relationship with your teen and they can just want nothing to do with you. That's pretty natural. That's common for the course of parenting teens. also I have had parents tell me that they feel extremely disconnected from their teens, and I have talked to their teen and their teens. man, I have a great relationship with my parents. They respect me. They give me my space. The two relationships can be different, and that's okay. This is normal. It doesn't mean you're failing as a parent, it just means you are a parent of a teenager. So let's talk about the trap that parents fall into all the time. And this trap is trying to manage their teen's model. This would fall into the controlling parent trap, but it's sneaky. It can also be part of the doormat parent trap because if you are letting your teen walk all over you, the doormat parent trap, but so that your teen will like you. You are secretly trying to control their model. You're trying to control whether or not they like you. Now what happens is a lot of times parents think, man, if I set a boundary, then my teen won't like me. Or if I say no or I won't give them this money, then I'll look mean or I better give them gas money. I better like whatever it is. Or I want them to respect me, so I'm just going to evolve. Avoid this conflict. All of this is really just an effort to manage your team's thoughts about you, how they feel towards you and their behaviors, which is literally trying to control the part of this relationship that is not yours. And anytime you try and control or manage your team's model or their relationship with you, this comes with consequences. You end up neglecting your own model and you end up neglecting your relationship with your teenager. Often this, I can see this turn into weak boundaries. This always turns into resentment towards the other person in the relationship. It usually results in burnout for the parent, and it'll make you feel completely powerless. And at the end of the day, you don't show up as the parent that you want to be. So let's look at this through a different lens. Your job as a parent of a teenager is to manage your relationship with your teen, not your teen's relationship with you. This instantly gives you power. Because when you stop trying to control something outside of your control, that gives you more power to control what you actually can control. recently I talked to my mom. She's I want my kids to like me. Like, how do I get my kids to like me? And I'm like, you are focusing in the wrong place. You're focusing on what your team feels. You need to look at it from a different lens. Go of the things outside of your control and then focus on the things that you can control. You're not responsible for how your teen thinks about you, but you are responsible for how you allow yourself to think about your teen. You are responsible for your emotional experience as a parent. You are responsible for how you show up as a parent for the boundaries that you uphold, for the values that you let drive your life, and from the identity that you parent from. Here are some things that you are not responsible for. Your teens opinion of you. They can share it, but it's really none of your business. Your team can think you are the worst parent in the whole world. Spoiler alert, that probably means you're doing something right. So don't try and control your teen's opinion of you because you're not in charge of that. You're not responsible for that, and you can't even control that. You are not responsible for whether or not they approve of a rule or a boundary or your choice. You're not responsible for their emotional reactions. If your teenager is having a full-blown two-year-old temper tantrum, that's on them, not on you. You are not responsible for how they perceive your parenting. You're not responsible for their behavior. Now, if you've followed me for a while, you've heard me talk about the T chart of control. I know it's super simple. I know you probably don't need to write it out, but if you feel stuck. Write it out, draw a simple T on the left hand side, write down all the things that you can control on. I think maybe I misspoke. On the left hand side, you're gonna write down all the things that you can control. On the right hand side, you're gonna write down all the things that you cannot control. This is a good practice because when you let go of the things on the right hand side that you cannot control, that frees up energy that you can now apply. To the small handful of things on the left hand side that you can control. So if it isn't your job to manage your teen's relationship with you, which quick reminder, that means it's not your job to manage how they think about you, how they feel about you, or how they behave towards you. Now let's look at what you can do instead. I talked about the T chart of control. Another way that I like to talk about that is letting go of managing your teen's model. Stop trying to control how they think and feel. Stop trying to control how they behave. Notice when you as a parent are bending over backwards to get them to approve of you or like you, or notice when you are afraid of. Parenting in a certain way because of how your team will respond. You're letting fear drive your life and ask yourself, am I trying to manage their relationship with me? If you are, stop it. You can reinvest that energy into your own model. This is a part that parents always forget. Letting go of your teenager's model, letting go of your teenager's relationship with you frees up a massive amount of emotional energy, and you can redirect that into your relationship with your team, how you think about them, how you feel about them, how you behave. You can reinvest that emotional energy. Into living your 10 word vision statement, being the parent of your dreams, holding clear and calm boundaries, respecting your teen's autonomy, and showing up consistently as a parent that you want to be, especially in top of the wheel moments. Now, something to keep in mind, this is probably going to at some point, require that you do some boundary work. And that you start setting boundaries based on your values rather than your team's reactions. We're not here to talk about boundaries, but if you find yourself in the boundary category where you're like, no, I need to work on it, I would say make it so that they're simple to understand. Make it so that there's something that you can actually follow through with. Also lead by example. Find ways that you can help your teen establish boundaries that you can respect Boundaries always improve relationships, even if it isn't immediate, like you set a boundary and your teen, you're like, Hey, look, I know in the past I always gave you gas money, but that's a really big privilege and I don't feel like you are earning extra privileges. So until you get your grades up, until you help more around the house, until whatever it is, I'm not gonna buy you gas in the moment. Your team will probably be pissed. But here's the good news. You will feel better about yourself and about your team because you set a boundary eventually. Boundaries improve relationships. And I would also invite you to understand what happens naturally. When you strengthen your relationship with your team, most people are so focused on their teen's relationship with them. Like, how do I get them to like me more? How do I get them to respect me more? You're focused in the wrong spot. When you improve your relationship with your teen, you show up as a better parent. You're more calm, you're happier, you're more grounded, you're more grateful. You stop trying to control your teenager and you start connecting with your teenager, you stop giving away all of your power, and you start re harnessing your power into being the best mom that you can be. And this will help you improve your relationship with your teen. When you improve your relationship with your teen, eventually your teen will improve their relationship with you. It's powerful. Trust it. Stop trying to manage their relationship and just manage your own. Now let's talk about a few real life examples. I've had multiple parents over the years want me to work with their teenager and for whatever reason, either their teen wasn't interested or I felt like oftentimes I'll talk about the catalyst. It's very rare that. Your teen is the catalyst for change in your home and in your relationship. Typically, that catalyst is you and I have worked with moms who from week one, they started working with me. They started applying these powerful principles and things changed with their team immediately. I worked with a mom. Her teen was out selling drugs on the corner, and she was so worried and she was trying to control her teen when she started working on herself. Eventually, her teen started respecting her more, quit selling drugs, graduated from high school, won a bunch of entrepreneurial awards in his school. When I was a principal, I used to try and manage how my students thought about me, whether or not they respected me or the other teachers, or like I couldn't control any of that and it was driving me nuts. And so when I committed to, no, my students can disrespect me, that's on them. I will always be respectful. I will always be kind when I knew who I was. It no longer mattered who my students Cho chose to be. That wasn't my job. It was just my job to show up and be the best version of me that I could be. Now, I wanna be honest, it can be hard to let go. You might feel like you are like letting your team just go out to the wolves. The truth is if you are like most parents, you are hanging onto things that you can't control anyways. I was talking to a mom and a dad recently and I'm like, no, seriously, like you are thinking about taking away your teen's truck, he could probably just steal that truck from you and go join the circus. As parents, it's normal that we try and control things that are actually outside of our control. We do that all the time, and most teens, we gotta give'em credit. Guys, they are really good at letting us pretend like we can control everything. And if your teen follows your rules, congratulations. You have a teen who is willing to let you pretend that you can control things that you can't. When you start letting go of these things outside of your control, it will be uncomfortable. Your teen might not know what to do. They might push back even harder and do stupid stuff. That's okay. Just really get good at identifying what you can control. You know what? I can't control if you go out drinking with your buddies and if you don't come home tonight, but I get a control whether or not I pay for your cell phone bill. And if you're not gonna use your cell phone to let me know where you are or that you're not coming home, I'm just not gonna pay for your cell phone. that's you. Focusing on something within your control. It's not easy. That's not gonna be an easy conversation with your teen, but it will empower you because you're gonna stop trying to control your teen and you're just gonna control you. So I want to encourage you, reexamine, whose relationship am I trying to fix today? Am I trying to fix my teen's relationship with me, or am I trying to fix my relationship with my teen? And I want to invite you. Get really good at managing your own model so you can stop trying to manage your teen's model. Get really good at managing how you feel about your teenager. You do that by understanding how you think about your teen. If you think that they're not good enough, they're not trying hard enough, they're lazy, I guarantee you, you're not gonna feel great about them and it will have a negative impact on your relationship. Because you already have crappy thoughts about your team, you don't feel great towards your team, and it will change how you behave towards your team. Fix your relationship with your teen rather than worrying about your team's relationship with you guys, this is powerful. If there's one thing that you were going to work on, like it is Christmas season right now, give your team the gift of a better relationship. From you. Look, I used to think terrible things about you. I'm sorry. I'm gonna stop it. I think you'll be just fine in this life. You're in charge. You're gonna make mistakes, and I will love you anyways and it will change how you treat them. Okay. That's all I've got for you today. I wanna thank all of you guys again for listening to the podcast. I also want to thank those of you who have reached out and booked a free consultation with me. I do still have a few more spots. I'll be honest with you, my teen spots are, they're going fast. I, what happens is I can only work with teens. Usually after school. And what happens is if I have basketball or whatever is going on in my own personal life, I want to fit those in and that reduces the slots that I have for teens. So when parents come to work with me, I always ask, can you work with me during the day so I can keep these teen slots open? I am extremely limited on my teen slots. if you come talk to me and I can't get your teen in immediately, I apologize about that. usually they can get on a waiting list and they get priority and I can fit'em into my calendar. Usually it only takes a few weeks, maybe a month. And if your team needs immediate help, I can always point you in the direction of other life coaches who are also really good. So I do have some spots for teens. I have a handful of spots for parents. If you would like to look into coaching, if you would like, like we're getting towards the end of the year, guys, let me help you position yourself. So that 2026 is amazing. You can book a free consultation@benpughcoaching.com slash mini. And yes, I do have. A couple slots available for teens, so don't worry about that. if you're a parent, you probably don't have to be as worried because usually I can fit you in during the day. But I would love to help you improve your relationship with your teen. I guarantee you the answer is within you. It's not inside your teenager. Don't try and fix your relationship with them by fixing their relationship with you. Start with you. I promise you that's where all the power is. And if you would like help doing that, hit me up. Go to ben pugh coaching.com/mini and book a free consultation today. And those of you who are just lifers listening to the podcast, thank you. I'll see you again next week.