The Real Reason Your Teen Won’t Go to Bed

Is your teen staying up too late, sleeping through alarms, and walking around tired all day?

You might think your teen has a sleep problem.

But what if sleep is not the real issue?

In this episode, Ben and Cortni talk about the real reason many teens won’t go to bed. It is not just phones, video games, homework, or bad habits. A lot of teens are trying to fit sleep into whatever time is left over.

And if we are honest, a lot of parents do the same thing.

You’ll learn why your teen may be exhausted, anxious, grumpy, and hard to wake up. You’ll also learn how a simple sleep routine can help your teen calm their mind, get ready for the next day, and fall asleep without so much pressure.

This episode will help you stop fighting your teen about sleep and start looking at the bigger picture.

Because your teen may not need more lectures.

They may need help learning how to protect what matters most.

Want help setting boundaries without the constant fight?

Join me for my live workshop: Boundaries That Don’t Suck: Get Your Teen Working With You

It’s happening May 12th at 2:00 PM MDT, and it’s only $7.

Sign up here:
 https://benpughcoaching.com/boundariesworkshop

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.

0:31

Quick heads up before we jump in. One thing I'm committed to with this podcast is keeping it ad-free. I can't stand podcasts where you have to sit through a bunch of ads just to get to the good stuff. So instead of running ads, every once in a while, I tell you about something I'm offering that I think will genuinely help you. Right now, I'm doing a short workshop called Boundaries That Don't Suck. Get your teen working with you. If it feels like every conversation with your teen turns into the same argument, this is for you. I'm going to show you how to set boundaries with your teen in a way that actually gets more follow through without nagging, yelling, or giving in. It's only$7, and if you can't make it live, no worries. You'll get the replay. You can grab it at benpughcoaching.com/boundariesworkshop. All one word, boundariesworkshop. No spaces, no nothing. All right, let's go ahead and jump into this episode.

Ben 1:34

if your teenager has been struggling with sleep, that's what we're gonna talk about today. And if we're honest, a lot of adults struggle with sleep and it isn't that they're struggling with sleep, it's that they don't prioritize. their sleep. So if you have a teen who's always anxious, always exhausted, can't seem to fall asleep, we're going to help you understand some things that you could implement to help your teen this exact thing. And usually this isn't actually a sleep issue, usually this is more of a life design issue. If that sounds like you or if you just think, no, the problem is my teen is always staying up too late. That's why they're always tired. We have some things that can really help you with this, so stay tuned. Listen to the whole thing. If you are like most parents, you have a teen that wanders around your home like a zombie. And we're gonna teach you some really simple things to help you deal with that. Cortni? I am curious, when you were a teen, what did your sleep schedule look like?

Cort 2:43

Oh Lord, that was so long ago. I, I'm not sure, but I'm sure I was up late and I know I was hard to get outta bed in the morning.

Ben 2:50

Yeah,

Cort 2:51

Yeah.

Ben 2:51

yeah,

Cort 2:52

Okay.

Ben 2:52

Did your parents ever come in with like a of cold water and just.

Cort 2:55

Oh my gosh. I thought my mom was the only one for sure. She did.

Ben 2:58

Yeah.

Cort 2:59

Oh, I got wet so many times.

Ben 3:00

Yeah. The crazy thing in my house, we are real heavy sleepers and I remember getting pulled outta my bed by my ear. I remember getting cold water dumped on me. So I do want to point out, and Cortni, you said something that a lot of parents, this happens to them, they don't really remember. a teenager was a long time ago,

Cort 3:23

Mm-hmm.

Ben 3:24

for Cortni. I just. A long time ago. The thing is, you probably don't remember, but as a teen you probably had a lot of the same issues that your teen is dealing with, that's just, there's so many exciting things to do in the world, plus biologically, like teens want to stay up later they wanna wake up later. And the problem is we have a world. Or society that moves at a different pace. And so while this looks like a new problem, because our teens now have screens that they're on all the time, they have like between social media, ai, video games, there's a lot that with sleep. And the reality is sleep just isn't as sexy as a video game or a social media. Cortni, we can say sexy on this podcast. We just can't say other words.

Cort 4:19

I, I don't know if I would've ever classified sleep as being sexy, but

Ben 4:23

Yeah.

Cort 4:23

I get your point. I understand what you're trying to say.

Ben 4:25

Yeah. So let me give you a little bit of backstory here. have been working with this lady, she's a teenager. I feel bad. I can't actually remember what grade. she's in. Maybe a junior. Maybe a senior. I can't remember. I forgot that part, She came to me specifically for sleep, and her and her mom are like, Hey, we need you to help her sleep better. She can't fall asleep at night. She can't stay asleep. And then she has a really hard time waking up in the morning, and sometimes she'll just sleep through her alarm if she does get up on time. She's just a zombie and she can't. Function and she's just tired all day long. And I have a sleep routine that I teach teens, and it works really, really well. Even if teens only do it like halfway, it still works really well. And these parents had heard about this and they're like, Ben, we need you to help our daughter. So her for about two weeks, and she's doing the sleep routine, which really isn't that complex. It's just taking the last hour before you go to bed and turning it into a routine that supports you falling asleep. So we limit screen time. I don't want you on your screen that last hour. I have you do a thought download during that last hour. You'll brush your teeth. Shower, put your PJs on whatever it is you do. That all goes in that last hour. You'll kinda set up your next day by setting out your clothes or your gym bag or whatever you need for the next day. Super simple. about an hour. And then the last part is you know how many hours of sleep you want, you know what time you're gonna get up in the morning, so you kinda mathematically figure out, this is when I need to be. Going to sleep. And the goal is to get you in bed 10 minutes before the time that you wanna be asleep. And the reason for that is a lot of teens, I'm actually guilty of this too, Cortni, tell me if you've ever done this. ever stayed up too late? And then you look at your clock and you're like, oh my goodness, I gotta get up in like six hours. I gotta hurry and fall asleep. I gotta fall asleep as fast as I can. And the faster you try and fall asleep, you can't fall asleep. Does that ever happen to you?

Cort 6:43

Yes. Mm-hmm.

Ben 6:45

Yeah, and the magic is if I can get teens in bed 10 minutes early, there's no rush. And typically they'll fall asleep This young lady is like, don't have time to do the sleep routine. I'm like, it's only an hour, if we need to, we can cut it down to half an hour. Like let's keep working on it. It turned out it wasn't that she didn't have time to do the sleep routine, that isn't making time for sleep. We did this exercise where we counted out all the time a week that she spends on things other than sleep. So we got school, we got church, we got seminary, we got a job, friends eating. All these things added up to somewhere between 128 hours a week 138 hours a week. Cortni, how many total hours are there in a week?

Cort 7:36

Eight Ben.

Ben 7:37

Man? How did you just know that? I asked her before we hit record. She had no idea, which.

Cort 7:42

I was off by like four, and it was quick math.

Ben 7:44

I didn't know the, the first time I, like when I got into this, I had no idea how many hours there were a week. Anyways, the thing is, if you do some more quick math, if we have 168 hours a week. If you subtract 138 hours of those, you are left with only 30 hours a week for sleeping, and that comes out to about four and a half hours a night. If we give this young lady, the benefit of the doubt, 168 minus 128 is 40 hours of sleep. And you might be thinking, well, I work 40 hours a week, maybe 40 hours of sleep is all I need. only comes out to about. little over five and a half hours a night. Now, the reason I bring this up to you, a lot of parents come to me and they say, look, my teen has a sleep problem. This is not a sleep problem. is a lifestyle and a prioritization problem, your teen is probably learning from the world. From you as their parent, because let's be honest, as parents, we do the same darn thing.

Cort 8:52

Yep.

Ben 8:53

is learning to prioritize everything in life first and then to take care of themselves with what little they have left over. And, and our goal, like if your teen is struggling sleeping, I guarantee you they have other struggles in their life. Cortni, this is one of my favorite things to tell teens. Do you know how we torture people nowadays to like, get information out of them?

Cort 9:17

I mean, you just exhaust them, right, so that they're mentally not there.

Ben 9:22

Yeah, like old idea of like, I don't know, chaining someone up to like an old. A wire mattress and then hooking it up to like a battery with ER cables. Hell no.

Cort 9:33

Yeah.

Ben 9:33

that in like the movies? That's how they torture. Just electrocute'em anyways. Yeah, we don't do that. We feed them really well. We make them super comfortable. We treat'em super nice so that they'll like us, but we do not let them go to sleep. And within I, I don't know how many hours, I watched a video that talks about this once and they're like. There's no truth serum like in real life. Like there's things that we can use that we claim we're close, but they're like, nothing is an actual truth serum. man, you get someone sleep deprived and they have no filter, they can't help themselves. They start losing touch with reality.

Cort 10:11

Mm-hmm.

Ben 10:12

that's how important sleep is.

Cort 10:15

Mm-hmm.

Ben 10:16

So just to put this all in perspective, according what happens to you when you're sleep deprived.

Cort 10:22

I get tired. Cranky. Well, obviously tired if I'm sleep deprived. Cranky. I'm just not productive, I don't think is clearly. But I'd say probably crabby is, is the biggest one.

Ben 10:34

Yeah, me too. Like I just, I'm grumpy. It is springtime. I love spring football. We've got a bunch of eighth graders that are gonna be on my freshman team next year. We're all lifting weights and me and my 10-year-old have been going my 10-year-old lifts weights with'em. I'm still recovering from an injury. I haven't lifting weights, but even without lifting weights, if I stay up too late and then I get up early and I go lift weights, I'm grumpy in the morning. Or at the end of the day, like when I'm

Cort 11:04

Mm.

Ben 11:04

of energy, I'm just grumpy and my 10-year-old is grumpy. Like I think that's just like if your teen's grumpy, they probably need more sleep.

Cort 11:13

Mm-hmm. Yeah, I feel like when my child was getting, was more sleep deprived when I would see him up late. He was crabbier, he was harder to deal with. He did give me more attitude. And then when I implemented that, shutting off his phone at a certain time because of his missing assignments, he would go to sleep sooner because he was bored. So, I mean, if we, if I kept his phone on and he could keep himself entertained, he'd stay up till 12 o'clock, one o'clock,

Ben 11:38

Yeah.

Cort 11:38

but now he's asleep by 11.

Ben 11:40

Yeah, because sleep's not as sexy as the phone. See parents talk to me all the time. They're like. My teen isn't motivated to do anything, and I'm like, okay, well tell me what exactly is it that your teen isn't motivated to do? Math. That's the number one thing. Parents tell me, like, my kid is failing in math or biology or something insanely boring. And I'm like, okay, well what do they do instead of that? And they're like, video games. to their friends on Snapchat. Watch TV shows. I'm like, well, there's your problem. Like how on earth is math supposed to compete with unlimited TV or video games? And so the same is true for sleep. Like sleep is not sexy. It's not the thing that teens think, oh man, I need sleep. No, there's other things like, oh, I gotta hang out with my friends. I gotta stay caught up on school. I gotta do a job. I gotta do all this. And so for this young lady specifically, like she thought I have a sleep problem. But as we dig into it, like the sleep routine really helped by the way. She's like, man, I'm able to fall asleep within 10 minutes. I sleep through the whole night. I'm getting pretty good at waking up on time. The problem is. Math, like four hours of sleep isn't enough she's got all these things added up. Like 138 hours is not leaving her enough time to get the sleep that she needs. no amount of magical sleep routine and morning routine is gonna make up for a lack of sleep. And so a lot of parents like. If you are like me, you probably set the wrong example. And Cortni, I'm gonna be honest with you, like this is like a confessional time. Sometimes Deb and I will stay up and watch a show. Oh, even our kids, like, have you ever watched alone?

Cort 13:35

No.

Ben 13:36

Okay. It's this TV show where they send people out into the wilderness all by themselves to see how long they can last.

Cort 13:44

I think I've seen like clips of it, but yeah.

Ben 13:46

Oh my goodness. They do such a good job of getting you hooked because we do this all the time. Like the episode will end and I'm like, what the, how can they end right there? And my kids are all like, dad, you're so dumb. Like we could see it coming. They're building the tension. And I'm like. Let's just start the next episode. And more often than not, not only do we start the next episode, but we finish that next episode. Now we're like, oh, but now we gotta start the next one. But the problem is am modeling to my children, we're gonna prioritize entertainment and the thing that's going to. Get the chopping block is my own personal needs, my sleep. So Cortni, do you have anything in your life? Confession time, like don't hold back you are. Modeling unhealthy behavior when it comes to sleep or self-care.

Cort 14:38

Hmm. I mean, I feel like I do take care of myself last I guess I'm modeling unhealthy behavior with sleep. But my little kids, I am pretty strict with them, so they're in bed on time, so they don't have a chance to see my bad habits. But my teenager, yeah, he could probably see. I feel like I have been making more of an effort to go to bed a little sooner. And I think I need to start that sleep routine of just shutting everything off. Even 30 minutes before

Ben 15:05

Yeah,

Cort 15:06

that would help because I know my body needs sleep. I feel better when I get more sleep.

Ben 15:11

I have another teen that I've been working with kind of a, a fun situation. I'm also working with the mom, and the mom on her coaching session was complaining like. I have to go try and wake my kid up like three times before I can finally drag his outta bed. And I'm like, oh, I'll teach him about the sleep routine on our next coaching call. So I'm talking to this dude, and here's the thing guys, I'm a pretty good salesman. So not only do I teach the sleep routine, but I completely sold this kid. On the sleep routine. And I'm like, look dude, you want more privileges in your life? You gotta show your parents that you are responsible. You can handle these. the crazy thing is the next, I think we had two weeks in between the coaching call with mom and my next coaching call with her and she's like, dude, don't know what you did, but my kid is waking up all by himself every morning. And it, it was kind of fun to coach her on like, yeah, that's awesome. Like we address something he is working to improve. as a mom, reinforce that, like what can you do to show him like, look, I appreciate your efforts here. You are being more responsible. Here's more privileges. the cool thing about this young man, the next time I talked to him, he is like, dude, you were totally right. That sleep routine is amazing. And because I've been getting up on time, like my parents are letting me stay out later. They let me take the nice car on a date. And I'm like, like we can. Help our teens create a reality where the sleep routine and self care in their behavior. Like here, like the salesman part of me, had to make sleep sexy. Like when I made it to

Cort 16:58

Oh God.

Ben 16:59

this is totally worth it. Now he goes through the sleep routine and the crazy thing is he has the same problem that this young lady has that I've been working with. just a math problem. got a hundred and we, we didn't do the same exercise, but basically he's got more things in life that he wants to do or feels like he needs to do, and then sleep is the thing that gets sacrificed. But because he has bought into the benefit that comes with waking up on time, he is making sacrifices. he told me he had some friends that wanted to hang out and he's like, it would've cut my bedtime routine and

Cort 17:39

Hmm.

Ben 17:39

a Thursday and I know I would've had a hard time getting up Friday morning and I have big plans for the weekend. I want all the privileges.

Cort 17:47

So even he was feeling better just like getting a good night's sleep

Ben 17:51

Yeah.

Cort 17:51

he was able to say no. That's awesome.

Ben 17:52

And the truth is, if you can help your teen realize, like, look. This world, our society, they don't really care about you. They want you to give everything you've got, like your boss. He just wants you to spend as much time at work doing as much as you possibly can, and then he's gonna pay you as little as possible the industry or the capitalist world that we live in. Cortni's laughing at me right now because I.

Cort 18:20

That was a smile. I wasn't laughing.

Ben 18:22

limited vocabulary, but anyways, like our capitalist nature, like they want us spending as much as possible. I feel like I see this a lot in like the weight loss industry. Like if you watch tv, like you have a McDonald's commercial and there's like this buff dude and his Skinny wife and they're just like chowing down on McDonald's food and they're like, oh yeah, we love this. We can eat all that we want. the truth is, if you ate the way that we were marketed to, you would not be the weight that you want to be. You wouldn't be the weight that you see the actors doing the ads. And I feel like, so I used to coach people on weight loss and a lot of times people want to lose weight. But they still wanna be able to eat everything that they want. it's like, eating the way that you want is what got you to this point. Continuing to eat that way isn't gonna help you lose weight. And the same is true for sleep. Like being able to do everything is what is getting you sleep deprived. And if you want more sleep and if you want to take care of that need, you are going to have to make some sacrifices. it's not

Cort 19:29

Or pri,

Ben 19:30

oh, go ahead.

Cort 19:31

sorry. Priorities like I. I feel like you have a tool in your program where it's divided into four corners and there's like the needs to do now, needs to do, but not right now. Don't you have that little block where you can break down your tasks on what's critical, what's not, what can wait? Maybe that would be helpful to prioritize the things that you have to do and not go to the bottom two squares and get some sleep.

Ben 19:58

Yeah. Yeah, I, I actually have that up on my wall right here. That is Stephen Covey's four quadrants, if you're curious about it. And quadrant number one. These are things that are important and they're urgent. like your house is burning down, like, oh, it's important and

Cort 20:15

and we need to get everybody.

Ben 20:16

Out.

Cort 20:17

Yeah.

Ben 20:17

Quadrant number two is where things are important, but they're not urgent. And I learned this hack when I was a high school principal. The more you focus on quadrant number two, the things that are important but not urgent, less you have to deal with quadrant number one, where things are. Urgent and important. And then quadrant number three, I should really look at this more often, but it's things that are not important and they're urgent. This is like your coworker that sends you an email in the middle of the night. It's like, oh no, I didn't do something and I need you to bail me out. And you're like, well, this is urgent, it's not important to me. Sorry, I gotta take care of me. then quadrant number four, and this is a part that blew my mind. This is the things that are not important and are not urgent. This is like Candy Crush or.

Cort 21:07

Yeah. Why people stay up for an extra hour at night. I caught myself last night. It was all of a sudden it was 1130 and I'm like, oh my gosh. Like I put my phone down and go to bed.

Ben 21:16

Yeah, so like Candy Crush Alone would fit into this,

Cort 21:20

Mm-hmm.

Ben 21:21

video games. But here's the thing that I didn't realize. you spend too much time in quadrant number one, which is urgent and important, is very mentally and emotionally draining because these things are important and they're urgent. And then to decompress, what we like to do is spend a lot of time in quadrant number four. Which is not urgent, not important, like Man, I just gotta take a load off. I'm gonna do Candy Crush, or I'm gonna a show, or I'm gonna, whatever it is. The secret is if you can get really good at doing quadrant number two, the not urgent, but important. It will decrease the amount of time you have to spend in quadrant number one, which will decrease the amount of time that you spend in quadrant number four, just wasting time. That will help you spend more time in quadrant number two, is much more emotionally sustainable because stuff is important, which means it's more fulfilling as you do it, it's not urgent, which means it's not just going to constantly drain you. Now. I love that you brought up prioritizing. I want to ask you this. Where do teens learn how to prioritize?

Cort 22:32

I would imagine their parents,

Ben 22:34

Where did you learn how to prioritize?

Cort 22:36

probably maybe my parents, but maybe just the social pressures of having to get so much done,

Ben 22:43

yeah.

Cort 22:43

you know?

Ben 22:44

Yeah, I think there's a good balance of both. Like if you ever saw my dad or heard my dad talk, like people tell me all the time, dang, you look just like your dad, which is kind of offensive. I'm trying to look less like my dad, but I also sound just like him. Like we have the same mannerisms, we have the same, like, we're just very similar. I learned that from him just by watching him. And I remember my dad trying to lecture me and it's kinda like the Charlie Brown thing where all you hear is like,

Cort 23:11

Mm-hmm.

Ben 23:12

but I watch him, or I watched him subconsciously as a teen and now that's how I show up as an adult. And that's fine. Like that's something that is important for parents to realize having an impact on my teen. I better be more intentional with how I show up. And then the other part is. The social pressure, especially in school, like I talked to a school counselor a couple weeks ago. If you, if this is your first time listening, you might not know yet, but I don't really love school. I was a high school principal for five years. I think school's a waste of time. I was talking to the school counselor and I'm like, dude, we are demanding too much crap from our kids. Like when it comes to school, like why, why are we requiring them to do work without all the tools at their disposal? Like wouldn't it be better to teach them how to use AI rather than pretending like it doesn't exist and then punishing the kids for using it? And anyways, of the things that we're talking to, he is like, if kids want to be successful nowadays, they need to be spending five to six hours a night doing homework. And I am like, so you want the kid to be at school for eight hours and then you want to add six more hours? And he is like, well, when they go to college, that's how it's gonna be. And I'm like, it shouldn't be like, when are they gonna party? When are they gonna, but we have unrealistic expectations and I feel like those are fueled by the unrealistic expectations that we put on ourselves as parents. And so my invitation, you feel like your teen has a sleep problem, it's not, it's probably not a sleep problem. It's probably more a prioritization problem and the best way for you to help your teen better prioritize their life and prioritize their personal health and their personal needs and sleep. The best way to do that is for you to model that for them and better prioritize your life. So that's the invitation. If your teen is struggling with sleep, I always go back to this. Look at yourself first. Ask yourself, how can I be the change that I want to see? And Cortni, what would you say to that? Like modeling this behavior, where could that be hard? But why is it so important?

Cort 25:38

I mean, they're gonna learn their habits from us. They're gonna do as we do not as we say. You know, I feel like we can tell our kids so many things that at the end of the day, it's what we do that they end up doing. I.

Ben 25:49

Yeah, the truth is like most parents don't. Go into parenting like intentionally. They don't spend a lot of time thinking, oh wow, this is how I want to handle this. This is what I want to be modeling. And if you are listening to this podcast and you're thinking, oh my goodness, this is me. I have a teen that won't sleep and I know I could do better taking care of myself, that's an invitation for you to approach parenting with a little bit more intentionality. And if you feel like you could use help being more intentional, to invite you. I just revamped my parent trap quiz. It used to take, don't know, way too long now. It only like you could do it in like less than 60 seconds. It's super easy. It will tell you exactly what some of the traps are that you're falling into, these parent traps are basically where you are parenting. Without being intentional, and the easiest way to improve things with your teenager, it be sleep, whether it be behavior, whether it be their grades, to improve things with yourself. this parent trap quiz, it's super short. Like you can do it in less than a minute and it will help you do exactly that. And if you want to take that quiz, you can go to benpughcoaching.com/parenttrapquiz. It's free. It's easy. Go do it.

Cort 27:16

I think that Stephen Covey's the four quadrants is something that I should use every day. Maybe not just for sleep, but there are so many days I feel overwhelmed that maybe if I can just prioritize that I would feel better and lighter, and maybe I'll sleep better at night because I won't be as overwhelmed by the end of the night.

Ben 27:35

Yeah, and here's the crazy thing, if we were to put sleep into that quadrant. Don't let sleep become quadrant number one, it's important and it's urgent'cause you're

Cort 27:46

Mm-hmm.

Ben 27:47

as much out of it. But if you can put sleep where it belongs in quadrant number two be like, look, it's not urgent, but it is important. And if you just start prioritizing quadrant number two, I'm telling you it'll have a powerful impact on your sleep.

Cort 28:03

All right.

Ben 28:04

Okay, Cortni, let's tell these people goodbye.

Cort 28:06

Goodbye.

Ben 28:07

Thank you for listening. We'll see you next time.

28:09

And real quick, before you go, don't forget the Boundaries That Don't Suck workshop. If you're tired of having the same fights with your teen over and over again, this will really help. It's just$7, and you'll get the replay even if you can't attend live. So remember, can sign up at benpughcoaching.com/boundariesworkshop.