The Real Reason You and Your Teen Keep Having the Same Fight

Do you and your teen keep having the same fight over and over again?

Maybe it’s about chores, screen time, sleep, attitude, or video games. And with summer coming, you may already feel stressed about what’s ahead.

In this episode, Ben explains why summer often makes these fights worse. But here’s the good news: summer is not the real problem. Your teen is not the problem. And you are not the problem.

The real problem is the pattern that keeps playing out in your home.

You’ll learn why your teen may keep pushing things off, why nagging does not work, and why more rules usually do not fix the issue. You’ll also learn how to start seeing the pattern so you can begin changing it.

If you want less yelling, less nagging, and fewer daily battles this summer, this episode will help you take the first step.

In this episode, you’ll learn:

•  Why summer can make teen conflict worse 
•  Why chores, screens, and sleep turn into daily fights 
•  Why your teen may keep avoiding responsibility 
•  Why more rules are not always the answer 
•  How to spot the pattern behind the fight 
•  Why changing the pattern starts with you 

The same fight does not have to keep happening all summer. A better pattern is possible.

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.
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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. Hello, and welcome back to the podcast. Today, we are going to talk about why summertime is really rough on a lot of parents and a lot of teens, and I'm gonna help you understand the pattern that might be taking place in your house and what you can do about that. But first, let me start off this episode by asking you a question: Are you actually excited for summer with your teen? If you're like a lot of parents, you might already be bracing yourself, and it might not be because of your teen. It might be because of the patterns that are going on in your home. a lot of parents have told me, "Ben, I don't even like summer." And oftentimes it's because these moms are worried that their teenager is going to sleep all day long, he's gonna stay up late at night just playing video games, and then she's going to have to nag him all day, every day just to get him to do anything. And in the past, every time they've pushed their teen to try and get him to do chores or do what he's supposed to, he's pushed back. And somehow, even what most adults would think are normal, fair requests turn into the same old fight that you've had in summers past or that you were having throughout the school year. And if that's you, I want you to pay close attention to this episode because the problem isn't just summer, and you're not the problem, and your teenager's not the problem either. The problem is that the pattern that your family brings into summer allows for that type of behavior. And the truth is, if chores were already a fight, summer isn't magically gonna fix that. In fact, summer is probably going to turn up the volume on any problems that you are already having, whether it's your teen not wanting to do chores, or maybe they just wanna game all day and all night. And the thing is, summer doesn't create these problems. Summer gives these problems more time to grow, and it doesn't give you the structure that school gave you that kinda lets these problems take a back seat. today, we are talking about why you and your teen keep having the same fight, and with summertime coming up, why this keeps coming every summer. And it's not because your teen is broken, and it's not because you're a bad parent. It's because the same pattern keeps repeating, and given the chance That same pattern is going to continue to repeat. summertime is going to expose this pattern, and you can use that to your advantage to help you address this pattern. Okay, so real quick, I do want to be really clear. I don't want you to feel like, "Oh my goodness, I'm such a bad mom. I hate summer. I dread it." No, it's normal. A lot of the parents that I talk to, especially moms that have to stay home with their teens, they're like, "I just hate summer." And so I want you to understand you're not alone here. This is where a lot of parents fall into the same boat. They're worried about gaming. They're not only worried about like screen time and video games, they're worried about that being the same fight every single day. They're not only worried about, "Man, how do I get my kid to do chores?" They're worried that they're the only person who cares if anything gets done in the home, and what's wrong with my teen for not wanting to help? I wanna be really clear. You are not just worried about this behavior, you're worried about the emotional cost of dealing with this behavior over and over, and you're worried that what's supposed to be a fun, relaxing summertime is actually gonna be stressful. It's gonna lead to a lot of fights, and that's something that I can help you address. a lot of parents make the mistake of just focusing on the surface problem, and focusing on the surface problem means that maybe you're focusing on the video games, the screen time, the sleep, the attitude. metimes these surface-level problems, they're the more obvious ones like, "Oh, my teen won't do any chores," or, "He's constantly disrespecting me." Yes, those are issues. Those are things that we want to address, but typically the surface issue isn't the real issue. The real issue is the pattern around these surface problems, the pattern that lets it keep playing out the same exact way time after time. the pattern that we want to uncover is we want to start understanding, "Hey, I keep having the same fight. What is the same pattern that keeps letting this happen?" And for a lot of parents, when you can finally see this loop, you can start doing something about it. a lot of the patterns that I see is that parents will ask their teen to do something It might be chores, it might be reading a book or studying, and the teen is just gonna put it off. It's summertime. They wanna play video games. "I'll do the chores later. I'll read later." And then the parent reminds their teen over and over, which leads to the teen resisting and pushing back, and then this pattern just starts to repeat, but louder. the parent gets louder, like, "Hey, I want you to do this." And then the teen pushes back and is like, "I will. Just let me do it in my own time." And then it never gets done. And what happens is usually the parent, at this point, is going to either give in or they're going to explode and just turn it into an even bigger argument. And then the pattern resets itself, and it happens again and again. if the same fights keep happening, I want you to understand they're happening because the same pattern keeps happening. And your teen is not just reacting to this rule, they're reacting to the pattern that they expect to get from you, their parent. And so what we want to do is we want to identify that, "Hey, this pattern is not working for me as the parent." The problem is, though, oftentimes the pattern is working for your teen. we just want to be aware of this. Oftentimes, when your teen is like, "Hey, I'll do the chore later," the truth is when they just put it off, sometimes it gets them out of doing the chore. I know my kids are guilty of this. They're like, "Oh, I'll do it later." Well, sometimes if you wait long enough, I need it to be done, and it's faster for me to just do it immediately than go track down my teen, get them off their device, and get the chore done. And so I inadvertently create this pattern that doesn't work for me, but it works for my teenager. Like, "Look, I postponed this thing. I delayed it, I procrastinated, and it totally benefited me because Dad did it for me." For some teens, arguing gets them more game time, and so arguing has worked. That pattern doesn't work for you, but it works for them because they're getting what they want. And so what I want to invite you to do, I want you to start identifying these patterns and just explore, "How is this benefiting my teenager?" And be careful with how you do this. You might look at your teen, and I know this happens in my home. If we don't have something planned, my teen just assumes that they can sleep as long as they want. And you might look at your teen sleeping in, and you might just assume, "Oh my goodness, he is so lazy." When you take the time to explore how is this benefiting him, you can start to see like, "Oh, well maybe he's sleeping in because he's staying up all night, and by sleeping in, that makes it so he has the energy to stay up all night." Maybe by sleeping in, he's avoiding doing some of these chores. And you can start to see some of these patterns, and you can start to understand, "Oh, well it makes sense that my teen would do that because they benefit from this." And s- just some examples that I see, a lot of times I'll have parents tell me, My teen is gaming nonstop because they don't care about the family." No, they're probably gaming nonstop, number one, because as they went into summer, they probably had this vision of what they thought summer would look like, and in their teenage brain, it looked like just endless video game time. you can start to understand, "Oh, well, of course they wanna play video games. That's way more fun than doing chores." And you can start to understand that, "Oh, well that's the pattern that I've let happen in the past. That's the pattern that I've let play out in my teen's mind, and it's my job as a parent to create a new pattern, one that better serves me as their parent and one that better serves my teenager." And if these are fights that are on repeat... For example, I know some parents that they're like, "Every day is a fight about screen time. Every day is a fight about, 'Hey, can I play video games?' Every day is a fight to get my teen to do chores." If these fights keep repeating, remember that there's a pattern that keeps that fight coming up. There's a pattern that likely keeps rewarding that pattern, rewarding that fight. o one of the biggest problems that I see is that parents see their teen as the problem. And I wanna be really clear, your teen is not the problem. You aren't the problem. The problem is that you have a pattern that is not really working, and most parents fall into the trap where they just blame their teen. "My teen is lazy," or "They're disrespectful," or They're not willing to help out." That doesn't help If you can move from blaming to ownership. Like look, there is a pattern in our home, and I'm a part of it as the parent, which means there's something I can do about it. And a lot of times parents, they're a part of this pattern without even knowing it. And what you can do is you can realize, "Oh, I'm totally a part of this pattern." That gives me power to create a shift in the pattern. And I wanna be really clear, this is not about shame. This is about gaining clarity, because you can't change a pattern if you can't see it. And a lot of times parents are avoiding identifying the pattern because they feel guilty about it. They feel like, "Oh man, I'm such a bad parent. I can't believe I've let my teen play video games all day long." Don't get into that shame. This is not about shame. This is about clarity and understanding that, hey, once I can see the problem, once I have an awareness about it, I can now start to change that pattern that leads to that. t take a deep breath and remember, my teen is not the problem. I'm not the problem. We have a pattern that's going on in our home creating this problem. And so with summertime at hand, if you are dreading summertime, it makes sense. I have been in that stage as well, where I'm like, "Man, summertime nothing gets done." The kids just wanna be entertained all day. They wanna play video games. They refuse to help. When we addressed the underlying pattern, it solved so many of the problems. o if you're coming into summer and you're a little bit worried and you're like, "Why do I stress so much?" Let's just keep in mind that the problems that are on the surface are caused by patterns. And some things to consider is that oftentimes these patterns are connected to this shift from school time to summertime. And what summer does is it removes a lot of the structure that school gave you that helped move your day along according to a pattern that worked Like, look, we get up at this time, we do our chores, we get ready for school, we go to school, we come home from school, we do our homework, maybe we do more chores, we go hang out with our friends, and then we go to bed and we're on repeat. Well, summer removes that structure, and summer creates more free time, and summer gives gaming, sleeping, chores more room to exist when they didn't have that before. And so summer doesn't just magically make your teen irresponsible. What summer does is it just gives more time to the things that your teen wants, and it shows you, it reveals like, "Hey, here are some of the patterns in your home that don't work." And so one of the things that I see a lot, like if you're fighting about screen time, chores, going to bed on time, if you're fighting about that, I don't know, on a scale of like 1 to 10, maybe it's only a three during the school year. There's a good chance that summertime is going to elevate that to a seven or an eight because you don't have the structure that used to support you. o here's what a lot of parents resort to, and I wanna be really clear, you do not need this. They resort to this big, long 47-rule summer contract. And while, yes, I do want you to have a discussion with your teenager, and I want you to come up with some agreements, I want you to empower them and explore with them, and I want you to come up with some boundaries, but your teen doesn't need a big old overwhelming summer contract that is going to make them feel like, "Oh my goodness, summer is going to be such a drag." There's a better way to do this, and most parents resort to more rules, more lectures, more nagging, more threats, more punishment, and they're trying to create more control. And a giant list of rules on your refrigerator, that's not going to fix this broken pattern. That's just going to show up as the latest surface problem. Your teen doesn't need just one more argument, one more surface problem. What your teen actually needs is leadership from you. They need the opportunity to explore, "Hey, what is fair to be expected this summer? What do I need to do to earn some of the things that I really want?" Basically, you're helping them explore how do I create the summer that I want while helping my parents have the summer that they want? Because if I can help my parents have the summer that they want, which is probably me doing a few chores, waking up at a decent time, they will then better help me have the summer that I want, which includes hanging out with my friends, having free time to play video games, and the goal is to start a new pattern this summer. We've been talking about summertime and some of the problems that can come to the surface, and the good news is, when it comes to these patterns that create a lot of the summertime problems that you've been experiencing, the good news is patterns can change, but they're not gonna change by accident, and your teen isn't just gonna change them because you want them to. In fact, if you're waiting for your teen to change, you might be waiting for a very long time. If you want a different summer with less fighting and more productivity out of your teen, you can't go through summer the same way you did last summer because that's the exact same pattern. Which is why I'm offering my Boundaries That Don't Suck workshop again. I did it a few weeks ago. It was fantastic. Several of the parents who went through it were like, "Oh my goodness, this changes everything. Summer is going to be so much easier." If you want summer to feel different, start with boundaries that don't turn into battles, and this is exactly what I'll help you do in this workshop, Boundaries That Don't Suck. And this workshop is gonna be June 2nd at 2:00 PM Mountain Time, which is 4:00 PM Eastern Time or noon Pacific Time. Wait. No, it's 1:00 Pacific Time. Anyways, it's $7. It's June 2nd, and the goal is not like now that you've identified, "Okay, I can see the pattern that's going on here, and this pattern needs to be addressed," the goal is to help you address the pattern in a way that helps you set summer expectations with less fighting, less nagging, and more of having your teen on board, having them buy in. You don't wanna wait until summer is already a mess. If it is a mess, now is the best time to start But if you're like me and your kids have another week or so of school, start before the summer pattern just falls into place. It'll be easier. If-- I do have some clients that they're like, "Yeah, our summer starts right now." It's not too late. Let's get to work. Summer does not have to create the exact same problem. Just keep in mind, summer, all it's doing is exposing a pattern that I can fix as the parent. And if you want a different summer, you just need to create a different pattern. You can go to benpughcoaching.com/boundariesworkshop, and you get, you can get signed up for that. It's only $7. And keep in mind, the summertime fights, those aren't the real problem. The real problem is the repeated pattern underneath all of that, that you can address. And hopefully this podcast has helped you see the pattern and realize, Hey, I actually have a choice. I don't have to keep reacting to the same fight. I don't have to keep repeating the same old pattern. I can create a new pattern, one that works for me and one that works for my teen." And that's exactly what you'll be learning in the $7 boundaries workshop, "Boundaries That Don't Suck." If you're ready to have a summer that has less yelling, less nagging, and is way more fun for you and your teen, go get signed up today. You can go get signed up at benpughcoaching.com/boundariesworkshop. I'll see you next week.