3 Back-to-School Rules Parents of Teens Should Break

Back-to-school season can make parents feel like they need to manage everything.

Grades. Homework. Bedtime. Phones. Missing assignments. Attitude.

But what if some of the rules parents follow are actually making things harder?

In this episode, I share 3 back-to-school rules I think parents of teens should break.

You’ll learn why school may not need to be the most important thing, why your teen’s grades are not your responsibility, and why your teen might not be the one who needs the biggest reset this year.

If you’re tired of nagging, reminding, worrying, and feeling responsible for everything your teen does, this episode will help you see back-to-school in a different way.

Because your job isn’t to control your teen’s school year.

Your job is to decide how you want to show up for it.Back-to-school season can make parents feel like they need to manage everything.

Grades. Homework. Bedtime. Phones. Missing assignments. Attitude.

But what if some of the rules parents follow are actually making things harder?

In this episode, I share 3 back-to-school rules I think parents of teens should break.

You’ll learn why school may not need to be the most important thing, why your teen’s grades are not your responsibility, and why your teen might not be the one who needs the biggest reset this year.

If you’re tired of nagging, reminding, worrying, and feeling responsible for everything your teen does, this episode will help you see back-to-school in a different way.

Because your job isn’t to control your teen’s school year.

Your job is to decide how you want to show up for it.

Ready to reset the boundaries in your home?
Join the founding group for Boundaries with Buy-In and learn how to create clearer boundaries, get more buy-in, and hold them without losing your cool.

Learn more: benpughcoaching.com/boundarieswithbuyin

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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.

0:23

Back to school season is here, which means you're probably hearing a lot of the same advice and these unspoken rules for parents of teens when it comes to back to school season. a lot of times we hear that, as a good parent, you have to get your teen on a schedule. You have to make sure that they get enough sleep. You gotta help them stay organized. You gotta talk to them about anxiety. You gotta monitor their grades. You gotta set limits on their phone or screen time." And none of this advice is necessarily bad, but I think we're starting in the wrong place because somehow back to school has become another season where moms are handed a giant list of things they need to do to get their teen ready for school. So today, I want to give you three back to school rules that I think you should break, and I'm going to tell you why school might not be quite as important as you might think, and why your job as a mom is not to make your teen succeed, and why getting your teen back on track might not be the reset that you and your family actually need. And in this podcast, I hope that we can challenge this idea that back to school automatically means more stress, more anxiety, and more chaos, because maybe the best thing you can do for your family this school year actually has very little to do with school. Maybe your teen going back to school is actually an invitation for you to reset, not your teen, but for you. And stick around for the third rule because it's probably the one that I see parents break the least because it sounds irresponsible, and I wanna help you see it differently so that you can realize, "Oh, this unspoken rule, I don't need to follow it." So let's jump right in. Let's talk about why back to school season tends to put moms into management mode. a lot of times when your teenager is going back to school Your teen isn't the one typically who's, out buying new back-to-school clothes. Your teen might not be the one communicating with the school counselor. And so suddenly, as the mother, you're thinking about grades, bedtime, phones. How do I manage school and sports? What about missing assignments? What about homework? What about friends? What about anxiety? What about college? What about my teen's future? And before the school year has even really started, if you're like a lot of moms, you're already carrying the weight of the whole entire school year. And honestly, that is what I call parenting from the outside in. You're trying to control something outside of yourself so that you can feel a little bit better. A lot of times this sounds like, "Man, if I could just get my teenager to be more organized, if I could just get him to care more, if I could just get him to keep his grades up, if I could just keep him off of his phone, then I could relax. Or then I could focus on these other things." But now your peace as a mother depends on what your teenager does or does not do. So let's break a few of these back-to-school rules so that as a mother, you can have a school year where you have a little bit of peace, where you can grow, where you actually enjoy it. All right, so here's the number one rule that I'm going to invite you to break. And as a former high school principal, I get it. Like, this is hard for me to say out loud because as a former high school principal, like, when I was a principal, I did the same thing. I tried to convince parents and my students about this rule, but I'm telling you, this is one of those rules it is okay to break. And the rule is this idea that school has to be the most important thing. And I get it. I understand that school matters, and education matters, and your learning matters. But somewhere along the way, a lot of families have accidentally adopted the belief that school comes first, period. And I know where it comes from. I know when I was a high school principal, kids would miss school for whatever reason, and I'd be like, "Seriously, school is way more important than this dumb reason here." But that doesn't mean we just buy the line that school comes first, period. We need to explore, like what are some things that matter more than school? And depending on the situation, these things can change. So I want you to explore what matters more than school. Things like character, integrity, emotional health, family relationships, sleep, confidence, responsibility, learning how to fail, learning how to problem solve, knowing who you are, knowing that your worth is not attached to your grade or to your achievements. So I wanna be really clear. I am not saying that school does not matter. I'm saying that school is part of your teen's life, but it's not the measure of your teen's life. It isn't the determining factor of whether or not your teen has value or does not have value. A lot of parents accidentally confuse their teenager's school with their teenager's identity. When your teen gets straight A's, that becomes, "Oh, hey, you're smart." Or if your teen gets F's, that becomes, "Oh, you're stupid," or, "You're lazy," or, "You're not trying hard enough." And a lot of times when kids struggle in school, parents accidentally just dive into this identity and they're like, "Oh my goodness, my student is lazy," or, "They don't care." A lot of times I'll hear parents say, "Man, you're so smart. Why are you getting a C? You're capable of so much more." And the problem is we just get this idea where school is the number one most important thing, and to make it worse, we tangle up our teenager's identity with what's going on in school. And the truth is, a grade can tell you how your teen performed in class, but it doesn't tell you who your teen is. Your son can get a D in math and still be a hardworking, smart young man. Your daughter can struggle making friends and still be just fine socially. And a lot of parents go straight to a fear-based mentality where they're like, "Oh no, school's going wrong. That means everything in life is wrong." And the truth is, we could just approach this understanding that, oh, you know what? School is not the most important thing. There are other more important factors here. What could school be indicating to us? Like maybe your teen just needs a tutor. Maybe he just hates math. Maybe he needs to learn a little bit of time management. There are so many bigger, more important things than school So I want to invite you to ask yourself this question: What are you willing to sacrifice just to get a better grade or just to do well in school? Are you willing to sacrifice your relationship, trust, your teen's ownership, your own peace? The truth is, that is really important to explore because when you can realize, oh, school isn't the most important thing, and when you can realize that principals, like I used to be, are telling you that school isn't the most important thing because it's their job, because in their mind, school is the most important thing, because they're probably not thinking about your individual student. They're thinking about the whole entire student base, and what the whole entire student base needs to do is take school more seriously, so I'm gonna give your teen that same generic advice. And the truth is, if you can start to explore where does school fit, like if it's not the most important thing, what is the most important thing? Then you can start breaking that unspoken rule that we have to treat school as the most important thing, and then you can start prioritizing other things in your life and in your teen's life that will actually help them do better at school. All right. Rule number two that I think you should go ahead and break this year, and that is this unspoken rule that good parents make sure that their teens succeed in school. And I think this one actually causes a ton of mom guilt and mom shame, and it's all unnecessary Because a lot of times moms, actually all parents do it, but they associate their value, their effectiveness, their worth as a parent with their teen's report card. And now, when your teen comes home, and maybe he's struggling in math, and he got a bad grade, and you start thinking, "Dang, where did I go wrong?" And we reinforce this, by the way, when your teen comes home with all straight As and you kick back and you think, "Oh my goodness, I'm mom of the year. I'm the best parent. I must have done something right." The truth is, your teen's report card is not your parenting report card. And a lot of parents believe that for them to be successful as a parent, that they have to make their teen be successful in school, and they just assume that their teen's success belongs to them. And your success as a parent is not measured by whether or not your teen gets As. So it's important to explore when it comes to school and your teen's grades, what exactly is your job? And here are a few options. This isn't like the end-all, be-all list, but these are just some options to explore. You can provide a place for your teenager to learn. You can help when he asks questions. You can provide resources. You can encourage him. You can hold responsible boundaries when it comes to grades and privileges and all of that. You can ask good questions. You can teach responsibility, and you can love your teen and be proud of him, whether he succeeds or fails. So what is not your job? You can't care about school for your teen. You can't want it for him. You can't study for him. You can't remember everything for him. You can't make him value school. You can't guarantee good grades, and you can't prevent failure Keep in mind, you can support your teen's education without taking ownership of their education, and this is huge, and most parents miss this. They think, "My job as a parent is to make sure that my child gets good grades." And yes, you can check your teen's grades. You can check on missing assignments. But the typical responses are, "Hey, you're missing assignment. Did you know about this? When are you gonna do it? Are you gonna do it? Is it done yet? Do I need to email the teacher? Hey, I just emailed your teacher. Hey, you're not doing this." And you're just trying to take over. And I want you to explore, like if I go that route, who is responsible for the grade? And a lot of parents, when they ask that question, they realize, "Dang, I'm taking over. I'm the one carrying all this responsibility." The alternative is you could just say, "Hey, son, I noticed you have a, a missing assignment. Are you aware of it?" And maybe your teen says, "Yeah, I already know." And then as a mom, you can ask, "Awesome. So what's your plan on how to address it?" You're giving the teen the responsibility. You're not taking responsibility of your teen's success in school. And a lot of parents, they buy into this, and I get it. I was in education for a long time, and I understand the responsibility that parents have. But there's an unspoken rule where we are putting too much responsibility on the parents' shoulders, and it is not teaching our teenagers the responsibility that they need. So I want you to just explore who do you want carrying the responsibility for your teen's life when he's 22, when he's 37? You probably want that to land on his shoulders. But if you're carrying it now, when is your teen going to learn how to take that responsibility for himself? And this is where sometimes, y- I don't know, I take a little bit of heat here. Sometimes the most helpful thing you can do to your teen is let them get a bad grade, and it doesn't mean that you don't care, and it's not because, It won't impact his life. Like, yeah, there are consequences that come with your choices, but it's because sometimes that's where the most powerful lesson comes in. When you let go and you let your teen be responsible for the bad grade, when you let your teen pay the price, suffer the consequence, it comes to that. Because that failure can provide feedback to your teenager and the lesson to your teenager that a lecture cannot do. Now, this brings us to the third rule that I want you to break, and it's because back to school season, I don't know, oftentimes we just wanna fix everything, and these two kinda go hand in hand. Just like in rule number two, the rule that I want you to break is that as a good parent, you have to be responsible for your teen's success. Rule number three is that back to school means it's time to get your teen back on track, and I want you to break that rule. A lot of focus is on teens, and we think about, like, the new bedtime, the new phone rules, getting better grades this year, a better morning routine, more responsibility, less gaming, less attitude, and let's just focus on the teenager, and let's fix the child. But what if your teen isn't the first person who needs a reset? What if your teen and resetting your teen's life isn't the most impactful reset that can happen? And this is where, as a mom, you actually have more power than you realize. And I totally get it. Summer gets crazy. My house does it too. I get it. Schedules change. Everyone stays up later. We sleep in longer. And moms, you get pulled in 20 different directions, and so you've probably been exhausted, reactive, worried, frustrated, maybe even neglecting yourself, maybe saying no-- yes to things that you would normally say no to, and maybe you've been yelling at things that you wish you could handle differently. Well, guess what? Back to school time. It's naturally going to be a giant reset for your teen. But what if you created your own reset as a mom? What if going into this school year, you could start asking yourself, Who do I want to be this school year? What kind of mom do I want my son to experience? What am I going to let go of and stop trying to control? Where have I been giving in because I don't wanna fight with my teenager? What have I been controlling because I'm scared of the consequences? And what do I need to start doing for myself again?" This is where you can start parenting from the inside out. We talked about before parenting from the outside in, and you're focused on these external forces like, "How do I get my teen to get better grades? How do I get them to study or care more?" The truth is, if you can start looking from the inside out, this will help you create a different school year more than anything you could do to change your teen. And One of the things, one of the other rules that I didn't mention, and this one is connected to rule number three. rule number three, break the rule that you have to create this great reset for your teen and create a great reset for yourself. One of the other rules that I hear a lot, like I just saw a therapist influencer post, "Hey, back to school time means more anxiety, more stress, more..." Let's break that rule. Back to school does not have to mean more anxiety, more stress, and the truth is, the better you get at resetting your life, the better you can handle back to school without stress, without all of the extra anxiety. And you can start exploring like, "Yeah, last year when my teen was late to school, how did I handle it as a mom? Oh, I was frustrated, I was upset, I yelled." I... Whatever it is, and you can explore it this year, if that happens again, who do I want to be? "Oh, you know what? I realized that getting to school on time was a problem last year. I wanna be the type of mom where we can discuss that before it becomes a problem and come up with a plan on how to prevent that and how to address it if it does happen. And I wanna be the type of parent that gives my teen a voice so they can have their two cents, so they can explore how to fix this." And by doing that, you're now not only trying to reset your teen, but you are choosing to be a part of that reset. And I promise you, you have more impact on how this school year is going to go than you realize. And if you are just crossing your fingers and hoping and praying that your teen is going to change this year, you're just in for more of what you've experienced in the past. But if you can commit, "No, I'm going to reset me. I'm going to handle this school year differently," that's a place of power. you don't have to follow the line that, you have to reset your teen this year." No, you can reset you. You don't have to believe that, "Oh, back to school just naturally means more stress, more anxiety." No, I can choose to handle it however I want. Last year, I was super worried and anxious. You know what I realized? That happens when I focus on things outside of my control. There are things that I can't control. I'm gonna trust that they take care of themselves. There are things this year that I'm excited about. Awesome. Here's one of the things before I let you go. We'll wrap this up real quick. When it comes to back to school, a lot of people really focus on the teenager, and I understand it. It's your teen that's going through school. Makes sense. But the truth is, you can't control your teen, so I want you to put that focus back on you. And I wanna give you three things that you can explore. Number one, ask yourself, "Who do I want to be this school year?" Not, "What do I need my teen to do? What do I need them to do so they can get better grades?" I want you to understand that you can't control that and ask, "Who do I want to be this year?" Maybe it's more calm, maybe it's more clear or confident or curious or loving or firm or playful. There are tools that I teach where you can get an idea on how to be this type of mom. The second thing I want you to explore: What am I going to stop owning, or what am I going to stop being responsible for? These should be things that you can't control anyways. My teen's grades, I can't control that. I'm gonna let him be responsible for that. Whether or not he likes school, whether or not he remembers everything, whether or not he throws a fit when I hold a boundary, whether or not he makes a good decision. Notice how you can't control any of those, so stop being responsible for them. You can redirect that to the things that you can control. I can control how calm I stay when I hold a boundary about grades. And then the last thing I would ask: What does your family actually need to reset? A lot of times y- when it comes to back to school time, you do need to have a little bit of a reset when it comes to phones, gaming privileges, chores, all of that. But you don't always have to wait until the problem is happening to create that reset. Just like I wouldn't wait until 11:45 at night when my teen is still gaming and I'm furious to decide what the bedtime rule is. Like, that's something that we could have decided earlier. I want you to just really explore what things do we need to reset before it becomes a problem to help make this school year a success. A reset isn't about getting everybody under your control. It's about getting everybody clear and controlling what they're responsible for. All right. here's what I want you to do this week. Take 10 minutes by yourself and answer these three questions: Who do I want to be this school year? What am I going to stop trying to control? And what one thing does our family need to reset together? And I would just pick one of those. It doesn't have to be a lot. And the truth is, this school year can be great, and your teen can decide to have the school year that they're gonna have, but that doesn't take away from your power to decide what school year you are going to have. And as a mother, how you show up is more impactful than you realize. And if you're listening to this thinking, "Okay, Ben, this sounds great, but the thing I really need is to reset boundaries," I've got something going on that I think you're gonna wanna be a part of. I'm getting ready to open a founding member group for Boundaries with Buy-In. And this is for moms of teenage boys who are tired of arguing, pushback, repeating themselves a thousand times, giving in, blowing up, and feeling like the only way to get anything done is to control their teen harder. And inside Boundaries with Buy-In, I'm going to help you get clear on what actually matters, create boundaries with your teen instead of constantly fighting against him, and learn how to hold those boundaries without losing your cool. This isn't to create a teenager who blindly obeys everything you say. It's to build a more responsible, trusting, connected relationship with your teen and to bring more peace into your home. Because family peace doesn't come from getting your teen under control, it comes from learning how to lead without trying to control your teen. And I'm just gonna open this up to a small group of founding members, and this first group is gonna come with a special founding member price. It's gonna be very affordable. And if you would like to learn more, you can go to benpughcoaching.com/boundarieswithbuyin. And this is something that will really help when it comes to your teen going back to school. Let your teen have his school year while you focus on having yours. Decide who you wanna be, manage that, and lead your family from there. Back to school isn't your cue to better manage your teen or to control even harder. It's your opportunity to get clear about what your teen is responsible for and what you're responsible for and how you want to lead this school year. And the best way to do that, you can break a few of the back to school rules. And I promise you, none of these rules are the important ones. And even if you're like, "You know what? I like some of those rules," go ahead, keep them. That's fine. But for you, really take some time and explore who do you want to be as a mom this year? And you can question, does school really need to be the most important thing, or are there other things that are even more important? You can start to question this idea that, hey, good parents make sure that their teens succeed in school. Yeah, that's not true. That's just some made-up rule. Let's go ahead and break that one. And the rule that, oh, I gotta reset my teen. Well, maybe it's you who needs the reset. And the unspoken rule, oh, here comes school. It's gonna be way more stressful and full of anxiety. No, let's just make it fun and exciting. All right. go sign up for Boundaries with Buy-In. It's gonna be awesome. Benpughcoaching.com/boundarieswithbuyin, and I will talk to you soon.