Why Knowing What to Do With Your Teen Isn’t Enough

You know you shouldn’t yell.

You know you don’t need to lecture.

You know your teen’s eye roll doesn’t have to ruin your night.

You’ve listened to the podcasts. Read the books. Saved the Instagram posts.

And then your teenager walks into the room.

He refuses to get off the game.

He forgot the assignment. Again.

Or he says something disrespectful and gives you that look.

Five minutes later, you’re yelling, lecturing, threatening, or saying something you wish you could take back.

And afterward you think:

“I know better than this. Why do I keep doing it?”

Here’s what I want you to consider:

Maybe you don’t need another parenting tool.

Maybe you need more practice using the tools you already have.

I see this all the time coaching freshman football.

My players know the play.

We’ve practiced it. We’ve walked through it. They can tell me exactly what they’re supposed to do.

Then game time comes.

Someone hits them harder than expected. They get tired. Things start moving fast.

And suddenly they fall right back into an old habit.

That doesn’t mean they don’t understand football.

It means knowing the play and being able to run the play under pressure are two different things.

Parenting works the same way.

It’s one thing to know you want to stay calm when your teen is calm.

It’s another thing to stay calm when he’s yelling:

“You’re the worst mom ever!”

That takes practice.

And one of the mistakes I see parents make is waiting until everything is falling apart to practice being the parent they want to be.

That’s like learning the offense during the championship game.

There’s a better time to practice.

And once you understand when and how to get those reps, the parenting tools you already know can start becoming skills you can actually use when things get hard.

In this episode of IMPACT: Parenting with Perspective, I’ll show you what that looks like.

And I’ll tell you why breaking my arm twice while pretending to be Superman taught me something surprisingly useful about parenting.