Episode 243: Let Go: Focus on What You Can Control

Why We Get Stuck as Parents

Parenting often feels like juggling too many balls at once. We worry about grades, friend choices, screen time, and countless other things. But trying to control everything only leaves us feeling tired and frustrated.

In this Episode:

Ben and Cortni dive into one of the biggest challenges parents face – trying to control everything in their teen’s life. You’ll hear real stories from parents who learned to let go and saw their relationships with their kids improve. We talk about simple ways to focus your energy on things you can actually change, and share practical tips that work in everyday situations. Whether you’re struggling with homework battles, screen time wars, or just feeling overwhelmed, this episode will give you the tools to start making positive changes today. Plus, you’ll hear how other parents just like you found peace by learning what to let go of and what to hold onto.

What’s Actually in Our Control?

The truth is, we can only control our own actions and responses. While we can’t control our teen’s choices, we can control how we react, the boundaries we set, and the environment we create at home.

Simple Steps to Let Go

• Start with acceptance
• Focus on your responses
• Create clear boundaries
• Build trust through consistency

Building Better Family Relationships

When we stop trying to control everything, something amazing happens. Our relationships with our kids improve. We can focus on connecting instead of correcting.

Real Changes Start With You

The best way to create positive change in your family is to start with yourself. This means working on your own reactions and choosing your battles wisely.

Moving Forward

Remember that letting go doesn’t mean giving up. It means being smart about where you put your energy and focusing on what truly matters in your relationship with your teens.

Final Takeaways:

Remember, being a good parent doesn’t mean having control over everything – it means being wise about where you put your energy. As we discussed in today’s episode, when you stop trying to micromanage every aspect of your teen’s life, you create space for better connections and real growth. Start small by picking one area where you can practice letting go this week. Maybe it’s not checking their grades daily, or letting them handle their own morning routine. Whatever you choose, notice how it feels to step back. You’ve got this, parents – sometimes doing less really is more.

Another podcast you might like: https://benpughcoaching.com/236/

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Episode 238: Stop Holding Yourself Back

Are You Holding Yourself Back?

This will be the last podcast episode of 2024. As I’ve thought about the New Year, and this past year, I’ve been exploring my life, where I am, where I’m going, what values are driving me, and what changes I’d like to make in my life, and I came to the realization that I’m holding myself back.

I have goals and dreams when it comes to my physical health, my business, my family, and this morning as I woke up and explored my life, I was able to see specific areas of my life where I’m holding myself back.

If you’re like me, you’re probably holding yourself back in areas of your life too.

Now, here’s the crazy thing about your life, your dreams, and your goals. They’re all connected. For example, I have goals of being physically fit and returning to the athleticism that I enjoyed in my twenties. I also have the dream of having an extremely successful coaching practice where I have other coaches working with me and I help hundreds of thousands of parents and teens.

Now, those two things, my physical health and my life coaching business, may seem unconnected, but the truth is that they are extremely connected. They’re connected by ME, and by me BEing the Me of My Dreams.

Lately, I’ve been feeling the pull to start BEing the man I want to be when it comes to my physical health. I’m not sure exactly how it’s going to impact the dreams that I have for my business, but I know that holding myself back in the realm of my health, is also holding me back in my business.

So, this starting now, and in the New Year, my focus is on setting myself free and BEing the Me of My Dreams!

Stop Blaming and/or Making Excuses

This morning as I was waking up, I had a dream that I was reffing a little league football game. The dream was similar to a real life experience I had this summer, and I feel that I’m meant to share it with you.

This summer, while reffing, one game in particular, the coaches kept blaming the refs, me and another ref, for bad calls or no calls. I tried to explain to the coach exactly what I was looking for and why I wasn’t making the call he was looking for.

Rather than coach up his players and help them be better, he kept blaming “the bad refs”. The more he blamed the refs, the more his players started blaming the refs. Then, the parents started blaming the refs.

Then after the game, I overheard his post game speech, in which he told his players that the loss wasn’t on them, it was on the poor officiating.

The problem with blaming and making excuses is it takes all responsibility from the person doing the blaming and making excuses.

Rather than embracing the opportunity to coach up his players, and help them get better, he told his players, you have no responsibility here. You’re just a victim at the mercy of the refs.

If you want to reach your goals and dreams, catch yourself blaming, making excuses, complaining, or even criticizing. See it for what it is. It’s disempowering. It’s you focusing on someone or something outside of your control. And, it’s holding you back!

BE The Change You Want to See!

If you’re anything like me and the other parents that I work with and that listen to this podcast, there are things in your life that you’d like to change.

Also if you’re like me and other parents here, you’re probably guilty of seeing the changes you’d like to make in your teen.

I want to invite you to BE The Change You Want to See!

I know it sounds simple. I know it sounds like it won’t actually change anything, but I promise you it will change EVERYTHING!

If you feel pulled to improve your health, but you think, “That’s not going to change my relationship with my teen,” or “That’s not going to change my financial situation,” I invite you to trust the pull. Trust your inner wisdom. Take control of the little things that you can control and then wait and see how they impact things outside of your control.

I’ve worked with countless parents who wanted me to somehow change their teens. But, when they took it upon themselves to BE The Change, they were amazed at how much their teen then changed.

BE The Change!

You’ve got this.

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Episode 225: Stop Shielding Your Teen from Failure

Today’s Teen’s Don’t Fail Enough

I don’t know if you’ve noticed this, but a lot of teen’s aren’t allowed to fail.

I know of parents who do their teen’s homework for them, let them drop classes when they get too hard, make up excuses for them so they don’t get in trouble or have to pay a consequence, or in some other way protect their teen from failure, or facing the consequences of failure.

In fact, a lot of parents believe that it’s their job to keep their teen from failing to ensure that they are successful.

If you’re like a lot of today’s parents, you might believe that if your teen’s not successful, that you’ve failed as parents.

Why We’re Afraid to Let Teens Fail

It makes sense that you might be afraid to let your teen fail, because there’s a lot of societal pressure for teens to “succeed”.

Teens are expected to succeed in the classroom, on the court or on the field, in the workforce, or at college, or in relationships. And, not only do you feel it as their parent, but your teen is very much aware of the pressure to succeed.

Often, this effort to shield teens from failure is made with the best of intentions, but it disempowers the teen, and believe it or not, makes it feel even more imperative to succeed and avoid failure at all costs.

Failure is Okay and Important

The problem is, when you protect your teen from failure, it actually deprives your teen of valuable lessons, and the discomfort of having to deal with failure, which emotionally reinforces the lesson.

It is this process of trial and error, and the risk of failure that teens need to learn and develop. In fact, lots of research indicates that failure is an important part of developing resilience and future success.

Another thing that’s important to consider is that, when you bail your teen out and don’t let them fail, you communicate to your teen that, “You can’t handle this. I better do it for you.”

A few years ago, there was somewhat of a sexting/nudes via text scandal that went through my town’s high school. A lot of parents tried to hide their teen’s involvement, because they didn’t want it to “ruin” their teen’s life.

Well, that attitude makes it even scarier for the teen. To make it worse, we brought an expert out to speak to the community, and her main premise what that something like sexting will “ruin” a kid’s life.

Instead, we need to be teaching our teen’s that their lives are un-ruinable. We need to teach them how to be responsible for their failures and how to turn them around.

Empowering Your Teen By Letting Them Fail

The truth is, your teen needs the autonomy to fail and to struggle to help them grow, develop resilience, and to help them learn and manage their personal independence.

Like I said earlier, your teen’s life is un-ruinable. They can make mistakes, fail, and struggle and still be okay. In fact, they need mistakes, failure, and struggles for them to discover who they are, what they value, and to truly develop resilience.

You can help by showing them that you truly believe in them and that their life is un-ruinable. You can show them confidence in their ability to figure things out and recover from failures, by not freaking out on them when they fail.

You can show them that it’s okay to fail, by actually being okay with them failing, paying the consequence, and being okay with them making corrections and adjustments.

Do You Want to Help Your Teen Develop Resilience?

So, do you want to keep bending over backwards to protect your teen from failing, or do you want to give them the opportunity to learn from their own failures and from their own experience?

Do you want to be the kind of parent who constantly fixes everything for their teen, or do you want to be the type of parent who has confidence that your teen’s life is un-ruinable?

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Episode 224: The Most Powerful Relationship You Can Build with Your Teen

Disconnected Parents and Teens

One of the biggest problems I often hear from parents of teens is a lack of connection with their teen.

Honestly, I actually hear about this from teens as well, they just use different words than their parents do.

For example, a parent will come out and say, “I don’t feel like me and my teen have a good relationship.” or, “I don’t feel like we have a good connection.” Teens on the other hand say things like, “My parents don’t get me.” or, “My parents don’t even care about me.”

The truth is, both parents and teens are feeling this disconnection between each other. And, it’s not just you, and it’s not just us in the US. This is a problem parents and teens are facing all over the world.

Disconnected Parents and Teens

One of the biggest problems I often hear from parents of teens is a lack of connection with their teen.

Honestly, I actually hear about this from teens as well, they just use different words than their parents do.

For example, a parent will come out and say, “I don’t feel like me and my teen have a good relationship.” or, “I don’t feel like we have a good connection.” Teens on the other hand say things like, “My parents don’t get me.” or, “My parents don’t even care about me.”

The truth is, both parents and teens are feeling this disconnection between each other. And, it’s not just you, and it’s not just us in the US. This is a problem parents and teens are facing all over the world.

What’s Causing the Disconnect?

If you want to help me fix this problem, you need to understand what’s causing this disconnect.

It actually makes a lot of sense that parents and teens are experiencing this disconnect for a few different reasons:

This is often the only or main message that we get from the media when it comes to parent and teen relationships. TV, movies, and social media often portray a sense of parents vs. teens.
Parents and teens DO in fact have different values, and most parents and teens make the mistake of focusing more on their different/conflicting values than they do on the values that they actually have in common.
A lot of parents were raised by parents who focused on the differences between parent and teen’s values, and as a result, a lot of parents were raised with a disconnected relationship between themselves and their parents. So, this is the only way they know how to connect with their teen.

Parent/Teen Disconnection Doesn’t Have to Be Your Reality

If it were true that parents and teens have nothing in common, there would be no parents who have great relationships with their teens.

If it were true that parents couldn’t repair their relationships, there wouldn’t be countless parents who have improved and completely fixed their relationships with their teens.

The truth is, there are parents all over the world who have found ways to connect with their teens and who have found ways to improve their relationships, even when they don’t agree on everything.

There’s a Better Way!

Fortunately, you and your teen have way more in common that you realize.

There’s a process I teach inside the membership called, Building Values Based Relationships.

And, if you’re like the parents I work with, when you start building values based relationships with your teen, you’ll be surprised how quickly you’ll be able to repair and improve any relationship with your teen, and you’ll be surprised just how much you two actually do have in common.

Building Values Based Relationships

Inside my membership, I teach you a simple process of identifying and understanding your own values, which helps you better identify and understand your teen’s values. I then help you find ways to start connecting with your teen based on THEIR values.

If you think about it, this is actually something that children do naturally. For example, I remember sitting down to watch college football when my oldest son was just a toddler. I remember him hopping on my lap, cuddling with me, and watching football. I even remember him yelling at the TV because of a “bad” call or celebrating a good play, because that’s what he’d seen me do.

He didn’t value football at the time. He simply noticed that it was something that I valued, and he made an effort to connect with me over my value of football.

Do You Want A Better Relationship with Your Teen?

Now that you understand this, you need to ask yourself a question.

Do you want to keep feeling disconnected from your teen, or do you want to start building values based relationships so you and your teen can be deeply connected and actually feel pulled closer together?

If you want to keep feeling disconnected from your teen, that’s easy. Keep doing what you’re doing.

But, if you’re the type of parent who wants a deep, loving, relationship with your teen, and you want to find ways to empower them and connect with them, now’s the time to start building that connection by Building Values Based Relationships.

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Episode 223: Parenting Myth: It’s My Teen’s Fault Our Relationship Is Bad

Parenting Myth: My Teen’s Poor Behavior is Responsible for How I Parent.

There’s a common belief among parents that their poor relationship with their teen is their teen’s fault. I get it. I’ve fallen into this trap before and blamed my teen for how I was feeling towards them and even for how I treated them.

It actually makes sense that you might think this way, because there are a lot of parents out there who think this way. In fact, recently in a parenting group, not mine, but one that I’m a member of, a mom went off venting about her teen and blaming her teen for her parenting struggles, and to make things worse, most of the comments on the post supported this mother’s belief that her daughter was to blame for her poor relationship with her.

But, I want you to think about this . . .

. . . If how you parent is your teen’s fault, there would be nothing that you could do to be a better parent. You would always be at the mercy of your teen and their behavior. Fortunately, it’s not your job to control your teen, and it’s not your teen’s job to control you and your parenting.

An Empowering Truth: You’re Responsible for How You Parent!

If you’re like most parents, when you parent in reaction to your teen’s behavior, you probably aren’t happy with the way you parent.

In fact, you might even feel bad or guilty about your parenting.

If you want to be happy in your parenting, you need to learn to intentionally BE the Parent of Your Dreams, regardless of your teen’s choices.

Think about it. How many times has your teen done something that triggered your old parenting habits to take over? Then, you yell, scream, maybe even say things you regret, and then you feel ashamed of your parenting.

This leads to unhappiness in your parenting. And, when you believe that it’s all your teen’s fault, that’s disempowering, which leaves you now feeling ashamed and powerless.

Thankfully, there’s a better way! Imagine this . . .

. . . Your teen does whatever they do that normally triggers your old parenting habits, BUT this time, rather than losing your cool and yelling, screaming and saying things that you regret, instead you take responsibility for how you’re feeling. So, you figure, “I might as well keep my cool,” you approach the situation with curiosity and compassion. Then you realize, when you do this it’s easier to love your teen, which really helps YOU have a good relationship with your teen.

Now, you can totally be disappointed in your teen, but still totally loving them AND proud of the way you handled the situation.

Ask a Powerful Question!

So, ask yourself, “Do I want to keep losing control of myself as a parent everytime my teen does something I don’t like, or do I want to be in control and parent with intention in these moments?”

Or ask yourself, “Do I want to keep blaming my teen and keep being the victim? Or, do I want to take responsibility for me, my parenting, and my relationship with my teen, and be empowered?”

It boils down to this, . . .

Do you want to improve your relationship with your teen or not?

If you answered “YES”, then it’s time to take responsibility for your parenting. It’s time to stop blaming your teen and start BEing responsible for you and your parenting.

Now’s the time!

Let me help you!

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