Human beings love to overcomplicate things, and if you’re like most human beings, you probably fall into this trap sometimes.
For example, a lot of parents focus on their teen’s grades, and they create elaborate rewards and punishments meant to incentivize their teen to improve their grades.
If you look at work culture, there are tons of complicated, stupid/common sense rules. In my experience it’s way more simple to just hire good people who are there to do their best and who don’t need stupid rules to tell them what to do and what not to do. In stead, we want to have 100 page employment manuals.
If you catch yourself implementing stupid rules, meant to control your teen, you’re over complicating parenting and you’re over complicating your teen.
Fortunately, there’s a better way!
3 Simple Problems
I wish I’d have learned this way earlier. This would have helped me be a better parent, principal, life coach, football coach, and mentor much earlier.
Now that I know this, I feel like I am so much more equipped to help others grow and improve.
For you, as a parent of a teenager, this will help you know better how to support your teen in their growth and their development.
Though this is super simple, it does come with a warning.
Just because you see this and know this, doesn’t mean that you have the power to change, fix, or control your teen.
You can help them IF THEY WANT YOUR HELP.
So, don’t try to force this on your teen. Simply see it and lean into your own inner wisdom and explore how to help them.
So, what are the 3 simple problems?
MINDSET
SKILLSET
HABITS
#1 Mindset
Right now in the coaching and therapy world, mindset is huge, which is a good thing, because it was neglected and ignored for way to long.
But, sometimes people focus too much on mindset and don’t balance the need to address skillset and habits.
Mindset problems are tied to your thoughts and your mind (obviously).
A lot of people have no clue how their thoughts impact their feelings and their actions.
A lot of the mindsets that you have as a parent, you picked up from your parents who had those same mindsets.
When you can gain awareness around your mindset, how you think and what you think, you will then gain the power to choose how and what you think. With this power to choose, your choices will program your mind overtime to think through a new lens.
One of the awesome things about shifting your mindset is that in some areas, you can make a radical shift really quickly, though in other areas it might take years.
In my early coaching days, I have to admit that I over valued mindset, and focused more on that than anything. Now I believe I’m much more balanced.
Before my coaching days, I probably mostly ignored mindset. So, I’m glad it’s getting more attention now.
With practice, you can reprogram your mindset.
Teen and Parent Mindset Problems
Here are some examples of mindset problems in parents and teens.
A lot of teens who struggle with self-image, have a mindset problem.
For example, they compare themselves to others. This is a mindset.
A lot of parents of teens struggle accepting their teen and connecting with them. Often this is a mindset problem because they’re comparing their teen to what they think their teen should be.
A lot of parents and teens who struggle with depression, anxiety, and overwhelm are simply struggling from a mindset problem, that with a little work, they could completely change and improve.
As a football coach, I see mindset problems all the time when my players think things like, “I can’t do that,” or “Coach hates me,” or “I’m the best player ever, and coach doesn’t know what he’s talking about.”
When I can identify mindset problems, I can help address them in my players and in my teens.
#2 Skillset
Skillset and habits are what most people have focused on in the past, and they’re super important, but all the skill development in the world will never make up for a poor mindset.
So, keep in mind, there needs to be a balance between the three, and often there will be overlap with the three.
A lot of the teens that I work with have some mindset problems. Sometimes we can address those in just 1 week. But, they continue to struggle because they don’t have the skills required to thrive.
Let’s take basketball for example. You can have the proper mindset to execute a layup, but without the skill, you’ll still struggle.
Just like with mindset, and habits really, you can reprogram your skillset. It takes practice and repetition.
In sports, I feel like this is easy to see. There are players with the right mindset, but they don’t have the skills to back it up. They might get into a game, thinking, “I’ve got this. I can do this,” only to find out that they are lacking the skills to actually do the task.
Teen and Parent Skillset Problems
Here’s how I see this in parents and teens.
When I work with parents, they can usually change their mindset in the very first coaching call. With the new mindset, they totally want to parent differently and better, but in the heat of the moment, they often lack the skill of parenting differently. Sometimes this can take a few weeks. But, with intentional practice using the wheel of life, they’re able to relatively quickly build new skills.
Teens are the same way. I have a teen client who completely changed her mindset around school, grades, homework, and procrastination, but it took her a few months to revamp her skills when it came to better managing school.
#3 Habit
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. Habits get a bad rap. People talk about BAD habits more than they talk about GOOD habits. You’ve probably focused more on BREAKING bad habits than you have focused on BUILDING good habits.
The truth is, habits aren’t good or bad. They’re neutral, and they work in the background of your subconscious mind.
The secret is, your habits will work for you or against you, depending on what you program into your BEing.
There is some overlap with habits, skillset, and mindset, but habits are their own unique point to this triangle.
I know people who have a great mindset, they’ve developed some powerful skills, but they keep getting pulled back into their old habits.
I fall into this trap, especially when it comes to my weight and health. I’ll work on the mental game and greatly improve my mindset around food, exercise, and my health. I’ll develop the skill of exercising and improve my technique when I lift. I’ll even learn the skill of fixing healthy food, but in the moment, I’ll fall back into old habits either without thinking or simply because I want the pleasure that comes with the old habit.
The truth is, just like mindset and skillset, habits need to be trained and reprogrammed.
Teen and Parent Habit Problems
When it comes to habits that are hurting parents and teens, one of the biggest ones that I see is constantly allowing yourself to be distracted by your phone. This is a habit that is wreaking havoc on parent/teen relationships. And, it’s BOTH parents AND teens.
If you’re like many of the parents who are often distracted by your phone and/or social media, you’re missing opportunities for connection. If your teen is like a lot of teens, and they’re distracted by their phone, social media, and video games, they’re also missing opportunities.
Now, you CAN’T change your teen, but you can BE The Change you want to see with your teen. YOU CAN build new habits and lead the way by modeling the habits you want to see.
Another habit that I often see is BEing critical. I see this in parents towards both themselves and their teen, and others. I also see this in teens, towards themselves, their parents, and others.
The habit of being critical will rob you of happiness, gratitude, and connection.
This is a habit that starts with you. I can’t tell you how many times a mom has told me that after managing her self-talk and her inner-criticism, that she completely stopped criticizing others.
Putting It All Together
Awareness is a powerful force. If you’re like me, and the parents I work with, you’re probably tired of going through life and your parenting distracted and unaware.
Take the time to gain some awareness around the problems that you and your teen are facing. Become aware of whether your problems are related to Mindset, Skillset, or Habits, or a combination of the 3.
With this awareness, you can now simply solve for the problem at hand.
Got a mindset problem? Address the mindset. Question your thoughts and beliefs. Choose new thoughts and beliefs. Let it be simple.
Got a skillset problem? Take time to learn new skills. Get good at teaching new skills to your teen. Let it be simple.
Got a habit problem? Understand the habit. See how it used to serve you, but how it’s now hurting you. Then, take your energy from the old habit and redirect it to building a new habit.
I promise. This is easier than is sounds. Let it be easy and let this help you BE The Parent of Your Dreams!
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You probably have some traditions that you enjoy, especially during the holidays, but have you ever stopped to explore why those traditions are important?
If you’re like me, you have some holiday traditions that are special to you. For me, I like to set up a Christmas village in our living room, and to make it even more special, we hide a lamb in our Christmas village that people can look for and hide when they find it, to symbolize finding Christ in Christmas.
Traditions are important because they convey a message of values and often connection.
Traditions help give people a sense of purpose, belonging, and fulfillment and enjoyment.
Also, when your teen is not longer a teen, and living away from your home, your traditions will help them want to return to your home, these traditions will help them feel excitement and joy when they visit, and they might even be traditions that they carry on with their own families in the future.
Traditions Create Connection
Ultimately, traditions are a fun opportunity to create connection and joy.
I want to share 3 simple ways that you can create holiday traditions with your teen that will build connection and love. This will help you see Christmas and the holidays as an opportunity to connect with your teen and share powerful values with them.
If you’re not careful, you could accidentally push your teen away with your traditions, especially if you try to force your traditions on your teen. But, if you follow these simple steps, you’ll create family traditions that you and your teen can look forward to for years to come.
#1 Make it Fun!
Seriously, this one should be a no brainer, right!?!
But, how many times are we as parents guilty of sucking the fun out of things? This is one area where you definitely don’t want to be a kill joy.
I don’t know why we think that everything needs to be boring. One of the things that some of my teachers would tell me when I was a principal was, “School’s not supposed to be fun.”
I say, Bah humbug to that. School SHOULD be fun, and so should enjoy your holiday traditions.
If you want to create some new holiday traditions with your teen, make sure their fun.
If you want to create memories that will have your no-longer-teens telling their spouse, “But, we have to go to my parents this year because I LOVE this tradition!” your traditions need to be fun.
For this, find ways to celebrate things that you and your teen enjoy doing.
Find ways to celebrate growth and accomplishment.
One of my mottos is, “How can we make this a party with a purpose?” Apply that to some of your holiday traditions. Ask your teen things like, “How can we make this fun?” They’ll help you.
#2 Keep It Simple
Sometimes I have the best of intentions, and I want to do something, and I think it’s going to be so much fun, and I want to invite all of these people, and I want it to be perfect, and I want to incorporate so many things, and before long what started as a simple idea has exploded into a full scale production.
If you want to create and impactful holiday tradition with your teen, keep it simple.
Don’t make it so complicated, or expensive, or exhausting that you’ll never want to do it again.
Make it simple enough that your teen wants to do it with you. Make it simple enough that you want to do it with your teen.
Some of the best holiday traditions are simple because they were made for children, and the children enjoyed them enough to remember them and pass them along as adults.
We used to have my dad bring two of his fancy horses, Norwegian Fjords, to my house, then hitch them up to a wagon, then go caroling through my neighborhood. It was super fun. The only problem is that it is not simple, and as my kids have become busy teenagers, that tradition has fallen by the wayside. Don’t let your traditions fall into the same trap.
#3 Let Your Teen Lead
I’m on this kick of empowering teens. If you want to create an awesome holiday tradition with your teen, that you will both remember fondly for years to come, let your teen lead. This will empower your teen. This will increase their buy in and the likelihood that they will enjoy the new tradition.
EMPOWER YOUR TEEN.
You could ask your teen, “What are some of your favorite holiday traditions?” or “What holiday traditions would you like to start in our home?” Bottom line is, let your teen lead. Let them have the experience of creating something.
One year when I was a teacher, I tasked my students with coming up with some form of service to give back to the community. They couldn’t agree on one service project, so we combined 2 into one. It was a food/coat drive. We gathered hundreds of pounds of food for our community. We collected tons of coats. We collaborated with various departments in the tribe to make sure that the food and coats made it to families that needed it, and my students lead the whole thing.
And, at the end of the school year, when I asked, “What was the most meaningful thing that you learned this year?”, all of my students said it was the service project.
BONUS #1 Make it Meaningful
If the tradition that you create has a deeper meaning, and if it’s meaningful to both you and your teen, it will have a deeper impact on your lives.
BONUS #2 Traditions Ideas From Me and Others
Build a Christmas village
Go Christmas caroling
Make cookies and deliver them to elderly neighbors
Do a fancy Christmas dinner and invite your teen to bring a date
Do secret Santa Activities
Play boardgames
Cook food together
Do a holiday scavenger hunt
Do an act of service
Family service project.
Want to Master the Inner Game of Parenting?
Step 1 – Go take the parent trap quiz!
It’s free, easy, and will take you less than 3 minutes.
Step 2 – Use your quiz results to focus your energy on growing in the area indicated by your quiz results.
Simplifying boundaries will benefit both you and your teen!
Boundaries Aren’t Meant to Control Anyone
One of the biggest mistakes I see parents making when it comes to boundaries is when they make a boundary hoping that it will change their teen’s behavior.
Anytime you are hoping to change your teen’s behavior, that is more of a manual or manipulation than it is a boundary.
Boundaries aren’t meant to control anyone, especially not the other person.
It is important to remember that you cannot control anyone other than yourself.
Any effort made to control your teenager is an example of your focus being on things outside of your control.
This positions you as a victim because you are at the mercy of someone other than yourself.
Boundaries Are More For YOU
Setting boundaries is more for your benefit than for anyone else’s benefit. In fact, most boundaries don’t even need to ever be expressed to the other person.
Another common mistake with boundaries is focusing on the other person.
What the other person does or doesn’t do is less important than what YOU will do.
For example, I have a boundary that If you yell at me, I will leave.
I usually don’t ever tell the other person about this boundary. I simply notice that a boundary has been crossed, and I leave.
I don’t even need to involve the other person.
I learned this when I was a high school football player. When the team would be talking dirty or horsing around, I simply got up and left. I didn’t need to change them, I didn’t want to be a part of their behavior, so I just left.
The same is true when you are raising your teen. Boundaries are more for your benefit than for theirs.
Sometimes you might share your boundaries with them, but it’s not a requirement.
The Best Boundaries are Set with Love
Another mistake that I see when it comes to boundaries is setting them out of anger or fear.
You don’t have to be mad to set or enforce a boundary.
You can, and sometimes you will be mad or scared.
But, the best boundaries are set and executed with love.
The best boundaries are set with an inward focus of “what can I control?” or “how do I want to show up here?”
It sets the other person free to be themselves and do whatever they want, but it gives you clear guidance and direction as to how you show up.
Boundaries are Meant to Be Simple
Another common mistake when it comes to setting boundaries with your teen is overcomplicating the boundary.
Boundaries are meant to be simple.
This will make your life easier and your teen’s life easier.
One example of overcomplicating boundaries is informing the other person of a boundary that they don’t need to know about. Like I mentioned above with my high school football team. They didn’t need to know about the boundary. It didn’t impact them.
I kept it simple and just created and enacted the boundary on my own.
Another example of overcomplicating boundaries is when you have complex consequences or rewards for the other person’s behavior. Usually the more complex the boundary, the more likely it is that you are actually trying to change, control, or manipulate the other person.
I see this a lot with parents and their teen’s grades. Sometimes the parents get super creative and they have tons of different consequences and rewards, depending on what their teen does. The problem is, the more complex things are the more confused everyone will be when it actually comes to the boundary.
Keep boundaries simple for your sake and the other person.
Simple Boundaries = If you ____, I will ____.
Simple boundaries are, “If you _____, I will ______.
“If you yell at me, I will leave the room.”
“If you fail math, I will not pay for your phone.”
Call to ACTION!
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BEing the parent of your dreams means being responsible for your own personal growth rather than being responsible for your teen’s personal growth.
“That is what learning is. You suddenly understand something you’ve understood all your life, but in a new way.” ~ Doris Lessing
How To Make Parenting Simple!
#1 Define Your Role!
One of the things that makes parenting harder that it needs to be is Not knowing your role!
If you don’t know what your role, or purpose, is as a parent, everything feels like a battle.
When you don’t define your parenting role, you get tossed from one roll to the other.
It’s hard to be intentional when you don’t know what your role is.
#2 Only Focus on What YOU Can Control.
One of, if not THE, most powerful things you can do as a parent is to shift your focus from what you cannot control to what you CAN control.
One of the things that makes parenting hard is trying to control things outside of your control. When we focus on things outside of our control, we waste a lot of effort on something that is outside of our control. It’s exhausting because nothing changes.
Things you might be focusing on that are OUTSIDE of your control:
Your teen’s behavior,
Their grades,
Their decisions,
Their thoughts and feelings,
Their results/consequences.
Things you could focus on that are WITHIN your control:
How you think,
How you feel,
How you act,
Your ways of BEing.
Parenting is much more simple when you only have to worry about what you can actually control.
#3 Make Your Personal Growth the Priority Rather than Your Teen’s Personal Growth.
Most parents focus on the growth, or more accurately their perceived lack of growth, with their teen. If you’re like most parents, you’ve done this too, and you’ve been frustrated or disappointed with the growth.
Instead, focus on your own personal growth. Make that your priority.
You can’t change, fix, or control your teen, BUT . . .
. . . When you make your own personal growth a priority, you will have a more intentional and positive impact on your teen.
When we focus on others’ personal growth, or lack there of, we cannot focus on our own personal growth.
We cannot focus on two things at once.
Make your own personal growth a priority.
BONUS #1 Choose Love!
It sounds overly simple, but what if it really is just this simple? CHOOSE LOVE!
What if loving your teen was your ONLY job? Wouldn’t that make your job easier?
Love is always an option when it comes to you and your teen.
Love is a simple choice with no down side.
BONUS #2 Trust Yourself 100%
The other day I was on a group coaching call in the Impact Parenting Program, and I was talking about BEing a “perfect” parent.
Someone told me that they would never use the example of a perfect parent because there is so much shame around whether or not you are perfect.
I get it, “mom guilt” and “dad shame” are a thing, but THEY ARE OPTIONAL!
What if you believed that you were the PERFECT parent? How would you feel? How would you act? How would you BE?
This might sound boastful, BUT . . .
. . . I believe that I am the PERFECT dad for my family.
I know tons of people who would disagree. They might say, “Ben SUCKS! He’s the worst dad I’ve ever seen.”
BUT, when I trust that I am the perfect dad for my family, if feel confident, and I have my own back. I show up and do my very best. I trust that my best is good enough and exactly what is needed in the moment.
Others might see me at my best and think, “That’s the opposite of perfect parenting.”
It doesn’t matter what they think.
I am still doing my best.
I can take any parenting situation and turn it into the best situation possible.
Sometimes that looks like me apologizing for parenting unintentionally or out of alignment with my values.
Even when I make “mistakes,” that is the perfect opportunity for me to be an example of someone who is doing their very best. It’s an opportunity for me to apologize. It’s an opportunity for me to learn and grow!
This is why I’m the perfect dad.
And when I believe this, I have my back and I show up with full confidence, which is way easier than always doubting and second guessing myself, and worrying that I’m not good enough.
