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Giving Your Teen a Voice Doesn’t Mean Giving Him the Final Say · IMPACT: Parenting with Perspective

• 0:00
  Ben: I'm Ben Pugh and you're listening to IMPACT! Parenting with Perspective.
• 0:06
  Ben: 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.
• 0:17
  Ben: Building rock solid relationships and having a powerful impact on their teen's life.
• 0:22
  Ben: Join me each week as I dive into real tools to help you and your teen turn struggles into strengths.
• 0:32
  One of the biggest fears parents have when I talk about giving your teen more of a voice, they say things like,"Yeah, but Ben, if I let my teen have a say, he thinks he's in charge." And maybe you've tried compromising, and maybe you gave him an inch and he tried to take a mile.
• 0:54
  Maybe you made an exception one Sunday, and suddenly he thinks,"Well, that's the new Sunday rule.
• 1:00
  That's the new routine." Or maybe you asked,"What do you think would be fair?" And his answer was basically,"No rules, unlimited gaming, no bedtime, and I'll do chores whenever I feel like it." Or even worse, he just said,"I don't know." And so you think,"See?
• 1:19
  This is why I have to be the one in charge." And I actually agree with part of that.
• 1:26
  You are in charge, but being in charge doesn't mean your teen shouldn't have a voice.
• 1:33
  And giving your teen a voice does not mean giving him all power or veto power.
• 1:41
  In fact, one of the best boundary experiences that Deb and I ever had with one of our foster kids happened because we gave him a huge voice in creating some rules.
• 1:55
  And the funny part is, at one point, we actually had to convince him to give himself a less severe consequence.
• 2:03
  I'll tell you that story here in a minute.
• 2:06
  But today, I want to show you the difference between buy-in and giving in.
• 2:15
  Because if you can understand this difference, you can stop feeling like you only have two choices as a parent.
• 2:23
  Either I control everything or my teen controls everything.
• 2:28
  There's a much better option, and this is one of the ideas I'm going deeper into in a free workshop that I'm teaching next Tuesday, September 8th, called Three Reasons Your Boundaries Keep Turning into Battles and What to Do Instead.
• 2:50
  I'll tell you how to join me before we finish today For now, I want to talk real quick about the surface problem, and this is what a lot of parents think just right on the surface.
• 3:05
  They think this is going to happen when they give their teen a choice.
• 3:10
  A lot of parents believe I have two options.
• 3:13
  Option A is I set the rule and my teen obeys, and option B is I listen to my teen and now my teen gets his way.
• 3:24
  But there is a huge middle ground.
• 3:28
  Your teen having a voice does not mean that he gets the final vote, and listening to your teen doesn't mean that you now all of a sudden agree with your teen.
• 3:42
  Understanding what your teen thinks, understanding their opinion does not mean that you approve, and negotiating with your teen doesn't mean that you're surrendering.
• 3:56
  This is not...
• 3:57
  Let's see, what's that term?
• 3:59
  Like collaborative parenting, where we feel like every choice, every decision, every thing that has to do with our teen has to become a discussion and/or a negotiation.
• 4:11
  That is not what we're talking about right here.
• 4:14
  We're talking about the power of giving your teenager a voice, and sometimes that means that you might change your mind.
• 4:26
  But changing your mind doesn't mean that you're weak.
• 4:31
  You can be curious without giving up your authority as a parent.
• 4:38
  The goal isn't to get your teen to just blindly agree with everything you decide.
• 4:44
  The goal is to stop treating him like the problem that you have to control, and to start treating him like someone you can solve problems with And that leads us to if that's the surface problem, where parents think,"Oh, but if I don't control everything, and if I give my teen a voice, I give away my parenting authority." Well, that takes us to the deeper pattern, and the deeper pattern is what I like to call either parenting from the outside in or parenting from the inside out.
• 5:26
  Now, this deeper pattern, this problem of not being a- able to give your teen a voice, this is what I would call parenting from the outside in.
• 5:38
  Because the real issue is most parents, when they try and set a boundary and it turns into a battle, the battle starts because the parent is thinking,"Well, how do I get my teen to do what I want?" And that puts the attention outside of you as the parent.
• 6:00
  Oftentimes, this looks like, well, my teen needs to get off of his phone, or do chores, or stop arguing, or go to bed, or get better grades, or stop gaming.
• 6:13
  And so the parent starts pulling all of these levers with an external focus, and so now they're constantly reminding, threatening, lecturing, punishing, rewarding, or bribing.
• 6:28
  They're taking things away.
• 6:29
  They're getting louder, and eventually, you might just give in because that's a lot of work.
• 6:36
  And you could say,"Well, the problem is that my teen won't do what I want them to do." But the problem is the focus is on something outside of yourself.
• 6:48
  The focus is on your teenager, and the whole boundary has become something you're trying to get your teen to do instead of something that you are trying to do with your teen and trying to figure it out together.
• 7:04
  And teenagers, they can feel the difference.
• 7:07
  They know when you view them as the problem or you see them as the project.
• 7:15
  And this is why the foster kid phone situation worked so differently for me and Deb.
• 7:24
  We had our foster child.
• 7:27
  This is back in the good old days when cell phones weren't as common as they are now, but they were getting pretty common, like most kids had cell phones.
• 7:38
  And this foster kid really, really wanted a cell phone.
• 7:45
  Now, we had some legitimate concerns, but we still had the authority.
• 7:51
  We were the parents.
• 7:53
  But instead of starting with a giant list of rules that we created for him, we started with a conversation.
• 8:01
  And the biggest shift was that instead of fighting him over phones, we started fighting for him or with him.
• 8:11
  We got on the same side.
• 8:15
  Now, let me just set up this story a little bit better.
• 8:20
  Um, one of the problems back in the day is that foster kids in general weren't actually allowed to have cell phones at the time.
• 8:28
  Fortunately, at the time, there was this big push, how do we help foster kids have more of a normal experience as a foster kid?
• 8:41
  We don't want them to be the only kids that don't have cell phones.
• 8:47
  And so my wife and I, like we had to fight with our teenager to kind of change this rule and to make it so that s- cell phones were acceptable for foster kids.
• 9:00
  Our foster kid, to kind of get around this rule, he would always borrow extra phones from kids.
• 9:08
  I don't know how kids always had extra phones, but sure enough, he would come home with extra phones.
• 9:14
  And so when we finally won this battle with, I don't know, foster care, the bigger organization in general, and we're like,"No, look, kids should be able to have cell phones.
• 9:28
  All their friends have cell phones.
• 9:30
  Let's help our foster kids have a normal teen experience, and lots of them also have cell phones.
• 9:38
  The beauty is, instead of fighting against our teen, Deb and I just happened to be fighting with our teen.
• 9:46
  We were fighting for this thing that he also wanted.
• 9:50
  That really helped set a powerful, firm foundation that, look, we're in this together, we're working together.
• 9:59
  And so when we got the rule changed, now the fight became instead of fighting our foster kid, who is always coming home with borrowed cell phones, now how can we fight with him to help him have one legitimately?
• 10:18
  And we went from opponents to teammates, and that's a solid foundation.
• 10:25
  Because we were working together, we were on the same team from th- the beginning, and that was powerful.
• 10:33
  So fast-forward.
• 10:35
  Now the rules have changed.
• 10:37
  He can indeed have a cell phone.
• 10:41
  But before handing him a cell phone, we wanted to sit down, and we wanted to talk about what are the expectations, what are some ground rules, what is your right versus what are your privileges when it comes to cell phones, and what happens if the agreements or the rules or the expectations aren't met?
• 11:04
  And this one a lot of parents forget about.
• 11:06
  Also, what happens when these agreements and expectations are met?
• 11:13
  I want you to notice we didn't start by just handing him a list of our rules, our expectations.
• 11:21
  Instead, we asked him,"Hey, what do you think the expectations should be around a phone?" This helped us identify, like, what does he think would be fair?
• 11:33
  The cool thing is he basically told us kind of what we wanted to hear.
• 11:38
  He also knew kind of what the expectations were for other foster kids who were getting cell phones, and so he helped identify expectations.
• 11:47
  Like,"Well, the phone gets turned in at night.
• 11:50
  Um, chores need to be done before I get my cell phone privileges.
• 11:54
  I need to keep my school current.
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  I need to keep good grades.
• 11:57
  And if my foster parents ask to look at the phone for whatever reason, they have access to go through my phone." So he's telling us,"Here's what I think would be fair." One of the most memorable moments, like we're kind of getting towards the end of this conversation, we're all on the same page, and we ask him,"So what do you think would be a fair consequence if the expectation isn't met?
• 12:23
  Like let's say you don't turn your cell phone in on time, what do you think would be fair?" Well, this foster kid, keep in mind, he wanted the cell phone really, really bad, and he proposed something so ridiculous.
• 12:39
  It was something like,"Look, if I don't turn my phone in on time at night, you can take it away for a whole month and I will do extra chores every day for that month." I want you to just realize he is telling us what he thinks we want to hear.
• 13:00
  Now, most parents hearing that would be like,"Deal.
• 13:04
  Sign me up.
• 13:05
  How do we turn that agreement into an actual thing?" But instead, this was an opportunity for me and Deb to protect our foster kid from his own consequence that was brutal.
• 13:18
  It was unfair.
• 13:19
  And I remember we said something like,"Hey, that would definitely motivate you to turn your phone in, but it feels pretty harsh.
• 13:29
  What if it's one day without a phone and with a chance to earn it back early if you do some extra chores and you talk with us about what happened?
• 13:40
  In fact, the extra chores and the talking, that has to be done before you earn it back.
• 13:45
  But you can earn it back early if you do that quick." It was an opportunity for us, for once, to be the good guy in his life, and he thought our consequence was way more fair than him.
• 13:59
  Notice what happened.
• 14:02
  Deb and I didn't give away our authority as his parents.
• 14:07
  We didn't say,"Look, we're in charge.
• 14:10
  You have to do it our way." But we also didn't say,"Okay, you decide everything.
• 14:15
  You're in charge." We were still responsible for what we allowed in our home.
• 14:21
  But instead of creating a system for him, we created a system with him.
• 14:28
  He had a voice.
• 14:29
  He had some ownership.
• 14:31
  He understood the expectations before there was a problem.
• 14:36
  And maybe the most important thing here, for once, me and Deb got to be the good guys in his life.
• 14:43
  We're the parents looking out for him.
• 14:45
  We're the ones who are like,"Man, that seems a little extreme.
• 14:49
  Let's dial it back.
• 14:50
  How does this sound?" We weren't standing on opposite sides of this phone issue, and that's what a lot of parents do.
• 15:00
  They're on opposite sides of an issue, whether it be grades or video games or friends, and you got the teen who wants one thing, and you got the parent who wants another thing, and they're on opposite sides, and they're fighting.
• 15:13
  Deb and I were lucky enough.
• 15:15
  We were standing on the same side of the problem, and we got to solve that problem with our teen instead of trying to solve the problem for him.
• 15:27
  Now, this is a really important lesson Boundaries with buy-in does not give your teen veto power.
• 15:38
  It doesn't mean that your teen has to agree with you before you can set a boundary.
• 15:45
  Sometimes your answer is still no.
• 15:49
  Sometimes it's not negotiable, and sometimes you might be able to say,"Look, I hear that you hate this.
• 15:56
  I understand that you don't like, but I'm the parent and this is what we're doing." Giving your teen a voice does not mean that you are giving your teen equal authority There are three important things to consider when giving your teen a voice.
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  The first one is obvious.
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  Your teen gets a voice.
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  He can share his concerns, his preferences.
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  He can give you ideas and solutions.
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  The other part is you can really listen and consider.
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  Get curious.
• 16:32
  You don't automatically have to agree with him because you're the parent, you respa- you retain responsibility.
• 16:41
  You get to decide what you can live with and what you can't.
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  So the three things I want you to keep in mind.
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  Yes, give your teen a voice.
• 16:51
  That is super important.
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  Number two, listen.
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  Consider.
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  Actually be curious.
• 16:58
  And number three, just remember, you're in charge.
• 17:01
  You're the parent.
• 17:03
  And that will help you...
• 17:04
  Like, one of the things I talk about all the time when it comes to boundaries, you need to know your line.
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  You need to know your role as a parent.
• 17:11
  What are you willing to do?
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  What are you not willing to do?
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  You need to understand, what can I control here?
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  What can I not control?
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  What is in my teen's area of control?
• 17:23
  I need to let go of those things.
• 17:25
  And then when it comes to the boundary, I'm just going to hold the line.
• 17:29
  Now, this doesn't always happen and start, like, in a calm, good place where everybody wants the same things.
• 17:40
  Sometimes it happens when you're not calm and you want something different from your teen.
• 17:47
  And this doesn't only work when you start calm and everybody sits down nicely and nobody has done anything wrong, but this also works when your teen has actually broken the rule.
• 17:59
  Snapchat actually taught me this.
• 18:01
  It was a tough lesson.
• 18:03
  So, let's talk about Snapchat.
• 18:06
  This story proves that buy-in isn't only useful when your teen is on the same page and you both want the same thing.
• 18:14
  Like, this one actually started with a little bit of tension.
• 18:19
  So I'll give you the, the example here.
• 18:22
  I did not start calm.
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  I didn't start curious.
• 18:27
  At the time, I strongly disliked chat, Snapchat, because I had been a high school principal, and I had seen so many problems.
• 18:37
  I had had so many kids tell me,"I'm getting bullied by so and so," and I'd be like,"Awesome." Shit.
• 18:42
  Well, not awesome.
• 18:43
  "That sucks.
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  Sorry you're getting bullied.
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  Show me the proof so I can deal with it." They'd be like,"Well, sorry, Snapchat deletes it." And I had heard about, like, sexting, cyberbullying, all this stuff.
• 18:54
  I was just very against Snapchat.
• 18:58
  And then one day, I discovered that both my 14-year-old and my 12-year-old were using Snapchat behind my back, and I was furious.
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  They knew that I was against Snapchat, that that was a big no-no.
• 19:14
  And my instinct was to punish my kids, delete the app, take away their phone, have big, huge conversations and consequences.
• 19:24
  Like, this was gonna turn into a full-blown lecture.
• 19:29
  Fortunately, I was working on training myself that when I'm furious, that's usually when I most need to get curious.
• 19:39
  In fact, that's some advice that I would give you as a parent.
• 19:42
  The next time you are furious, really see it as an opportunity to get curious, especially when it comes to your teenager.
• 19:52
  So I had this conversation with my 14-year-old and my 12-year-old, and I asked,"What am I missing here?
• 20:00
  What do you wish that I understood about Snapchat?" And they explained it to me.
• 20:05
  They're like,"Dad, you get to have this streak, and all my friends are over here," and this and that and all these things.
• 20:13
  And then I asked another question,"Well, do you understand what I'm worried about?" And the thing is, they actually did.
• 20:21
  They understood my side of the argument better than I understood theirs.
• 20:26
  And so then I asked this important question How could you use Snapchat while also protecting against the things that I'm worried about?
• 20:37
  Notice here, I'm asking a lot of questions, and my 14-year-old and 12-year-old are solving the problem, not me.
• 20:47
  And they proposed these ideas, and they brought up my concerns.
• 20:52
  And their idea, I was like,"Well, that's pretty good, but I'm not okay with this yet." They made adjustments.
• 21:00
  I made adjustments.
• 21:01
  And by the end of the day, they had permission to use Snapchat.
• 21:05
  Now, this might surprise you.
• 21:07
  Some of you might have just heard that,"Oh my goodness, Ben, you just rewarded your kids for breaking the Snapchat rule." And I understand why you might think that, but I don't think that's what happened here.
• 21:20
  The thing is, the goal wasn't to punish or to make them pay.
• 21:27
  The goal was, how do I build something that works for my teenagers and for me?
• 21:35
  how do we create a game plan that will help us moving forward?
• 21:39
  And now, instead of my kids sneaking Snapchat behind my back, now we could talk about it.
• 21:46
  We could check in on it.
• 21:48
  And this, I wanna be clear, this doesn't guarantee that your teen will never make mistakes and that they'll never lie or go behind your back.
• 21:55
  But it does mean that you and your teen had a conversation.
• 22:00
  You came up with an agreement, and now you have a game plan moving forward.
• 22:07
  And when something doesn't work, it doesn't mean you have to burn the whole thing down.
• 22:10
  It means that you go revisit it.
• 22:12
  You have another conversation, and you adjust the game plan So, let's talk about this big shift.
• 22:21
  You can go from mom or dad, doesn't matter, parents, and this is what drives kids nuts, by the way.
• 22:28
  If you have a two-parent household, it's awesome.
• 22:31
  That's a really good place to raise a teenager from.
• 22:34
  But oftentimes, it will feel like mom and dad versus one teenager.
• 22:39
  And if you can shift from us versus you or mom versus teenager and get into,"Hey, let's be on the same team here.
• 22:49
  How do we solve this together?
• 22:52
  How do we build something that works for both of us?" And that takes you from the old one that's like,"Well, no, I'm the mom.
• 23:01
  I'm in charge.
• 23:02
  Do this." And your teen's like,"Why?
• 23:04
  It's stupid." And you're like,"Because I'm the mom.
• 23:06
  Now, give me your cell phone." Now we're moving towards something that's like,"Hey, how do we make this work for both of us?" And this doesn't mean that everyone's gonna get what they want, and this doesn't mean that you apply it to every single situation.
• 23:21
  In fact, I would invite you, try it with something safe, something that you feel like,"Hey, I could give up a little bit of control here and help empower my teen." And so for you, like it might be gaming.
• 23:36
  Maybe the old thought when it came to video games was,"Hey, how do I get my teen to stop gaming?" Instead, you could explore with your teen,"Hey, how do we make room for video games while still protecting sleep, school, and responsibilities?" When it comes to chores, a lot of parents just think,"How do I force my teen to do chores when I want them done?" Instead, you could explore,"Hey, how do we make sure that these responsibilities happen without me reminding you 100 times?" When it comes to bedtime, shift the focus from how do I get my teen to go to bed to something more along the lines of how do we make sure that you get enough sleep, still have time to do what you want, and that I don't have to police your every move at nighttime?
• 24:28
  There is a different way to look at this, and most parents, when they go about boundaries, they are focusing on things outside of their control, and they're approaching it from the me versus my teen mentality instead of understanding,"Hey, this is what I control.
• 24:43
  This is what my teen controls.
• 24:45
  Now, how can we work on this together?" And this is exactly what I'm going to teach on the webinar on Tuesday, and it's completely free.
• 24:59
  And before you just give your teen like,"Oh, hey, I'm gonna give you a choice, like give you a voice.
• 25:05
  What do you think about this?
• 25:06
  What about this?" I want you to really understand, like you are still the parent.
• 25:11
  I would first explore,"What am I willing to give to my teenager?
• 25:16
  What do I need to do a better job of managing as a parent?" Because there are mistakes that you can make when it comes to boundaries with buy-in, and it'll turn right back into you either trying to control your teen or just falling into the trap of permissive parenting.
• 25:35
  And if you make these mistakes, you'll probably end up feeling very much like you feel right now, and you'll be like,"See, I knew this didn't work." When the truth is, it does work.
• 25:45
  You probably just missed a few important steps, which is why you probably want to show up to that free webinar on Tuesday Giving your teen a voice, it is not magically going to make your teen more reasonable.
• 26:04
  It's not probably gonna immediately make him more responsible.
• 26:08
  Sometimes he'll have dumb ideas.
• 26:10
  That's part of being a teenager.
• 26:12
  And sometimes he'll complain, and sometimes he will completely agree and then completely break the agreement the first chance he gets.
• 26:21
  And sometimes he'll just say,"I don't care," or,"I don't know," or,"Fine, whatever." That doesn't mean that boundaries with buy-in failed, and it doesn't mean you go back to just controlling or letting your teen walk all over you.
• 26:36
  The mistake is believing that you need your teen's agreement.
• 26:40
  You don't.
• 26:42
  Your teen can buy in.
• 26:43
  That's awesome when they do, but sometimes they don't, and that's okay too.
• 26:49
  Buy-in means that you treated your teen with respect, you treated him like someone that matters, and like someone that you want to work with to solve a problem that you can attack together.
• 27:04
  You still know your role as a parent, what you can and cannot control, and your teen gets to control his controllables.
• 27:14
  And then if the agreement isn't followed, that's okay.
• 27:16
  We have a plan.
• 27:18
  We talked about this So I want to invite you to come to this free webinar.
• 27:28
  If you're listening to this and thinking,"Well, Ben, this sounds awesome, but how do I actually do it when my teen is arguing with me?" Or when it comes to chores or gaming or bedtime or school or whatever the biggest argument is in your home.
• 27:44
  That is exactly what I want to help you with on Tuesday, September 8th.
• 27:50
  It's a free live workshop called Three Reasons Your Boundaries Keep Turning into Battles and What to Do Instead.
• 27:59
  And I'm going to show you why so many boundaries turn into you reminding or nagging or arguing or threatening and sometimes eventually giving in.
• 28:09
  And more importantly, I'm going to teach you how to start changing that pattern so you can have cleaner boundaries, fewer power struggles, and a teenager who carries more responsibility.
• 28:24
  If you want to see that change in your teen, the power starts with you.
• 28:33
  I want you to see that, hey, this is possible, and you don't need to choose between being controlling and managing everything or being a pushover and letting your teen walk all over you.
• 28:44
  There's a better way.
• 28:45
  You can listen, you can be curious, you can give your teen a voice, and you can work together.
• 28:53
  So in this workshop, I'm going to be giving you a taste of the approach that I'm going to be teaching inside my Boundaries with Buy-In six-week program for moms of teens.
• 29:07
  Boundaries with Buy-In is going to open on September 21st.
• 29:12
  But don't worry about that yet.
• 29:14
  Just start with the free workshop.
• 29:17
  Come and learn these tools, then take it home.
• 29:20
  Try it out.
• 29:21
  See what changes when you stop making your teen the enemy and you start putting the two of you on the same team.
• 29:29
  You can go to benpughcoaching.com/freeboundariesworkshop And here's what I want you to do this week, hopefully before you come to the boundaries workshop on Tuesday, and if not, no problem, come anyways.
• 29:46
  But find one issue where you and your teen normally end up on opposite sides, and don't start by telling him the solution.
• 29:55
  Blow his mind and do something different and ask him,"Hey, what do you think would make this work for both of us?" And you don't have to agree with his answer.
• 30:06
  You're not giving him all parenting power.
• 30:09
  You're simply inviting him to help solve the problem.
• 30:14
  Because this is giving your teen a voice, and giving your teen a voice doesn't put him in charge.
• 30:19
  It teaches him how to think, teaches him how to solve problems, and it gives him ownership.
• 30:25
  And it gives you a chance to lead without having to control everything.
• 30:31
  And that's the difference between giving in and getting buy-in.
• 30:37
  Again, that free workshop, it's on September 8th.
• 30:44
  You can go register at benpughcoaching.com/freeboundariesworkshop.
• 30:53
  It's completely free, and I'll see you there