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What to Do When Your Teen Is Struggling but Refuses Help · 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.
• 0:31
  I have a few moms right now who are really worried about their teenage sons.
• 0:37
  They worry about the choices that their teens are making, the things that they're doing, sometimes the things that they're not doing.
• 0:45
  They worry about school, motivation, mental health, their future.
• 0:50
  And one of these moms, they're most worried that their teenager doesn't want help.
• 0:56
  He doesn't want to see a therapist.
• 0:58
  He doesn't want a life coach.
• 1:00
  He really doesn't want to even talk to his mom about this.
• 1:04
  And this mom's like,"Look, I could probably bribe him to get him on a Zoom call with you, and maybe you could talk him into getting some help." And I understand why a mom would want to do this.
• 1:18
  You love your teen.
• 1:19
  You can see that something is wrong, and this worries you.
• 1:25
  And you're thinking,"If I could just get somebody through to him, maybe we could fix this." But actually, I think that that can be the wrong place to start.
• 1:37
  Because before we figure out how to get your teenager help, I think we need to ask a much more important question: Who says that your teen needs fixed?
• 1:49
  And maybe even more importantly, what can you do even if your teenager wants absolutely nothing to do with therapy or life coaching or talking to you or getting help?
• 2:02
  So that's what we're going to talk about today.
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  And in a minute, I'm going to tell you one of the most awkward, one of the most embarrassing coaching calls that I have ever had, but it completely changed the way that I handle these conversations with teens.
• 2:21
  So, before we get to the awkward, embarrassing story, what does struggling even mean?
• 2:29
  This is something that I think is important to address because in today's society, we throw around, he's struggling," as though it is this objective diagnosis.
• 2:41
  Sometimes your teen might be in pain.
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  Maybe they are struggling.
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  Sometimes he's just not living up to the life that you hoped that he would.
• 2:51
  And sometimes school or grandparents or church leaders or even coaches and therapists, they reinforce this story that your teen is struggling and they need help.
• 3:05
  But there is a difference between what we have come to have as this term,"Well, he's struggling." There's a difference between that and being uncomfortable, between that and facing the consequences that you created.
• 3:23
  There's a difference between struggling that is a problem and going through the normal difficulty of life.
• 3:32
  And sometimes our teens genuinely need professional support, but we shouldn't lump everything together And I learned how different a parent's definition of struggling can be from a teenager's definition during one of my earliest coaching calls.
• 3:52
  Honestly, this is still probably the most awkward and embarrassing coaching call that I've ever had.
• 4:01
  this is back in my early days of life coaching.
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  I offered this free coaching call.
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  So this mom scheduled this call for her and her teenage daughter.
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  Now, when you go schedule a free game plan call, there's an intake form, and as part of that form, you get to explain,"Well, here is what I'm concerned about.
• 4:23
  Here's what we're hoping that you can help us with." And the mom, had explained that, their school, relationships, life in general.
• 4:33
  And I always read these beforehand, and yet on the coaching call, I still open up with a question of,"What are you hoping I can help you with?" The reason I do that is because it's good practice for you to write down,"Well, here's what we're hoping we can help you with." It's good practice to have to vocalize that, and hopefully it helps you gain a little bit more clarity.
• 4:56
  It helps you understand, here's the problem, and here's what I'm hoping you can help me with." So I open this free coaching call with this mom and this daughter with my normal question,"What are you hoping that I can help you with?" And neither one of them would answer, and they just looked at each other awkwardly.
• 5:18
  The mom didn't wanna say why we're here.
• 5:20
  The teen probably didn't even fully understand why we were here.
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  So I was like,"Well, I can read what you put on the intake." And the mom's like,"Yeah, sure." Well, I started to read, and I can't even remember what it said.
• 5:33
  I remember...
• 5:35
  She was struggling.
• 5:36
  I think it was, like, school, relationships, and life.
• 5:39
  Anyways, the mom's face changes, and now she has this horrified look on her face, and the daughter just has this confused and shocked look on her face.
• 5:52
  And my stomach dropped.
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  Like, I realized that this was a shock to the daughter.
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  She had no idea why we were there.
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  And I remember the daughter saying something to the effect of, to her mom by the way,"You think I'm struggling?
• 6:10
  You think I'm the one with the problem?" Well, then the mom tried to explain, and the awkward coaching call ended up being really good because mom and daughter had a really necessary conversation.
• 6:23
  But the thing that I realized is that mom thought that her daughter desperately needed help.
• 6:32
  She thought something was seriously wrong, and the daughter believed that she was fine.
• 6:38
  She didn't think that she needed help.
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  She didn't think that she needed someone to come save the day.
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  And that conversation taught me something that I've never forgotten.
• 6:50
  A parent can completely be convinced that their teenager has a problem, while the teenager can be sitting there thinking,"I'm fine.
• 7:01
  You're the one freaking out." And that doesn't automatically mean that mom is wrong, but it doesn't automatically mean that mom is right either.
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  So if you're looking at your teenager thinking he needs help, I want you to do something before you start figuring out how to convince your teenager that ne- he needs help.
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  I want you to start with you.
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  when it comes to having a teenager that really doesn't want help, they don't want a therapy, they don't want a life coach, they don't want to even talk to you about it Even if he's struggling and he doesn't want help, this episode is going to show you what you can do without trying to force your teenager to change.
• 7:54
  And a lot of parents have this old belief,"Hey, if my teen is struggling, I need to get him help, or I need to help him." I wanna help you embrace a new belief.
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  If my teen is struggling, I can become a safer, calmer leader while allowing him to own more of his struggle, and that's okay.
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  So maybe this is you.
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  Maybe your teen is indeed struggling.
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  Maybe if I were to ask your teen, they're not struggling.
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  They think they're doing just fine.
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  This is for you if you feel like your teen is struggling and he won't accept any help, and I'm going to give you some dos and some don'ts that will help you in this specific situation.
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  All right, so the first do.
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  I do want you to question what struggling even means.
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  Ask yourself,"What exactly am I seeing?" And start separating the facts from your interpretation.
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  The fact might be that he has three Ds or maybe a couple Fs.
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  Your interpretation might be he is throwing away his future.
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  The fact might be he hates school.
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  Your interpretation might be,"Well, he will never be successful." Maybe he spends hours video gaming, and you're like,"Look, Ben, here's the facts.
• 9:29
  He got home from school, spent three hours playing video games." And then the interpretation is he has no ambition.
• 9:38
  And maybe your interpretation is right.
• 9:40
  Maybe he doesn't have ambition, or maybe it's wrong Other adults being concerned about your teenager doesn't automatically make your assumptions wrong.
• 9:53
  If you have a group of women that you're like,"Oh, our teens are all struggling," just because you all agree with each other does not mean that you are all right.
• 10:03
  I would like you to explore what does struggling even mean?
• 10:08
  Am I trying to eliminate a struggle or eliminate some discomfort or eliminate the process that creates growth?
• 10:18
  Is this actually dangerous or is it just difficult?
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  Here's a question I think parents need to get much better at asking.
• 10:27
  Is this dangerous or is it just uncomfortable?
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  Those are not the same thing.
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  Like I have seen teens that go through a really bad breakup and the parents automatically assume,"Well, this is dangerous.
• 10:40
  My kid is hurting." And we hurt our teens when we treat every uncomfortable season in their life like an emergency.
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  All right, so the first do, do question what it even means to struggle.
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  let me give you a couple of examples.
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  I had one client years ago, hated school.
• 11:02
  The principal, the school counselor, the teachers were this scared, like he is struggling.
• 11:08
  Well, when we got him out of school, he started to thrive.
• 11:12
  He wasn't necessarily struggling.
• 11:14
  He was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.
• 11:17
  When he was able to do his own thing, start businesses, start learning things that were actually relevant to him, it wasn't that he was struggling.
• 11:27
  Getting bad grades doesn't mean your teen is struggling.
• 11:30
  Having a school counselor tell you that your teen is struggling does not mean that your teen is struggling.
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  Okay, the first don't, don't catastrophize.
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  A lot of times parents see the current behavior and they mentally fast-forward five to 10 years and they think,"Oh, well, he hates school.
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  He'll never hold a job.
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  He's failing math.
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  What if he doesn't graduate?" Maybe he gets that ugly breakup and they're like,"Oh my goodness, he will never recover." Or maybe he's gaming too much and you think,"He's gonna live in my basement forever." Maybe he looks at porn and you think he will never be able to have a normal relationship in his life.
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  Fear is contagious.
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  Your emotional state towards your teen is going to be picked up by your teen, and then he might start to share that same emotional state.
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  Fear creates urgency, and urgency often creates controlling parents.
• 12:34
  They're like,"Oh my goodness, we gotta fix this." And then the teen, when they feel mom's panic, they might start believing it.
• 12:43
  "Oh man, if mom doesn't think I can handle this problem, maybe I can't.
• 12:47
  Maybe there's something wrong with me." So I don't wanna say, like, the breakup one is a hard one.
• 12:54
  I know a lot of parents are like,"Man, I'm worried for my child's emotional safety." There are real concerns.
• 13:03
  The thing is, I don't want you to create those real concerns when there is no evidence to support that.
• 13:12
  And we do it all the time.
• 13:13
  I do it.
• 13:14
  I catastrophize.
• 13:16
  I see something that goes wrong in the present moment, and I project that out into the future.
• 13:22
  It's normal.
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  That's part of being a human being.
• 13:25
  But that's one of the things that you can catch yourself doing, and you can remind yourself,"This is what I'm supposed to don't do.
• 13:34
  It's on the don't list." And then you can redirect that behavior.
• 13:39
  Don't make the struggle worse by mentally turning it into something bigger than it is.
• 13:45
  And if your brain insists on catastrophizing, at least don't hand that fear to your teenager, and don't ask him to carry that around.
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  Just you deal with your emotional state.
• 13:58
  The next do, do normalize struggle.
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  Guess what, guys?
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  We live in a time where social media makes everything look perfect.
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  Teens compare themselves and what happens in their real life to what they see on social media that is the polished version of their friend's life.
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  There's also, like, reality TV and all this garbage, and guess what?
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  Adults do this too.
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  But help your teen understand that everybody struggles.
• 14:31
  I'm struggling in my life.
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  There are a handful of things that I'm struggling with.
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  That's part of being alive.
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  Everybody fails.
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  I just failed in something in my business, and I hoped it would go one way.
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  It did not go that way.
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  Oh, well.
• 14:47
  Everybody fails.
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  Everybody feels lost sometimes.
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  Everybody has things that they are embarrassed about.
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  Struggle does not mean that there's something wrong with you.
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  If anything, it means that you're normal, and we need to normalize struggling and help your teen realize,"No, there's nothing wrong with you.
• 15:08
  This is just part of life." Sometimes the greatest struggle is where we build the most capacity.
• 15:19
  So here's a few examples.
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  When your teen is struggling, instead of thinking,"Oh my goodness, we gotta fix this," try,"Well, yeah, this can be hard, and I trust you to be able to work through it." Or guess what?
• 15:33
  You don't have to have this figured out.
• 15:35
  I'm almost 45, and I still don't have life figured out.
• 15:38
  That's okay.
• 15:40
  The goal isn't to raise a teen who never struggles.
• 15:44
  The goal is to raise a teenager who doesn't become afraid of himself and his lack of ability to solve things every time life gets hard.
• 15:55
  We want to raise teens that realize,"I am bigger than my problems.
• 15:59
  I can solve anything.
• 16:02
  It's okay to struggle." Okay, for our next don't.
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  Don't turn your teen into the problem.
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  I, I know.
• 16:15
  I hear this all the time.
• 16:16
  I see it.
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  Hopefully, I don't do this.
• 16:19
  I feel like I probably used to, but I've worked on correcting this.
• 16:23
  Avoid phrases towards your teen like,"What is wrong with you?""Why can't you just be more like so and so?" Or,"Everyone else can do this.
• 16:35
  Why can't you?""Why are you like this?" Talking to your teen as if they're the problem does not help them through the struggle.
• 16:47
  It doesn't help them identify what the problem is and actually solve it.
• 16:52
  They just think that they are broken.
• 16:55
  Your teen might have a problem, but that doesn't mean that your teen is a problem, and that distinction is huge.
• 17:04
  That's one of the most important things that I teach, and one of the biggest mistakes that we make as parents is turning a problem that our teenager is experiencing into their identity Let's catch ourselves doing that.
• 17:23
  If you're like me and the parents that I work with, and you've caught yourself saying,"Well, he's struggling.
• 17:29
  He's just lazy." No, stop it.
• 17:31
  He is not the struggling teen.
• 17:33
  He is not just a lazy kid.
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  He's not just an anxious kid.
• 17:38
  He's your kid, and right now, there might be something difficult happening in his life, and that's okay.
• 17:46
  He is not the problem.
• 17:49
  He is bigger than the problem.
• 17:51
  He has all the power in the world to solve it when he's ready.
• 17:56
  All right, let's move on to another do.
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  Do show your teen that you trust him.
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  I understand that this can be really hard, especially today.
• 18:09
  We live in a world that loves fear.
• 18:14
  Life coaches do it.
• 18:15
  Therapists do it.
• 18:16
  I try not to do it.
• 18:17
  I never want you to hire me as a life coach because you're afraid that,"Oh my goodness, my teen can't do this on his own." I don't want you to be behaving out of fear because fear spreads.
• 18:29
  Fear communicates to your teen that,"Hey, I don't think you can handle this." I want you to trust your teen.
• 18:38
  Show your teen that you trust him.
• 18:41
  Communicate.
• 18:41
  I know you can figure this out.
• 18:43
  I trust you.
• 18:44
  I believe you can learn whatever you need to learn to figure this out." I don't wanna create fear.
• 18:51
  I know you don't wanna create fear.
• 18:53
  Let's create confidence.
• 18:55
  Let's create trust.
• 18:57
  I would much rather you hire me, like, in my business because you trust me than because you're afraid that if you don't, all hell is gonna break loose and the world is gonna fall apart.
• 19:09
  Here's the thing that I wanna be clear on.
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  Trusting your teen does not mean that you ignore danger.
• 19:15
  It doesn't mean that you remove boundaries, and it doesn't mean that you pretend like you don't care.
• 19:22
  Instead, trust should sound like this:"Hey, what do you think you need to do to fix this?
• 19:29
  What have you tried so far?
• 19:31
  Do you want my help, or do you want me to just listen?
• 19:35
  I'm here if you want help figuring it out." That's how you can communicate trust to your teen, and you just let them experience the whole thing, the whole struggle.
• 19:47
  Frustration, failure, sucky natural consequences, trying again.
• 19:53
  This builds evidence to your teen that,"Hey, I can solve problems." This is what creates resilience.
• 20:02
  And this brings us to probably my favorite thing.
• 20:05
  If you've been listening to this podcast for very long, you have heard me talk about this over and over and over, and I think most parents completely underestimate this.
• 20:17
  Your teenager might refuse to change, but there is still one person in this relationship that you have complete influence over, and that is you.
• 20:31
  So the last do that I want to give you is do be the change The next time you wanna change your teen, and these moms that are reaching out to me, they're like,"Oh my goodness, my teen is struggling.
• 20:46
  Can you work with him?" They want to change their teen, and that's okay.
• 20:50
  I'm a dad.
• 20:51
  I wanna change my teen sometimes.
• 20:53
  But ask yourself,"How can I be the change that I want to see in my teen?" This will help you stop spending all of your energy trying to get your teen into therapy or life coaching or to just create change, because it will help you ask yourself,"Well, if I want my teen to get a life coach so badly, how can I be that change?
• 21:24
  I could go get a life coach.
• 21:26
  You know what?
• 21:26
  Ben is always inviting me.
• 21:28
  Go hop on a free game plan call.
• 21:30
  Maybe I'll just go and do that." I want you to start asking yourself,"Who do I want to be while my teen struggles?
• 21:41
  What am I modeling?
• 21:43
  What e- example am I giving?
• 21:46
  Do I respond to difficulty with panic or with confidence?
• 21:54
  Do I ask for help when I need it?" Maybe your teen won't ask for help because he's never seen you ask for help.
• 22:01
  "Do I take responsibility for my own emotions?" I'll be honest with you.
• 22:07
  Hopefully I don't hurt your feelings.
• 22:08
  If I do, please forgive me.
• 22:10
  A lot of the parents that come to me because they want me to fix their teen or work with their teen or help with their teen, they are hoping that that will solve something within themselves.
• 22:24
  And the truth is, your teen could work with me and become a complete angel, and it still won't fix whatever is going on within you Do take responsibility for your emotions.
• 22:41
  One question that you could ask,"Do I respect boundaries?" That's one of the biggest things that I know with parents.
• 22:48
  They're like,"I need help.
• 22:49
  My teen won't respect my boundaries." Do you respect your own boundaries?
• 22:54
  Be the change you want to see.
• 22:58
  This is the whole thing that I teach with parenting from the inside out.
• 23:03
  Parenting from the outside in is like,"I need my teen to change so I can feel better." Parenting...
• 23:10
  I think maybe I said that wrong.
• 23:12
  Parenting from the outside in is thinking,"My teen needs to change so that I can feel better." Parenting from the inside out is where you think,"You know what?
• 23:24
  I'm going to be the parent that I want to be regardless of what my teen chooses today." This is why I talk so much about being the change.
• 23:38
  Because no one likes being fixed, controlled.
• 23:42
  No one likes it when someone tries to change you.
• 23:45
  No teenager wants their mom walking around saying,"Hey, how do I fix you?
• 23:50
  How do I make you better?" So take some of that energy that you've been aiming towards your teenager and turn it back inward toward yourself.
• 24:01
  If you want your teen to learn how to manage hard emotions, practice managing your own hard emotions.
• 24:09
  If you want your teen to take responsibility, you take responsibility for what's within your control.
• 24:16
  If you want your teen to be willing to ask for help, model what asking for help looks like.
• 24:23
  The funny thing is, I have coached enough parents of teenagers.
• 24:26
  I've coached enough parents who first wanted me to work with their teen, and their teen was like,"No, I don't need help.
• 24:32
  My parents need help.
• 24:33
  I don't wanna work with you." And then I worked with their parent, and then the parent came back, and they're like,"Hey, my teen has changed his mind.
• 24:40
  He's willing to work with you." And when I asked what changed, he's like,"I don't know.
• 24:45
  If you could help my mom, and if she could change, I'm willing to try." Be the change.
• 24:52
  Model what it would look like.
• 24:54
  If you want to believe that struggle isn't the end of the world, show your teen what it looks like to struggle without falling apart.
• 25:05
  Be the change you keep hoping he'll make.
• 25:09
  here's what I want you to do this week.
• 25:12
  Think about the thing you're most worried about with your teenager, and instead of asking,"How can I get him to fix this?" Ask yourself three simple questions.
• 25:23
  What are the actual facts?
• 25:25
  What story am I adding to those facts?
• 25:29
  And who do I want to be even if my teen is struggling?
• 25:35
  And then just start there, not with fixing your teen, but with leading yourself And if you're listening to this thinking,"Okay, Ben, I understand this in theory, but I don't know what to do with my actual situation.
• 25:50
  Like, it's much worse than what you've talked about.
• 25:52
  It's pornography or it's gambling or it's whatever it is." That's actually exactly what my free game plan call is for.
• 26:03
  Maybe you're worried about your teen's school.
• 26:05
  Maybe he plays too many video games.
• 26:07
  Maybe he's shutting you out.
• 26:10
  Or maybe you're worried about his anxiety, motivation, anger, friends, or some of the choices he's making.
• 26:17
  And maybe the hardest part is that he doesn't think there's a problem.
• 26:22
  You don't need to bribe your teenager to get on a Zoom call with me.
• 26:26
  You don't need your teen to agree to coaching, and you don't need to convince him that he needs to change before you can start making things better.
• 26:38
  We can start with you on a free game plan call.
• 26:43
  We'll talk about what's actually happening in your family, what you've already tried, and what you're feeling is keeping you stuck, and what you think the next best step is.
• 26:55
  Sometimes that might mean working directly with your teen.
• 26:59
  Great.
• 27:00
  Sometimes it might mean working with you, and sometimes you just might need a little clarity in how you're thinking about the situation.
• 27:11
  But the goal isn't for me to convince your teenager that they're broken and they need fixed or that they need to change.
• 27:20
  The goal is to help you figure out what you can actually do next that will change things.
• 27:28
  So if you want help with that, go to benpughcoaching.com/mini and book a free game plan call with me.
• 27:39
  It's like a mini coaching session.
• 27:41
  That's why I call it mini.
• 27:43
  Benpughcoaching.com/mini.
• 27:47
  And remember, your teen doesn't have to decide to change before you can start creating change.
• 27:57
  I'll see you soon.