S04|14 - How to Connect with Your Teens with Ben Pugh

Ben Pugh is a certified life coach who specializes in helping parents build meaningful relationships with their teens, WITHOUT having to change the teens! He helps parents and teens reconnect, build rock-solid relationships, and turn struggles into strengths.  He currently has a membership for parents and teens at FirmlyFounded.com/memberships. The doors will be open from May 30-June 5.

Ben has spent his life working with teenagers and their parents. He was a foster parent for 10 years and spent 10 years in education, including five years as a high school principal. He is also the host of the popular podcast, IMPACT: Parenting with Perspective.

What we talk about today:

• How Ben went from lighting a school bus on fire to high school principal
• How connection affects every area of your parenting/self
• What to do when you don’t feel connected to your teens
• How catastrophizing stops us from connecting
• How to be the change you want to see in your teen, and drop control

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Are you new to the podcast? I've made a roadmap to help you start breaking the parenting cycle and parent through connection, not coercion:Get it here

I would be honored to help guide you on your journey. The work that I talk about in my podcast and use in my coaching has completely turned my life around and healed my relationships with my children. I know what it takes and how to make it happen. You can use the links below to get more of my content and to learn what we do in my coaching program. I love helping people have better relationships with their strong-willed children, and better relationships with themselves in the process.

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Episode Transcript

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: Hey, I'm Crystal, the Parenting Coach. I'm a certified life coach and mom of four. In this podcast, we combine radical connection and positive parenting theories with the How-To Life Coaching Tools and Mindset Work to completely transform our relationship with our children. 

Join me on my journey, unleash your inner parenting expert, and become the mother you've always wanted to be. 

If you're loving my podcast and want to help spread this work to other moms, I would really appreciate it if you would share on social media. Don't forget to tag me, and take a moment to rate and review it; every little bit counts. Make sure to check out my transformative coaching program in the show notes.

Hello and welcome to the podcast today. Before we dig in, I have an announcement. I am going to be taking a break after this season for six weeks. It's going to be awesome. You probably will not see me a lot on Instagram either. 

So, the last episode in this season is going to be June 6th; and it's going to be a really special episode that's going to be a lot longer than my regular episodes. I don't want to give away too many hints, but it's going to be awesome. 

And then you'll hear me again coming into the next season, starting on July 18th. Season 5 airs on July 18th; I am so excited for it. So, I just wanted to let you know that that was happening before we dig into today's episode, which is also going to be fabulous. 

Welcome to Episode 14, How to Connect with Your Teens with Ben Pugh. 

Ben Pugh is a certified life coach who specializes in helping parents build meaningful relationships with their teens, WITHOUT having to change the teens! He helps parents and teens reconnect, build rock-solid relationships, and turn struggles into strengths.

 

How Ben went from lighting a school bus on fire to high school principal

Crystal The Parenting Coach: Hello and welcome to the podcast, today. I am excited to have a special guest, Ben Pugh. And do you want to introduce yourself to everyone?

 

Ben Pugh: Yeah. I'm Ben Pugh. I'm a life coach for parents and teenagers. I have co-founded a business with Joey Mascio, Ali Terry; and we coach families, and we teach these amazing tools to families. 

And I started as a high school principal, a knucklehead teenager who accidentally put a school bus on fire. And I just use these amazing life coaching tools to help parents and teenagers make their lives awesome, even if things don't go the way they planned.

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: Okay, I love it. And I'm sure you talk about this school bus fire incident often, but how did that happen? Like, what was going on?

 

Ben Pugh: So, I was 13, which it's kind of fun, I'm coaching a client right now who happens to be attending the school where that happened. And I was like, 'Dude, this is the school that I went to and this is what happened.' And he's like, 'What? No way.' 

But so, when I was 13, one of my friends was like, 'Dude, will you hold my rubber cement?' For whatever reason, back in the day, we just pasted everything together with rubber cement at school. 

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: Yeah. 

 

Ben Pugh: I'm probably the one who changed that, accidentally, but I knew he had stolen it. But because I wanted to fit in, I decided, 'Yeah, I'll keep it in my backpack.' I felt guilty all day, by the way. 

And on the bus ride home, this kid's like, 'Hey bro, you got my rubber cement?' And I thought, 'Yeah, let me pull it out of my backpack.' And I'm rummaging around and one of our other friends is like, 'Hey, I've got a lighter, let's see what happens.' 

So, I get it out of my backpack, I open the lid and my friend, like-- If you've ever used rubber smell, it's like the consistency of snot. And so, he just lights this string of snotty rubber cement, and the whole thing just goes up in flames. It's just like, oh. 

And I remember trying to put the lid on, and flames are shooting out. I was like, what do we do? And so, I tried to throw it out the window, which is like pretty big; and I missed the window and I hit a little bar in between open windows, and it sent flaming rubber cement all over the back of the bus. Fortunately, all the good kids were in the front. 

This was towards the end of the bus ride, anyways, and a few knuckleheads were in the back; and it was awful. I burned a hole in my pants. My friend burned a hole in his shoes; and we had to-- I was suspended. The other kid was safe-schooled, basically kicked out for a full calendar year. 

And I cannot tell you-- Hey, you talked about connection. Yeah. I feel like that one thing disconnected me from the whole entire world. Like at church, church leaders would talk about this - and talk about the woes of the world, and this was like part of their evidence that we're going to hell in a handbag. 

And I have this problem where I just blush when I get embarrassed, and I turn bright red. And so, they're talking about me, I'm bright red; everyone knows they're talking about me. I just remember feeling like I don't belong anywhere. 

I went to a friend's house – like we had played all the time; we were best friends – and his mom met me at the door and she's like, 'We don't want you to play here, we don't want you to burn our house down.'

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: Oh my God. 

 

Ben Pugh: And a church later one time told me, "We don't send arsonists out to represent the church." And I'm like-- I just really felt like I no longer belonged; and that's part of why I do what I do to bring my story full circle. 

There's a time when I was a high school principal, and I had to suspend a young man for smoking pot in the bathroom; and his dad was livid, and he's a big mountain of a man. And I was like, I'm going to have to get my butt kicked--

Well, I'm a pretty good dude. I could have probably-- It would've been the Clash of the Titans, but I was like, 'I'm going to get my butt kicked to protect his kid.' And as I was like, 'Wait, timeout.' 

And I shared the story about me getting suspended for lighting my school bus on fire; and as I shared the story, the mood in the room changed. And when I was done, the dad elbowed his kid and he is like, 'Well, at least he didn't start the school bathroom on fire,' and was just chuckling. 

He was like, 'You know what? Maybe you'll be a principal someday.' And it just lightened the mood. I'll tell you that is the first time that I learned that my story was powerful. Because before I was like, 'I can't tell anyone because what if they find out that I did this when I was 13, and they fire me?' 

And when I told this story though, this kid, we connected right there. And he's like, 'Oh, so you're telling me there's hope, there's still a chance.' And that's when I was really able to change how I did things at school when we handled misbehavior, because now I was embracing; no, suspension didn't help me.

 

How connection affects every area of your parenting/self

But looking back, the things that did help me were the few teachers who were still willing to connect with me – the few teachers who saw me for who I was rather than for who I wasn't, and who they wished that I would be. 

And we were able to completely turn around our school; we went from 55% graduation up to 88 multiple years, and we were able to drop suspensions from well over 200 to less than 20 a year; and it was all about connection. My big thing was always, how do we build relationships? 

And so, we quit looking at all the state data and numbers; and we're like, 'No, we know we're failing at that,' but let's shift our focus – and rather than focusing on that, how do we build relationships with these kids? 

And once we made that our priority, everything turned around at the school. And it started by me realizing, 'Oh, I can be a beacon of hope to these kids who have gotten in trouble'; and I can build a connection by showing them, I'm not perfect, I don't expect you to be perfect, let's be friends. So, that's probably a lot more about me. I talk a lot so you can just cut me off.

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: Hey no, that was so good. Everything you said was so good because we talk here about how it's never really misbehavior, right? It's just like communication or something that's happened. Like, it's not--  

It doesn't have anything to do with your child, and who they are and their value and their worth. And when we get that mixed up, we're like, 'Oh, this means they're a bad kid', or we make it mean something about them just because they did something wrong – then it gets really muddy in our brain, and it really affects our relationship. 

Going back to when you were a teenager, how did your family respond? You talked a little bit about how your church responded, but how did your family respond?

 

Ben Pugh: Yeah, so my mother-- I love my mom, by the way; we didn't always get along until recently. I've done a lot of work to have a really good relationship with her. But she was a straight arrow in school; she got straight A's. 

And when you talked about like; it isn't misbehavior, it's communication, I thought like, what was I communicating back then? I didn't feel like I fit in already. I didn't feel like I belonged; and that's why I was doing something stupid trying to fit in. 

And I remember my mom told me, and I love her. I spoke at my high school, the high school where I was a principal, I spoke at their graduation; and when I shared my bus lighting story, she's still embarrassed, and just like--

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: She's still like, I can't believe you talk about this on podcasts and to thousands of people at high schools.

 

Ben Pugh: Yes. But she was so disappointed. She told me everyone that I knew in school, who was suspended, is either dead or in jail. 

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: Oh my God. 

 

Ben Pugh: And like in her mind, that's where I was going. 

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: Yeah. 

 

Ben Pugh: But I will tell you, I was a tough kid. Like, I can't remember your tagline, but you coach parents of what teens?

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: Strong-willed kids. Yeah.

 

Ben Pugh: Yeah, strong-willed kids. Yeah, that was me; and defiant, and diagnosed with all kinds of crap that I question how accurate it was. But my parents didn't know what to do; they were just doing the best that they could. And I'm grateful for how they did things because that's part of why I do what I do. 

But while I was suspended, I got to go to work with my dad; and I remember making $200 over that time that I was suspended – and thinking, You know what? Suspension isn't the end of the world… I made 200 bucks and I got to spend time with my dad. 

So, I look back, my parents were scared. There's a little bit of-- My mom is kind of like, 'I knew you would do something amazing, I knew you'd be great… I just had no idea how, like, with the choices you were making, I didn't see how the dots connected.' 

And I think that's the case for a lot of parents. And when I look back during that time, it was this connection with my dad. Like, I still worked with him up until I was… up until I left building homes and started in Education just because I had such a good connection with him. 

And people always tell me, people who know my dad, like they'll just grab me in at a store and be like, 'Hey, are you related to Ken?' Like, 'Yeah, he's my dad.' And they're like, 'I heard your voice, the way you talk, the way you act – you are your dad's son.' 

And that, to me, is a testament-- One of the things that I teach for parents, and it's just different-- I stole this from Gandhi and it's just slightly different vernacular, but I always tell parents; "Be the change that you want to see in your teenager." 

Because we are herd animals – and by you being who you want your teenager to be, your teenager is subconsciously watching everything that you do… and they're going to be way more like you than you realize. 

And so, just be the best parent that you can be; be the parent of your dreams. And I look at my dad, and I don't know that he would ever say that he was being the parent of his dreams, but he was doing the best that he could.

And the way I parent, like I'm more mellow; I'm more relaxed than my mom was. It's because of how I saw him parent. Now, don't get me wrong, I still do things that I learned from my mom, but it's powerful to realize, 'Oh, no matter what I say, it's more important who I am and what I do, and that's what my teen is going to pick up and learn.'

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: Okay, that is so good. That whole thing is so good because that is exactly what we teach is like role modeling that, right? Like, what do you want to see in your kids? Do that first. Be that first.

 

Ben Pugh: Yeah.

 

How catastrophizing stops us from connecting

Crystal The Parenting Coach: And I also loved what you said about them, you know, just being scared, when this happened, they were like, 'I don't know what's going to happen, is he going to end up in prison or dead?'

And almost every consult that I have, the very first session, people are like, my kid's going to end up in [whatever] like homeless or on the streets or like with no healthy relationships or in prison or--  

 

Ben Pugh: A serial killer.

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: -you know, as a psychopath killer, whatever it is.

 

Ben Pugh: Yeah, that's my favorite.

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: Yeah, because that's what our brains do; they do catastrophizing, right? They're like, 'Oh, if they're constantly hitting their friends when they're at the park… then that means that, you know, fast-forward 20 years later, what it's going to mean for them.' 

And so, one of the tools I usually help people do is like, let's rein it back into like here and now; and like, what's the most important right now? We don't need to like, be worried about what's going to happen in 20 years because it doesn't really help us show up when we're in that fear and that worry. We probably don't help our kids in that moment as much. 

 

What to do when you don’t feel connected to your teens

Crystal The Parenting Coach: I would love for you to-- I love the stories that you've been telling us about connection. And I want you to tell us; how do you help people have more connection, especially with their teens? Like, what are some practical tips that you give them?

 

Ben Pugh: Yeah. So, one of the things that I teach is that we misunderstand; we don't realize that so much of what we do is actually creating disconnection. And anytime a parent is trying to fix, control, or change their teenager, it's actually creating disconnection. 

And when we explore that, I almost always, it's driven by some form of fear – whether it be fear, worry – just it's driven by some sort of fear. 

And one of the things, I always sound like a broken record, but I always tell parents; "Practice connecting with your teen right where they are… and any effort to try and change, fix or control them, you're trying to connect with your teen as you wish they were – and that teen doesn't exist." 

And so, you're wasting all of your energy trying to connect to this fictional version of your teenager; and you're actually disconnecting from your actual teenager as they are. 

And I get a lot of parents that come to me with a lot of fear; I call it catastrophizing, and that's human beings – we have this prefrontal cortex, which is a blessing, but it's also a curse because we can get really creative… and we can be like, 'Oh my goodness, here's all the ways that my teen is ruining their life.'

And one of the practices that I'll do is I have my parents get to know that fear. Like a lot of people, it's; a fear of going to jail, a fear of pregnancy, dropping out of high school – like whatever it is, I invite parents… get to know your fear… look at it, understand why are you afraid of it. 

And as we get to know that fear, we start to realize we were actually conditioned to feel that fear. We are afraid because that's what our parents were; and that's what they taught us, and that's what our church leaders and our community. 

And as we get to know that fear – and as we realize, 'Oh, it's something I've been conditioned to think and to feel' – we can now identify if the worst-case scenario comes true, what ways of being would I like to exhibit as a parent? 

And this has been powerful. It doesn't matter if you're worried that your teen is going to end up in prison because they're selling drugs or if you're worried that they're going to get pregnant. 

When you go to that fear and you explore, who do I want to be in the face of that fear, that starts giving you power because you can't control their decisions or whether they go to jail or anything in the future – but you can always control your way of being, and you can only be in the present… we can't do it in the future, we can't do it in the past. 

And so, when these parents identify, 'Man, if my daughter gets pregnant – I want to be compassionate, I want to be loving, I want to be the best grandparent that I can be.' Or 'If my teen goes to jail for selling drugs – I want to be supportive, I want to be the parent that's writing him and visiting and just lets them know that I love him no matter what.' 

And once we get to know the fear, and once we get to identify, 'No, this is who I would want to be in that moment', I ask them, now, let's go to the best-case scenario – we've been catastrophizing where they get pregnant, they go to jail, they die in a ditch, whatever it might be… now, let's go to the best-case scenario. 

And the parents are like, 'Man, they graduate high school and college… and they become a doctor, and they get married.' And I'm like, 'Okay, now the way of being that you would like to be in the worst-case scenario, would that work in the best-case scenario?'

And these parents, every time they're like, 'Yeah, I still want to be compassionate and caring… and their biggest supporter.' I’m like, 'Awesome… now, you don't have to worry about everything you're afraid of or all the what-ifs, just practice being that version that you want to be right now and every single time.' 

This is one of the things I learned from one of my coaches, Jim Fortin. He talks about how the world has taught us to try and change things from the outside-in. And we try and fix our teens, and we try and help him get better grades, and all of these things on the outside – but when we change things from the inside, it creates a ripple effect… and things start changing on the outside. 

And I promise you, anyone listening to this podcast – if you'll go through that little exercise, identify what you're afraid of… envision how you would like to be your best version of yourself, and then practice being that today; I promise you, your teen is going to start acting differently because that change is going to radiate out. You're going to elevate your mentality, you're going to change your frequency; and it's going to impact everyone in your life.

 

How to be the change you want to see in your teen, and drop control

Crystal The Parenting Coach: Yes, totally; the influence lies in that space. The influence doesn't lie in the space where we're like trying to control or coerce or be frustrated or overwhelmed or all of that. 

Like our influence goes way down – but our influence goes way up when we focus on us instead of them, and we focus on who we want to be and how we want to show up. 

So, I love that exercise. I think that is such a great tip, especially for parents of teens that might be thinking this way, like, 'I don't know what's going to happen with my kid.' None of us knows, we have no idea. Like even if we feel like we can control the situation, we really can't; we can't control other people. The only thing we do have control of is us and how we show up.

 

Ben Pugh: Yeah, and only in the present. One of the things I've noticed over and over – whether it be parents, teens, whoever – if you're struggling with a lot of fear and anxiety and self-doubt and guilt and shame… I promise you, you are focusing on things outside of your control.  

You're probably focusing on things in the past which you can't control or things in the future which you cannot control. And we really have so little control; guys, I hate to tell you this, we have very little control – like, we could be hit by a bus and not even be here tomorrow. 

The power of life is in realizing, 'I can control these few things, and I'm going to master those few things'; and this is different than what the world teaches. The world wants you to focus on all the things outside of your control, and be overwhelmed and just keep consuming. 

And the truth is; no, let go of those things because you'll have so much more peace, so much more happiness by you being who you want to be. 

 

How connection with ourselves improves our relationship with our teens

One of the things that I teach is that our relationship with other people is a reflection of our own relationship with ourselves. 

I think you talk about kind of our role as a parent reflecting God's role as a parent. I believe the better you connect with yourself-- And it sounds selfish, parents tell me this all the time, it sounds so selfish, but yet we get it on an airplane when they're like, 'Hey, if the oxygen mask drops down, put it on yourself so you don't pass out before you can help people.'

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: Yep.

 

Ben Pugh: When we connect with ourselves, you talked about when we focus on ourselves, it increases our impact; that focus is what creates that connection with ourselves. And you can't give your children something that you yourself don't have. 

And so, if you don't have connection with yourself – this inner interconnection – you can't give your teenagers connection; you have to have it first. And this is where when you bring that focus back in, you know what you can control; you get to be the master of you. 

And that builds the space where you can now connect with God, which I believe, God wants to connect with us no matter what. Like you could be a serial killer, and God still wants to connect with you; it's you who's creating that disconnect. 

And to get that connection back, start with yourself. And once you have that connection, God's going to tell you how to raise your child; that's the inner wisdom that you have. 

And when you quiet your thinking mind and you listen to the inner wisdom, that's God just whispering, 'Hey, you'll be okay – like, they'll be fine.' You go be the best version of you and your mind will just be clear and you'll know, 'Oh, this is who I want to be – I want to be calm, I want to be compassionate, I want to be this'; and as you go be that, that will build even more connection with your teenager.

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: Yeah. And what's interesting is as I've done this work over the last few years and my clients have done this work, and we talk about control; control really means we want to change the other person, right? 

Well, the changes in the other people have always happened, like my kids changed their behavior hugely as I changed my behavior as a parent. And that happens to my clients over and over again; their kids open up to them more, they're more communicative, they want to be around them more, they want to be like them more, they take their opinions more seriously. 

Like there's a lot of changes that happen. And if you have a child that maybe you're struggling with that's a little bit more highly sensitive or strong-willed; the behaviors that you see right now, like the huge meltdowns and the really big struggles, really do start to lessen. 

But they lessen not by focusing on our kid and trying to control our kid, they lessen as we focus on us and our response and who we want to show up as in that moment.

 

Ben Pugh: Yeah. Here's the secret that most parents don't know – especially parents of knucklehead… teens like me, who accidentally let their school bus on fire, and that was the first of many times that I got suspended – your teenager wants to connect with you. 

Actually, I'm going to clear that up just a little bit; they want you to connect with them. 

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: Yeah. 

 

Ben Pugh: And as prickly as teens can be – or any child really… like my six-year-old sometimes is like a mini teenager – they want connection, they want belonging. And the problem is like if we wanted connection and our teen wanted connection, that would be a common value that we would both grow and thrive a beautiful relationship on. 

And the problem comes in when they want connection, and we want control or we want it to look a certain way. And the secret is this; just know that your teen wants to be connected with just as they are. 

All the fears that you have, they have; they worry they're not good enough, they worry that they're ruining their future. And man, if you can be the parent who's like, 'No, no, just as you are, you are perfect, you're amazing, that builds a connection.' 

And one of the problems that I see, especially in our industry, I feel like there's a big focus on improvement, which it makes sense. Like we have self-help, self-improvement. Like we see where we are and we want to be better; the problem is, there is no better. 

Like where you are right now is exactly where you're supposed to be. And when we think about this idea of improvement, it's just silly. But when we think about growth, that's when we realize, 'Oh, if I grow, I'm not going to be any better, I'm just going to be on a different stage.' 

And I had a client, we were talking about this idea of improvement versus growth; and I was like, what's better? A tomato seed, a tomato plant or a tomato? And she's like, 'Well, you can put a tomato on your sandwich.' 

And I'm like, 'Yeah, but how many tomatoes can you get from a tomato plant?' She's like, 'I don’t know, a hundred.' Like, 'How many tomatoes can you get from a seed?' 'Okay, that same hundred.' 'What about a tomato, how many tomatoes could you get from a tomato?' She's like, 'Oh my goodness… thousands, hundreds of thousands.' 

The seed isn't any better than the tomato, and the tomato is not better than the seed; they're just at a different place. And as parents, when we can realize, 'Oh, I'm just here, it's powerful because now it frees us up.' 

We don't have to improve. We get to grow because we want to. And guess what? Whether you want to grow or not, you're always going to be growing. You're always going to be learning. 

And one of the problems that I see is people want to grow faster; they're like, 'No, no, I want to be at that point faster.' And that'd be like sticking a seed in the ground, watering it – digging it back up, checking on it – covering it back up, watering it – digging it back up and like cracking it so it'll maybe sprout. 

No, don't do that. Just trust the growth, trust yourself. Stop trying to force it, and allow yourself to grow into this. And I promise, as you grow, your teen will grow and you'll grow together; you'll have a much stronger connection.

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: Yes, totally. Totally that you're going to still be a plant; even if you're a small plant or a big plant, you're still a plant – your kid's still a plant. So, just love yourself where you're at, love your kids where you're at.

 

Ben Pugh: Exactly.

 

How to connect with Ben Pugh

Crystal The Parenting Coach: Okay, so we are out of time, but I would love for you just to tell people where they can connect with you; I know you have some fun stuff to share about that.

 

Ben Pugh: Yeah, a couple of places. I also host a podcast. If you go listen to a recent episode, you can listen to Crystal. She was a guest on my podcast, and it was awesome. My podcast is called IMPACT: Parenting with Perspective; and I'd love it if you guys go check it out – if you like it… share it, leave a review, all the good things.

And then the other place; I mentioned earlier, I have a business with my business partners and we focus on families. We teach these tools to parents, to teenagers, and to young adults. 

And our doors will actually be opening for the month of June and they'll be open, let's see, I believe it'll be May 30th through June 4th. So, if you'd like to join one of our memberships – whether it be parent, teen – come join all of them; they're awesome. 

You get regular one-on-one, 25-minute coaching sessions… you do group coaching; and you can go to FirmlyFounded.com, and you can learn more about our memberships there.

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: Awesome. That sounds great. Thank you so much, Ben, and thanks for being here today.

 

Ben Pugh: Yeah, thank you.

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: I hope you enjoyed today's podcast episode. Don't forget to send me a little note, review it, rate it, share about it on social media, share it with a friend who's struggling – and reach out if you want more support in coaching, scroll down to the show notes to find out about my current program.