Ben Pugh – Guiding Teens to Smart Choices

Hi and welcome to the You World Order Showcase podcast. Today we are speaking with Ben Pugh. Ben is the host of the podcast Impact parenting with perspective and he is his superpower is helping teens improve their behavior. So it's really great to have.

You here, Ben

I'm looking forward to this conversation a lot.

Yeah. Thanks for having me. I'm excited.

How did you get into this? I know we were talking about you have 4 kids already so.

Yeah, I've just.

I've always enjoyed helping teenagers. When I was a teenager, I struggled making choices that my family approved of that anyone in general approved of, and I just I really struggled as a teenager, didn't feel like I fit in and.

As I was an adult, I got into coaching high school football and I just fell in love with working with teens and it's.

Been interesting as I've worked with teams.

So I've been.

A high school football coach, Little League football coach. I've taught at the junior high level at the high school level and I was a high school principal for five years. I just love helping teenagers and I learned pretty quickly I can help teens as much as I want. But if I want to really have an impact, I need to also be helping.

Their parents and part of the reason I do this when I was 13.

And I was just struggling to find where I belonged and I made one really big dumb decision that I thought had ruined my life. I accidentally left my school bus on fire with rubber cement and all of the adults in my life just acted like I had.

Ruined my life and as a 13 year old young man believing that you have ruined your life that just.

Like I had no aspirations. No. Like, where do you go from there? Like, I guess, like my mom. I remember she told me the only kids that I knew that were ever suspended are either in jail or they're dead now. Like I thought my outlook on life was very, very bleak.

Where do you go from there?

And when I towards the end of me being a high school principal, I knew that I wanted to share this message. I knew I had something powerful because there was a moment at my school where I had to suspend a young man for smoking marijuana in the bathroom, and his dad was this big mountain of a man.

And he was just so upset and so angry. And I thought, I'm going to get beat up by this guy because I'm going to be trying to protect this kid. And so I was like, I got to do something. So I said, hey, time out, let me tell you about the first time.

That I got suspended and I shared my.

Story of how one of my friends stole the rubber cement and I kept it in my backpack and then on the school bus.

He asked if he could have it back and one of my other friends had a lighter and.

I was just.

Kind of involved and got labeled as an arsonist, and by the end of the story this grumpy mean looking dad all of a sudden.

He's grinning and chuckling, and he elbowed his son and he's like.

Hey, maybe you'll grow up to be a high school principal someday, and I realized.

All parents and teens really need is a little.

Bit of hope.

And a little bit of trust that hey, no matter what mistakes I make.

I can still get to the dream, the future that I've always dreamt about, and so in a lot of words, I like to talk a lot, but that is what I do. That's kind of how I got started down this path of coaching teens and coaching their parents.

That's amazing and.

Well, I can so see how getting caught up in a situation could really impact your whole life in a way that.

That you just have no control over at such.

A young age.

One of my sons really loved knives.

When he was young.

And he had gotten this butterfly knife his dad had bought it for him when they were out trucking, he'd gone trucking with his dad. This was a home school child, mind you.

We're not even talking about schools, but he had a friend who was the grandson of our neighbors. And so he was over at his friend's house and he was showing him the knife and.

Later that evening.

The police show up at our door.

So I tried my.

It must have been 11 year old son.

Out into the room, who was in bed?

By that time.

So the police proceed to tell us that they're charging him with felony assault.

Because apparently the kid had taken the knife that my son had and cornered his sister and was threatening her with the knife. So the parents.

Of the child and his sister.

We're charging my son.

Because he had the knife, so we had to.

Go to court and.

It was like a second degree felony. If they'd made it stick. But I mean, it's just like.

That could have been a huge turning point in his life, and now he's like.

The Super successful human being.

His family and.

And kids. And he's still kind of crazy, but.

The best of us are.

Makes you more interesting. Definitely non conform us, but I can totally see how that those kinds of incidents that happen in life. I.

Mean it's just like.

Didn't really occur to me that.

Somebody would take that knife and threaten somebody else with it. Certainly my son wouldn't have done that. But you just never know. Sometimes you.

Make dumb decisions and.

It's not the end of the world.

Yeah. And that's a message that a lot of parents have forgotten, like in my local community, this happened a few years.

You go.

There was this.

Sexting ring that was going on at the local high school and boys were soliciting photos from girls and even threatening and blackmailing.

Like a bunch of.

Stuff that needed to be stopped anyways. Our school district hired this person to come out and speak to us, and her message was about how these kids had ruined their lives and how you don't want to get wrapped up in sexting and all this stuff because you too could ruin your.

Life and I'm like.

This is a crappy message because if you believe that you have ruined your life, you're at rock bottom like there's no like you might as well just do whatever, because your life is already ruined. And I was fortunate enough to I was a principal at another school at the time and.

I was able to get out in front of it like I knew stuff like that was happening anyways, but really share more of a message of hope like hey.

This won't ruin your life, but man, there's consequences that come from this and some of these consequences you might not want to deal with. And one of the things so I coach parents and teens and I love this idea of parents helping teens have this.

Conversation, or at least this thought process where you can identify. Hey, what are the positive consequences to this thing that I want to do?

Soliciting nudes and sexting there's some positive consequences.

Like in the moment.

It might be exciting, it might feel good, like whatever that is, but also what are some of the negative consequences and when we can get teens to up level their thinking and realize, Oh yes, there are some pros, but there's also some huge cons.

And if I choose to engage in this other behavior where I don't solicit nudes, there's huge benefits and not very many disadvantages. So I'm going to go there and I just, I like this idea that we can build.

Our teens confidence knowing that, hey, your future is never destroyed like you can come back from anything. And if people don't believe it, prove them wrong and when we can elevate their thinking and they can start to.

Identify like, oh, hey, here's who I wanna be. Here's some of the pros. Here's some of the cons, and start making elevated choices. That's when teens like I've coached teen.

That have been chronic behavior issues at school and within a few short months, like they're completely turning things around. This is the message of hope that I want to share with parents. With teenagers. Really, anyone who will listen, guys, let's empower our teens.

And empowering them a lot of times it's just helping them to realize that they do have choices.

And how to decide what are the? What are the pros and cons? What are the consequences of?

The decisions I'm going to.

Make and.

Actively making a choice to choose behaviors rather than just, you know, falling into the pattern of, you know, everybody else is doing it.

So it's the path of least resistance.

Without giving any thought to it because that.

Does happen a lot in high?

Yeah. And I think it's important to a lot of times as adults, we like to position ourselves as like, hey, I'm an adult. I know everything. You're a team. Just take my lead, listen to me. And one of my favorite stories to share. I had a young man when I was a principal who wanted to drop out.

And all of us adults like we're all trying to talk him out of it. Like, dude, you have so much potential.

And he came to talk to me. And he's like, I've made my decision. I'm dropping out. My dad owns this company in the oil field. I'm going to go work for him. I'm going to get rich and selfishly, like I'm the principal. I'm the guy that has to deal with a lot of his behavior issues. So I'm like, dude, you should totally drop out, like.

Don't work for your dad. Go like you're not going to listen to me. You're not listening to any of your teachers. Which, by the way, it's like as a principal. I'm not supposed to have that conversation, but that was what needed to.

Happened and this was a kid I'm trying to remember exactly, but he was multiple credits behind like, just he wasn't on track to graduate. So he graduated towards the end of one school year.

And it worked for his dad the whole summer. And then shortly after the beginning of the next school year, there's this kids at my office who's like, hey.

I know I dropped out. I know I'm a senior now, but could I please come back and I'm like, dude, you are so far behind. I don't know. Like you help me understand. Like, how are we going to make this work? And he's like.

I thought I could just go work in the oil field. I thought I could just make all this money.

I hated it and what I actually want to do now is I want to be. I can't remember what the role was as some type of engineer.

But he's like, that's what I want.

To you. And so I need to graduate from high school and I need to get caught up so I can take classes at the local tech center and start doing this and all of a sudden this kid was like a man on a.

Mission. And he went from being behind like, to the point where I didn't even know if it were. It was possible that.

He could graduate.

He got caught up, got himself into these classes at our local tech school.

And he would have, if we adults would have been like. No, no, you're messing up your life. You have to do it this way. He would have fought us every step of the way. But when we finally got out of the way and we're like, hey, dude, you're going to drop out, you're going to do what you want to do anyways. So how can we support you when he came back, like, he knew exactly what he wanted to.

To do and we didn't have to make him anymore. We just had to help and support him, and that's that similar thing. Like when we can.

Empower our teens to not only understand, hey, here's the pros. Here's the cons. But.

Let them go out and experience a little bit of real life. Let them fully understand, because that way when they come back, they're coming back with a different, more mature perspective.

I could not agree more. I have always told my kids school is a privilege. It's not a right. They do go to an alternative school when they hit 13, they all graduated at 16 and.

The rule was you're going there to get that.

Piece of paper.

You'll make A's.

Because I can get you sees at home.

You know, prove to me you want it.

Because it's not that important to me, and it was really important to them and they all did really well. They all got that little piece of paper and they all went on to do great things.

But it's you're again. It's, you know, giving kids enough space so that they can decide for themselves what's important to them. And if it means, you know.

Going to work in the oil fields and seeing how crappy that job really is to know that they don't want to do that for the rest of their life. Yeah, there's a lot of money in it, but it's because it's a really crappy job.

And it's hard.

Work. When you're young, you're going to work at the end of the shovel for a long time.

Yeah. And I think so, my.

Oldest. He's 17 now, but there's a time where he's like Dad.

I want to drop out of school and he is partially saying this because he wanted to show off to his buddy that we're giving a ride home from school and I had left education at this time and so like, I'm not the type of person that like, I just don't think school as we know it is all that important but.

Don't either you said that.

Yeah, but.

I do believe like for where we were like our lifestyle at the time.

I'm I was building a business. I couldn't have him home under my feet all the time and I couldn't take the time to educate him and my wife couldn't and we just had this real conversation, which was funny because, like, at the time I'm coaching parents and teens and I'm in this kick where I'm telling parents like, we tell our kids.

No, too often without even ever thinking. We just. No, no, no. It's like next time you want to tell your kids. No. How can that be a yes. And so here I am. My kid wants to drop.

I know in my heart that my answer is no, but how can I turn it into a yes and I just I remember having this powerful conversation with him like, hey, the only reason I'm really having you go to school number one, I don't have time to educate you myself. Number two, I think it's important to build social skills.

But the bottom line is I want you to just learn how to be a productive member of society and take care of yourself. So here's the deal. At your age, I can't remember how old it was, but I'm like, if you could make $50,000 of passive income.

You would prove to me that, dad, I already know how to be a productive member of society. Turn me loose on the world. And so my kid like his friends in the back seat of the car. While we're having this conversation. And he's like, hey, you heard it. My dad said I could drop out if I can earn $50,000 worth of passive income.

That was the best conversation I had had in a long time with this team and when we got home we spent about two weeks watching YouTube videos, signing up for webinars like learning how to build a business, learning how to make money online.

And after the two weeks he came to me and.

He's like dad.

And he, like comes to me with this voice of, like, I hope I don't let you down. I hope I don't disappoint you, but he's like dad.

I don't really want to drop out of school. I don't really want to make all this passive income if you don't mind, I'm just going to.

Keep being a student and we don't have to watch his trainings. And it was so powerful.

I let him choose and we spent two weeks of valuable time together learning business type stuff. But there was a point where he decided, I think basketball season was coming up, but he's like.

Don't want to learn how to run a business? I want to be a student and I want to play sports and he was all in after that rather than if I'd have told him. Like, no, you have to do it.

My way I.

Got out of the way and let him figure.

Out. Hey, what works for you?

Sometimes just standing back and letting.

Them see what it is like to work.

Pretty powerful.

Those totally the reason I wanted my kids to graduate so young.

They had three.

Years head start on everybody else around them to find out what it's like to work really hard.

And then you realize you need to get some.

Sort of skills, because if you have skills.

You're going to get paid.

You get then.

More and you?

Don't have to push that shovel around so much. Yeah. And so they all ended up with really good jobs by the time they were.

In their early teens or their late teens, I.

Able to support themselves, then families, and they're still relatively young and.

They're raising families.

And only the males work.

I mean, they're.

Their wives are staying home, raising kids.

They're doing very.

Well for themselves, but it's just that get out of the way. Let them make decisions for themselves. Let them see what the world is like out there and not happen to tell them. No, no, you can't do that. Yeah, you can do anything you want. You can. It goes back to the consequences thing.

And see what those consequences look like.

Yeah. And I like to see it as like we are empowering teenagers. And I think the current way of like, I would almost say parenting, but it's bigger than parenting. Like it's how we parent our.

Teens. It's how we let the schools indoctrinate our teens, which when I say indoctrinate like I'm not saying.

You know.

In a bad way, like everything around us is brainwashing. Brainwashing us like you watch TV? The commercials, they're brainwashing you. They're indoctrinating you. This is just part of.

Watching, you know there's the house.

Yeah. Like that's just you're listening to us. We're indoctrinating you like we're teaching you a new way of thinking, but for me.

How it is?

The current model of society is more of a disempowering.

Message and I want to step back and teach a more powerful message. And so in my practice, I primarily coach.

Teens, one on.

One, because I found that's a more helpful model, but parents, I get to teach in a group setting, and one of the things that I teach about I teach about 3 common.

Parent traps and the first one I like to call the controlling parent trap and this is the one that a lot of parents are in and like the teachers who are like telling this young man you can't drop out of school.

The people that were trying to fix and control me when I was 13, making dumb decisions, they were all caught in this controlling parent cap. The problem is.

That trap, if you're stuck in it, you will not be able to create the relationship that you want with your teenager. You're not going to be able to empower your teenager because you're so fixated on this illusion of control.

The problem is a lot of times you'll go from the parent trap or the controlling parent trap, and you'll realize this is not working for me. And then you go to the other extreme, which I like to call the doormat parent trap. And oftentimes like this is the other trap we see parents in where they just let their teens walk all over them.

And I found that when parents can shift how they parent, they can get out of I identify three traps. They're controlling the doormat and the lost and confused parent.

Trap when you can identify what trap you're stuck in, you can then get out of that trap and you can start being the parent that you've always wanted to be.

And that is the most powerful place to parent from, because you take your teen somewhat out of the equation. Like my team. There have been multiple times where he's like dad, this is dumb. Why do you make us do this? And I'm like.

Thank you for your opinion, it's noted. But this is who I want to be as a dad. This is my role. This is my job.

And it takes like a lot of times parents get stuck in tough parenting moments and they don't know what to do. They don't know how to be, but when you can get out of these parent traps, you get unstuck and all of a sudden, these tough parenting moments aren't tough anymore. They turn into easy, natural, impactful parenting.

Moments and sometimes your teens are gonna think you're the best parent ever and that you're amazing.

And sometimes your teens gonna think that you are the worst parent ever. And that's OK because you are parenting in alignment with who you want to be.

And it's never too late to change.

Who you are.

As a parent or as a team?

100%.

Easy to go along and just think this is how I've always been. But you don't have to be that way. You could just wake up tomorrow and have different make different decisions.

Yeah, I like to call it reinventing yourself. And I think sometimes like.

Not to get religious, but religion has really kind of tainted this idea of change and we like we talk about repentance and there's like.

Shame and grief and like, guess what, guys, repentance is just all about like, I don't like the direction I'm going right now. I'm going to go in a different direction.

And that's kind of this idea of reinventing and one of my favorite stories to share. I've had parents that have tried to get me to work with their teens, and I meet their teen and their teen wants nothing to do with me. They don't want to coach. They don't want anything. And I'll tell the parent like, hey.

Your money is going to be best spent on you. Be the change you want to see in your team.

And multiple times I've had parents that are like fine, help us. We need your help. And the fastest was like within a few days. Like the weekend came and this moms texting me you would be so proud of me. I just. I nailed it this weekend like my son was involved in like a DUI. And I was a parent that I wanted to.

Be and I'm just.

So proud of myself.

And then that next week, the moms.

Like and guess what? My team wants to work with you now. And when I asked the team like, dude, what changed? Like you didn't want anything to do with me. Why now? And he's like, I don't know what you did with my mom, but if you can do that.

I'm willing to see what you have to teach, and really as parents we have more impact and more influence.

Then we realize.

But it's not in the realm of control.

Like one of the secrets that I tell parents all the time, your teens are not listening to you. Just ask your teen like they'll tell you they'll be like what? But your teen is watching everything you do.

And if you want to change your team re harness that energy to be the change that you want to see in your team. And when you start creating change from the inside, things on the outside will start to change and that's how you help foster change in your teenager.

I agree with that 100% it's like.

And it it's can be simple things, it's just like.

You don't even have to say anything to them. You just behave differently towards them.

And towards yourself.

Having respect for yourself is huge around kids. It's modeling.

Speaking about modeling, one of the ways that I teach about boundaries which.

Any anyone listening? If you have teenagers boundaries are very, very important for the.

I guess my vocabulary goes down as the day goes on, but anyways having boundaries is very important for your teens development.

That was the word I was.

Looking for and a lot of parents struggle having boundaries because they don't want the conflict. They don't want the fights.

And one of the reasons boundaries are so important is because this is an opportunity for you as a parent to model having boundaries and upholding boundaries, even when they're unpopular. And so I like to keep this image in mind when I set boundaries that my kids think are the worst.

And I'm the worst dad, and they're just mad.

I like to remember, like someday my daughter. Well, he could apply to my daughter, my son. But they could be on a date. And for my daughter, I like to think like if she sets a boundary, like maybe that teenage boy is like, well, that's stupid. Like I that's the dumbest rule I've ever heard. I want her to have my example that.

Oh, I don't care what you think. This is my boundary. It's.

Me and if you don't like it.

The state's over.

As parents, if we don't have good boundaries, if we don't practice establishing unpopular boundaries with our teens, we are losing a powerful opportunity to model for our teenagers how to uphold their own boundaries when it's important and.

So I was a high school principal for five years and there are many times that I'd have conversations with teens who would tell me about a party that happened or being sexually active or something that they didn't feel like they could tell their.

Parents and so many like teens, get a bad rap like we just think they want to break all the rules and they want to do everything but so many times teens would tell me.

I didn't want to do this, but my friends wouldn't accept no and they thought I was stupid, so I gave in and I'm like, oh, I wish.

You had a stronger, stronger example that you could have followed to be like, no, this boundaries for me, I don't care what you guys think. You can think it's as dumb as the dumbest thing ever.

This is who I am. This is how I will behave. So I love that you brought up modeling and that's how this kind of goes hand in hand.

I think boundaries go to ways. Also, as parents it's really easy to establish boundaries for yourself.

But it can be very difficult to respect the boundaries your kids will put around themselves too, and allowing them to realize that you expect them to respect your boundaries. But you are also willing to respect their boundaries and.

And it helps them practice having boundaries and setting boundaries and expecting those boundaries to be respected.

Yeah. Yeah. And I think it's important to not all boundaries, but oftentimes we can collaborate on our boundaries like there are certain boundaries that.

Like, here's a little side note. Boundaries are for you. Like when you set boundaries like, you don't have to go around telling everyone. Hey, here's my boundary. Like, if you do this, I'll do this. Most of them happen internally, but with a teenager you have a really good opportunity to Co create some boundaries. And I like to do like.

Family meetings around phones like hey, what?

What do you want to get out of having a phone like? Why do you want a phone? And I like to empower my teen and help them kind of set boundaries. And there was a time where I had a rule of no Snapchat. I think that's the one. And this was purely selfish, like as a high school principal. So much bullying. What happened on Snapchat.

The kids would come report it and I'd be like, OK, where's your evidence that just disappears? It's gone. And so I wouldn't let my kids have Snapchat for a while.

It just disappears, yeah.

And one time. So I had my oldest, who is the child that my mom cursed me with every time. She's like Ben someday I hope you end up with a kid just like you. Well, guess what? He's my oldest. Likes to push rules, boundaries. My second is like an Angel. He loves to follow rules. He likes to know what is right. What's wrong?

Well, he was the one that we caught having Snapchat, and then he promptly threw his brother under the bus like, well, he has it too. And I remember wanting to go into controlling parent mode. I wanted to just fall straight into that trap.

And I caught myself. And as I hold on.

Guys, what am I missing when it comes to Snapchat? Like what don't I understand about it and they told me like, well, some of our friends are only on Snapchat and my son had a streak with some of his friends that he wanted to maintain and all this stuff. And I was like, hey.

Do you guys understand what I'm worried about with Snapchat? And they're like, yeah, dad. Like it disappears. There's sexting. There's all the stuff they got it and it's.

OK, have a conversation with me. How can you guys ensure that I don't have anything to worry about and all of a sudden my kids start putting their own boundaries in place? Like we'll turn our phone in at this time and you can check it and just all of these things that.

I might know if you guys are on board with that. I guess I'm on board with this and we Co created some boundaries that work really well and guess what? My kids, I've never had a problem with them since then abusing technology, abusing, having a phone privilege, any of that.

Whereas before my oldest, he would sneak, he would hide things. Once we collaborated on the boundaries once, like they got more buy in and they got to say and what they looked like.

It was so much easier because we were all on the same page. We're all working together for the same goal.

Now that's really important that you have your whole family moving in the same direction when you get into that controlling. I want everything to go my way or the highway mode.

I you know, I get it. Sometimes you're just really tired and you've worked hard. And the last thing you want to do is have the big.

Blow up with your teenager. Whatever latest thing is that they're into and.

It's just like.

If you can just.

Even set aside some time.

OK. We're going to talk about this.

At this time.

Give yourself a break to go.

Clear your mind.

And be able to approach it from a win situation with everybody instead of just like.

Emoting at them and then they're mad and.

Nothing salt. Yeah, and there's a little secret to this as well. Like, I've learned. So I learned this as a foster parent back when my wife were foster parents. Our teens would want certain things. Like sometimes I'd want a phone. Sometimes I'd want to hang out later or stay up later.

One of the things that we did when we'd have these conversations like, well, what are the?

Positive consequences that could come from this. Well, I'll be out hanging out with my friends. I'll be having fun. It will be great. What are the negative consequences?

I'll be out late. I might be tired the next morning, I might forget to do my chores. Like when we can have those conversations. It elevated the way that our teams thought about things.

And when it came to like I remember one specific example, this young man wanted a cell phone so bad and back then, like the foster care system was like absolutely no foster kids cannot have cell phone.

We were able to go, I don't know, go to battle and make it so that he could have one. But we're like, what do you think some fair consequences would be if you abuse this privilege of having a cell phone? And I remember he's like, you can take my cell phone away for a month and I'll do all these extra chores. Like, I'll clean the bathroom.

Like all this terrible stuff. And I'm.

Like Dang like.

He's telling me what he thinks I want to hear so that he can get a cell phone. This is an opportunity for me to be a.

Good guy and I'm.

Like hey, those are all really good ideas.

But it would really suck to have your cell phone taken away for a whole entire.

Month. What if on the first offense you just lose it for half a day on the next one a day, and I remember he's like.

Yeah, that's a good, good idea. And I got the opportunity to position myself as the good guy. Like, hey, let's do it a little bit nicer when you can have a conversation with your teen and they start telling you what you what they think you want to hear.

Those are opportunities for you to reverse the role a little bit and rather than being the villain, you be the hero and be like that sounds a little too rough. What if we just go this way? And I remember that cellphone agreement, like it wasn't perfect, but it was pretty good. It motivated the team. It was an opportunity for me as his foster.

Had to be that model, that example of upholding boundaries and having your expectations, and I feel like far too often as parents, we miss out on these opportunities because we're either trying to completely control the situation.

Or in an attempt to get our team to like us and appreciate us and not have any conflict, we just let our team do whatever they want and walk.

All over us.

And I'm telling you, there's a way better way when it comes to parenting teens. And it's way more empowering when you can find ways to empower your team.

And give them.

Give them some.

Room in that lane for when they screw up and.

You know they're kids.

I'm sure that child got the opportunity to have a cell phone taken away for half a day because.

Know they're.

Gonna do stuff.

Their brains aren't done yet.

And the funny parts.

But they didn't lose it.

For a whole month.

Yeah, I remember the first time he did have to lose his cell phone for half a day, and he's like, this is so unfair. This is stupid. And he's yelling at us and we're like.

Well, we could do your idea. Do you remember?

That and he's like.

We'll stick with this one. We'll stick with the.

And it sets you up to be the good guy, even though in the moment it may seem like it was bad, but.

It wasn't what they suggested.

So how do people work with you, Ben?

The easiest way and the way that I'd recommend first is go take my parent trap quiz. Even if you think it, it's not me that needs help, it's my team.

Still, go take the parent trap quiz because that will help you understand. Are you getting caught in the controlling parent trap, the doormat parent trap, or the lost and confused parent trap? And when you take that quiz, you're going to get your.

Quiz results and you're going to you're going to be on my e-mail list, which means that you can hit reply to any of those.

One else, and you can say OK.

Then it's not me, it's my team. Tell me more. So if you want to go take the parent trap quiz, you can go to benpughcoaching.com/parent trap quiz. And I'm guessing you have a place for show notes so that people don't have to remember all that awesome.

Definitely put them in there.

Yeah, and that would be the place that I would start. I as you mentioned before, I also have a podcast impact parenting with perspective. And one of the cool things about the podcast, yes, I want people to hire me as their coach.

But I have had so many people tell me we struggled for years. I started listening to your podcast and everything in my family completely changed. And these people sometimes don't even hire me, and I don't care. Like, I just want to help as much as possible. The podcast is a really, really good.

Place to start and that quiz like I've had so many parents tell me, Oh my goodness, it all it makes sense. Now I understand why I'm in this trap.

And understanding like learning that you're in the controlling parent trap. Yeah, it kind of sucks because you're like, oh, I don't want to be a controlling parent, but it's also the best news ever, because if we know what trap you're getting caught in, we now know how to address it. Like, oh, if you're in the controlling parent trap, that is this over here, let's put this into place.

So those would be the best, easiest ways.

And we'll be sure and put both links in the in the show notes so people can follow you on your podcast too. What's the one thing you'd like to leave the audience with today?

If you catch yourself wanting to change your team.

There's a few deeper things that I could go on for hours, but I won't make you guys sit through this, but like you're focused on things outside of your control and when you catch yourself wanting to change your team, if you can realize ohh I'm wasting my energy on things outside of my control and then ask yourself.

In this circumstance, so maybe you want to change your team, you want them to be more respectful and more polite.

You can't control that, but you can ask what can I control and for me, it's always, oh, I can be more respectful. I could be more polite, I could better model this. And so the simple invitation is this. If you catch yourself trying to change your team.

Explore how can you be the change that you want to see in your team, and that's free. Anyone can do it. It's easy, and that's a really good place to start.

Thank you so much. This has been a great conversation.

Yeah. Thank you for having me. My pleasure.