For parents of teenagers
Your teenager is still reaching for you.
The arguing. The door that’s closed more than it’s open. The kid who used to tell you everything and now tells you nothing.
Almost all the time, that isn’t a teenager who’s gone. That’s a teenager who’s still trying, and doesn’t have the words for it.
I help parents of teenagers hear that again, and know exactly what to do with it.
Mike Barsamian. I’m the only coach here — since 2022 I’ve walked 70 parents through this myself, one at a time.
Parents come to me for their teenager. We start with them instead.
That sounds backwards, and it’s the reason it works.
A parent running on a dominant inner critic becomes a critical parent without meaning to. Not because they’re harsh. Because the voice they use on themselves leaks into the room. You can’t lead your teenager anywhere you haven’t led yourself first.
So we start with you. How you talk to yourself. How you stay on your feet when your kid says something that lands like a slap. Then, once you’re steady, we build your family something to stand on.
If this is your house
Most parents find me in one of three situations.
None of them mean what you’re afraid they mean.
They’ve stopped talking to you
One-word answers. The door closes before you finish the sentence. You’ve started choosing your own words carefully, in your own home, around your own child.
A teenager who stopped talking usually hasn’t stopped needing you. They’ve stopped talking under the conditions on offer.
Nothing you try holds
You’ve taken the phone, grounded them, removed the car. You’ve done therapy, consequences, tutors, and the app somebody recommended. None of it stuck.
Stop looking for the consequence that finally lands. There isn’t one, and there’s a third option nobody offers you.
You’re parenting against a different playbook
Different rules at the other house. Your teen comes home unsettled and it takes a day or two to get them back. Sometimes the criticism arrives through your kid.
You can’t control the other house. You can make yours worth coming back to.
The method
What is the PACE Setter Method™?
The PACE Setter Method™ is Mike Barsamian’s four-part framework for parents of teenagers, built on the idea that a parent’s job in the teen years is not to run the race but to set the pace. P — Present-moment awareness. A — Appreciate their development. C — Connect strategically. E — Empower independence. Unlike behavior-management approaches, the PACE Setter Method™ starts with the parent, not the teen.
Pacesetters don’t run to win. Their job is to hold a steady pace so the runner beside them can reach something they couldn’t reach alone. That’s the parent’s job in the teen years. It’s not your race. You set the pace.
What I believe
Four things I’m not willing to be talked out of.
Behavior is the tip of the iceberg.
What you’re seeing is attitude, or silence, or a door. Underneath it is an emotion, under that an unmet need, and under that, usually, a fear. Respond to what’s below the waterline.
You can’t punish a teenager into character.
Pain and consequence make you the source of the pain, so your teen starts running from the person they most need to run toward. You get compliance without connection.
What looks like defiance is usually development.
Your teenager’s actual job right now is to become a separate person. It goes badly. That doesn’t make it wrong, and it doesn’t make it about you.
A teenager still fighting with you is still reaching for you.
To aim something at a person, that person has to matter. The teenagers who are genuinely gone aren’t rude. They’re polite, and pleasant, and absent.
Client stories
Parents who were where you are now.
Before working with Mike in Present Solution for Parents, I felt really hopeless about my relationship with my teenager. The biggest challenge was navigating how to handle my son’s disrespect and refusal to communicate due to his father’s influence. After working with Mike, I learned how to stand up for myself, regulate difficult emotions, and most importantly, how to show up as a confident parent.
Now, my teenager has moved back home with me full time. He communicates respectfully and he often asks for my advice. The most valuable thing I gained was letting go of fear and trusting that I could be a better parent by working on myself first and then applying Mike’s lessons to my situation.
As a psychologist, it was difficult for me to admit to needing help with my parenting. I felt like a failure as a mom, and this made me doubt myself as a professional. My friends would tell me, “don’t let your kids talk to you like that,” but I didn’t know what to do. Mike’s program and coaching have helped guide and empower me to grow into the mom I want to be.
The program is very comprehensive, and Mike is an amazing coach. He helped me navigate challenging situations with my kids as well as a difficult coparenting relationship with my ex. In addition to learning about adolescence and parenting skills, Mike’s thorough and very supportive coaching helped me understand myself and change patterns. That aspect of his coaching has been the most valuable, as I develop my own voice and style as a mom.
I give Mike and his Present Solution for Parents coaching program my highest recommendation, both professionally and as a mom.
We adopted our three beautiful sons much later in life and didn’t know how difficult it was going to be to raise teens with the right values. We were losing our minds and our hope. Mike’s guidance is so personal, and he was so available to our needs we felt supported the entire time he coached us. We’re grateful that we have grown more connected and finally understand each other.
We have three kids who share time between our two families and the stress and constant moving kids around was getting to us. Plus, trying to understand our teen daughter as she started a new school was tough. Mike always listened and always knew exactly how to guide us in our relationship with our teens.
We came to Mike with a lot of stress and feeling like we had failed our kids. We were in conflict almost every day, their grades were dropping, and the disrespect toward us was out of control. He cared for us and never judged us. Working with Mike and making the changes we talked about, we saw changes in our family that we wanted.
What I learned from Mike really works and I’m proud of how I’m able to stay calm and confident as a mom.
Who I work with
Career-driven parents of teenagers — married, divorced, and single.
Most are co-parenting alongside an ex running a completely different playbook. Most have already tried therapy, consequences, and taking the phone away, and hit a wall.
I turn away parents looking for behavior-management techniques.
That isn’t what I do, and it isn’t what works with teenagers.
Hey, I’m Mike.
I’ve been working with teenagers and their families since 2003 — pastoring, teaching, and coaching, first inside churches and schools, and now with parents one family at a time.
I got here the long way. I was a lost teenager myself. No dad in the picture, a home I didn’t want to be in, and no reason to think any of it could change. Then somebody showed up for me. That’s most of the reason I do this.
Later I went to Fuller Theological Seminary for a master’s in theology, in the youth, family and culture emphasis. One of my professors was Chap Clark, who wrote Hurt. His argument has never left me: teenagers haven’t so much rebelled as they’ve been quietly abandoned by the adults around them.
So here’s what I believe. Almost all the time, what you’re seeing at home isn’t defiance. It’s development. It’s going badly, and it is not proof that you failed.
Founder, Present Solution for Parents
Creator of the PACE Setter Method™ and the Family OS™
I’m the only coach here. Since 2022 I’ve walked 70 parents through this myself, one at a time, and I’d be glad for you to be next.
Featured on
Where you may have heard me.
Where to start
Four doors, and the first two are free.
PACE Setter Masterclass
The whole framework in one sitting, and the fastest way to see whether the way I think about this makes sense to you.
PACE Setter 7-Day Parent Training Guide
Seven days won’t teach you the whole method. It will show you the first move.
PACE Setter Foundations
Four weeks, self-paced. The first four weeks of the method as training modules. Your $397 is credited toward the Intensive if you continue.
PACE Setter Intensive
Foundations plus eight more weeks, with two group calls a week, five one-to-one calls with me, weekly email coaching, and text access. I’m the only coach and trainer.
Free download
The PACE Setter 7-Day Parent Training Guide
One small move a day for seven days. No teenager participation required, and nothing in it asks you to have a big conversation you’re not ready for.
I’m a coach, not a therapist or a psychiatrist, and coaching is not therapy or medical care. My client is the parent. If your teenager needs clinical care, that’s a clinician’s job and I’ll tell you so. Most of the families I work with have already been in therapy. I’m not replacing it — I’m changing the house they go home to between sessions.
One more thing
You don’t need your teenager’s permission to start.
Everything I teach is something you do. Nothing in the first few weeks requires your teen to agree to anything, sit down for a conversation, or even know you’re working on it.
That matters, because most parents who find me are not in a house where their kid would say yes to a family meeting this week. I’m glad you’re here, and I’m proud of you for looking. Doing the quiet work of changing yourself first is the hardest version of this, and it’s the one that works.