Episode 589: Dr. Shefali: Raising Confident Kids Through Boundaries, Independence, and Emotional Resilience

A lot of parenting mistakes start with something we rarely look at: our own unhealed fears, insecurities, and expectations. When those patterns go unchecked, kids can end up carrying pressure that was never really theirs. We dive deeper into this in Habits & Hustle with Dr. Shefali. We also chat about raising confident and independent kids, giving sons and daughters room to use their voice, and how social media is shaping their identity and self-worth. Dr. Shefali is a clinical psychologist, New York Times bestselling author, and founder of the Conscious Parenting movement. She trained at Columbia University and is the author of multiple books on conscious parenting. Check out Dr. Shefali's latest books "Raising Conscious Daughters" and "Raising Conscious Sons" at www.drshefali.com/books https://www.drshefali.com/books/ What's Discussed: (07:49) How social media algorithms can exploit the different vulnerabilities of teenage girls and boys, from girls seeking approval and belonging to boys being exposed to pornography and manosphere content. (15:15) Why Dr. Shefali calls the way girls build their identity through likes, reactions, comparison, and digital feedback the "perception prison," and how parents can help reduce overstimulation. (20:58) Why daughters need opportunities to disagree, push back, and practice boundaries with their fathers so they learn to use their voice outside the home. (24:12) Why boys may connect through movement, challenge, problem-solving, and physical activity, and how constantly pushing them to verbalize their feelings can create more distance. (27:55) Why a son wanting less physical affection as he gets older does not necessarily mean he loves his mother less, and how giving him space can support his growing independence. (29:24) How giving boys responsibility, leadership opportunities, physical challenges, and ways to contribute can help build competence and a stronger sense of worth. (38:45) How parents can project their own unhealed insecurities onto their children through achievement, activities, schools, status, and the pressure to become a reflection of the parent. (42:10) Why trying to avoid every parenting mistake is unrealistic, and how acknowledging mistakes, validating your child's experience, and letting go of perfection can strengthen the relationship. (46:14) Why one conscious parent can still make a meaningful difference when co-parents disagree, and how children may release their stress with the parent they feel safest around. (48:57) Why choosing who you have children with deserves enormous consideration, because co-parenting can connect you to that person for the rest of your life. Thank You to Our Sponsors! Magic Mind: Head over to magicmind.com/jen http://www.magicmind.com/jen and use code JEN at checkout. Momentous: Ready to try supplements that actually do what they claim? Head to livemomentous.com http://livemomentous.com and use code JEN for 35% off your first subscription. Therasage: Visit therasage.com http://therasage.com and use code JEN to get 15% off your order. Your skin Prolon: Prolon is offering listeners 30% off sitewide plus a $40 bonus gift when you subscribe to their 5-Day Program! Just visit prolonlife.com/JENNIFERCOHEN https://prolonlife.com/JENNIFERCOHEN and use code JENNIFERCOHEN to claim your discount and your bonus gift. Tru Niagen®: For supplements that are rigorously tested, third-party verified, and actually deliver what's on the label, head to truniagen.com http://truniagen.com Kion: Visit getkion.com/habits http://getkion.com/habits for 20% off Find more from Jen Cohen: Website: jennifercohen.com https://jennifercohen.com Instagram: @therealjencohen http://instagram.com/therealjencohen Books: jennifercohen.com/books https://jennifercohen.com/books Speaking: jennifercohen.com/speaking-engagements https://jennifercohen.com/speaking-engagements Find more from Dr. Shefali: Website: drshefali.com http://drshefali.com Instagram: @docotrshefali https://www.instagram.com/doctorshefali/ Facebook: Dr. Shefali https://www.facebook.com/doctorshefali/ YouTube: Dr. Shefali https://www.youtube.com/c/DrShefali Books: Books - Dr. Shefali https://www.drshefali.com/books/

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:01Speaker 00

  Hi guys, it's Tony Robbins. You're listening to Habits and Hustle. Crush it.

• 0:07Jen Cohen?

  Welcome to Habits and Hustle, where I sit down with the world's biggest thinkers, entrepreneurs, and experts to uncover the habits, strategies, and mindset shifts that actually move the needle in your health, happiness, and success. Today, I'm sitting down with Dr. Shefali, a clinical psychologist, New York Times bestselling author, and founder of the Conscious Parenting Movement. We discuss how parents unknowingly project their own fears, insecurities, and expectations onto their children, and how social media and algorithms are shaping the identities of young girls and boys, and why raising resilient kids starts with parents becoming more aware of their own patterns.

• 0:49Jen Cohen?

  We also cover the differences between raising sons and daughters, confidence, boundaries, emotional development, helicopter parenting, divorce, co-parenting, and why trying to be a perfect parent can actually get in the way of connection. This conversation is packed with practical ways to help your children develop a stronger sense of self while becoming a more conscious parent in yourself. Dr. Shefali breaks down why daughters need space to use their voice, and why boys need opportunities to build competence and independence. Let's dive in.

• 1:31Jen Cohen?

  By the way, I'm really excited about today. Really. Not because you're just even better in person.

• 1:37Speaker 02

  That means a lot to me.

• 1:38Jen Cohen?

  No, you really are. I have Dr. Shefali, you guys, and if you guys do not know Dr. Shefali's work, you are, you're missing out, because she, to me, is one of the most incredible parenting experts, like vision leaders in this space. And I was telling you before we started that I was even familiar with you, and I loved you even before your Oprah days.

• 2:01Speaker 02

  Unbelievable.

• 2:02Jen Cohen?

  Because you are someone that's very unusual. You have so much education to back you, and yet you also have strategies, and your whole perspective flips the whole parenting structure like on its head.

• 2:16Speaker 02

  You know, when I started this, I started writing my first book, The Conscious Parent, in 2007. And I was terrified, because I was calling parents to look at their shit, right? Like, "Look at your stuff." And back then, no one was doing it. So I used to try it in my, in my therapy practice. Literally, parents walked out, like to the point that my then-husband said, like, "Maybe this is not good for business."

• 2:43Jen Cohen?

  Really?

• 2:43Speaker 02

  And I was like, "But I'm telling them the truth," which I only discovered in depth when I became a mother. You know, so as a therapist, before I was a parent, like we all, we judged other mothers and fathers. We're like, "We will never do what you're doing, right? We will raise amazing children." So I had a lot of ego. But when I became a parent, and I was like, "Holy smokes, I am as bad, if not worse. My ego is out of control." And I have no compunction saying this, because we all have an out-of-control ego. And until we learn to look in the mirror and face it, only then can we tame it. So when I saw my ego, I said, "Damn it, I need to let the world know"

• 3:25Jen Cohen?

  Right.

• 3:25Speaker 02

  "That our problems start from the ego of the parent." All our problems, every problem in the world, goes back, I'm not talking about physical, I'm talking about emotional problems, go back to the, to the spiritual, psychological, emotional health of the parent.

• 3:42Jen Cohen?

  See, that's to me why, there's so many like levels to what you say that is just mind-boggling, right? So you, you're basically telling people, let's before we even talk about that part, explain to people in like, in a few sentences, what, what is the whole conscious, like what is that whole thing?

• 4:01Speaker 02

  Yes. So in a nutshell, the conscious parent raises themselves so they don't pass on their crap to their children.

• 4:08Jen Cohen?

  Right. So how does someone stop themselves? Don't you need awareness to even know what your problem is?

• 4:15Speaker 02

  Yes. So most of us don't have awareness, which is the first thing we need in any change situation.

• 4:21Jen Cohen?

  Right.

• 4:22Speaker 02

  In any journey to transform, you first need to be aware.

• 4:25Jen Cohen?

  Right.

• 4:25Speaker 02

  So the beautiful thing about our children is that they will make you aware, right? They are such an intense mirror, that by child number three, you know, if you had one and you escaped, and child two, you escaped, sooner or later, at some point in our children's journey, they will hold the mirror up, and you will have to make a choice, either to keep going heavy on your kid, and keep controlling and punishing them, and keep blaming your mother-in-law, or you look in the mirror and say, "How am I co-creating this? How am I really creating this?"

• 4:58Jen Cohen?

  It's, yeah, because you say, you say a lot about your unhealed wounds, and then you're going to be projecting that onto your children. So if people are wounded and they're not healing, how do you parent in tandem Yeah. with healing your wounds? Because, you know, a lot of times theoretically, things can sound good, but in real life-

• 5:18Speaker 02

  It's completely different.

• 5:19Jen Cohen?

  It's really, really difficult.

• 5:20Speaker 02

  And it's really hard.

• 5:21Jen Cohen?

  Yeah.

• 5:22Speaker 02

  In fact, conscious parenting cannot be taught. You have to practice. It has to be in the moment, which means you're being slammed with the issue while you are not yet healed, right? So how do you know-

• 5:34Jen Cohen?

  Right, because it's triggering you.

• 5:35Speaker 02

  Correct. Because the fact that it's triggering you,

• 5:38Jen Cohen?

  Right.

• 5:38Speaker 02

  the fact that you're out of your body with anger, or rage, or scorn, or punishment, and your child is telling you, "I'm suffering. Something that you are doing to me, either you're making me unsafe, or you've put too much expectation, or you're looking at me as somebody I am not, and I am suffering now. So I am inviting you," the child doesn't say this, but if they, if they could, "to please connect with me." So any child you have who is anxious, rebellious, angry, that child is actually begging you to stop what you're doing, pay attention, and deeply connect. Now, I've written seven books, and now these two are eight and nine.

• 6:20Speaker 02

  And each, each time I tell myself, "No more parenting books," because my daughter is now 23, and I feel I should be done. I keep telling her, "I think I'm done." And she's like, "No." I'm like, "Yes."

• 6:33Jen Cohen?

  Well, I'm happy you're not done.

• 6:35Speaker 02

  I know. We're never ever done, but we're kind of done. You know, at some stage, we got to retire from center stage and go backstage. So I'm going, I'm ready to be back. I'm out the door, but she keeps holding me in center stage.

• 6:50Jen Cohen?

  You know why that is, though, and why I love that these, like, this is why I was really dying to have you on, because now you have raising, raising conscious sons and raising conscious daughters.

• 7:01Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 7:01Jen Cohen?

  I have one of each.

• 7:02Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 7:03Jen Cohen?

  Okay. And what I've noticed, I always thought when I was, when my kids were small, that was going to be the hardest.

• 7:09Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 7:09Jen Cohen?

  Like, okay, well, I, if, as long as I can get this part done, I'll be good.

• 7:13Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 7:13Jen Cohen?

  What I've noticed-

• 7:14Speaker 02

  Oh, my goodness.

• 7:14Jen Cohen?

  Oh, my god.

• 7:15Speaker 02

  Each stage, they slam you.

• 7:17Jen Cohen?

  It's getting harder.

• 7:18Speaker 02

  Yeah. How old are your kids now?

• 7:19Jen Cohen?

  Eleven and thirteen.

• 7:20Speaker 02

  Well, you are in the firestorm. Yeah.

• 7:23Jen Cohen?

  You've no, yeah, well, you have, I was gonna say, you have no idea.

• 7:25Speaker 02

  This is the eye of the storm.

• 7:26Jen Cohen?

  Oh, and it's, it's, it's different hard.

• 7:29Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 7:29Jen Cohen?

  But I'm more, I have more anxiety around this stage, even than I thought when I-

• 7:33Speaker 02

  Because you don't have physical control now.

• 7:35Jen Cohen?

  I have no physical control.

• 7:36Speaker 02

  And your influence is now in jeopardy, because it's being hijacked

• 7:41Jen Cohen?

  Right.

• 7:41Speaker 02

  by what we have in culture, which is why I wrote these books.

• 7:44Jen Cohen?

  Exactly.

• 7:45Speaker 02

  Because we are at a cultural inflection, urgency, crisis point, where our children are literally hijacked by forces that are entering their bedroom that we have not invited.

• 7:58Jen Cohen?

  Oh, my god. 100%.

• 8:00Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 8:01Jen Cohen?

  And with social media and peer groups.

• 8:03Speaker 02

  And WhatsApp groups.

• 8:04Jen Cohen?

  WhatsApp.

• 8:05Speaker 02

  And that they are on social media. So now you're, even if you control it, their friends, or their friends' sisters are on social media and influencing every generation. So our kids are digitally immersed in a cyclone, an avalanche of overstimulation and hyperexposure that they cannot even process.

• 8:27Jen Cohen?

  I can't even process it. And I'm an adult. And by the way, even with my, with our adult brains, it is, it's, it's, it's, it's kind of manipulating my own neuroplasticity.

• 8:37Speaker 02

  It's a manipulation.

• 8:39Jen Cohen?

  Yeah.

• 8:39Speaker 02

  And I wrote two books, not to be reductive about our genders. And you may find things about different, your, your son in the daughter's book, you know, and vice versa. I need people to read both. The reason why is because the algorithm and culture uniquely knows how to manipulate each one's neurochemistry.

• 9:00Jen Cohen?

  Oh, wow.

• 9:00Speaker 02

  So, for example, our daughters, just like us, are filled and fueled by estrogen, which means that oxytocin is on, on high demand and high receptivity in a girl's brain. The algorithm knows that she is relationally sensitive, that she is acutely, you know, to, to the point of like a, like a symphonic conductor playing to approval and rejection. She is fine-tuned to look for whether she is approved, whether she's validated, just like we are. But they are at a thousand level more, because they are not face-to-face.

• 9:41Speaker 02

  So they are trying to find who they are, our daughters, in this digital maelstrom, and the algorithm knows it. For example, you may have heard this study they did in Meta, in Facebook, that the algorithm knew when a girl took a selfie and didn't post it, and then-

• 10:00Jen Cohen?

  I never heard this.

• 10:00Speaker 02

  picked up that the girl is insecure, and then would, would bombard her with Sephora and makeup and product. It's so attuned to our habits online, that they know how to exploit the girl's desire to be approved, validated, and to belong, because they know that her oxytocin brain is looking for validation, so it'll hijack her neurochemistry.

• 10:27Jen Cohen?

  That is crazy.

• 10:29Speaker 02

  But listen to what's going to happen to your boy.

• 10:31Jen Cohen?

  Tell me.

• 10:32Speaker 02

  So your boy, who is 14?

• 10:35Jen Cohen?

  13.

• 10:35Speaker 02

  13. He is going through- A tsunami of testosterone, okay? To the point, fifty times more than what he ever has and fifteen to twenty times more than any female. At thirteen, he is at his peak testosterone, going to even peak more at around eighteen, nineteen. You haven't even seen the start of it. He doesn't know what to do with his body. He does not know what to do with his transformation, with his sexual impulses, with his penis that is unbidden now. It's uncontrolled. He does no idea what to do with it. He's having nocturnal emissions, night dreams. No one is telling him that this is happening to him.

• 11:16Jen Cohen?

  Right.

• 11:16Speaker 02

  His sister is getting help because she has a period and the mother is talking to the sister, but no one is talking to the boy. So in this void, the algorithm knows as soon as a thirteen, fourteen-year-old boy comes on the scene to bombard him with porn and with content from the manosphere. That is going to teach him how to be masculine. So if that boy, your son or another boy, doesn't have a strong brotherhood of tribal elders, like his male elders, role models to initiate him into manhood, the manosphere and porn will mentor him, and you don't want that.

• 11:54Jen Cohen?

  No.

• 11:54Speaker 02

  And it's already happened. Most porn is seen by age eleven.

• 11:58Jen Cohen?

  I, I, that's just-

• 11:59Speaker 02

  He's already seen everything.

• 12:01Jen Cohen?

  People say this to me and I cannot, I have to, I cannot un-hear that. It, I have to-

• 12:05Speaker 02

  Yeah, we need to come out of the sand. We need to get our head out and we need to understand that it's not, nothing to blame ourselves for, nothing to be embarrassed or ashamed or angry at them. This is how the algorithm manipulates the different sexes.

• 12:20Jen Cohen?

  You know, what I found to be brilliant was that people who do have, though, a boy or, like, me to have a boy and a girl,

• 12:26Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 12:26Jen Cohen?

  they are so different.

• 12:28Speaker 02

  They are.

• 12:28Jen Cohen?

  And it, how I would treat my daughter is extremely different than how I would treat my son at this time.

• 12:34Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 12:35Jen Cohen?

  And what works for one completely does not work-

• 12:38Speaker 02

  Correct.

• 12:39Jen Cohen?

  -for the other.

• 12:39Speaker 02

  Correct.

• 12:40Jen Cohen?

  Because they are, like, when I read your titles and subtitles, like, the girl, the confidence, because that's a huge, the social interaction-

• 12:47Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 12:48Jen Cohen?

  -the, the, between her and her friends to be-

• 12:50Speaker 02

  Oh, that's huge.

• 12:51Jen Cohen?

  The, the, the-

• 12:51Speaker 02

  To be approved.

• 12:52Jen Cohen?

  To be like, yeah.

• 12:53Speaker 02

  To belong.

• 12:53Jen Cohen?

  To belong and to feel like you are validated and-

• 12:57Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 12:57Jen Cohen?

  Girls can be so mean to other girls.

• 12:59Speaker 02

  Oh, my goodness.

• 13:00Jen Cohen?

  It's heart-wrenching.

• 13:01Speaker 02

  Yeah, I ca, I call the girlhood crisis a crisis of selfhood.

• 13:06Jen Cohen?

  Yeah.

• 13:07Speaker 02

  Where they're constantly asking, who am I? Who am I? Who am I? Am I seen? Am I worthy? Am I valid? And for boys, it is a crisis of masculinity.

• 13:15Jen Cohen?

  Yes.

• 13:16Speaker 02

  They are being told who not to be constantly. They're almost afraid because now they're walking into this whole feminist movement of the tox, you know, which is unraveling the toxic patriarchy.

• 13:27Jen Cohen?

  Yep.

• 13:27Speaker 02

  And they're terrified of even being themselves because they're told constantly, you are the problem. On the other hand, in the manosphere is this exaggerated version-

• 13:38Jen Cohen?

  Yeah.

• 13:38Speaker 02

  -of masculinity with the big biceps and the square jaw and women are the problem and you're the boss and you are in charge and you're the king. So they're being given these very extreme messages, but no one is giving them the true blueprint for how to be consciously masculine. And in both books, I teach, in the girls' book, how girls can reclaim their self and in the boys', how boys can reclaim their conscious masculinity and how we parents can help them.

• 14:06Jen Cohen?

  Please, Dr. Shefali, can give, give, give us some actionable tools for each? Because I know I am not the only person who feels this way. Because when, when, when I was even telling friends of mine that you were coming on today and what you, like, the books you have, almost every one of the moms and even the dads were like, oh, my God, that's exactly, I need to know this because I have a, even a ten-year-old daughter, a fourteen-year-old boy. And it's so, so important and we all feel, especially if you're a wor, if you're a working parent, we all feel a lot of guilt and kind of like, we just don't even know where to begin.

• 14:44Speaker 02

  Right, and when you don't know how to begin to such a degree, you almost just give it, give up.

• 14:49Jen Cohen?

  Yeah.

• 14:49Speaker 02

  You know, because you don't know what to do.

• 14:51Jen Cohen?

  We don't know what to do and we, we're, we're using old strategies that our parents used on us-

• 14:57Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 14:57Jen Cohen?

  -that are not applicable.

• 14:59Speaker 02

  No.

• 14:59Jen Cohen?

  Because what we're dealing with in twenty twenty-six is very different than when we dealt with like twenty, thirty years ago.

• 15:05Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 15:05Jen Cohen?

  We didn't have those, the same stuff.

• 15:08Speaker 02

  Exactly. I mean, I literally conceived of, wrote and edited these books within six months because it's an urgent crisis.

• 15:16Jen Cohen?

  It is.

• 15:17Speaker 02

  And I told my publishers, both have to come out on the same day within a year because we are already behind the curve. So now, parents are aware that social media is harmful and toxic.

• 15:28Jen Cohen?

  Yep.

• 15:28Speaker 02

  But yet, no one knows what to do. So in each of these chapters, there are tools and strategies. So let me just break down a few of them.

• 15:35Jen Cohen?

  Yes, please.

• 15:36Speaker 02

  I've given seven pillars in each book for well-being. What, if you follow these pillars, you will at least be in a safe zone. And then I break down every single red flag area that parents need to be aware of. They need to speak the language so they can have the arsenal to fight it.

• 15:54Jen Cohen?

  Yes.

• 15:54Speaker 02

  So just overall, let me give you the over, overview. For girls, we have to understand that their brain is wired for social connection, just like our female brain is, but a young brain even more so. So their entire identity is created based on perception of others. I call it the perception prison, where our daughters are trapped in like this looking mirror glass where who they are is not based on their self-evaluation. It is based on the evaluation of their peers. And now their peers are no longer in the schoolyard. It is the globe, it's the world.

• 16:33Jen Cohen?

  Right.

• 16:34Speaker 02

  It's telling them who they are. And girls develop through relationship. But because we have replaced face-to-face relationship with digital simulation, now they're trying to figure out who they are in the number of emojis they get or in the number of exclamation points that are in the sentence. They're reading signs which are incredibly difficult to pick up. And for the most part, they're misfiring.

• 16:58Jen Cohen?

  Right.

• 16:58Speaker 02

  So their whole sense of self is constantly coming up and falling apart. And girls are in dire straits. I mean, one in two or three anxiety disorder, dysmorphia, body shaming, body hating, body harming, body cutting, anorexia, bulimia, suicidal ideation, dieting by age of eight or nine years old. I mean, hypersexualization, right? So there's this false empowerment that you see online now.

• 17:28Jen Cohen?

  Yeah.

• 17:29Speaker 02

  You know, OnlyFans or you can be an influencer, which means basically you're playing into the same toxic patriarchy, but you're just calling it empowerment, right? So girls are thinking, oh, I can make a lot of money, but they're not realizing it's just a revamped version of the same old, you know, playing to the, to the male gaze and playing to the male approval as our ancestors did. So girls have begun to think that if they're hypersexual, they're actually empowered. What they don't realize is that they're not. They're still selling their body for a price and they're doing it unconsciously. So this is all going to come to your daughter. But another thing that's going to come to your daughter, now, we've all grown up in a toxic patriarchal culture,

• 18:13Speaker 02

  but the misogyny that your daughter is going to experience now is at another level because it is in her phone and it is from her fourteen-year-old friend who's a silly boy. He is misogynistic. How is he learning this from this content that is being fed to boys?

• 18:31Jen Cohen?

  Right.

• 18:31Speaker 02

  So our girls-

• 18:32Jen Cohen?

  It's like a bad cycle.

• 18:33Speaker 02

  It's like a bad cycle. So now, you and I may have always had, you know, sexual predation at the hands of men, but not at the hands of your friend who was eleven years old.

• 18:44Jen Cohen?

  Yes.

• 18:44Speaker 02

  Who was a boy. She's going to get it from that boy. Because those boys are being taught that all girls are the problem.

• 18:52Jen Cohen?

  You know what's also happening is YouTube is horrendous. They watch these YouTube clips constantly. And even if I refuse to have YouTube, like, I, I block it at my house and they can't watch it. Doesn't matter.

• 19:05Speaker 02

  Yeah, they're going to be infiltrated. But the sad part is that our children are being exploited by capitalism and we are just helpless. So therefore, we need to understand as parents that you will not allow your child to be prey. But you see, we parents are part of the problem. We're posting stuff online.

• 19:23Jen Cohen?

  I know.

• 19:23Speaker 02

  We, we are showing off with our bags and our shoes. So we are part of the same comparison culture that our children, our girls especially, then get crippled in anxiety from.

• 19:40Jen Cohen?

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• 21:27Jen Cohen?

  I would like to have one really actionable thing that a parent can do today if listening, that they can start thinking, because once it's kind of in your awareness and you're more cognizant, maybe you will like shift from what you would have done to maybe this particular thing.

• 21:44Speaker 02

  So first, you need to understand your girls are vulnerable, right?

• 21:47Jen Cohen?

  Yes.

• 21:47Speaker 02

  So I'll tell you a few things they can do. So the first thing we need to do as parents is de-stimulate her, like end this overstimulation. A girl's brain cannot handle the overstimulation, the hyperexposure, because she's not just watching content, she's finding who she is. So she's scrolling and going, is this me? Is this me?

• 22:08Jen Cohen?

  Yep.

• 22:08Speaker 02

  So she's constantly fragmenting and falling apart. So the first thing we do is we limit her exposure, right? Absolutely detox. It is literally not good for her emotional well-being. It is like suicide for her, for her soul.

• 22:23Jen Cohen?

  So no phones?

• 22:24Speaker 02

  No phones till she's 16 or 17, because she cannot, she has to first find herself before she loses herself. So what's happening now is that she's losing herself before finding herself. So complete lack of hyperexposure and overstimulation. Number two, real face-to-face contact. So you as a parent needs to be more present, more connected, more, you know, aware and more attuned. So that means you have to be without your phone, you have to be less distracted. Number three, a girl gives up her voice and inner knowing so easily to the relationship that we need to help her reclaim her voice.

• 23:08Speaker 02

  So you've seen with you in your life, right? To reclaim your voice has been your biggest learning, your journey.

• 23:15Jen Cohen?

  Right.

• 23:15Speaker 02

  To allow yourself to be big, even if somebody else is playing small.

• 23:20Jen Cohen?

  Yes.

• 23:20Speaker 02

  Right? Allowing yourself to occupy your sovereign authenticity, even when you're pissing people off, to have boundaries. So these are the things we as mothers especially need to cultivate in our daughters. But it's not pretty, because the first person she's going to use her voice with is you.

• 23:37Jen Cohen?

  Oh, tell me about it.

• 23:38Speaker 02

  And then it's a pain in the neck, right? And she's got something to say about everything, and then she's going to defy you and challenge you. But you want her to use her voice with you and with her father. And it's so important for a father to allow the daughter to rebel, to fight back, to oppose, because if she practices with him, she will be able to do that in the outer patriarchy, right?

• 24:00Jen Cohen?

  That's very, that was another question I had. I mean, is there a different rulebook for the mother versus the father?

• 24:08Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 24:08Jen Cohen?

  And then the other thing is, what if the parents are not aligned in the parenting and how to parent?

• 24:15Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 24:15Jen Cohen?

  Because it's very confusing. And then the child will usually will gravitate to the one that has zero discipline.

• 24:23Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 24:24Jen Cohen?

  Right? How do you manage that?

• 24:25Speaker 02

  Yeah, so two questions. So one, are there different rulebooks? At the core, all children need the same thing. They need safety, unconditional acceptance, present, attunement, time, energy, focus, right? At the core, we all need the same thing. But each one of us has a different influence. So if you're raising the same-sex child, you're going to have a very different influence than the opposite.

• 24:49Jen Cohen?

  Right.

• 24:49Speaker 02

  Right? So in a daughter's life, a father needs to realize that he is representing the outside world to her. So how he allows her to be powerful, sovereign, to have boundaries with him, will be the way she practices how she is in the outside world. The mother is her closest mirror to how she will treat herself. So if she sees a mother who is overly critical, overly self-shaming, perfectionistic, hard on herself, she's going to pick that up. Does this mother occupy her body with empowerment? Or does this mother critique herself, harm herself, deny herself, put herself last?

• 25:31Speaker 02

  She's watching the mother like a sponge, like it is happening at a cellular level.

• 25:36Jen Cohen?

  Wow.

• 25:36Speaker 02

  And with the father, she's going to practice. How, she doesn't need the father in the same way, except to practice, can I test my boundaries?

• 25:45Jen Cohen?

  Yes.

• 25:45Speaker 02

  Can I stand up to a male? Can my father give me space? That's why I teach fathers, allow your daughter to rebel against you. Allow her to fight back. Don't call her rude. Don't call her dramatic, right? So many men especially look at female issues and go, my God, these women are so dramatic. We are not dramatic. We're just tuned to feel deeply. Our brains are wired to feel.

• 26:12Jen Cohen?

  So then, that's a really, I love that you just said that. And then what would happen, so if you have a boy, not a girl?

• 26:18Speaker 02

  Yes, let's talk about the boys.

• 26:19Jen Cohen?

  Let's talk about the boy then.

• 26:19Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 26:20Jen Cohen?

  So like, if that's the case for the mom and the daughter, and the father and the daughter, now what happens with, I have a son and the...

• 26:28Speaker 02

  I will tell you, I will tell you. So let's talk about the boys. First, we have to understand the boys' chemistry, okay? So just like girls are estrogen and oxytocin, love bonding, connection fueled, boys are wired through their body. They need to move, they need to express themselves physically, they need challenge, they need friction, they need to compete, they need to problem solve, they need to figure things out, they need adventure, they need discovery. From a young, young age, they cannot sit still, they cannot talk about their feelings. So when a mother tells a boy...

• 27:07Jen Cohen?

  I'm laughing because it's like, it's so funny, so true.

• 27:10Speaker 02

  Yeah, mostly true.

• 27:11Jen Cohen?

  Yeah, a lot of, I mean, yeah.

• 27:12Speaker 02

  Yeah, mostly true. If a mother tells a boy, you know, look at your sister, she can talk about her feelings, she's only five, look at her, she's amazing. That is really to not understand a boy. A boy cannot access his words. He is showing you through his body. It's bottom up for a boy, for a girl, it's top down. Girls get coordinated much faster, their left and brain, left and right brain hemispheres talk to each other beautifully. The boys' brains are compartmentalized, that's why men are so compartmentalized. They can feel and then go kill someone.

• 27:45Jen Cohen?

  Yeah.

• 27:46Speaker 02

  Right? They can go kill the jackal or the bear and then come back and play with the babies. They can do this because their hemispheres don't cross over. But they're incredibly infuriating for a mother, because the mother is like, what is wrong with you? You don't feel anything, you don't care about me. And the mother can become overprotective, hovering, annoying, and nagging, and then the boy is just going to retreat, because he's going to feel like, I can never make this woman happy, she always wants me to talk, I cannot talk, and she is upset with me when I don't talk, but I need space. But he's expressing himself, he can feel as deeply, he just doesn't show it the same way. So I tell all mothers several things. Number one, stop nagging your boys. Give them space.

• 28:29Speaker 02

  Join them through their adventure, through their game, through their physical, go out with them, play with them, ask them to contribute. Boys need purpose and competence. Make them feel useful, that's how you can connect with your boy. Number two, do not see your son's wild energy as a trauma replication of your past.

• 28:55Speaker 02

  Relationships with abusive men.

• 28:57Jen Cohen?

  Hmm, that's a good point, yeah.

• 28:58Speaker 02

  That's a lot, because many times I see mothers just completely emasculate their sons. Because they're like, you will not abuse me, you will not treat me. But it's a boy, but she's remembering her past trauma. It's really sad to watch boys being shamed. But also to see mothers recreating old trauma and seeing their boys as their fathers or as their abusive male exes. And so it's a real distorted, distorted mirror.

• 29:28Jen Cohen?

  Yeah, it's super distorted.

• 29:29Speaker 02

  Yeah, so I mean, literally, most of us women have trauma stored from some male or the other. We take that out on our sons. And every time you see our son being slightly more aggressive or being more boy, looking like very masculine, it's scary for us because we've only seen unconscious masculinity. So we want to shut it down. We want to make them like our girls. We're like, sit quietly and talk and draw.

• 29:55Jen Cohen?

  Draw, exactly.

• 29:57Speaker 02

  And write a poetry.

• 29:58Jen Cohen?

  Right.

• 29:58Speaker 02

  And, and no harm in that, that's beautiful.

• 30:01Jen Cohen?

  But it's not realistic for most.

• 30:03Speaker 02

  For many boys, they're incapable and then they feel shamed. So let's talk about the fathers.

• 30:08Jen Cohen?

  Yes, before we get to the fathers, though, I, when you, I heard you once say, and I thought that was so true, like, when your, when your boy doesn't hug you and kiss you and want to be around you, it's not an insult, it doesn't mean they don't love you.

• 30:22Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 30:22Jen Cohen?

  Because I watched that and I was like, okay, good, because as a mom, every mom loves their, their boy, right? I mean, and their girl, but like, you know, the relationship between, I always feel, and my, it's, it's obviously memes all over the world because I'm always trying to hug him. And when you, when you, when you told me that to kind of like back off a little bit, it did make a big difference.

• 30:42Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 30:43Jen Cohen?

  In like, because it's not like you, they feel crowded.

• 30:46Speaker 02

  They feel crowded and they feel incompetent because they don't feel like hugging you and then they feel bad about it.

• 30:52Jen Cohen?

  That's what you said in the, in the stuff that I saw.

• 30:54Speaker 02

  So you can just like squeeze his shoulder, just touch his hand and go, I got you, my son.

• 30:59Jen Cohen?

  Yeah.

• 30:59Speaker 02

  But you're actually setting him free.

• 31:01Jen Cohen?

  Yeah.

• 31:02Speaker 02

  And you're not making him feel lesser than or ashamed for, for making you feel bad.

• 31:07Jen Cohen?

  Yes, and I remember seeing that and I try to kind of tweak my, my behavior towards him and not also take it personally.

• 31:15Speaker 02

  Yeah, instead of hugging your son, what would be better for his self-esteem is ask his opinion, ask for directions, ask him to help you. And every time I say this to my mothers, because they're so competent, they feel insulted. They're like, what, am I an idiot? Well, why should I ask him for anything? I go, because it's a strategy to make him feel like he's contributing.

• 31:34Jen Cohen?

  Yes.

• 31:35Speaker 02

  Like, let him help you, woman, it's okay.

• 31:37Jen Cohen?

  I love that.

• 31:38Speaker 02

  You know, like, ask him to pick up the bags, ask him to fix the light bulb, ask him for directions, even if you have Google Maps.

• 31:44Jen Cohen?

  Right.

• 31:44Speaker 02

  Let him feel like he can direct you and he can lead you because he develops a sense of worth through leadership. And this doesn't mean the girl cannot do the same.

• 31:53Jen Cohen?

  A hundred percent.

• 31:54Speaker 02

  It's not, it's not reductive, it's not stratified, but I know what boys respond to, I know what men respond to. Why? Because their brains are developed to seek competency and to seek physical expression. So anything you give him to do that's a challenge, physical, he's going to love it. He will brush his teeth way faster at the age of three if you make him go outside into the yard and find the toothbrush.

• 32:16Jen Cohen?

  Right.

• 32:17Speaker 02

  You know, and make it a scavenger hunt, he's going to then brush his teeth. Make it a race, make it a competition because they're wired for physical dominance and competence and achievement. They want to know that they are achievers, you know?

• 32:30Jen Cohen?

  Right.

• 32:30Speaker 02

  And, and so for fathers, such an important role for, for their boys. Oh, my goodness. So we have to first understand that we need to have compassion for fathers because they were raised mostly by horrifically absent fathers.

• 32:46Jen Cohen?

  Right.

• 32:47Speaker 02

  Right? So they have no template for how to connect. So let's have compassion for fathers, okay?

• 32:53Jen Cohen?

  Right.

• 32:53Speaker 02

  They're confused as heck because they are supposed to be the hunter, hunters, and they're supposed to be the gatherers now. They're supposed to go out there and, you know, protect and provide, but they're also supposed to have emotional skills. So they're like, who am I supposed to be? I cannot be everything.

• 33:10Jen Cohen?

  Right.

• 33:10Speaker 02

  Right, I'm trying really hard and I had no model. So let's be compassionate towards the fathers, which most mothers are like, hell no, I'm not going to be compassionate. Now, compassion is also a strategy, right? Because when you're compassionate, people are more likely to cooperate with you.

• 33:26Jen Cohen?

  Yeah.

• 33:27Speaker 02

  Right? So what is the point of shaming your husband? He will not cooperate, he will slink away into his man cave and disappear.

• 33:33Jen Cohen?

  Right.

• 33:34Speaker 02

  So if you want him to be part of the team, we need to allow them to feel good about themselves.

• 33:39Jen Cohen?

  Yep.

• 33:39Speaker 02

  Okay, not in a pandering sort of way, but in an empowering way.

• 33:43Jen Cohen?

  No, I think this is.

• 33:43Speaker 02

  And they need to do the same for you. I'm not saying that the woman is not equally worthy of the same treatment.

• 33:48Jen Cohen?

  Absolutely.

• 33:49Speaker 02

  But men truly are handicapped, they don't know.

• 33:52Jen Cohen?

  Right.

• 33:52Speaker 02

  They, okay, not only do they not know, their brain is not wired for words. Their brain is wired for physical, physicality, for achievement, not for verbal articulation. So they're handicapped, okay? And their cerebral cortex comes online way later than women's and girls, like five, six years later. So their, their ability to process words with thoughts, that integration happens much later.

• 34:21Jen Cohen?

  Like how much later?

• 34:22Speaker 02

  Like, so if a girl's, it's happening by eleven, twelve, a boy, you're lucky at forty-five. No, I'm kidding.

• 34:27Jen Cohen?

  Yeah, I was gonna say, even then, I could be.

• 34:29Speaker 02

  It's not turning on, yeah.

• 34:30Jen Cohen?

  It's still not happening, you're still waiting.

• 34:32Speaker 02

  They're still waiting.

• 34:32Jen Cohen?

  Yeah.

• 34:33Speaker 02

  But I don't mean to, no, many men are growing and evolving now.

• 34:37Jen Cohen?

  But no, but I think this is very true and I think there is a difference between men and women and it is a strategy. I was going to say, the way you were telling me just now about how to handle a son.

• 34:47Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 34:47Jen Cohen?

  Is very similar, people may or may not like it, it's too bad, I really think that it's how you would handle like a relationship like.

• 34:54Speaker 02

  A hundred percent.

• 34:55Jen Cohen?

  With your.

• 34:55Speaker 02

  With a girlfriend or with a, a boyfriend, yeah, yes.

• 34:58Jen Cohen?

  It's, when you're saying, like, yeah, like, that's what you should, if, like, there are strategies to get the reaction you want.

• 35:04Speaker 02

  Like, I'll give you a very quick one and then we'll go back to what we were talking about. Like, my daughter will not go to sleep happy unless every conflict is resolved.

• 35:15Jen Cohen?

  Yeah.

• 35:15Speaker 02

  Now, doesn't she sound like you and me?

• 35:16Jen Cohen?

  Yeah.

• 35:17Speaker 02

  Yeah, we're like that.

• 35:18Jen Cohen?

  Both of them the same way.

• 35:18Speaker 02

  We have to fix it, we have to heal it, we have to tie the bow, we have to come to a place of sisterhood again.

• 35:24Jen Cohen?

  Yeah.

• 35:24Speaker 02

  So I know that with my daughter. So I go in, I repair immediately, but with a male friend or a son, I wouldn't go in immediately, I would give space. I'd be like, son, I got you, but we can talk tomorrow. And he'll be like, thank you.

• 35:39Jen Cohen?

  Right.

• 35:39Speaker 02

  I'm done with the drama, I cannot handle it, I need space. You see completely different strategies. And, and this doesn't mean one is better or more powerful than the other, they're just how their brain is wired.

• 35:50Jen Cohen?

  Yes.

• 35:50Speaker 02

  And not everybody is stereotypical either, right? People fall within the range.

• 35:55Jen Cohen?

  Of course, I mean, some will, there's two, there are buckets that you can.

• 35:58Speaker 02

  But I always want to keep saying.

• 36:00Jen Cohen?

  Yes.

• 36:00Speaker 02

  It's not reductive, okay? Gender is fluid, it can be, you know, you can express yourself in many ways. So let's go back to fathers and sons.

• 36:08Jen Cohen?

  Yes.

• 36:08Speaker 02

  One of the pitfalls that I see between fathers and sons is that because the father's emotional world was so decimated in his grow, in his growth, in his childhood, in his youth, when he sees it in the son, because he so punished it in himself, he automatically shuns it in the son because he sees it as weakness. He was told so much that his tears, his vulnerability, his shame, his weakness was a, a limitation, a failure. When he sees his son be quote unquote, soft, he cannot take it. So we need to help this dynamic, we need to help them both because he will unleash so much degradation. But guess what?

• 36:53Speaker 02

  I see so many women who also cannot handle soft boys.

• 36:57Jen Cohen?

  Yes.

• 36:58Speaker 02

  Because they've internalized the patriarchy. So they've internalized the same thing, that softness is a bad thing.

• 37:05Jen Cohen?

  Right.

• 37:06Speaker 02

  The patriarchy has made women feel so bad about their, their softness that they look at softness as a bad thing now.

• 37:13Jen Cohen?

  Right.

• 37:14Speaker 02

  So when they see it in their girls, but more in their boys, they will do the same thing that men have done to women, they will do to their sons.

• 37:20Jen Cohen?

  Right, because also it's what, it's what we've learned and what we know.

• 37:24Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 37:25Jen Cohen?

  So to unlearn that.

• 37:26Speaker 02

  Is, is very heavy, very heavy, it's heavy.

• 37:29Jen Cohen?

  When you're old, especially, you know, and be like, and when you're busy and when you're older and like, you're so set in your ways.

• 37:35Speaker 02

  Yes, yes.

• 37:36Jen Cohen?

  To unwind that.

• 37:37Speaker 02

  Yes, I had a beautiful father, son come to me for a session. Oh, my goodness, the son brought the father.

• 37:45Jen Cohen?

  Really?

• 37:46Speaker 02

  After a big blow up in the family, where father and son almost came to blows, like bears.

• 37:52Jen Cohen?

  Yeah.

• 37:53Speaker 02

  Like, their manhood was in question. And I taught the father that he was actually so afraid of giving the son power that he was holding all the power for himself. And one of the things I teach fathers, and it's in this book, is you have to pass the baton to your son. You have to teach your son that your son is greater than you, but you have to be willing, a man enough, to dethrone yourself because that is what the, the son needs from the father.

• 38:26Jen Cohen?

  Right.

• 38:26Speaker 02

  Am I good enough? Is the king going to give me the throne and, and the crown? And I want to be trained. So there's a period that the father needs to mentor the son to so-called take the throne.

• 38:41Jen Cohen?

  Yes.

• 38:41Speaker 02

  Right? And the, the mother needs to do that with the daughter too.

• 38:43Jen Cohen?

  Right.

• 38:44Speaker 02

  Right?

• 38:44Jen Cohen?

  And we all just want to be, I think the ki, kids, children want to have their approval from their parents, right?

• 38:51Speaker 02

  Especially a boy to his.

• 38:53Jen Cohen?

  I was gonna say.

• 38:54Speaker 02

  Male role model.

• 38:55Jen Cohen?

  To the father.

• 38:56Speaker 02

  Tell me I'm competent, tell me you trust me in the storm, tell me you'll take me to war with you, tell me I can be your teammate. Men have a different code of, of what gives them worth.

• 39:07Jen Cohen?

  Yeah.

• 39:08Speaker 02

  And a father can do so much damage and so much healing from a few words of, I see you, I trust you, my son has my back, my son has my back.

• 39:22Jen Cohen?

  You know, I'm nodding because I see it in real time, what you're saying. And I'm curious how you came to have this, like this more evolved theory, right? Because you, every, a lot of things are very much like you do this and then you do that. And it's your, I think your popularity was in a way at the beginning, probably a little polarizing, right? Like you were talking about parental hierarchies and not.

• 39:48Speaker 02

  Oh, my God. So provocative.

• 39:50Jen Cohen?

  Right, so provocative.

• 39:51Speaker 02

  If Oprah hadn't been my biggest ambassador, conscious parenting would not have taken flight.

• 39:57Jen Cohen?

  Right?

• 39:58Speaker 02

  Yeah, she saw the beauty of this message because her ego wasn't involved.

• 40:03Jen Cohen?

  That's right.

• 40:04Speaker 02

  She's not a parent, but she can see everybody else's ego.

• 40:07Jen Cohen?

  Exactly.

• 40:08Speaker 02

  And she's like, I see this. And even in her own life with her, with the many daughters that she has through her school.

• 40:15Jen Cohen?

  School, yeah.

• 40:15Speaker 02

  She saw her ego come out, but she mostly sees it through her friends who are mothers.

• 40:19Jen Cohen?

  Right.

• 40:20Speaker 02

  So she was able to call the truth. But, but we are so afraid to own that we don't know what we're doing.

• 40:27Jen Cohen?

  Well, that's the thing.

• 40:27Speaker 02

  And to own that we just want our kids to be our trophies.

• 40:31Jen Cohen?

  And a reflection of you. Exactly. See, like, and I, I agree with you. That's what, that's why it really kind of resonated. Because it's the truth. If you can take your ego away.

• 40:40Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 40:40Jen Cohen?

  And like, how many times that when, with, you know, people, oh, my mini me.

• 40:44Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 40:44Jen Cohen?

  Or it's a reflection of what you are. So you, it's like a, like you said, a trophy.

• 40:50Speaker 02

  An ambassadorship.

• 40:51Jen Cohen?

  An ambassadorship.

• 40:52Speaker 02

  And it's not even of who we are. It's all the things we could never be.

• 40:57Jen Cohen?

  Right.

• 40:57Speaker 02

  Were terrified of never being that we project onto our children, right? We want them to be the Michael Phelps, the Dalai Lama, the Julia Roberts, the Bill Gates. I mean, not really, but you know.

• 41:08Jen Cohen?

  I know what you mean. I, I, I got you.

• 41:11Speaker 02

  The status, the status. We want them to be everything. The homemaker, the homebody, the wife, the mother, the, the gym rat. I mean, what are we expecting?

• 41:19Jen Cohen?

  You're right. And so why I'm even bringing that up is because I've noticed in the years, what's happened. I, I, I've done a few discussions and talks on this about the mental resilience of children. And how I feel, my opinion and maybe some others, that we have really, we're raising more of a fragile, like emotion, like a fragile child.

• 41:43Speaker 02

  You know why? Because it's all external.

• 41:45Jen Cohen?

  Exactly. So that's why I really wanted you to talk about this too. Because it's not getting better, it's getting worse.

• 41:52Speaker 02

  It's getting worse.

• 41:53Jen Cohen?

  Way worse.

• 41:54Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 41:54Jen Cohen?

  And with the helicopter parenting and putting kids in like 97 different activities.

• 42:00Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 42:00Jen Cohen?

  And like I said, with, I'm, I'm a mother and I feel guilty because if my kid's not in the 12 dancing classes and this and that and the other.

• 42:09Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 42:09Jen Cohen?

  I feel like I'm kind of ostracized and like I'm doing, I'm doing something bad towards my children.

• 42:15Speaker 02

  The pressure we put on each other.

• 42:17Jen Cohen?

  Um, we put on each other.

• 42:18Speaker 02

  On each other, instead of releasing pressure, instead of saying, you know what? Let's all realize this is all a big money-making racket that we are part of. It's a racket. I call it the parental industrial complex. And, and the market realize who's the most vulnerable of us all. You know who it is? The parent.

• 42:37Jen Cohen?

  The parents.

• 42:38Speaker 02

  Because of our ego, we so want, we will do anything to get our kid a trophy. Anything to post on Facebook that my kid is in an Ivy League, even if we're bankrupt. I mean, you've seen parents have committed crimes.

• 42:53Jen Cohen?

  It, it's down my street. It's really, it's, it's, it's actually not even shocking to me because I see it so much. Because if you go to any of these, a lot of these parties and events, they can't wait to tell you what private school the kids are at. And like how they're going to get into this and how they're going to do that. Like it's becoming a, it's not becoming.

• 43:11Speaker 02

  It is a contest.

• 43:12Jen Cohen?

  It is a competition of who, who has the better kid, like the smarter kid, the more, the more spectacular kid.

• 43:19Speaker 02

  All those wounds that we never healed in ourselves, our own little girl that feels good enough with her cellulite, with her wrinkles, with her messiness, with her imperfections. That mother who has never healed that little girl is not going to figure this out, not going to raise this, is going to now project all of that onto the outside child and manipulate that child so she can heal. So she's going to use that child to heal this.

• 43:46Jen Cohen?

  Yes, exactly. And so that's.

• 43:48Speaker 02

  And we do it in the sneakiest of ways.

• 43:50Jen Cohen?

  And I don't even think the mother or father or parent, they're even necessarily even conscious of that they're even doing it.

• 43:57Speaker 02

  This is completely unconscious.

• 43:59Jen Cohen?

  It's completely unconscious.

• 44:00Speaker 02

  There's no blame, no shame. This is just the way it is. Let's just accept it. The other day a parent came to me and said, you know, I'm so worried that if I make these mistakes, you know, I don't know whether it'll be too late and how will I know I'm making mistakes? So I looked at her and I said, if you're making mistakes?

• 44:17Jen Cohen?

  Right, right, right.

• 44:18Speaker 02

  Like where did you get to be so delusional? You have been making mistakes. It is all a shit show. Now just accept it.

• 44:26Jen Cohen?

  Totally.

• 44:26Speaker 02

  Now what do I do? Right? Stop trying to pretend that you're in the zone of not yet have, having made a mistake. You've been there years ago. What are you talking about? You're not awake. Your children are trying to tell you.

• 44:38Jen Cohen?

  I had, I, I agree.

• 44:40Speaker 02

  It's not about not making mistakes. So don't preserve your own identity of I'm not going to make a mistake. This is not about not making mistakes. Therefore you can even tell your child. Because when your child gets upset with you, right? The other day my daughter said to me, I cannot believe my mother is not saying sorry to me. What she said.

• 44:56Jen Cohen?

  Right, right, right, right, right, right, right.

• 44:58Speaker 02

  I cannot believe my, she said, Dr. Shefali is not saying sorry to me. And I said, Maya, I'll be saying sorry every minute.

• 45:05Jen Cohen?

  Right, right.

• 45:06Speaker 02

  Right? Like how much sorry?

• 45:08Jen Cohen?

  That's right.

• 45:08Speaker 02

  Like sorry, happy, like it's emblazoned. Yes. Stop looking for me to say sorry now. I'm just a bloody mess. Deal with me. I'm dealing with you.

• 45:19Jen Cohen?

  Right.

• 45:19Speaker 02

  Especially at 23, you know?

• 45:21Jen Cohen?

  But you're honest.

• 45:22Speaker 02

  After a certain age, this is what I got, my love. Like this is it. And I'll say sorry.

• 45:28Jen Cohen?

  At what age? Can you do it now?

• 45:28Speaker 02

  How much, how much sorry do you want me to say? Like I'll say sorry every day, no prob, every minute.

• 45:32Jen Cohen?

  Exactly.

• 45:33Speaker 02

  Sorry is not, that is ego. Of course I'm sorry. I take it as a given. I'm so sorry. Now what do we do? You have to deal with me as an adult and I have to deal with you. I'm super messy. How are you? Right?

• 45:46Jen Cohen?

  Right.

• 45:46Speaker 02

  I've been saying sorry.

• 45:47Jen Cohen?

  But when do we, when can we start saying sorry? And like, when can we stop trying to be perfect?

• 45:51Speaker 02

  We should be saying sorry all the time. And then by 23, we can say enough.

• 45:55Jen Cohen?

  And we say like, bye, bye. Yeah.

• 45:57Speaker 02

  Like now, you know, this is who I am now, you know? And you have to understand that this is not about me anymore, right? And I, I am validating the pain. I am telling you I was effed up. I, I am so deeply wishing, you know, remorseful that I could go back and change everything. I've been there, done that with my daughter. And I teach parents, first do that. Tell them it's regrettable. Tell them you're remorseful. Tell them you wish you could change. Validate the child always. And after the age of 21 or 23 or 33, you're allowed to say, it is what it is.

• 46:35Jen Cohen?

  Yes.

• 46:35Speaker 02

  Now you have to parent yourself. Liberate yourself from waiting for me to heal you because I cannot heal you. I don't have the skills.

• 46:43Jen Cohen?

  A hundred percent.

• 46:44Speaker 02

  You know, and own it with, with love and, and beg your child to please stop knocking on your door because this is not where she's going to get the healing. Ultimately, they have to heal themselves.

• 46:56Jen Cohen?

  Right.

• 46:56Speaker 02

  And all of us will have to heal ourselves. I did it with my mom, as lovely as my mother is. And my daughter, even though she's Dr. Shefali's daughter, has a hell of a lot of healing for herself to do.

• 47:07Jen Cohen?

  Right.

• 47:08Speaker 02

  Because I'm not here to be perfect. I'm here to show up as best I can.

• 47:13Jen Cohen?

  I, I, I've nothing else to say. That's a, it's so true.

• 47:16Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 47:16Jen Cohen?

  I wish we can talk, tell that to our children earlier in life, that like we are, we're not perfect.

• 47:21Speaker 02

  Yeah, not too early because they, they, they're like, okay, then, then.

• 47:24Jen Cohen?

  I know.

• 47:24Speaker 02

  And they already know we're not perfect, but they, we need to be as present and validating for the early years. And then we can let go, you know? So now my daughter's 23, so now I let go.

• 47:36Jen Cohen?

  Right.

• 47:36Speaker 02

  And she's terrified of me letting go because she's scared to be an adult, but I have to let go. So at this age, I have to let go.

• 47:50Jen Cohen?

  I want to take a quick break to talk about today's sponsor, True Niagen. And honestly, this is something I've become really particular about. NAD plus is a molecule that's crucial for cellular energy and repair. As we age, our NAD levels decline, which is why so many people are turning to supplements. But here's what shocked me. A recent study showed that 87% of NAD plus supplements tested didn't meet their label claims. Some had almost no active ingredient at all. So when you're investing in your health, that's completely unacceptable. And that's why I trust True Niagen. Every single batch goes through 22 separate quality tests,

• 48:32Jen Cohen?

  combined both internal and third-party verification. They're NSF certified for sports, which means independent scientists have verified there are no banned substances, no contaminants, and that exactly what's on the label is actually in the bottle. True Niagen uses patented niagen, the most bioavailable form of nicotamide riboside for cellular energy support. And here's something I really appreciate. Every bottle has a lot code. So you can actually verify the certificate of analysis yourself. I don't mess around with my health and you shouldn't either.

• 49:11Jen Cohen?

  So for supplements that are rigorously tested, third-party verified, and actually deliver what's on the label, this is it for you. Head to tru niagen.com. That's T R U N I A G E N dot com today.

• 49:34Jen Cohen?

  Can you tell us or can you talk a little bit about co-parenting and divorce?

• 49:38Speaker 02

  Yes, yes. Let's talk about when two parents don't see eye to eye.

• 49:40Jen Cohen?

  Yes, because I think that's what I say, when one parent's undermining the other parent and they're not together anymore. Because I think that there's a lot, there could be a lot of friction in two different households.

• 49:50Speaker 02

  Yes, it's very hard. So first and foremost, I want everyone listening to understand that it is more common than not that the parents are not on the same page.

• 50:02Jen Cohen?

  I'm glad that you said that. I was listening to a podcast that you did, I don't know how long ago, and I was like, oh, my gosh, the lady, the lady went to Costa Rica with the husband and the, and the wife and the kid. And I'm like, they're all kumbaya-ing together. I'm like, wow, this sounds amazing. Is that really how it is?

• 50:20Speaker 02

  No, it is, it is, I would say, less than 2%.

• 50:22Jen Cohen?

  Less than 2%, okay.

• 50:24Speaker 02

  Most often, both of them are caught in a, in a crossfire.

• 50:29Jen Cohen?

  Okay.

• 50:29Speaker 02

  And typically, the mother is reading my books and trying to become conscious and the father, in a typical home, right, gender-stereotyped home, the father is stuck in tradition, right? One is stuck in something conservative and old school.

• 50:44Jen Cohen?

  Right.

• 50:44Speaker 02

  And the mother's trying to change and the father thinks she's too gentle and she's, oh, my goodness.

• 50:49Jen Cohen?

  It's a whole thing.

• 50:49Speaker 02

  So it's a whole thing. But here's my advice. Never wait for your partner for you to become a conscious parent. One conscious parent can change the world. You have enough power in you to make a difference in your child's life, even if your partner is deliberately sabotaging you. You, but it'll take a lot of work. It's very hard to do, but you can do it. I want to empower parents to not believe that they need to be in a dyad, or they need to be in a village, or they need to be with a lot of money in order to be a conscious parent, because that's a cop-out. That's an excuse. You can be a conscious parent on your own. You just have to first undo a lot of the shit that the other one put and then rebuild.

• 51:32Jen Cohen?

  How?

• 51:32Speaker 02

  So if, if in a divorce situation, if the child comes home from the other parent, typically a mess, because the other parent is chaotic, the other parent has allowed them to be eating candy and on their video games. The kid is coming home neglected and disheveled. The first thing you need to do is understand now that kid is going to take out all their anger, all their upsetness and unmet needs on you, right? And typically, the mother comes to me and says, oh, my God, my kids are coming home like they hate me. I go, no, they don't hate you. They're finally able to release all that stress from that household, all their unmet needs, and they're angry with you that you were not there, because you weren't there to protect them. So first, you have to be the sponge and just absorb

• 52:16Speaker 02

  all the negativity, like you're actually taking out all the toxins. So the first two days is just that. I see it over and over and over. And then you have to reparent and bond and connect. It's very difficult. It's very difficult. That's why think a million years before you get married to anyone and think another million before you have a child with them.

• 52:37Jen Cohen?

  100%.

• 52:38Speaker 02

  It is the hardest thing. You can get married, but try not to have children with that person until you have tested them, until you have background checked them, you have checked them with every sort of emergency situation, because who that parent will be will, I mean, I cannot even tell you, catastrophically impact the rest of your life, because your children never leave. You can never return your children. So you will forever be bonded to this human being.

• 53:01Jen Cohen?

  Oh, yeah. Like, you can't divorce your children.

• 53:03Speaker 02

  You can never divorce your children, and then you are stuck with that parent.

• 53:06Jen Cohen?

  Forever.

• 53:07Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 53:07Jen Cohen?

  So like, if you, like you said, it's more common than not. It's like, I think it's now a 65% divorce rate. It's more, it's higher.

• 53:14Speaker 02

  If it's 65% divorce, it's 85 who want to.

• 53:18Jen Cohen?

  Yeah. Oh, my, 95.

• 53:20Speaker 02

  95 who want to, who are just terrified.

• 53:22Jen Cohen?

  Which is unbelievably terrifying.

• 53:24Speaker 02

  Right. Because, because the whole setup is flawed. We shouldn't be raising children with one other crazy person. We should be raising children in a village of crazy.

• 53:32Jen Cohen?

  100%.

• 53:33Speaker 02

  So we can have different flavors of crazy and, and help. And we need help. We need to be in a village. This whole setup is a disaster.

• 53:42Jen Cohen?

  Yeah.

• 53:42Speaker 02

  And then you have the woman who's now living longer than before. So now she's got full-on menopause.

• 53:47Jen Cohen?

  Yeah.

• 53:48Speaker 02

  With a man who's living longer than before. So he wants to keep having sex. She can't have sex. Now he's having an affair. Now she doesn't give a shit. I mean, this is in every house, okay?

• 53:57Jen Cohen?

  100%.

• 53:58Speaker 02

  So unless she's on testosterone, and then she wants to punch the guy, but she is horny, so he has to decide, okay, do I want the vagina or do I want the punch? It's very confusing, because we're not supposed to be even living this long.

• 54:10Jen Cohen?

  I know. It's crazy, isn't it?

• 54:11Speaker 02

  It's crazy. We were supposed to be dead at 50.

• 54:13Jen Cohen?

  Yes. And then, and then you hear all these things like, oh, well, as long as the ecosystem and like the, the parenting structure between the two parents are, are very, they get along well.

• 54:23Speaker 02

  It's very hard. It is very hard.

• 54:25Jen Cohen?

  And this is my whole point, right? Like, it's very, theory is one thing, right? Practicality is very, very different.

• 54:31Speaker 02

  And that's why I don't just write books and I don't just teach. I see clients every single week. I have like a backup of people now, because I'm traveling, who are waiting to be seen.

• 54:40Jen Cohen?

  I was going to ask you about that.

• 54:41Speaker 02

  I see people every single week. I want to see people every week.

• 54:44Jen Cohen?

  So you really do, are, you're still practicing.

• 54:46Speaker 02

  Because I'm doing the work. Yes.

• 54:48Jen Cohen?

  I love you. I really do, because I cannot tell you how many people sit here.

• 54:52Speaker 02

  Yeah, and they're just talking heads.

• 54:53Jen Cohen?

  And they just yap and yap, yap, yap.

• 54:55Speaker 02

  But they're not teaching anybody.

• 54:56Jen Cohen?

  Not a damn thing. They don't see any patients. They're not doing anything in real time. They did maybe 30 years ago, or they maybe got, they graduated and they went right into the media stuff, but they're not in the weeds anymore.

• 55:08Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 55:08Jen Cohen?

  And so you're actually still doing it.

• 55:10Speaker 02

  Oh, my goodness. Yes. I will never stop helping people in real time, because I want to not only have a finger on the cultural pulse of what's happening, but I have to practice what I preach. I have to like really see if it works with people.

• 55:24Jen Cohen?

  And, and see like how things are like, how time is changing.

• 55:28Speaker 02

  How time is changing, what couples are facing, what children are facing. I love it. I love it. And then I have a coaching institute where I coach people to become coaches, like and do the work I do, but also a conscious parenting institute, where you can come for five months, and at the end of those five months, I will train you to be a conscious parent. I will train you how to do this.

• 55:48Jen Cohen?

  So you can train like a, a parent, or do they have to be a therapist as well?

• 55:52Speaker 02

  No, it can be completely somebody off the street who wants to heal their own childhood. They can come to me in the institute.

• 55:59Jen Cohen?

  Yeah.

• 55:59Speaker 02

  If they want to be a coach like me, they can come and I will train you. Or if they want to truly go to school to become a conscious parent, which you and I never did. We never went to school to become a conscious parent.

• 56:10Jen Cohen?

  No.

• 56:10Speaker 02

  Yeah, we just think we're going to wing it because we love our children.

• 56:13Jen Cohen?

  Right. And, and love is not enough.

• 56:15Speaker 02

  Love is nothing. Love, love doesn't translate to an action, to a presence, to our attention.

• 56:22Jen Cohen?

  Yes. And so like a strategy that would actually get the results that you're looking for.

• 56:26Speaker 02

  And you cannot even read about the strategy. So in my institute, I train them to practice over and over. And every week I do live coaching, so they see me doing the coaching in real time to practice the skills.

• 56:40Jen Cohen?

  With people, the people role-play?

• 56:41Speaker 02

  With real people. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 56:42Jen Cohen?

  That's a great idea.

• 56:43Speaker 02

  Yeah, because they watch me. In my entire PhD and three masters, I never saw one professor actually do it, actually do the work.

• 56:52Jen Cohen?

  Ever.

• 56:53Speaker 02

  Ever. Not one. They talked about it. Yeah. So you talk about being a good parent versus actually showing someone how to be a good parent.

• 57:00Jen Cohen?

  Right.

• 57:01Speaker 02

  Right? So we role-play children, we role-play parents, we role-play clients. So people get a feel of how to integrate it in your body.

• 57:08Jen Cohen?

  That is incredible. So anybody listening who has a child or wants to have, like that.

• 57:13Speaker 02

  And wants to be a conscious parent, they should join my institute. 100%.

• 57:16Jen Cohen?

  That's amazing.

• 57:17Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 57:18Jen Cohen?

  Okay, I think you, I think I need to wrap this, because you have to go to your next thing.

• 57:22Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 57:22Jen Cohen?

  Okay, so Dr. Shefali's, you're so cute. God, I like you so much. She's so likable, too. Dr. Shefali's books are called Raising Conscious Sons and Raising Conscious Daughters. And I'm telling you, these are a must. I'm telling you, they, if you have a girl, a boy, one child, two children, 10 children, it was extremely, it's, it's extremely helpful. These are actionable things, tools in your toolbox to make you, you know, as a, a better parent of, maybe just an elevated parent.

• 57:52Speaker 02

  But I will tell you, there are chapters in each on identity. So if you are experiencing a child who's going through identity confusion, gender fluidity, they're exploring whether they're a boy or a girl, I have tools for you as well.

• 58:05Jen Cohen?

  That's really important, because that's very, it's very common now, too. So, thank you. Dr. Shefali, you are incredible.

• 58:12Speaker 02

  No, you are. Thank you so much.

• 58:14Jen Cohen?

  No, I loved having you. Will you come back again?

• 58:16Speaker 02

  Of course.

• 58:17Jen Cohen?

  I felt like I, I.

• 58:18Speaker 02

  I have to come back.

• 58:19Jen Cohen?

  I hope so, because I, I try to make it as, as short and sweet as possible, because of your schedule.

• 58:24Speaker 02

  Thank you so much.

• 58:24Jen Cohen?

  But I have like, I didn't even get to my question, but I didn't even open my, my book to get to my questions, because I actually had a whole list.

• 58:31Speaker 02

  You did great. Thank you so much.

• 58:33Jen Cohen?

  Thank you so much. It was so wonderful to have you. Guys, follow Dr. Shefali, buy her books and her other previous books. You will not be disappointed. See you soon.