Sons Are Struggling. Here’s What They Need from Us with Psychologist Dr. Shefali

This episode of The Oprah Podcast is presented by our partner Geico. I do think this is your best work. I do think this is a reason you've come to the planet. For this moment, and to try to bring us back to save our children. They are being abducted by the algorithm in front of our eyes. Whoa! A generation of young men withering in childhood bedrooms. No friendships, no fire, no purpose. So how do parents begin to give their sons fire in purpose? We are forgetting that the predatory man who grows up to Hamas later was once a lost boy. And a boy who was not initiated into adulthood. This is a wake-up call to parents to stop outsourcing their influence, their attachment and their attention. Hi, to you from my front porch. Thank you for joining me on The Oprah Podcast. I'm here with world-renowned clinical psychologist, parenting expert, and New York Times bestselling author, Dr. Shafali. More than 15 years ago, she released her groundbreaking work, The Conscious Parent. One of the most profound books on parenting I've ever read. I give it to every new parent I know. And then came many more transformational bestsellers. But here's what I think is so genius about Dr. Shafali. She's counseling parents and paying attention to the evolving world we're living in. And she starts to notice that children and teens are really in trouble. How does she know that? Because she's talking to them and they are telling her. And parents feel like they're drowning. She knows this because that's what they're telling her. And maybe just hearing that hit you in a knowing place because you two feel like you're drowning. Her next realization is that our current culture is impacting boys differently than it's impacting girls. And it's getting harder, harder, not easier to raise children. And I can feel you all all nodding out there. And now she's written not one, but two new books, Raising Conscious Sons, Cultivating Purpose Connection and Interpower in a chaotic world. And Raising Conscious Daughters, Building Confidence, Courage, and Interpower in an anxious world. There is so much to learn. So we're doing this in two parts. This episode is all about Raising Conscious Sons. Welcome Dr. Shafali. Oh, Farah, thank you. Thank you for being a steward. You know, I get emotional about this because without you, I could not have had the courage and the clarity. And the fortitude and the perseverance to stick through because you always hold my hand and tell me to keep going because the resistance, the resistance. Yes, 15 years ago, the resistance to even the word conscious, what it means to be a conscious parent. And maybe we first talked about it. People were like resisting that and what does that mean? And you can't tell me how to parent my kids and these are my kids. Yes, yes, yes. And back then, my singular focus was to help parents wake up to the teachers that their children are. And to have the humility to not treat them like property. Yes. This was back then. That was 15 years ago. Yes. And it was uncomfortable back then. But today, it has to be the clarion call. It has to be the most urgent wake up blueprint that we need because in today's world, we have reached such a cultural inflection point where this wounded adult male ego, obsessed with greed and domination, has created a culture that is so misaligned to the spiritual, emotional, psychological needs of our children. And the abyss between what they need and what culture is providing has become this gaping chasm. And we parents are lost in it because we want to do good by them every parent does. Real quickly, for those who are not familiar with Dr. Svalli's work, I want you to first explain the concept of conscious parenting. It came to me this movement of conscious parenting as my rebellion against the traditional model that insists on sacrificing, exploiting, manipulating and using our children as chattel and property. And when I saw myself do it, when I was a therapist, coaching other parents, I was like, oh, this parent is just unconscious and that parent is unconscious, but Oprah, when I saw myself desire to dominate my daughter. And I saw my own ego and I had the humility to see it because it takes courage to see the force of your own shadow. And I knew if I am in trouble, if my ego is a pipeline that is just infusing my daughter with its unconscious garbage and I'm not interrupting this pipeline, how can any other parent? It's basically understanding the principle that Khalil Goubran said when he said your children come through you, but they're not of you. They do not belong to you. And that was a really hard thing for people to accept because everybody thinks this is my child, this is my property, I can do with my child, whatever I want, instead of this is another conscious being that I certainly have participated in bringing to the planet, but this conscious being is here to teach me as much as I am to guide and teach him or her. Yes, but if that is a whole concept, yes, but if the parent hasn't been raised in their own sovereign self, then we have to have compassion for the parent that there is no way that they can see another being as separate from them because they were used in their parents fantasy. That's right. And so you're just doing what was done to you? You're just doing what was done. I was used. I was exploited. I will exploit. And this is the mass disease of our world. I know, but most parents don't think that they're using or exploiting their kids. They think they're providing and protecting and giving and offering. Also, in the beginning of raising conscious sons, you write a wake-up call letter to parents. You say, we are amid a parental and cultural emergency. See if this resonates with you all who are parents, a crisis where our sons are losing the essential ingredients of what make a healthy boyhood. Wildness, movement, tribe, adventure, risk, connection and sovereignty to name a few. This erosion is what I call the lost blueprint of boyhood. Tell us more. Oprah, I interviewed over 50 boys and young men for this book and young girls and young women. And I have so many male clients who speak of their confusion. They're wanting to be a steward for women and children, but not knowing how in a world that keeps pressuring them, keeps shaming them and keeps diminishing who they are. And I know we women have been so subjugated that we've been on this rampage and on this walk ride and we should. But we are forgetting that the predatory man who grows up to harm us later was once a lost boy. And a boy who was not stewarded, who was not shepherded, who was not initiated into adulthood. And if we don't take care of that lost boy, how can we take care of the predatory man who he grows up to be. So if we want to, the time they grow up to be the predatory man, there's nothing we can do because they've been so severed from their own sense of self. And we parents may not be able to outpace the algorithm. We cannot change systems in the world, global systems, but we have power in our home. And we have to reclaim boyhood, which means boys have a different way of processing feelings. People think that, oh, boys, they don't feel that much. They feel as much as girls. Their pathway of expression is different. They feel through the body, through their movement, then come the words. I learned so much because parents are always saying, use your words, use your words. Boys don't know how to do that because that's not how boys communicate. I never knew that. And they're not ready yet because they're prefrontal cortex, which allows that kind of articulation processing turns online much later than girls. So telling a young seven-year-old who's tantrumming and got so much fire and energy and intensity, which scares the mother, what does he do? No one is helping him contain these fires and the mother is saying, use your words or you're a bad child or you're an ADHD boy and they're punishing them at schools and they're making them sit like girls. That is not the pathway, the neurodevelopmental pathway that a boy needs. So the environment is failing our boys, while this is being medicated, they've been told to sit still and restrain their fire instead of us allowing that fire to be contained and allowing it to be intense. And one of the things you go on to write is that a generation of young men withering in childhood bedrooms, no friendships, no fire, no purpose. Are we describing your son? No purpose. Statistically, these boys are the most isolated demographic and the most likely to take their own lives. So how do parents begin to give their sons fire and purpose? First of all, you got to get the book if you have a son because I know so many of you are frustrated. like you're drowning because you don't know that boys and girls are really, really, really biologically, hormonally, developmentally, on a different trajectory. Yeah, I actually think differently. They think differently and we have to nuance our parental interventions and cultural interventions and we are not. Right? And if we think women and girls have been given a hard ride because of the patriarchy, let me tell you, the patriarchy is very intentional in making sure it controls its men and its boys as well. And the latest tech revolution is so precisely engineered to force boys to sit in front of a screen because it's giving them the adrenaline, the dopamine hit that real life isn't. So they're getting their adventure, they're getting their achievement, they're getting status online. Yeah, but you say is what was a fight for our children's attention has now moved into a fight for their attachment, attachment. AI companions know exactly how to speak to our children's loneliness, how to mimic perfect atonement, how to slip into the exclusive spaces where only parents once had access and the predator, this is a thing, the predator, Dr. Shavali says has moved from the periphery to their heart. And if we do not step up with the presence and connection, our boys may drift into its arms before we even notice they've been abducted. And whoa, that is some powerful stuff right there. They are being abducted by the algorithm in front of our eyes and we are helpless. We don't know how to reclaim them, but there is a pathway back and these books are the alarm and the invitation to bring them back to us. Yeah, this is what I like about the raising conscious sons and raising conscious daughters. It's you not just stating the problem, but you're giving us a path to get there. Yes. And this now will be the gift I give to everybody who has a boy or a girl. Our listeners tell us that the podcast is resonating with you and is serving as a bright spot in your day. That means a lot to me. So here's the thing, I would really appreciate it if you like and subscribe to the Oprah podcast on YouTube or wherever you podcast. It's just a quick tap of the subscribe button and that way you won't miss an episode in your Q. You don't have to pay anything. I know subscribe usually means you're paying something, but this time it means you just are notified when there's something new. There are many more to come that we're excited about. So thank you for watching and listening. 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So you say, this is a thing that struck me so many times. I mean, I've been reading you and promoting you and singing your praises for years. For this moment, to alert the world to what is happening and to try to bring us back to save our children. And you say that we are going to lose a shared reality. What does that mean? And what happens when we do? You know, we used to wait at the bus stop, right? We used to wait to go to the movies. We used to collide with each other. We used to have all sorts of diversity. We were forced to confront humans. And now as we're becoming more privileged, more advanced, more progressive, we are actually moving away from a shared reality and the algorithm, you know, manipulates that. So they provide you with what you like, your interest. So actually it's creating these mini cult-like environments online where you are not facing diversity, but you're getting more siloed into your own little bubble. So two siblings growing up in the same house could be having a different interpretation of the world and different world news, different world realities than the next one. And when that happens, our ability to connect breaks down. And that's what they capitalize on because the more lonely and disconnected and paranoid we are of each other, the easier we are to manipulate because fear profits. Yes. And this is the thing that I want you all to remember who are listening to is that it started out that they were trying to get your kids attention, but now they're going for their attachment. Right. And that is why so many parents are suffering with their kids who are attached to their devices. Right. Yes. And literally addicted to them. And the answer to that digital abduction is relational connection. And that's where the parent has supreme and sovereign power if they are in their own body, if they are willing to step into consciousness and take their children away from the computer codes and the algorithm. Parents need to step back. That's what we need. And because so many parents have used it as a babysitter as a way of relieving themselves. And it's numbing. It's numbing for us. Yes. And it's entertaining. It's very specifically designed to create the dopamine hunger that we're looking for. So now ordinary conversations or listening to the birds or just feeling the breeze feels too insignificant for us. Right. Right. Right. Right. Because the brain needs more and more and more and more and more and more. Yes. Yes. We have parents of sons joining us and Nicole is zooming in from New York. Hi, Nicole. Hi. Hi there. Hi. It's so wonderful to be with the two of you. Dr. Sheffali, thank you for being such a resource for us as parents when we sometimes feel very lost. And of course, Oprah, thank you so much for bringing Dr. Sheffali to us many years ago. I wanted to share a little bit about my situation. I have two sons, 11 and eight. My older son has been diagnosed with ADHD and he's neurodivergent. And my younger one is also displaying some of this similar profile. So he potentially has that same pathway. Explain to us what neurodivergent means. Sure. The way they process information, sensory processing, self-regulation challenges, executive function differences. So ADHD generally falls under that category. I love Dr. Sheffali's writings and I really try to employ so many of the principles of conscious parenting to raising my two sons. But it can be really challenging when they are overloaded and they're receiving a wave of emotions. And so it quickly escalates into big body behaviors, whether it's scratching or kicking or punching or throwing something across the room. And in that moment, it is a self-awareness moment for me to self-regulate, to hold space, but also keeping myself safe and not shame charter them in the moment or try to control them in the moment. So how do I use conscious parenting and really consider what that looks like when dealing with children with ADHD or neurodivergence? Yeah. So that's a lot to say. So just really quickly, when I hear labels like that, I'm always skeptical because the environment is so toxic for what boys truly need, right? They need intentional, daily, intense movement. They need to express that fire, but they sit in a circle for circle time in books, learning about languages and countries that they will never touch or need. And they then come back home to you of volcano, a rocket ship ready to launch. And now poor mom is at home. And nobody's playing outside anymore. Nobody's playing outside. They've not done any activity. They've all this energy and they've been told to suppress it all day long. So you get a rocket ship when they come home. And mom is tired. She's at work. She has a career. She's going to the gym. She's exhausted. Dad is probably the same. There's no tribe. There's no community to buttress, to buffer, to absorb these boys' wild energy. So we label them, medicate them, and then get scared of them. So the first thing I'll tell you is we have to have compassion for what's happening to your boy before he even comes home from school because it's a travesty. What's happening to our boys? The education system is suppressing and suffusing their spirit, and then we wonder why they're acting. Because one of the things that you emphasize over and over is that boys need movement. Yes. And then if a boy is allowed to have enough movement, that is how he will regulate. He will regulate. He will regulate. It is his language. Yes. And all of that movement feels like wildness in too much. particularly for a lot of mothers. And a lot of female teachers, a lot of women, because we're not wired exactly the same way, right? So we are okay with sitting calm and we use our words. So that wildness feels very threatening for us. The next thing I will tell you is, let's not mistake intensity for danger. But we do, because we are not used to that wild energy. And the third thing I'll say to you as a mother, be aware of your triggers because this wild energy reminds us of all the betrayals we've experienced at the hands of adult male wild energy. But boy, wild energy is different. It is generally their inability to regulate, right? And then that gets mutated and perverted in the adult male. But we women have been so sacrificed to that adult male energy that we associate it. And then when we see our young boys, we project, oh, he must be bad, he's going to be dangerous, he's evil. And we judge and shame them without our realizing, do we celebrate it? Do we say this energy is your fire and fuel that can become your achievement, can become your protection, can become your gen. It's so interesting, because I remember when I was reading your book, raising consciousness, I remember my godson will, Gale's son, when he was like two or three years old, and I said to Gale, "What? He's so different than Kirby." Right. Because he would come into the room moving and saying things like, room, room, room, room, room. And I was thinking, he's always making noise, he's always into something, he's always. That is so beautiful about our masculine boys and men. They're embodied, they have to feel it through the body, through sound, through touch, through physicality. But we. And so the huge mistakes that parents make is that they believe that ways they're expecting the boys to behave like their sisters. Or like us, like the women, right? Yeah. And they think that is good. So from a young age, a boy is shamed and suppressed. We have to understand this. So by the time he hits pre-puberty and puberty, where testosterone goes through the roof, 50 times. The chemical goes all right. Now we want to really. Yeah, yeah. And we want to stuff them into a box. And so that we are in a collision course with their development and they feel it and they don't know what to do with their energy. So what I need to tell you is that keep yourself safe. You can say, you can create a conscious boundary. I cannot let you hit me. I need to leave the room and I will be back. But I'm right here. This energy that you have, I love it. Let's do something with it. Let's throw all the pillows. Let's run outside. Let's race. And I tell parents, anytime you are in a battle with your boy, it means they are dysregulated because they haven't moved enough. Just take it as a formula. Instead of telling them to brush their teeth, make them do 10 jumping drags, go through an obstacle course, find the toothpaste, find the toothbrush, and race with you. And then they will do it. If you don't channel that fire, it will mutate. It will become apathy, listlessness, and perverted anger. Wow. Wow. So your role is to channel. Think of yourself as a channeler. How do I direct this? You are the walls of the tunnel, but that wind must have a place to go. Right? You want that energy to be directed. Not turn inward. Nicole, you're going to see yourself over and over and over in this book. You're going to so appreciate this book. It's just going to help you be a better mother and your sons really evolve into the young men that you want and they want for themselves. Raising conscious sons. I can't say enough about it. Thank you for your question. Thank you. But I can see you. I can see this resonating with you just from hearing this. Absolutely. I mean, it gives such hope. Absolutely. You are going to be a-ha-ing all through this book. Thank you so much. You know, over writing these books is really my ode and homage to the men in the world. You have been sidelined under the guise of toxic patriarchy. Most men have gotten a bad rap because all men are not toxic. They want to do good. But no one has shown them the path for that conscious masculinity. And that's why I talk about the seven pillars. I laid out so clearly if we as parents can nurture these seven pillars. Yeah. Like regulation, competence, vulnerability, sovereignty, sexual power, belonging. They will be able to integrate a masculinity that will make us proud. That brings me to this, if you write on page 248, that I actually teared up when reading it. Because I have a friend Bob Green and Bob in Iran, you have a beautiful, beautiful boy, Kate and whom they've done exactly this. I mean, exactly mentored their son in such a powerful way. You say, when a father mentors his son, he offers more than advice. He offers belief. And that belief becomes scaffolding inside the boy's nervous system. It steadies him. It organizes him. It gives him a place to stand. So what do sons want most from their fathers? Well, let's talk about fathers and the wounded masculine in our fathers. Yes, yes, yes. Because fathers can get a bad rap, but they are wounded. They are lost. They were never mentored. They were looked at by their mothers with fear, suspicion, paranoia. And they were suppressed. They have been suppressed all their lives. Men are not supposed to be in suits and boots. They're supposed to be out in the wild chasing bore and lion and getting exhausted at the end of the day. And then sitting around a fireplace with their brothers, men are supposed to move in packs. This competition that the patriarchy has created has robbed our fathers of their own belonging to themselves. So now you give them a son to raise, typically two things happen. One is that they see their own shameful, shamed self in the sun. So if the sun happens to be in touch with their vulnerability, their tears, their side that is in touch with feeling. That was shamed in the father. And he will shut that down. He will shut it down. Because he hasn't owned it and integrated and celebrated it within himself. It's in his shadow. The next thing that happens that I've seen a lot is that fathers, because they themselves are holding on in this tough patriarchy, which tells them to be tough and compartmentalized and succeed at all costs, they cannot pass the baton to their sons. And sons are longing for their fathers to look at them and say, "I see you, my son." This should happen by the age of 14, 15. I see you are ready now to enter manhood and I'm here to have that conversation. I'm here to have this right of pass. And that I see you shows up in everything that happens. It's not a big conversation. And for the son to have his father say, "I see you, my son." And you are now going to be greater than I could ever be. And here I want to now walk in your shadow. You actually talk about the fact that it's not telling the son how to do something. It's doing the thing with the son and seeing the son do it. And even if the son makes a mistake, being able to say, "You know, I made mistakes like that too." Because what the son is looking for is validation from his father. And it has to be embodied presence. When you think boy, you think embodiment in the body. That's how they speak, that's how they learn. Shoulder to shoulder, doing with together. And that's the belonging they're looking for. So if you want to immunize your son against the predatory atmosphere and the toxic patriarchy, the father needs to see their lost self in the son and nurture that son that they never could for themselves. Hello, dear listener. Head over to the Oprah Podcast Instagram to check out The Takeaway, presented by Daiko. I'm really happy to tell you about my latest conversation. It's that quiet time I take after an interview where I can reflect on what sparked and what stuck with me. I love to share those takeaways with you all. Unbelievable. And Daiko is proud to support these moments and the journeys they inspire, with insurance designed to keep you covered and make life's road a little more manageable. So go to the Oprah Podcast Instagram where you can check it out. And you believe this about mother's greatest gift to her son is not protection from struggle, but an undying belief in his capacity to face it without falling apart. I just thought, wow, and when that faith in his inner resourcefulness is embodied, a boy begins to trust his own footing and from that trust power can finally grow. So what should mothers be doing for their voice? So just like, you know, in conscious parenting, one of the foundational principles is that you will project onto your child, you will make them a mini-me. So now think about this. If mostly women are raising sons without brotherhood, without adult male mentorship, without community of the elderly males, she is going to need, which boys need. She is going to try to raise him in her like likelihood, in her image. Whether she does this consciously or not, you see words, be nice, be soft, be like me. And he's looking at her going, who on, you are an alien to me. You're not speaking my language. And this is where misogyny starts, right? He begins to resent her. He goes, she doesn't get me, she doesn't understand me. And then, because she is protective by nature and she is caring, she doesn't realize that fire doesn't need her hovering over protectors. and her fear fire needs channel, it needs direction, it needs the physical presence that says, "I see you and I am not afraid of you." - Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. - But the woman is afraid of the sun. - Yeah, I just love this. Her sun is not, she doesn't protect him from struggle, but an undying belief in his capacity to face it without falling apart. - But she doesn't trust him. - So, suns need to know you believe in me, and you see me. - And you're not afraid of me. - A afraid of that fire energy, so we suppress it, then it has nowhere to go, then it really mutates, and she's like, "You see, I knew you were dangerous, "like the other man in my life. "She's on a mission subconsciously not to make him." - Like the other man in her life, yes. - So, anytime she sees intensity, she associates it with danger. This is the split, but intensity is his language. - That's because we don't understand the language of boys. - Yeah. - Ah, Sandra's a mother of a 19-year-old son in college. Sandra, I know you're finding this interesting. Joining us from California, isn't it fascinating? - Very much so. Thank you both for having me here and having me as part of this conversation. So, Oprah, as you mentioned, I have a 19-year-old son who's in college, and his sister, who's 21, is also in college, and I find it difficult to not hover. So, Dr. Shapali, as you mentioned, that is hard. As an HR professional, that's my role to guide people. And so, it's hard to pull back. It's a little easier with my daughter, because she is getting that positive reinforcement from media, the girl power movement. But my son is not getting that same level of media support, especially as a boy of color. So, how do I support him and show him that he belongs and is valued? - Yeah, what a great loaded question. So, it's layered, so let me just piece apart the layers. First, for our boys of color, especially our black boys, I know how you as a mother must feel every time he steps out into the cesspool of racism and toxicity. So, I understand why you're different with him than you are with your girl, right? Because there's a real, true, right? And we need to speak about it, danger. - Danger. - So, we need to also remember that our black boys and our boys of color are not only carrying generational trauma in their bones, they are also carrying generational resilience and generational brilliance, right? You are not here simply because you just decided to exist. It has been born and bred out of generations of brilliance. And I think boys of color need to be reminded of that, right, not just the trauma, but also the brilliance and the resilience that he stands on. And then I will say to you that you are trying to so protect him from falling apart, from dissolving under the toxic gaze and the toxicity of culture. You're so protecting him, but in that, you are not giving him sovereignty. You are actually communicating distrust. The world already looks at him with distrust. The world is already telling him, I don't know whether you're going to be good enough. The world is already telling him every mistake is fatal, but so are you, right? You're telling him, don't make a mistake. You're trying to contour his resume, but in doing that, you're clipping his wings. And I understand where it's coming from, but you inadvertently are becoming a microcosm of the same culture that doesn't believe in him. So he needs his mother to tell him, you, my black son, stand on generations of brilliance. I know who you are because of what you have withstood because of our ancestors. I don't look at you as someone weak. I look at you as someone who can teach me in the world what strength is. So you make any mistake you need to while you discover yourself. Don't let culture tell you that your mistakes are fatal and deterministic of your character. There is no morality to making mistakes. This is something that you need to do as you discover who you are. So if he knows that in your gaze, he is whole. He is, you know, has impunity. He can discover with his fire and fall down. And there is no course chartered for him because it is uncharted. Then you will give him the confidence. Confidence comes from competence, but competence comes from struggle. And you're trying to take over his struggle. - This is resonate with you. - Thank you so much, Dr. Shep. This is absolutely resonating with me. Thank you so much because you're right. I got the pull back. Thank you. - Thank you. - All right, you're gonna love this book. You're gonna love this book, Raising Conscious Sons. And I know that's what you've always wanted to do and have done 'cause your boy is raised at 19. He's already been raised. So I applaud you for asking the question and for actually wanting to do better. So thank you so much, Sandra. Thank you so much. - Thank you. - Thank you, Bob. - Jen is a mom of two boys joining us from Iowa. What's going on in Iowa in your home? - Hi. - Hi. - Hi, Jen. - Hi, Oprah. - Hi, Dr. Shephal. Thank you for having me here today. I appreciate the opportunity to be a part of this conversation on an increasingly important topic and one that is top of mind for me on a daily basis. As a mom of two sons, like you said, 11 and 10 years old, we are very busy and active in our households. And well, the boys have very similar interests at this stage. They have vastly different personalities. They have very different confidence levels and they express their emotions in very different ways. So my question for you, Dr. Shephal is, given that many boys are taught early that strong emotions like fear and sadness and vulnerability or weaknesses, how do I raise my boys to acknowledge and maybe even embrace those strong feelings and express them authentically while navigating the societal pressures to the contrary. - Yeah, so we all know the adage that boys are told, don't be like girls, don't cry like a girl. And so they've associated true, real, heart-based, genuine feelings with something negative, right? They've been so shamed for their vulnerability. And what I write in the book, and it's one of my pillars called vulnerability, that if we do not allow ourselves, and this is for every human, but more so with boys, because they're shamed so much for vulnerability, if we don't allow ourselves to embrace our limitations, and to realize that nobody is without limitations, and I'm allowed to have limitations, we will forever be predatory. What that means is that because we don't accept our weakness, because we don't accept our jagged edges and our holes, and we're trying to cover it up with bravado. Right, we bully ourselves out of our own weaknesses. We stampede ourselves, don't have a weakness, don't cry, don't feel. That's what creates the bully, right? Because we're bullying ourselves. We're so busy bullying ourselves. Of course, we will bully the other. We so objectify ourselves boys, take all those feelings that culture has called being like a girl, being soft, being like a wimp, and take in all those feelings, and he has bullied himself out of feeling. He has so objectified himself, and we don't think of boys as objectifying themselves. We think of girls as objectified, but boys are objectified out of that, so they treat their feelings as something they can to shove away as if it was an object. And in doing that, they see other people's feelings, especially the weak, the helpless, the lost, the poor, as weak, the part in them that they've shoved away, and so they bullied those as well. Who they can bully, they will bully, because they've bullied themselves out of feeling. So vulnerability, allowing your children to be vulnerable, is allowing them to feel. And if you keep a boy close to his heart, he will grow up to be the protector of women and children need. - That makes sense, right, Jenn? - Thank you. - Thank you. - Thank you. - Absolutely. Yes, it's-- - Thank you. - I'm so excited to read this book. It's just like everyone else, it resonates so much. - Yeah, it's gonna resonate. A lot of ah-haz in there. Thank you, Jenn, for talking to us. - Thank you. - You believe it's vital to raise, as we're talking, boys with empathy. And how do we do that? - Well, it comes from keeping their gateway to their real life emotions, alive, unshamed, and unsuppressed. When we are empathic with ourselves, we would have empathy for others. So the mutations we see out in the world, the recall toxic masculinity, are men who have been also sacrificed by their parents and taught to not have empathy. So they did not just become those toxic men, they were raised, they were trained, they learned. And this is why I speak to parents, because if we want to interrupt that pipeline, from last boy to predatory man, we need to teach empathy. And they don't even need to learn empathy. The way to teach empathy is keep them in their feelings, allow them to have their feelings. Don't raise them to be happy. Don't raise them to be successful. Don't raise them to be strong. Allow them to experience their real life emotions. - You talk to boys and girls and their parents all the time and you said you interviewed over 50 boys for this book. What do they tell you they want? What are they looking for? - You know, they are so lost and they don't have the language, right? So it's hard for them. But what they will express is exhaustion. The pressure of needing to be a man, but not knowing what that even is. - Even in Ayurveda, what that could mean. They know what not to be. So their feelings are taught to them as weakness. And then they've been given a caricature of manhood from the manus here, these men who teach them to resent women. So they're taught about the negatives, but they're not given a clear blueprint. So their last, they confuse, they're exhausted already by 14. They feel the pressure of, how am I going to go out into this world where I'm soon going to be told I'm useless? Because technology is taking away my function. And when boys are without purpose, without use, with where they cannot see with clarity, how they are competent, how they are serving and contributing, that is when it becomes perverted. The boys you talk to feel under attack by the culture. Do they feel pressured and under attack by the culture? Well, I think in some ways that's a good thing, because the me-to-movement has kept them in check and told them you cannot get your way with your impulses anymore. You need, you can be in your instincts, but you have to be careful about these wild impulses. And they have now been checked. That is a good thing. But in that checking, we did not replace it with the roadmap to how to be a healthy conscious male. We've not given them that. And we certainly haven't made the distinction between your instincts and your impulses. So let's talk about sex. You say the culture has made sex, especially male sexuality, a dirty thing. Here's the cultural failure. Most boys pass through adolescence without a single initiation into the power, the responsibility and sexuality that is awakening inside them. I mean, they are not. So how can parents talk to their sons about sex? So if there was one core message that I think is the absolute takeaway from this book is male sexuality. And how are boys enter their manhood in terms of their sexual awakening without a peep? Oprah asked most of the boys. Did anyone tell you about your first nocturnal emission? Did anyone mock it for you? Did anyone tell you it's going to happen? And they all said, "Nobody." So it's no wonder they will go to the locker room or to the online sites or to be initiated. You see females, we, when we menstruate, there's blood. So there has to be some conversation around it. But what happens with boys happens in the silence of the night and it stays in the silence of the night under the bed sheets. I love it, you call it nocturnal emissions. OK, yeah, OK. So no one is telling them, in some boys, they've told me that they thought they were dying. I remember when I got my period and I didn't know, I thought I was dying or I had a disease. So you see, when it stays in the secret of the night, the mother comes the next morning, sees the dirty bed sheets, she sees the socks, she doesn't say a word. She tells the father about it, he doesn't say a word. And the way says a word. The way says a word. So he goes to, so he goes online. No wonder he then goes to these rights of passages which are toxic and gamified rather than real life rights of passage. And then you write about how profoundly unprepared. Yes. Young men and boys are to handle female rejection. Yes. Because I was talking about this with the Galloway recently about boys are because they watch so much-- Yes. --and want to speak to that. And if you watch, you should just watch it just to understand what our children are watching. Don't be hidden under a rock. Right, parents tell me, oh, I don't watch. I go, you don't have to watch for you. I'm telling you to watch to understand what your children are exposed to. By the age of 9 and 11, your boys have watched. So you need to be prepared to have conversations with them. And this is not about sanctum or morality. This is about reality. So in women are always turned on. They're always willing. Always ready. Move me anywhere you say no on a plate. And they are orgasmic and they're exalting and they are loving and worshipping the male body. And you can do whatever he wants. It's so easy. There's no foreplay. There's no messy conversation. There's no, does she like me? There's no reading of signs and attuning to whether she is rejecting me. So he's not understanding that there is such a thing. They think the penis can just go into the vagina. These are open gateways and caves and women are waiting. So then when they get rejected, can you imagine what it does to their ego? They think the woman is mean on purpose. They take it personally. They don't understand that she's being trusted. I feel like the kid in adolescence, like the kid in adolescence, which really sparked my whole desire to write these books with a jolt. Because that boy has been trained by the man this year. In adolescence is what we're talking about now. Yes, so he got so rejected by that girl. He couldn't imagine why she would reject him. So he thought it was personal. It was a personal attack. And therefore it required a personal vengeance, which is why he killed her. He did not understand that she's a sovereign being. That she just-- and he did not understand that just because he has desire, that doesn't mean he gets to activate and manifest the desire. But teaches you the opposite. Teachers you have desire, you have an outlet. It's an immediate thing. So all those messy industries-- I don't think so many-- I don't think a lot of parents even realize how-- how did influence their young boys. And they think that their boys are not watching. What are they doing behind the closed doors, 14 hours, during the weekend, if not looking at every hour? So now these platforms have allowed free access to-- And it's also why so many young boys aren't dating. And they have never asked a woman-- Why should they date? Why should they date? Ask a real person out today. It's too difficult. We're even not just going to take any guy. Now they have to step up. Yep. So it's different. OK, I have to get to this because we could talk for days about this book. I know. I just want to encourage every single person who has a son. You're raising a boy. You know somebody who is-- this is the perfect gift for them. You write, when a boy has no place to direct his energy, no one who needs him, no context in which he feels seen and shaped. His system doesn't rest. It inflames and burns. His purpose erodes. His motivation drains away. And what is left is deep agitation, numbness, or rage. And you believe isolation is slowly extinguishing the spirit of young boys. Yes. What can we do about this isolation? And because they don't talk about it, we girls will show it. We women will show it in some way. We'll cry. We'll show it in our bodies. We'll express it. But there's hides behind stoicism. I'm OK. I'm fine. I don't know. So we look at it as, oh, that's an independent boy. Look how independent my boy is. He doesn't need me. My daughter's 23. She will still come into my bed, still hug me, still kiss me, still demand I say I love you back. But I hear from my friends who are mothers of boys. There's no contact. And we exalt it as the independent male, the stoic male. But we don't realize that is a withering boy inside. And I call this book Raising Conscious Sons and Not Boys, because there is a sun inside every adult man looking for mentorship. Ah. That is a beautiful thing to say. A boy who does not feel emotionally safe will not develop resilience. He will develop armor. Yes. He will learn to numb rather than feel, deflect rather than process, dominate rather than relate. What makes a boy feel safe? When we, when they're very young, allow their fire to be intense and big and chaotic and and information. And since they are two and three, we are telling them to be quiet, sit down, talk, sit still, be in a chair. It is anti-boyhood. And that's what we're doing from a young age. So he begins to learn early that he's defective. His deviance is a problem. And his chaos is seen as disrespect when it is only dysregulation. So we are failing our boys. And then we end up with the toxic masculinity. And so you say you were inspired to do this after watching adolescents? Yes. And you did this so quickly because you could feel the urgency that's needed in this moment in time. Yes. And I knew it needed to come out fast. And I got the publishers on a fast timeline. And I knew I needed to write two books. And they couldn't be in one book because boys and girls have different developmental trajectories, different hormonal landscapes, and culture exploits them in very precise, different ways, different false lines. And if we don't intervene precisely, we will lose the plot. Well, I think you have done exactly what you have come to the planet to do. Because you feel the sense of urgency, and you also feel it with the parents who say they're drowning and they don't know what to do. Yes. Yeah. And parents want to do well by their children. We have to look at each other as each of us wanting to do the best, but we don't know how. So this book is that roadmap. I just didn't leave parents feeling anxious. I gave them the tools and the strategies I broke it down. And you may be a mother or a father who sees their boy more in the girl's book in some chapters. I see a lot of Maya in this book. So you need to read both as a continued conversation. These are not binaries. These are not manifestos of gender determinism. These are really a continued conversation and a cultural reckoning as to what our children need as whole humans in today's digital era. - Well, I just want to say. to everybody who's listening to us right now. If you want to be a more evolved conscious parent, and you want a better life for yourself, your family, and you really want the best life for your son, you need to read this book. Thank you, Dr. Shafali. Raising conscious sons, cultivating purpose, connection, and inner power in a chaotic world. Thank you to Nicole and Sandra and Jen for your parenting questions. Thank you all for watching and listening. We'll see you later this week for raising conscious daughters. Go well. And thank you to our friends at Geico for presenting today's episode. Dr. Shafali has two new books raising conscious sons and raising conscious daughters. And yes, as Dr. Shafali says, raising a son versus a daughter are different experiences. Both books are available on September 15. You can pre-order your copies right now by scanning the QR code on your screen. The books are both thoughtful. There are practical guides for raising emotionally secure and resilient boys and girls, while also navigating the complexities of today's world. I can't recommend them enough. I know for sure that these books are going to inspire some meaningful conversations with you as a parent and with your friends and families. So here's the thing. I would really appreciate it if you like and subscribe to the Oprah podcast on YouTube or wherever you podcast. It's just a quick tap of the subscribe button. And that way you won't miss an episode in your queue. I know subscribe usually means you're paying something. But this time it means you just are notified when there's something new. [BLANK_AUDIO]