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

Habits and Hustle

In this episode of Habits & Hustle, Tony Robbins sits down with Dr. Shefali, a clinical psychologist and founder of the Conscious Parenting movement, to explore how

Key takeaways

• Parental unhealed wounds are often projected onto children, affecting their identity and emotional health.
• Children act as mirrors, revealing parental patterns through their behaviors like anxiety or rebellion.

Main topics

• Conscious parenting
• Parental ego and unhealed trauma

Notable quotes

"Our problems start from the ego of the parent. All our problems, every problem in the world goes back to the emotional health of the parent."

"The child is begging you to stop what you're doing, pay attention, and deeply connect."

Conclusion

True parenting transformation begins with self-awareness and ongoing practice, not just

Transcript preview

Speaker 1 (0:01) Hi guys, it's Tony Robbins. You're listening to Habits & Hustle. Crush it! Speaker 2 (0:07) 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. 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 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. Speaker 2 (1:31) By the way, I'm really excited about today. Really. Not because you're just even better in person. That Speaker 1 (1:37) means a Speaker 2 (1:37) lot Speaker 1 (1:37) to me. Speaker 2 (1:37) No, you really are. I have Dr. Shefali, you guys. And if you guys do not know Dr. Shefali's work, you're missing out. Because she, to me, is one of the most incredible parenting experts, 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. Speaker 1 (2:01) Unbelievable. Because Speaker 2 (2:02) 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 Speaker 1 (2:15) on its head. Speaker 2 (2:16) You know, when Speaker 1 (2:17) 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 therapy practice. Literally, parents walked out. Like to the point that my then husband said, like, maybe this is not good for business. Really? 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 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 spiritual, psychological, emotional health of the parent. See, Speaker 2 (3:42) that's to me why there's so many levels to what you say that is just mind-boggling, right? So you're basically telling people, that's before we even talk about that part, explain to people in a few sentences what is the whole conscious, what is that whole thing? Yes, Speaker 1 (4:01) so in a nutshell. The conscious parent raises themselves so they don't pass on their crap to their children. Right. So Speaker 2 (4:09) how does someone stop themselves? Don't you need awareness to even know what your problem is? Yes. So Speaker 1 (4:16) most of us don't have awareness, which is the first thing we need in any change situation. Right. In any journey to transform, you first need to be aware. Right. So the beautiful thing about our children is that they will make you aware. They are such an intense mirror that by child number three, you know, if you've 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? Speaker 2 (4:58) Yeah, because 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 with healing your wounds? Because, you know, a Speaker 1 (5:15) lot of times, theoretically, things can sound... But in real life, it's really, Speaker 2 (5:20) really difficult. And it's Speaker 1 (5:20) really hard. In fact, conscious parenting cannot be thought. 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? Right, because it's Speaker 2 (5:34) triggering you. Speaker 1 (5:35) Correct, because the fact that it's triggering you, 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'm suffering now. So I am inviting you, the child doesn't say this, but 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. And 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. Well, I'm happy you're not done. 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 back. I'm ready to go back. I'm out the door, but she keeps holding me in center stage. Speaker 2 (6:50) You know why that is though? And why I love that these, this is why I was really dying to have you on because now you have raising conscious sons and raising conscious daughters. I have one of each. Okay. And what I've noticed, I always thought when my kids were small, that was going to be the hardest. Speaker 1 (7:09) Yeah. Like, Speaker 2 (7:09) okay, well, as long as I can get this part done, I'll be good. Yeah. What I've noticed. Oh, my goodness. Oh, my God. Each Speaker 1 (7:15) stage. It's getting harder. Yeah. How old are your kids now? 11 and 13. Well, you are in the firestorm. Yeah. You have Speaker 2 (7:23) no idea. I was going to say you have no idea. This Speaker 1 (7:25) is the eye Speaker 2 (7:25) of Speaker 1 (7:25) the storm. Oh, and it's. It's Speaker 2 (7:27) different hard, but I have more anxiety around this stage even than I thought. Because you don't have Speaker 1 (7:34) physical control now. I have no physical Speaker 2 (7:36) control. And your Speaker 1 (7:36) influence is now in jeopardy because it's being hijacked by what we have in culture, which is why I wrote these books. Exactly. 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. Speaker 2 (7:57) Oh my God, 100%. Yeah. And with social media and peer groups. And WhatsApp groups. And Speaker 1 (8:05) 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 hyper exposure that they cannot even process. I Speaker 2 (8:27) can't even process it. And by the way, even with our adult brains, it's kind of manipulating my own neuroplasticity. It's a manipulation. Speaker 1 (8:38) And I wrote two books not to be reductive about our genders. And you may find things about different, your son in the daughter's book 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. Oh, wow. So, for example, our daughters, just like us, are filled and fueled by estrogen, which means that oxytocin is 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 the point of 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. 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. I've never heard this. And Speaker 2 (10:00) then picked Speaker 1 (10:00) up that the girl is insecure and then 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. That is crazy. Speaker 2 (10:29) But Speaker 1 (10:29) listen to what's going to happen to your boy. Tell me. So your boy, who is 14? Speaker 2 (10:34) 13. Speaker 1 (10:35) 13. He is going through a... tsunami of testosterone, okay? 50 times more than what he ever has and 15 to 20 times more than any female. At 13, he is at his peak testosterone, going to even peak more at around 18, 19. 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 has 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. 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 13, 14 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. Speaker 2 (11:53) And it's Speaker 1 (11:54) already happened. Most porn is seen by age 11. Speaker 1 (11:59) He's already seen everything. People Speaker 2 (12:01) say this to me and I cannot unhear that. We need Speaker 1 (12:05) to come out of the sand. We need to get our head out and we need to understand that it's nothing to blame ourselves for, nothing to be embarrassed or ashamed or angry at them. This is how the... algorithm manipulates the different sexes. You Speaker 2 (12:20) know, what I found to be brilliant was that people who do have, though, a boy or either have a boy and a girl, they are so different. They are. And how I would treat my daughter is extremely different than how I would treat my son at this time. Yes. And what works for one completely does not work for the other. Correct. Because they are... Like when I read your titles and subtitles, like the girl, the confidence, because that's a huge one. The social interaction between her and her friends. Oh, that's huge. To be approved. To be like. Yeah. To belong. To Speaker 1 (12:53) belong and to Speaker 2 (12:54) feel like you are validated. And Speaker 1 (12:56) girls can be so mean to other girls. Oh Speaker 2 (12:59) my Speaker 1 (12:59) goodness. It's. heart-wrenching. Yeah. I call the girlhood crisis a crisis of selfhood 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. 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 talk, you know, which is unraveling the toxic patriarchy. 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 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've been 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. Speaker 2 (14:06) Please, Dr. Shefali, give us some... actionable tools for each because I know I am not the only person who feels this way because 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 10 year old daughter a 14 year old boy And it's so, so important. And we all feel, especially if you're a working parent, we all feel a lot of guilt. Kind Speaker 1 (14:42) of Speaker 2 (14:42) like Speaker 1 (14:42) we just don't even know where to begin. Right. And when you don't know how to begin to such a degree, you almost just give up. Yeah. You know, because you don't know what to do. We don't know what to do. And Speaker 2 (14:52) we're using old strategies that our parents used on us that are not applicable. No. Because what we're dealing with in 2026 is very different Speaker 1 (15:02) than when we Speaker 2 (15:03) dealt Speaker 1 (15:03) with like 20, Speaker 2 (15:04) 30 years Speaker 1 (15:04) ago. Yeah. We didn't have those the same stuff. Exactly. I mean, I literally... conceived of, wrote, and edited these books within six months because it's an urgent crisis. It is. 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, 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