Raising Conscious Sons: My New Book and What Boys Need From Us Now
Parenting & You With Dr. Shefali
Dr. Shefali explores her new book, Raising Conscious Sons, emphasizing the urgent need to transform how boys are raised in today's world. Sh
Key takeaways
- Toxic masculinity stems from unhealed boyhood experiences and systemic neglect of male emotional development.
- Masculinity itself is not the problem—its potential for courage, protection, and adventure is vital; the issue lies in its distortion through suppression and exploitation.
Main topics
- The crisis of modern boyhood
- Toxic masculinity and its roots
Notable quotes
Masculinity as a force is a beautiful force... It is competence and adventure and risk-taking and fire...
We need to understand what are they losing in their boyhood that makes them so desperate in adulthood to go out there and scavenge and destroy the lives of so many others.
Conclusion
Dr. Shefali calls on parents to embrace conscious parenting as a transformative act that heals boys
Transcript preview
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Visit ixl.com slash parenting to get the most effective learning program out there at the best price. Speaker 1 (1:04) Hello, everyone. Welcome to a new episode of Parenting and You with me, Dr. Shefali. Well, today is an incredibly exciting and special day for me because my two new books, books number eight and nine, Raising Conscious Daughters, I'm holding it up for those watching a video, and Raising Conscious Sons is out today. I am so excited. You know, I had this vision to write these two books in... This way, you know, two separate books, one for boys and one for girls, because our children are going through so much and parents are genuinely feeling helpless and overwhelmed and stressed and anxious. I wanted to give parents a powerful, beautiful, succinct, clear blueprint on how they can raise the most empowered, resilient and conscious children. I cannot wait for you guys to grab your copy and... Start a book club. Go through this. Get together with other parents because in these books, you will get so much insight and wisdom and language that will help you to communicate better with your kids and help them with the issues that this generation is facing like no other generation before. So support me, support the Conscious Parenting Movement, and grab your copy of Raising Conscious Daughters or Raising Conscious Sons today. Well, on this episode, I am so excited because I am going to dive deep into the core principles and the pillars that I cover in both these books. Today's episode is going to focus on raising conscious sons, but tune in to next week's episode where I go deeper into raising conscious daughters. So all of you parents of boys, grab your pen and paper because we're going to dive deep into all the issues that are facing your young boy or your young adult son today. And you may discover an extremely powerful and effective blueprint for a conscious masculinity. Support your homeschool routine. Getting into the school year rhythm can take a little time, and iXL makes it easier. It fits right into your routine, helping reinforce lessons, practice important skills, and give your child that extra boost to keep learning on track. iXL is an award-winning online learning platform that supports students wherever learning happens. It offers interactive practice across math, language arts, science, and social studies from pre-K through 12th grade. Homeschool families can use IXL as part of their everyday routine, while students in traditional schools can use it to reinforce classroom learning. IXL personalizes learning for each child and gives parents clear insight into progress. Make an impact on your child's learning. Get IXL now. And parenting and you listeners can get an exclusive 20 % off IXL membership when they sign up today at ixl.com slash parenting. Visit ixl.com slash parenting to get the most effective learning program out there at the best price. Speaker 1 (4:17) This session this morning is on this book, Raising Conscious Sons. I believe that this book is one of my most important books. I wrote it because I could see that there is a growing... troubling, disturbing trend of very toxic male dysfunction in our world. We women have gotten comfortable just getting angry. Now, getting angry is never a comfortable thing, but we've kind of gotten stuck there. And I do believe that if we want the world to be safer for our daughters and ourselves, we need to go deeper and ask. What is going on in these men's boyhood that is churning out these kinds of men who ruin it for everyone, including men? You see, the patriarchy is not just toxic for women, children, and the earth. It is toxic for most men as well. So if we want to change the world for our daughters, we need to help heal. the lost boyhood in our males' life. We need to understand what are they losing in their boyhood that makes them so desperate in adulthood to go out there and scavenge and destroy the lives of so many others. How can it be? Because there are many good men. There are many men who want to do very well. They don't want to be called a toxic male. Sure, they can mess up. Sure, they can make mistakes. But they want also to be shown the path. I know many women listening may think it's not our job, and it isn't. But if we want to change the world for our daughters, we need to understand what is going wrong with our men. Not what is wrong with our men only, but what is going wrong with them. What are they missing? Why are they all like this? How is it that they are causing so much harm? And that is why I began to do my research into boyhood from zero to 30. What is going on there? How can we parents do it differently? Can we do it differently? What are the key ingredients that we need to make sure we're giving our sons? Like a checklist. And if we're not giving these key ingredients, why not? How do we do it? This is all what this book explores. Raising Conscious Sons. I have learned so much after doing my research on male neurochemistry. Male biology, male evolution, male psychology. And here's my verdict. We do not understand our men. They do not understand themselves. No one takes the time to understand them because they are the privileged class. We need to understand them better. We need to help them understand themselves. And we need to help heal them. Help heal them. You don't have to heal them, but you've got to help heal them. That's just what I think. Okay? So I'm out on a mission to help heal men. And I think men deserve the chance. And we've got to demand it and expect it. They need to be held accountable. They need to be responsible. They need to be shown compassion. And they need to be told, buck up. Most importantly, we need to understand that masculinity as a force is a beautiful force like femininity. It is a needed force, a vital force, pivotal, profound, essential, effective, necessary. We cannot think that masculinity is the problem. Masculinity is competence and adventure and risk-taking and fire and novelty and new things and exploration and bravery and courage and protection and provision. Yes, those are the masculine qualities. boundaries and compartmentalization and linearity and logic and rationality for the most part. It's a good force. But then, in its extreme, it's manipulative, exploitative, it's dominating, it's subterfuging, it is sabotaging, it is destroying, it is eviscerating, it is annihilating, it is exterminating, it is destructive, it is dysfunctional, it is toxic. But so is femininity. Femininity in its beauty is nurturing and receiving and soft and yielding and flowing and... accepting and allowing and permeable and flexible and expansive and embracing. But when it is toxic, it is very toxic. It is manipulative and passive and apathetic and learned helplessnesses and listless and restless and no boundaries and exhausted and fatigued and burnt out and dull and overgiving and overfunctioning and sucking the life out of everyone around them and then their own life and constantly giving to the point of breaking down. What good is that? And... compliant and servile and no voice and thinks it is good when it shuts up and it is quiet and lets everybody else take over. How is that a good thing? So femininity can be very toxic too, okay? It is just less destructive and it doesn't have the power and the strength of the toxic man. So we don't hear about it, but it is very destructive. So masculinity is beautiful if we can outline a pathway for a conscious masculinity. What is a conscious masculinity, Dr. Shefali? A conscious masculinity, just like masculinity and femininity, needs to be free. In the same way, conscious masculinity is that freedom. No box, no label. It is the radical acceptance of whatever shows up. It is allowed to be. strong and fiery and intense and big and expansive and explorative and risk-taking and adventurous and wild and feral. It is seen as beautiful. As long as it doesn't exploit others, manipulate others, dominate others, subterfuge others, walk over others, take, take, take from others. But at its core, the fire of masculinity is a goddamn beautiful thing. So, we women need to understand we want to keep the masculinity. We just don't want the toxic part, okay? So when we are raising our boys, we need to honor and celebrate their wildness, their intensity. And then we need to hold them accountable. And we need to create the boundaries. But we cannot shame