Connecting Deeply in a Digital World with Author of Text Messages to My Sons Tammy Cohen

Are you ready to become the confident leader your kids crave you to be? Are you losing your crap on your kids, yelling, giving in, and exhausted at the end of every day? You can start building confidence in your parenting immediately, whether your child is a toddler or all grown up and still living in your house. Don't make this parenting gig harder than it needs to be.

Register to become a No Problem Parent. It comes with an app so you can listen to the tips and tools, just like you're listening to this podcast. Click the link in the show notes or go to NoProblemParents.com.

Become a No Problem Parent today. Today's guest is here to share some tips on how we can change the conversation with our kids. That's step three of No Problem Parenting. Welcome to the show, Tammy Cohen. Thank you, Jackie. I am so excited to be here and speaking with you today. I mean, your words of wisdom are pearls. You have pearls of wisdom to give out. And I'm excited also to share some of my information of what I'm doing that has been really helpful as well.

Well, I love it. You are a branding expert by nature, by trade, an entrepreneur, and the author of Text Messages to My Sons, Connecting Deeply in a World of Devices. I was thrilled to come across your information. I think your PR person maybe reached out. Somehow we got connected because you are super passionate about effective communication between parents and kids.

and you discovered maybe during COVID, I think it was, that in this digital age, kids are not communicating necessarily eye-to-eye, face-to-face, but more so in text messages. So we're going to talk all about how to effectively communicate with your young adults and young kids today. What inspired you to start texting with your sons every day and how did that kind of impact your relationship with them? Well, like Vic said, it was during the pandemic. It was pretty much early on in the pandemic. And I was like thinking, you know, I, I went, we were all locked down and I was doing a lot of mindset work at that time because we were locked down. Right.

And you had to look at yourself. You had to sit with yourself. And I was like, I wasn't happy. I didn't like exactly where I was. I didn't like the way I thought I had a lot of limiting beliefs.

my origin story didn't didn't do me any any favors and I was seeking like help myself I was reaching I hired a life coach I even hired a business coach I started getting really involved in mindset work you know Tony Robbins like Mindvalley everything you could think of Lifebook I was doing it I was in Quantum Mind Academy Energy Healers I just wanted to figure out how to change my thought matter. And while I was in this, this whole, you know, new kind of like expansive learning and personal development, I said, I want to share this with my kids. I want them to know what I'm doing.

I want, I want them to know that this matters. Like, because I also understood that they have their own origin story with me and the way I behaved and the triggers that I reacted to. And my husband is different culture than me and the way he parented. And I was like, you know what?

I want to, I want to, I want to talk to them and I want to change the conversation. I want to change the connection. Now. Yes. I had always sent them text messages and Jackie, the text messages were reminders, commands, or reprimands. What do you want? Where are you? What did you forget?

You want money? What time are you going to be home? You know what? You didn't, you didn't, you didn't, you know, let me know you're, you're late. Like it was always something and it was never anything else. And I said, you know what? We're all on these phones. The phones are neither good nor bad. They're not evil or this or that. They're just a device. They're neutral. It's the content. So I said, okay, we're all looking at our phones. I own a restaurant on the Upper East Side of Manhattan called 18 Restaurant. People sit there eating dinner together and they have their phones on the table and they're looking at their phones. They're not even talking to each other. So nobody's having in-person conversation. They said, okay, this is what I'm going to do.

I'm going to just start every day, Monday through Friday, sending a message of love, inspiration. I'm going to tell my kids how extraordinary that they are worthy. And I'm going to share what I'm learning, but I'm also going to be accountable. I'm going to be a human being with them. I'm going there. I'm going to tell them that I didn't do things always the right way. And I'm going to apologize for it. And I'm going to own things. Okay. So what happened was they started seeing me as a human being. They started seeing me as somebody that they can earn trust with, that I'm earning trust with them, that I'm trying to show them who I am, but also that I'm being real with them, but also that they can find that connection back to me.

Because my older two live downtown. They don't live at home. My youngest is 23. He still lives at home and he's planning to move out. So I found with older kids in particular are struggling, especially that 18 to 30 year old group who seem to be very disconnected. There's a lot of addiction out there. There's studies about depression that is happening with this group. I feel that it was something for me to be able to have a conversation with them where they're at with zero expectations in return. And that's the key word. I had no expectations that they would text me back, mommy, I love you. I'm not looking to become their best friends. And I'm not looking to, I'm not telling people to become best friends with the kids. That's not what I'm saying.

I'm saying, just open up this dialogue with them and let them know, just send it, send that love and that gratitude for them and that knowledge and share knowledge with them because you're going to raise your energy frequency and you're going to raise them theirs when they receive it I'd have zero expectations because don't expect. Because once you do, that's not the point of this. The point is for you to reach out to them.

That's it. And that's what I did. Absolutely love everything about that. And there's a couple of things I want to talk about today.

Number one, if you could share some of the specific themes or topics that you focused on in your text messages and maybe why you chose them. And then we're going to lead into how all of this communication with your guys, with their adult children turned into a book. Sounds good to me. So basically, the book is the first book ever written completely in text message format.

So it's very quick read. It's very easy to read. And people are telling me, they're like, wow, this is great. I don't have to, there's no story development.

I don't have to follow characters and go chapter to chapter. I'm going and reading different messages and I love it. It's so inspiring. So that makes me feel great.

And what we did was we divided the book into 10 chapters. So there is a topic, of course, there's a title for each chapter, like gratitude and mindfulness. It's chapter one, dedication and discipline, mindset, fulfillment and purpose, growth and personal development, love and family, time and nature, belief and positivity, leadership, advice. Those are the 10 chapters.

And every message that fits into one of those chapters or titles is in that. That's that chapter. So the book is about 200 pages of messages. And at the end of each chapter, we have lines so that you could try your own message.

And one of the things I do is because people like, oh, well, text message to my sons. Like, what about my daughter? Like, what about my grandchildren? I start every message to start at the same way.

Good morning, sunshine. Good afternoon, sunshine. That was from the song, You Are My Sunshine. And I use the good morning, sunshine.

So it doesn't matter. And it's not like it's like only relevant to a boy or a grown man or an adult. It's they work for everybody. My thing is miniature kids have a phone.

You start because the younger, the better. Actually, I started with my kids older because it didn't come to me to do it. And I wasn't in the mindset to do it when I was younger. But now I am.

I was able to realize that I needed to do I needed to step up. And what's great is, you know, they respond. they respond to the point where they wrote the forward to the book about what it means to them to get these messages how it's affected them getting these messages it makes them feel bulletproof so for them knowing that there's one person in the world that actually loves them so much and cares to send a message every day it's not sending a message here and there it's not sending it when i when i when i want to be nice i send it every day monday through friday so it's there's hundreds and hundreds of messages i haven't stopped i mean the book is represents the messages of 2021 to 2022, it's 2024. I'm still doing it. I don't stop because that's the point is, is the continuity is what gives the reinforcement is what gives the consistency is what, where they start saying, you know, it's real because you do it. It's happening every day. And yeah. And they wrote this beautiful forward because they said,

even if the day goes sideways, they're okay. Cause they have this, this message. Somebody cares. Somebody loves them. And I feel, to be honest with you, Jackie, I feel that what's going on right now with big tech is not only destroying everybody's focus, distracting them, but it's feeding misinformation, it's feeding hate, it's feeding violence, it's feeding indoctrination. And how is any kid, how is a person supposed to avoid this when they're just shoveling it down your throat 24-7, at least if you send that message of love and gratitude, which love and gratitude are the two highest energy frequencies there is, okay?

The lowest are violence, hate. Hate is one of the lowest frequency. You have a chance of countering what they're saying. And that's what we have to do.

Each one of us, one person. It only takes one person to start a movement. It only takes one person to make a difference. You do that with your, and I have three sons.

I send it to each one of them. They're going to start doing it when they get older with people who they think need help. They're going to do it with their children and so on. And it just keeps moving from there.

And that energy is spread through the communities, right? Well, I know how I feel after I send that message. I feel good. And I think they feel really good when they receive it because it's like, yeah, there it is.

And when I go to my next stage in life, when I pass from here, what do you think they're going to miss? You think they're going to miss what? The thing I bought them when they went here or there? No, they're going to miss mom's daily message. They're going to look on their phone.

They're going to look in the book. They're going to say, I want to read them again. I want to keep looking at them. And what really, what really amazed me is my husband who is Moroccan. Okay.

He's different culture completely. And English is not his, it's his fourth language. Okay. and he said to me he read the book he said he read it in two sitting in two saturdays he read it and he said wow wow it's amazing and i i didn't know you felt that way i didn't know that i didn't know what you're saying i didn't know you know and oh my gosh and that really moved me because he i'm living with him over 30 years and he didn't know who i was or how i felt yeah now you're gonna write on the bunk it's time for a volume two messages to your husband messages to your spouse right like here's the thing Jackie it doesn't have to go to a kid like everybody's like oh you know it's to my sons no it's sent it to a loved one you can send it to a friend you love who needs that you could spouses can do with each other not everybody's a parent but it doesn't mean you can't start sending a message of love and light you can't start spreading that that feeling and maybe being real with somebody and taking off your mask and saying, this is who I am.

This is how I want you to know you're not alone. I feel these things too. You might think I'm great and everything's fine and beautiful, but no, I want you to know I'm real with you here. People need that.

We are very disconnected. You would think with all the ways to connect, all these social media platforms and WhatsApp and everything that's out there, people are more disconnected now than they've ever been in their lives because we're not together. We're not having conversations. So for me, this is the only conversation I think that technology will let me indulge in, I think.

But the good news is, is that my kids come over every Friday night for dinner. So we take up the conversation from there, but they want to. And they come to me when they have an issue and that's all I ever wanted. They share it with me. I don't give them the answers. I don't know the answers, the grownups, but they want to talk to me because I've opened up a channel in a lot of ways with them. It is so great. I love it. It fits perfectly in, changed the conversation. And I think I, like you, technology, the phones, it is a device and it's here to stay. And so, so often I think media and propaganda want us to fear. They want us to worry. They want us to, you know, be all stressed out and concerned and protect our kids.

And I say, yeah, we need to protect our kids, right? We need to do the best we can with that. And we need to empower them to learn how to use the technology to their advantage as, you know, and develop the skills to be able to use it for what they want to get out of it and how it's going to help them. But we don't need to be fearing it. And then let's use it for the positive side of things. I mean, sure, on social media, we can post all kinds of superficial crap on there.

Or, you know, we can use it to connect and communicate and share pictures or stories or situations and humor and all that with family and friends that we don't see on a regular basis. Same with the text messaging. I just absolutely love this. And I, you know, hadn't even thought of it because my son and I, we text a lot. I mean, and I don't delete anything. I've got to download them. I've got to save them because I just, I love the banter back and forth or the checking in and that kind of a thing. Never in a million years would I think to put it into a book or even stop to think of the value added in that communication. I mean, and sometimes he's in the basement and I'm in my office or I'm upstairs or I'm out gardening and we're still texting rather than running in the house, which a lot of people could say, well, back in the day, you actually had to go to the room that the person was in and connect with them and do it. And it's like, yep.

And that was back in the day and this is now. And so why not take advantage of this great resource that we have to communicate? And especially when you have a kiddo who doesn't want to talk to you, who doesn't know what to say or how to say it. Does it mean, like you said, the other thing I love is that you're saying there's no expectation for a response.

You get to just put that out there and not take it personally if they don't respond. No assumption whether they received it or not or how they received it or didn't or whatever. It's just it's out there. and it's in there, you know, I just, everything about this, I absolutely love. And I love that it's for all ages, the minute they have that phone. Can you share one or two messages? So we get an example of what that looks like from the book? Sure. You know, what's really interesting to me is, I have a lot of dads, and they're like, I love my children. But I don't, what do I say to them? They weren't like moms tend to be more nurturing, because we were raised that way.

And the men are like, you know, like, I want to, I love my children. I want to do this. And I'm like, just start. Now what's great about text messages is you have 200 pages of messages that are done.

Take a message, tweak it. They're there for you. I sign every message with how much I love them, how many lifetimes I've loved them. You only see two.

There's only, these are the emojis in the text. It's like the good morning sunshine, the sunshine emoji, and the hearts at the end when I tell them how much I love them, what they mean to me. It's heart-centered, right? I said, so you start.

You use the book. You pull the messages. But once you start doing it and you get consistent, you create that habit. And I'm telling you it's 10 minutes a day.

You can find 10 minutes a day to send a message of love and light to somebody you love. I said, you're going to start just noticing things around you and start talking about it. One of the things that really changed for me also is I was reading a lot, especially during the pandemic. There's so many visionaries, and I'm not talking AI thought leaders. I'm talking real visionaries who lived over the past hundred years, who lived over the past thousand years, who wrote amazing works, who are brilliant, and they're in books.

and you could read what it took them 30, 40 years to figure out in like a book. And I would share that what I learned. I'd share a quote. I'd ask them, what do you think about that?

Here's what I think it is. What do you think it is? And you know what? It was sharing information of a different sort.

And I really worry today because I feel like the whole big tech thing, I think there's just like this whole thing about like a hive mentality. let's keep throwing all this crap at that people all day all night and so they'll all start thinking the same way and it's easier to control people that way break that you know break it with your your don't let your kids fall into that and you don't fall into that so that's one of the things that i really wanted to get across and that's why i do it now i'm going to give you a very simple message from the bucket like one of my simple messages because some of my messages a little longer. And my kids always, they tease me, they go, mom, great message, but they're a little long because you know, nobody, kids don't like to read anything. And I'm like, I don't care. I'll write a long message. So I'm going to read a shorter one. Good morning, sunshine. I hope you having a beautiful start to the day. Whenever you were stuck searching for the optimal plan,

remember that getting started changes everything. Motivation is what gets you started. Commitment is what keeps you going. That's Jim Rohn. And according to Stephen Covey of seven habits of highly effective people. The main thing is to keep the main thing, the main thing. I love you.

I want you to always know that whatever step you take, there will be a step that follows and there's never any failure. Don't worry about failing. Simple message. Oh my gosh.

Not even. So great. I try to bring in like an amazing quote by a thought leader, by a visionary. Because it has to be, you have to have something in it also besides you're extraordinary. I love you. So what I do is I bring in some of that knowledge and that I'm learning or that I've read that I think is really fascinating and then I weave it in. So it's interesting to them. That's why I'm like, take the book, take the book, take any message you want out of it. Pick chapter you like, send it out, tweak it, make it yours. And that's it. You're done. You're done for a year, you know you're two years i was just gonna say you've got so many messages in there you've got enough for a couple of years to get us started what are some of the responses you've received from your sons they're always sending me emojis love you great message like that's usually what they're what they'll but what i noticed is i don't know they're they were so supportive with the book like i said i i only put this into a book because people i would share it with colleagues what i'm doing i'm sure with my friends and they were like that's amazing my god that's so cool you should put it in the book you should put that in a book i was like what like i don't know how do you write a book i don't know write a book so what i do i started googling like writing books and like self-publishing i don't you know i didn't know what's doing and eventually i found um a company

called pen for hire they helped me because there's the editing side there's editing you know you've written two books. You want to put out something that's well edited, that's professional, like that's with correct spelling. And I know it's text messages. Plus, I have so many quotes in this book. What about the citation pages? What about checking that every quote is accurately attributed? And formatting is really important too. So this is the first book ever written in text message format. So that was designers came up with it. But my sons, I showed them everything along the way. And I told them I'm going to put in a book and they were so supportive that they wrote the forward. And my son, my oldest actually was like, I'm introducing you to a cover designer because I showed him some ideas of cover designs. And he was like, no,

he manages a VC fund for super brands. And he goes like, he's like, no, no, no. So Anna Baginski, he introduced me to her. She's a genius. She did the cover and it's very catchy, eye-catchy cover and I loved it when I saw it and I was like that's it he's like yeah yeah that's the one that's why you know amazing us in this process right well and it sounds like too that just even sending the messages even if you're not getting a lot you know a big long reply from your kid like you said you're having dinners on Fridays and topics from what you've messaged throughout the week are coming up and so it's it's also like just giving you more things to communicate about or to discuss, that's not like you said, those status quo questions of what would you do today?

And how was your day? And, you know, well, what are you doing next week? And then like all the things that's nagging parents do when we're reminding them of things that they need to do better at or, you know, put more, you know, be more involved in or whatever. So I just absolutely love everything about this. I mean, we do other texts with each other, of course, because I'm like, Oh, what time's dinner, you know, like things like that. But I try to keep it like, you know what? I'm not, I try to keep it just, here's the message. It's that's it. You know, take it however you want it. I have a friend who did it with her son and her daughter. And she was like, Oh, my daughter, like she loved it. And my son was like, what are you doing? Like, don't even start this up. And I was like, she's like, so what do I do? And I was like, it doesn't matter what he says. You send the message. It's not about expectation from him. You over time, just let him know how extraordinary and how much you love him and share whatever you want. But don't,

it's not about that. It's about you doing that for your child. Yeah. Yeah. Just like you would take care of them in the house, take care of them. They're out there. They're grownups. Take care of them in a different way. Give them that love in a different way. That's it. Yeah. So important.

And like you said, they can learn to do that with their friends or other people. You can do that with colleagues, with somebody that you know just isn't feeling right or communicating enough, maybe isolating, kind of distancing themselves. I mean, what a wonderful thing for friends to do with each other. Making, you know, trying to become more empathetic or letting them know, it might help them with their compassion for others. If we have more compassionate people coming out, then the world will be a very different place, right?

absolutely absolutely all right well the book is called text messages to my sons connecting deeply in a world of devices we have a link in the show notes for parents to go check that out and grab that copy of the book you're also on facebook and instagram you can search at text messages to my sons and you can yeah and the book is on amazon so the link is to amazon it's weird yeah absolutely We're going to do that. And then real quick, Tammy, before we go, you also in your day job, like I said, you have a restaurant, but you also have a women's networking group.

And I love to connect moms and women to other networking groups. So tell us a little bit about your women's network. So I was very fortunate to be the founder. I am very fortunate to be the founder of Women Beyond the Table.

It's a global business network. The women are wonderful. They're business owners, entrepreneurs. Some of them are working in corporate world and business too.

We have some nonprofit and they're just a really supportive bunch of women who are there for each other. They're nonjudgmental. They're not competitive with each other. They're just really out there to provide services and to, you know, and, and, and to be supportive and empower each other.

So it's been wonderful. It's three years now. And, um, yeah, women be on the table. You can visit our website, womenbeyondthetable.com.

You also have a podcast called the Beyond the Table Podcast. I just love the title, love the name. And I'm so grateful that we've been connected, Tammy. Thank you so much for being with me on the show today.

Jackie, you're amazing. And I admire everything that you're doing. And we have to get you on to the Beyond the Table Podcast. Oh, I can't wait.

I would love that. I would love that. Thank you so much. I appreciate being here.

All right. That's it for today's episode of the No Problem Parenting Podcast. Hey, thanks guys for tuning in. If you found value in today's episode, click the subscribe button and share it with other parents who might need a little boost.

Stay connected on our socials by following at No Problem Parents for more parenting tips and get your free download of the 60 ways to respond to your kids without losing your cool. Go to NoProblemParents.com. Until next time, remember, your confidence comes from embracing both successes and setbacks.

So take a deep breath, embrace the chaos, and remember, you got this.