Dr. Shefali in Conversation with Allison Williams: Raising Conscious Daughters and Raising Conscious Sons

Renowned clinical psychologist, bestselling author, and founder of the Conscious Parenting movement Dr. Shefali presents TWO new hands-on guides for 21^st-century parenting: one provides a pathway forward to reclaim how daughters are seen, supported, and raised; and another radically reimagines how boys are understood, nurtured, and raised. This program is being co-sponsored by New Canaan CARES, and Dr. Shefali will be in conversation with actor, parent, and New Canaan local Allison Williams. 

Raising Conscious Daughters: Building Confidence, Courage, and Inner Power in an Anxious World, is a wake-up call to something unfolding in the inner lives of girls today. On the surface, they are excelling and achieving in ways that would seem unimaginable to previous generations. Beneath this success, anxiety, perfectionism, and self-harm are surging, exposing a devastating paradox between the confident, high-achieving facade the world applauds and the fragile, unmoored self that struggles silently within.  

Raising Conscious Sons: Cultivating Purpose, Connection, and Inner Power in a Chaotic World explores the impossible and contradictory mandates with which today’s boys are being bombarded: Be tough but never vulnerable; be sensitive but never weak; be strong but never domineering. Caught between these warring expectations, boys are experiencing an unprecedented crisis of masculinity, marked by alarming rates of suicide, aggression, isolation, and apathy. 

All of this is happening in a digital age that commodifies attention, comparison, and worth, and that amplifies disconnection and performative identity. Drawing on real-life clinical cases, interviews with children and parents, and deeply practical, prescriptive guidance, Dr. Shefali offers urgently needed maps for helping our children thrive.  

Dr. Shefali Tsabary has redefined how families understand selfhood, connection, and the inner life of children. She works where psychology meets consciousness, tracing the hidden forces that shape identity, relationships, and the way we inhabit the world. Trained at Columbia University, she has spent decades guiding families to move beyond patterns of control and fear toward presence and authenticity. Her work brings Western psychology and Eastern wisdom into lived practice, creating a path for children―and the adults who raise them―to know themselves fully. 

Allison Williams is most well-known for her starring turn as ‘Marnie’ on six seasons of HBO’s Emmy and Golden Globe award winning TV series GIRLS, created and show run by Lena Dunham. For her work on the series, Williams received a Critics' Choice Television Award Nomination for “Best Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series.” Beyond acting, Williams recently launched her new podcast, LANDLINES, alongside her lifelong best friends, Hope Kremer, an early childhood educator, and Jaymie Oppenheim, a therapist. Over 30 years of friendship fuels their candid conversations, opening their shame-extinguishing group chat to discuss moments of adulthood and parenting, blending humor, expertise, and relatability.