“Text Messages To My Sons” author Tammy J. Cohen

The book "Text Messages to My Sons" by Tammy Cohen explores the idea of using text messages as a way to connect deeply with children in a world dominated by devices. Cohen discusses how people, not just kids, are constantly on their phones, and she realized that she could use this medium to communicate love and deeper emotions to her children. She shares messages of love, support, and empowerment with her kids, and believes that sending positive messages can make a difference in their lives. Cohen emphasizes the importance of continuously messaging love to counteract the negativity and hate present in the world. She argues that constant communication and interaction with loved ones through text messages is a positive thing. The book also touches on the process of writing it and the personal growth Cohen experienced during the pandemic. Wanda, welcome to the RNJ Morning Program. An author that's just out with a really interesting new book, which could have a lot to say about the future of communication, specifically between parents and children. The book is called Text Messages to My Sons, Connecting Deeply in a World of Devices. And it's a really interesting idea, and could be just the way that modern communication will happen going forward. It's great to welcome author Tammy Cohen to the RNJ Morning Program today. How are you? I'm fine, Bert. Thank you so much for having me on, and I really appreciate it. Have you exhausted the option of put that phone down, I'm talking to you? Is that what led to this? Like, maybe I could get to them through this phone they're holding? Is that how this got started? Well, that's a really good question, Bert, because I'll tell you, the truth of the matter is that in 2017, this is an interesting statistic. People said they were on their phone 70% of the time. And it's not just kids, it's everybody. And from 2021, 2022, the statistic was continuously, continuously on their phone. You've been out to dinner, you see people sitting together at a table looking at their phone. So I had always had to use the phone to kind of communicate to my kids where they should be, what they should be doing, where they should meet me, what they need to do. It was always like a command, or a reprimand, and they were always just asking me for money, or something to that effect on the phone. But I realized that you could use it in a completely different way to communicate love and communicate deeper emotions. Because let's face it, we're not sitting down and having face-to-face communications any longer. Even virtually, if you're face-to-face, it's on Zoom, especially since the pandemic. So I just felt like, hey, let me use this device, because we're all on devices, let's face it. And the device isn't good or evil, it's just a thing. But the message we send could change everything. Yeah, I see exactly how that works. And I'm just, when you look at the way that we communicate today, just the way this has done, Tammy, when you're chatting with someone, whether it's on a social media platform or trading texts, that's viewed as connecting with someone nowadays. It has nothing to do with meeting someone, grabbing a coffee, going to a meeting, being in a situation where there's actual in-person contact. This generation, this younger generation, if they text somebody and they get a text back to them, that's like the best connection that could possibly exist. And the fact that now that mom has a seat at this table, I think that makes that a little bit more interesting. Are they worried about that maybe mom is a little bit too intrusive in my conversations now that mom is part of my little texting circle here? Well, you know, it's interesting, because what I do is in the morning, I try to do it first thing in the morning, or definitely if I can't get it done in the morning, I do it during the day, I'll get it to them by the afternoon. But it's basically what I'm sharing with them is just telling them how much I love them, how extraordinary they are, support. But also I try to learn continuously. I'm always reading something interesting, reading a quote that's amazing. And I just want to share knowledge. I want to share what I'm learning. I want to see if it's something that interests them. But at the end of the day, it's inspiration. And I always just felt that if you send somebody a message of love and support and empowerment and encouragement and positivity, you bulletproof their day. I mean, even if their day isn't going that great, they know somebody loves them. They know somebody cares. They know somebody's in their corner. And I don't expect an answer half the time. And it's always like a wonderful thing when they send me back a heart emoji. They send me back, love you. They send me back, that's a great message. And then when I see them, they'll talk about one message in particular. They wrote the forward to the book because they wanted to share like what it means to them to get these messages and how much they appreciate it. And that's for me was like, wow, like this is making an impact for them. And I was telling friends when I started doing it in 2021, I was telling them that I was doing it and they were like, wow, you should write a book. And I was like, okay, so I wrote the book and they started doing it with their kids and they had very positive results. It's like the conversation turned. It became something different. Their kids felt that they really do care. It's like, remember when we were growing up and we had lunch boxes and our mom would put a little note in like, love you. Sure, of course, sure. This is kind of that, but on a little bit of a different landscape, I would say. And look, I've got to be honest with you since the events of October 7th and what's going on in the world. And my book just came out recently on October 4th. I realized the reason I was really compelled to do this is because, listen, if you're bred in madness, if you're growing up and the only messages you hear are hate, incitement, indoctrination, it doesn't matter what age it is, all kinds of terrible things, you're going to be capable of a lot of dark deeds. So I think it's really important to continuously message love to your community, to your friends, to your family, your children, as often as you can. I find I do with a lot of people who I just speak to in general. I give them encouragement because it makes a difference and then it creates different energy. And it's about the difference of positive energy and negative energy and light versus darkness and evil. That's how I look at it. No, you're right. You make some really great points. My guest this morning is Tammy Cohen, author of the book, Text Messages to My Sons. And a couple of really great things. I mean, for all the negative aspects of social media and texting and our mobile phones, you make a couple of really great points, Tammy. When you're sharing positive messages, why is constant communication and interaction, why is that a bad thing when you're in touch with people that you love and you care about? Why is that such a bad thing to be able to have that constant back and forth of communication? And you are so right about the world today. I mean, kids are alert. They know what's going on. They watch TV. They listen to the radio, obviously. They know that there's a lot of negative things that are happening in the world nowadays. And anytime you can offset that with positivity or words of encouragement or inspiration from people that genuinely have your back, how can anybody say that's a bad thing? Right, exactly. Like, you know, it doesn't take a lot for a person to have that one person in their life that tells them you're extraordinary, you're wonderful, you're a good person, you have high value, you have worth. And oh, by the way, like, hey, you know, try gratitude. Gratitude is something really good to feel. And you know, they start thinking about it, even if it's not something that they're going to take on immediately. And so, you know, when they're, you know, like feeling gratitude or being more compassionate or any of those things, they think about it. The wheels start turning. And why I say continuously? Because like anything else, I mean, it's repetition, right? Like you could send a message here and they're like, oh, I love you or say it, whatever. But when you're committing to doing it with somebody daily or at least multiple times a week, it starts to penetrate like the message and they start to believe it. It's not just fleeting or here and there or one-off kind of thing. So that's it because I, unfortunately, when I've looked on social media and see this daily barrage or even the messaging that, you know, you just hear everywhere that's going on and it's daily and it's nonstop, it's almost like you don't even, like you don't want to get out of bed in the morning, you know, so why not try to get out of bed with good feelings? That's my point. I agree. It's such a day in the right foot. I believe energy, we give off energy. Everybody gives off energy, you attract what you put out. And if you're starting a day feeling love, feeling connected to God, feeling gratitude, feeling really positive, you do that energy. You do, you put it out there. And if we all individually put it out there, look at the effect. I mean, you know, it just grows in numbers. Yeah, I agree with that. And as time goes on, Tammy, you know, these messages, these communications become more and more special and more and more precious as the weeks, the months, the years kind of tick by and you start to really cherish moments and interactions that you had with people who were special in your lives. So that's another benefit to all this. Is this your first book, by the way, that you've written? Uh-huh, this is my first book. Yeah? What was the process? What was it like for you? Did it come to you rather easily? Well, okay, so part of it was I had two years solid, because I still, I text my kids every day. So I have enough, now I have volume two in my head, but I had all these messages. So what I had to do though was, because I knew I was like self-publishing, I had to, I hired a company to help me with the editing side, because what's important is you want to make sure that, of course, you know, it's written properly, that there's people who are professional who can check and make sure that everything's the way it's supposed to be. Plus I, because I was learning so much, during the pandemic, you know, we were all shut down and I had time to reevaluate myself. I didn't really like myself. I didn't like the way I was, I didn't know if I was having a positive effect on my kids growing up, while they were growing up. I had a lot of my own self-limiting beliefs and things that I carried over from my origin story. So I was kind of like starting to really take a hard look at myself. I was taking a lot of courses online and workshops. I was doing Mindvalley, Tony Robbins, Joseph Spensman, everything you could think of, reading every book. And I said, wow, this is amazing. I want to share this. So the messages were there, but of course I was quoting a lot of people. So one of the great things about hiring editors is that they can check those quotes and help you with the citation pages, because it's important that you have to attribute the correct quote to the correct person. And what was very interesting is many, not many, but there were quotes that were attributed by others to somebody famous, and that famous person never actually came up with that quote, they just said it. And everybody assumed that they said it, but it was really interesting. So I learned a lot in the process about how a book is structured, the editing side, the citation side, the cover, the back cover, all the elements that I never really thought about, because I wasn't planning to write a book. The reason I did it was because people were encouraging me to do it. So I said, let me do it. And you know, Bert, I'm not 20 years old here. And I said, I can do this. I've done some things, I've done some great milestones. I started a podcast, I founded a women's business network. I'm an entrepreneur, I work with clients in the gem and jewelry space, I do brand messaging consulting. And I said, I can do this. I can take one step and do it. Somebody will come along and help me. I'll figure out how to take the next step. My message also to people is, hey, I'm 61 years old. I can do it, you can do it. You can do anything you want. You just have to try. You just have to take the first step. And each step will open up. And I realized, like I said before, I was compelled to write this for a reason. And now I know why. Like what's been going on now, I know why this is important. So it's amazing, yeah. You can do anything, but definitely look for professionals to assist you along the way. It's worth it, because you want to put out a good piece of work. Yeah, of course, it's very true. And as I'm sure some famous person said at one point, I don't want to get the attribution wrong, but somebody said that you miss 100% of the shots you don't take. So you know what? If you never set yourself on that path, you just never get to the finish line. So that's for sure. The book, Text Messages to My Sons. Tammy, where can we find this book? And how can people get a copy? Well, right now it's on Amazon and there's paperbacks available and there's an electronic download that's available. We started with those two types of formats. So it's on Amazon, Text Messages to My Sons. And for those of you who live in the New York area, we're having a book launch. And a very dear friend of mine opened up her first jewelry store. She's had a brand, a gem and jewelry brand for many, many years. It's a great brand called Zadah. She just opened a store on Madison Avenue between 89th and 90th Street. And we're having a book launch there and she's having a store opening. So that's coming up on November 7th. And we're very excited. Anybody can contact me on my social media to find out more about the event that they like to attend. And yeah, that's the next thing. I'll be selling books there and she'll be doing her thing. But online, it's the easiest is to go to Amazon to purchase. Excellent. Well, Tammy Cohen, author, congratulations on all fronts. And this new book here, Text Messages to My Sons is really, really a terrific read. So thank you for the time today and lots of success going forward. And thank you again for the chat today. Much appreciated. Well, thank you for having me on, Bert. I really appreciate it. And I'm very excited to be with you today.