Chief Change Officer
#295 Jodi Silverman: Parenting, Purpose & the Dare to Begin Again — Part Two
Sun, 13 Apr 2025
What do you do when the person you’ve been—mom, fixer, chauffeur, planner—is no longer needed in the same way? In Part 2, Jodi shares the emotional (and practical) shift from parenting full-time to rediscovering your own interests. She walks us through her signature DARE Method and dishes out real talk on marriage, identity, and why your kids aren’t your best friends (even if you really, really like them).This isn’t just an episode about empty nests. It’s about refilling your own life—on your own terms.Key Highlights of Our Interview:The Parenting Pivot “You’re always their mom—but not always their problem-solver.” How to shift from fixer to adviser.Best Friend? Nope. Mom Forever. “They have friends. What they need is a parent who actually knows when to walk away.”The Real Empty Nest Challenges“It’s not just missing them. It’s not knowing who you are without them.”The DARE MethodDecide. Awaken. Reimagine. Experience. A four-step strategy for rebooting midlife.Rediscovering You“Start with a brain dump. What did you used to like—before you were someone’s plus one?”Day Swaps, Not Date Nights“Plan a day around what lights them up. You’ll learn more than any heart-to-heart.”_______________________Connect with us:Host: Vince Chan | Guest: Jodi Silverman --Chief Change Officer--Change Ambitiously. Outgrow Yourself.Open a World of Expansive Human Intelligencefor Transformation Gurus, Black Sheep,Unsung Visionaries & Bold Hearts.EdTech Leadership Awards 2025 Finalist.18 Million+ All-Time Downloads.80+ Countries Reached Daily.Global Top 1.5% Podcast.Top 10 US Business.Top 1 US Careers.>>>170,000+ are outgrowing. Act Today.<<<
Chapter 1: What are the common challenges faced by parents of adult children?
It's a midlife chapter and beyond because this is the only time in a parent's life, and I'll talk about moms because it's really the mom's life where her children are not the conduits to her meeting other mom friends, meaning there's no more clay practice, no more basketball, there's no more soccer moms, and that's where we tend to meet our mom friends. So it's
Then learning how to connect and be a parent to adult children without hovering. Finding and discovering their purpose. What do they even want to do, need to do, like to do? Because they put that on the back burner. And then connection, friendship. Finding that community, the friendships. Those are the three.
And what's great about all three of those, so the parenting one, I literally, I actually have a specific... And as far as parenting the adult children, Let me back up. One thing that can cover all three, that can help a mom navigate all three, the number one strategy is to shift your focus from them, where it has been for all these years, as a mom, as a full-time mom, back to you. Back to you.
Chapter 2: How can parents reconnect with their adult children?
So permission to say, okay, I get to focus on me. I get to put myself at the top of the list now. and start to discover or rediscover or reconnect to those lost passions, those lost dreams. So shifting the focus onto you will help you not be, fill your time so you're not worried, constantly thinking about where are they, what are they doing? I'm going to text them.
The cell phone, which I'm holding up right now, this is a great tool and a dangerous tool. Constantly connected. So if you have the ability to contact your child 24-7, that's not what this is for. So the first thing to do is to recognize that you get to put yourself first and you must put yourself first.
It will help you with your relationship with your now adult child because you are now focused on yourself, giving yourself them a little distance. When you're focused on a new hobby, a new business venture, you can't be texting 24-7 to your children. And we don't want you to. And you become more interesting to your adult children. You have more conversation with them.
And yet, with that being said, the number one parenting shift we all must make, and it really does, you brought this earlier, Vince, about being 10, 11, 12, 13 years old. The sooner that we can do this, we should be doing this throughout all of our parenting. And I was not good at this until I discovered it, is going from the fixer to the coach with our children.
This process isn't easy. Like you said, it's not like flipping a switch. It's more like turning a dimmer. The change happens gradually. So it helps to prepare for it step by step, stage by stage. Maybe that means adjusting small habits every day or every month. That way, when the day actually comes, When they really leave for college or move out, you're more ready for it.
I actually have a method for it. We call it the D.A.R.E. method. We call it the D.A.R.E. method, and it's deciding. It's a simple, it's a decision. A decision that... you understand, I'm ready to focus on myself. A decision that, okay, my kids, I'm doing what, I did a great job. They're out there doing what they do. And by the way, Vince, you are never not a mom.
You're just, your role as their mom is shifting and changing, but you are always their mom. My 29 and 26 year olds still call me for advice. They only know what they know in the moment. So this whole thought process of I'm no longer a mom, I'm not needed, no. You are always a mom and you are needed always just in a different capacity and in different ways.
So decide that you're ready now to accept this and focus on yourself. That's the D. The A is awaken. Once you make a decision, when I made a decision and answering that question, am I fulfilled? Is this what I want to be doing? When I said no, that was a decision. That was a decision. And it awakened something within me. So awaken to what's possible. Awaken your heart again.
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Chapter 3: What is the DARE Method for rediscovering yourself?
Chapter 4: How can shifting focus to yourself improve your parenting?
It will help you with your relationship with your now adult child because you are now focused on yourself, giving yourself them a little distance. When you're focused on a new hobby, a new business venture, you can't be texting 24-7 to your children. And we don't want you to. And you become more interesting to your adult children. You have more conversation with them.
And yet, with that being said, the number one parenting shift we all must make, and it really does, you brought this earlier, Vince, about being 10, 11, 12, 13 years old. The sooner that we can do this, we should be doing this throughout all of our parenting. And I was not good at this until I discovered it, is going from the fixer to the coach with our children.
This process isn't easy. Like you said, it's not like flipping a switch. It's more like turning a dimmer. The change happens gradually. So it helps to prepare for it step by step, stage by stage. Maybe that means adjusting small habits every day or every month. That way, when the day actually comes, When they really leave for college or move out, you're more ready for it.
I actually have a method for it. We call it the D.A.R.E. method. We call it the D.A.R.E. method, and it's deciding. It's a simple, it's a decision. A decision that... you understand, I'm ready to focus on myself. A decision that, okay, my kids, I'm doing what, I did a great job. They're out there doing what they do. And by the way, Vince, you are never not a mom.
You're just, your role as their mom is shifting and changing, but you are always their mom. My 29 and 26 year olds still call me for advice. They only know what they know in the moment. So this whole thought process of I'm no longer a mom, I'm not needed, no. You are always a mom and you are needed always just in a different capacity and in different ways.
So decide that you're ready now to accept this and focus on yourself. That's the D. The A is awaken. Once you make a decision, when I made a decision and answering that question, am I fulfilled? Is this what I want to be doing? When I said no, that was a decision. That was a decision. And it awakened something within me. So awaken to what's possible. Awaken your heart again.
Awaken your mind again. Awaken that spirit inside of you that always likes to try something new. And then you get to go to the R, which is to reimagine. Reimagine what could my life look and feel like? Reimagine about the things that you used to like to do. You know, go back and reconnect to, reconnect and reimagine. And then the E is the daring. That's the experiencing.
Allow yourself to experience these new things. Create a list. Like within the DA, the dare method, you're going to create a list of the things you used to like doing. What are the things that look like fun to do? And then you're going to just slowly dare to experience these new things. Maybe some are not so new. You just haven't done them in 10, 15 years.
You have to take yourself through the, you have to feel the loss. Vince, you always have to feel your emotions. We cannot just move through emotions and ignore them because they will come up. It's a resilience thing. It's how quickly can you understand the emotion you're feeling, what you're having, why you're having it.
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Chapter 5: What emotions do parents experience during the empty nest phase?
The empty nest experience isn't just something moms go through, dads feel it too. So I'm curious, how did your husband handle it? What was his reaction like? How did he respond to the shift at home?
So I know for him, Sam has a unique ability, Vince, to compartmentalize events and things. His mother, my mother-in-law, is very pragmatic. Sam is a very pragmatic person. With that said, He was missing the kids. When we dropped Ellie, our oldest, we knew, I knew the minute we dropped Ellie off at college that she would only be visiting home moving forward.
She would never be living permanently in our house again. She would come home for the holidays, but I knew that there was no way Ellie was going to move back home. And I remember when she graduated college. So Sam missed her. Sam missed her. Ellie was very big into basketball, and that was a very bonding thing for Sam and Ellie, basketball. So he was going to miss her.
And then when Daniel left, he missed both kids. He missed both of them. And yet my husband's personal feeling was now I get to hang out with you again, Jodi. We get to do things we like to do, just the two of us. And when we're with our kids, we can have fun again. But he was really excited to move through that with us. Now, I know that there are dads. I've spoken to dads that it hits really hard.
And yet I'm going to make a very big generalization. Most of the fathers I know, although they miss their kids, it doesn't hit them as, what's the word I'm looking for, as deeply or not deeply, that's not the right word, as emotionally. And maybe it's because most men don't give up their careers emotionally. I guess, but I don't know, maybe dads handle it differently.
They've missed their children, yet they seem to be handling it better. They don't have that loss of purpose that a mom has because now things are changing. In the future generations, you're seeing more dads. You're seeing more families because of the financial issues in the world with daycare. More families sit down and say, OK, who makes more sense to stay home, the mom or the dad?
Which parent should stay home? So there are more families. stay-at-home dads, work-from-home dads, and more fathers since the pandemic are working remotely from home, so are taking a much more active role in the day-to-day activity of their children. So I'm curious to see as generations go on, my feeling for dads are that they miss their children
And yet they don't have that feeling of disconnectness that moms have. And they don't have the same loss of purpose. They feel sad, but they're not into the level of a mom. That's just been my experience.
I think in general, just speaking broadly, men tend to be less outwardly sentimental. Part of that comes from how society has shaped us. Across cultures, men are expected to be the strong ones, the calm ones. I still remember being told as a kid, boys shouldn't cry. Well, it was okay for girls, which doesn't make any sense. We're all human. We have sentiments. We have feelings.
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Chapter 6: How do fathers experience the empty nest differently than mothers?
Chapter 7: What strategies can help parents navigate their new roles?
So decide that you're ready now to accept this and focus on yourself. That's the D. The A is awaken. Once you make a decision, when I made a decision and answering that question, am I fulfilled? Is this what I want to be doing? When I said no, that was a decision. That was a decision. And it awakened something within me. So awaken to what's possible. Awaken your heart again.
Awaken your mind again. Awaken that spirit inside of you that always likes to try something new. And then you get to go to the R, which is to reimagine. Reimagine what could my life look and feel like? Reimagine about the things that you used to like to do. You know, go back and reconnect to, reconnect and reimagine. And then the E is the daring. That's the experiencing.
Chapter 8: How can parents begin to fill their time post-parenting?
Allow yourself to experience these new things. Create a list. Like within the DA, the dare method, you're going to create a list of the things you used to like doing. What are the things that look like fun to do? And then you're going to just slowly dare to experience these new things. Maybe some are not so new. You just haven't done them in 10, 15 years.
You have to take yourself through the, you have to feel the loss. Vince, you always have to feel your emotions. We cannot just move through emotions and ignore them because they will come up. It's a resilience thing. It's how quickly can you understand the emotion you're feeling, what you're having, why you're having it.
And then once you can understand why you're feeling the way you're feeling, you can then say, okay, I'm ready to decide on what my next step will be. How can I move forward or move through it?
The empty nest experience isn't just something moms go through, dads feel it too. So I'm curious, how did your husband handle it? What was his reaction like? How did he respond to the shift at home?
So I know for him, Sam has a unique ability, Vince, to compartmentalize events and things. His mother, my mother-in-law, is very pragmatic. Sam is a very pragmatic person. With that said, He was missing the kids. When we dropped Ellie, our oldest, we knew, I knew the minute we dropped Ellie off at college that she would only be visiting home moving forward.
She would never be living permanently in our house again. She would come home for the holidays, but I knew that there was no way Ellie was going to move back home. And I remember when she graduated college. So Sam missed her. Sam missed her. Ellie was very big into basketball, and that was a very bonding thing for Sam and Ellie, basketball. So he was going to miss her.
And then when Daniel left, he missed both kids. He missed both of them. And yet my husband's personal feeling was now I get to hang out with you again, Jodi. We get to do things we like to do, just the two of us. And when we're with our kids, we can have fun again. But he was really excited to move through that with us. Now, I know that there are dads. I've spoken to dads that it hits really hard.
And yet I'm going to make a very big generalization. Most of the fathers I know, although they miss their kids, it doesn't hit them as, what's the word I'm looking for, as deeply or not deeply, that's not the right word, as emotionally. And maybe it's because most men don't give up their careers emotionally. I guess, but I don't know, maybe dads handle it differently.
They've missed their children, yet they seem to be handling it better. They don't have that loss of purpose that a mom has because now things are changing. In the future generations, you're seeing more dads. You're seeing more families because of the financial issues in the world with daycare. More families sit down and say, OK, who makes more sense to stay home, the mom or the dad?
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