Jessica Alba appeared on the latest edition of Katherine Schwarzenegger Pratt’s Instagram series “Before, During & After Baby”, where she discussed the importance of parents having honest communication with their kids.
The mother of three — she shares daughters, Honor, 13, and Haven, 9, and son Hayes, 3, with husband Cash Warren — discussed how she’s seen parenting evolve since she was a child.
“How I think I was raised, or sort of the dynamics of how children were treated when I was growing up, and even my parents, was, you know, the kids basically speak when they’re spoken to, they have the ‘kid table’ whenever there’s a family gathering, and you just sort of stay out of the way and do what you’re told,” Alba explained.
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Adding, “I think this new way of parenting is like, [kids] want to be seen and heard as individuals basically as soon as they start having any kind of consciousness or thoughts or opinions. It starts early. I take the approach of making sure they understand boundaries and respect but trying to see them each individually and meet them where they are.”
In addition, Alba revealed that she and her oldest child have reinvigorated their relationship thanks to therapy.
“Like my 13-year-old, I’m struggling with not treating her like a little [kid] — I want to treat them all like babies. I want to baby them. Still my tendency is to parent them as if they are little,” Alba admitted.
“I started going to therapy with her, I think, when she was 11,” Alba added. “For me it was really out of, I felt like my relationship really suffered with my parents because they didn’t know how to communicate with me and how I needed to be parented. So I didn’t want that breakdown with Honor so we went to therapy together.”
