Kristen Bell has opened up about the life lessons she’s teaching her two daughters, whom she shares with husband Dax Shepard.
The Frozen star recently revealed to Today how she’s raising her daughters Lincoln, nine, and Delta, seven, to embrace the "nice girl" label.
“I know there’s a lot of parenting books that say maybe don’t tell them they’re smart, congratulate the hard work – because words are kind of important to kids,” Bell explained. “But a kind girl, a nice girl is a label that I wanted them to own, and I want them to live the rest of their life as.”
The 42-year-old actor noted how she teaches her daughters to be kind when they get into arguments, and tells them that “you’re going to get nothing accomplished” by being mean to each other.
“When they’re fighting, I look at them, and I say, you’re going to get nothing accomplished,” Bell added. “So sometimes, one will be like, ‘I think I should have a dessert.’ And I’m like, ‘No,’ and the other one’s like, ‘I think she should have a dessert, too. We’re on a team.’ And I’m like, ‘Okay, then she’s gonna get a dessert.’”
While discussing her family’s team dynamic withToday, Bell explained that she and her husband wanted two children so their girls could form their own strong relationship.
“I want to really instill in them, ‘You are a team,’” she shared. “We made two of you so that there would be someone for you guys when we pass, so you guys are to be the strongest relationship you have on the planet, even if you disagree. You don’t have to agree on everything, but you do have to maintain the sense of unconditional love for each other.”
Hollywood’s favourite couple Kristen Bell and Dax Shepard began dating in 2007 and were engaged in 2010. The two tied the knot in 2013. The actors went on to welcome Lincoln in March 2013 and Delta in December 2014.
Ten years after their wedding, Bell said the secret to her decade-long marriage to Shepard was to “stay vulnerable,” per Entertainment Tonight.
“You’ve got to be vulnerable – we have to be vulnerable when we don’t want to be. That’s what works for us,” she said.
Although the couple are now parents of two, Bell and Shepard initially didn’t want a second child. During an appearance on the Endless Honeymoon podcast, Shepard revealed that he and his wife “did not want a second child” after welcoming their daughter Lincoln.
The couple ultimately came to the decision that Lincoln needed to have a “playmate” amidst their busy schedules, as well as a younger sibling so she could learn about the values of “compromising and sharing”.
“So I think for Kristen and I, we had two thoughts,” he said during the podcast. “One is we travel a lot. It’s not fair to bring this little human everywhere we go and deal with only adults. We owe it to her to give her a playmate that travels with us everywhere.”
Shepard also explained that because his children are “so privileged beyond belief,” Lincoln needed a younger sibling so she could learn about the values of “compromising and sharing”.
“It rattles both of us being from very modest backgrounds,” he continued. “So minimally, to make this spoiled b****, my firstborn, live in the same room with another person and have to share everything. Like I needed a force of compromise and sharing and discomfort, ‘cause I wasn’t gonna give it to her in the other ways.”
“We just thought it would be really helpful to make her a better person to have to deal with someone else,” he added.
Now that their daughters are growing older, the couple tries to be “really, really honest” with their children, including the time Bell’s attempt at speaking to their girls about magic mushrooms “backfired”.
While The Good Place star “had never really done any drugs,” she did want to try hallucinogenic mushrooms, which her husband got for her two years ago.
“We told our kids about it,” Bell recently said while appearing on Jimmy Kimmel Live! “Then I overheard my daughter talking to my mom, to grandma, going: ‘I’m actually really glad they share all this stuff with me. So anyway, mom had really wanted to try mushrooms.’”
“And I just walked by and I was like: ‘Uh-oh, uh-oh, uh-oh,’” she recalled. “For some reason I’m more worried about telling my mom that than telling my daughter.”
