Reese Witherspoon advocates for tough parenting: 'Let them sit in the discomfort'

Reese Witherspoon is choosing to be transparent about the trials and tribulations of parenting, admitting that she struggles with knowing when it's OK to subject and shield her children from failure.

"I see this a lot with parents – I don't know when we stopped letting our kids fail. Like I learned so much from the paper I didn't turn in or the demerits I got, so I got detention. I was suspended from school," she guffawed on the "Good Inside with Dr. Becky" podcast, "when I was in fifth grade for talking in class and being disruptive. And writing creative notes and passing them to my friends." 

"And my parents didn't say, ‘Uh, she didn't deserve that.' And take me out of school. They actually let me sit in it, and feel uncomfortable. So I think, learning from failure is actually a valuable tool that you can't take away from kids, right? You rob them if you don't let them sit in the discomfort of the experience." 

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Witherspoon, who shares daughter Ava, 24 and son Deacon, 19, with ex-husband Ryan Phillippe, as well as son Tennessee, 11 with ex-husband Jim Toth, admits to being a tough parent.

When Witherspoon's daughter was in the third grade, she came home from her last basketball game of the season, heartbroken she had not scored any baskets. Witherspoon remembers telling her daughter, "Yeah, I know. I know, that probably feels really bad," but then adding, "You know what also, maybe you're not good at basketball?"

"[Ava] was like ‘What? Can you tell me I’m not good at something?'" Witherspoon shared of her daughter's reaction. 

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"It's actually really important to learn what you're not good at," she says of being honest with her children.

"It was really hard for me as a parent," Witherspoon says, "Watching my kids go into a place like – this sounds so odd, but I'm sure you've heard this before – not controlling how they look and what they wear. ‘Cause I wanted to do that so badly. I was just like, ‘No, no, no. If you just wear this outfit, it’s cute… And then no one will judge you. And you'll just fit in.'"

"But I actually thought, ‘I am wronging them of learning those lessons?’ First of all, self-expression. Creativity. And, you know, who you are in the world in a group. How do you assimilate? How do you stand out? Which one are you? If I dressed you and told you how to be, like literally sometimes just telling kids what to wear can cripple them later in life," she admits.

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"I think the hard part too, as a parent is, age-appropriate failure. So we are supposed to intervene when… their little hands can't cut correctly. We're supposed to help them with motor skills, right? So intervening with certain things at [a] young age, is different," she added.

"The Morning Show" actress also shared that as a working mother, she had to learn to relinquish some of her control as a parent.

"The other thing I think moms get stuck in sometimes, maybe I'm generalizing, but I hope maybe this resonates, that we're the only one that knows the right thing to do for the kid."
 

"It get's a little – I had to learn to let go ‘cause I’m a working mom. I had to learn, I had to reframe my thinking, like ‘Oh no, they’re not going to be OK ‘cause I’m not there. I'm not the one putting on the soccer cleats and I'm not the one putting the bow in the hair and I'm not the one doing the video camera.' And I had to learn, and kind of re-frame it that, ‘Oh my kids are learning to be adaptable to other parenting styles. And other people who have authority who are older or younger or grew up in a different culture. Or they're actually learning to be a person who gets their needs met with different people and they're a person that learns to speak up and self-advocate. And that moms who think I'm the only one who can do everything…' and I'm guilty of it too, it can be harmful for kids."