Dax Shepard and Kristen Bell’s 7 Parenting Rules to Borrow

Actress Kristen Bell and Dax Shepard are raising 2 daughters, Delta and Lincoln. Interviewers like to ask Bell questions about her parenting experience and raising kids, and she loves answering them. From useful kid safety tips to ways to show kids how to be compassionate, there are a bunch of parenting lessons that Dax Shepard’s wife can teach other moms and dads, and we’d love to share them.

Bell teaches her children to apologize and sets an example.

Kristen Bell and her husband, Dax Shepard, have come up with a nice hack on how to teach kids to apologize. Whenever they have an argument or a fight, they make up in front of their daughters and say, “I’m sorry.” Some parents may be afraid of appearing vulnerable in front of their kids, but Bell is sure that’s not something to be afraid of. “I let them witness apologies a lot,” said the actress. “Don’t be scared of apologies!” In this article, we gathered some tips on how to teach your child to apologize properly.

She models the behavior she wants to see in her kids.

“I’ve been modeling the behavior I want to see, which means I have to do it too — and that can be annoying!” said the actress. Bell confessed that asking her kids to read books and never reading herself just doesn’t work. Whenever she wants her daughters to do anything, she becomes their role model and does it herself. They have a strict rule of not lying to their kids about certain things.

Bell and her husband “swap” kids.

In her interviews, Bell often calls the parenting tactic she and Shepard use a “tag team.” The actress confessed that she and her husband are often “switching” kids whenever one of them feels overwhelmed and needs a short break from parenting. “You don’t want to be reactive to your kids. You want to be thoughtful, and you want to be setting a good example,” said Bell. While one parent is recharging their batteries, another one is taking care of the kids, and this is how it works.

She has normalized enjoying some time on her own every day.

Bell’s daughters know that their mom needs to spend some time on her own every day to enjoy a beauty routine or just to answer some e-mails. The actress also said that she encourages her daughters to experiment with beauty on their own. The girls have makeup pallets in their rooms and sometimes they use mommy’s beauty products as well. “Some days they come downstairs with bright red lipstick and eye shadow all over their face and I say, ’Cool, that’s what you wanted to do to your body today,’” the actress shared.

She talks about safety in a language that her kids understand.

A couple of years ago, Bell shared a photo showing her daughters’ hands placed on her car gas cap. Whenever she has to unload the car trunk with her kids around, she says, “Hands on the circle!” to make sure her kids put their hands on the gas cap and, by doing so, stay safe from the oncoming traffic. Isn’t that genius?

There’s another trick Bell uses to talk about safety with her daughters: they use fairytales as a reference. For example, when Bell read her little girls Snow White, she asked them whether Snow White was right when she accepted the apple from a stranger and ate it, and whether her girls would do the same. You can find other methods of ensuring your child’s safety in this article.

Bell teaches her daughters to be kind and compassionate.

Bell is sure that it’s a good idea to remind ourselves from time to time that we are all going through the same problems and we need each other’s support. She teaches her daughters that every person is, first of all, part of someone’s family, and they deserve love and respect just like every one of us. “Why are you different? I think it’s important to remind ourselves that we are all the same and everyone is doing the best they can with what they have,” said Bell.

She encourages other moms to be confident with what they’re doing.

“If you’re confident with what you’re doing, even if it’s some weird, bizarre parenting technique that you know works for your kid or you feel happy about, do it!” said Bell. She also shared that her 5-year-old baby still wears diapers and that she usually waits for her kids to stink before giving them a bath.

The actress is sure that being kind and patient with yourself is crucial. Your partner’s help is also very important. When kids are acting out, and the situation is getting out of control, one parent can just leave the room to take a short break while the other parent takes over.