Prince Harry shared some of his parenting strategies when raising his children and how he handles their “outbursts” during a live streamed conversation about personal healing with author Dr Gabor Maté. Prince Harry spoke about his four-year-old son, Archie, and one-year-old daughter, Lilibet.
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When one event guest asked for advice on how to raise children to be “kind, emphatic, and humble humans”, Prince Harry said that it is important for children to feel “love” and be given the opportunity to “be themselves”, adding that children should be given “rules” to follow.
“If they have a moment of frustration, allow them to have that, and then talk to them about it afterwards. When they start and you say, ‘Do not do that,’ that’s not helping,” Prince Harry explained saying that his take on other people having moments of frustration is that “more of us as adults should be encouraged to have these outbursts, even if it’s into your pillow.”
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Expressing his anger into a pillow is “a practice [he] would love to be able to get into” and that “kids having those outbursts is part of growing up”, he added.
“If you ever have a disagreement or you realise the energy is off between the two of you…If you have the ability to be able to, take it to a different room,” Prince Harry continued noting that he and Meghan Markle don’t like the “idea of having [their arguments] in front of the kids”. Prince Harry also said that he “assumed that [his] parents,” the late Princess Diana and King Charles III “had a lot of those in front of [him],” which “may be where” his perspective on disagreements comes from.
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“It leaves me in the position now, as a father of two kids of my own, to make sure that I smother them with love and affection. Not smother them to the point where they’re trying to get away and I’m like, ‘No, come here I need to hug you,” Prince Harry said.
“I, as a father, feel a huge responsibility that I don’t pass on any traumas, or any I guess negative experiences, that I’ve had as a kid or as a man growing up, and that’s work. That’s putting in the work and that’s daily being cautious of my behaviour and my reactions to both of my kids,” he added.
