Jessica Alba Reveals She Struggled Parenting Daughter Honor; Now They Go to Family Therapy

One of the best things you can do as a parent is take responsibility for the times you got it wrong. Jessica Alba recently opened up about going to therapy with her daughter Honor to improve their relationship. She has no shame about it, explaining that it was more of a preventative measure. As Honor approached her tween years, there was a lot of friction in their relationship, and Jessica realized the best way to work through it was with the help of a professional.

She made the decision to attend therapy with her daughter when Honor was a tween.

Jessica is featured in the Jan/Feb issue of Real Simple talking about her experience going to therapy with Honor before she hit her teen years.

"Honor was probably 11, and we were arguing all the time about dumb stuff. And I was like, 'I don’t want to live like this. This is not fun,'" she explained.

Jessica wanted to create a better mother/daughter relationship.

"I didn’t want us to have a wedge between us. As her mother, when I say something, she’s going to hear it as an argument or as me trying to control her. I wanted there to be someone who could explain things in a way I couldn't," she shared.

Talk to moms about mom stuff. And make money doing it.

She used therapy to take stock of who she was as a parent.

Jessica kept a very open perspective on therapy and how it was going to change their relationship as mother and daughter. "What I said to Honor was, 'I want to be a better parent to you, and this is your forum to basically talk about everything that gets on your nerves that I do,'" she said.

"It put me in check. Like, 'Yeah, I totally do that. And I’m sorry. I’m going to work on that.' It gave her a little bit of perspective too — that I’m not the bad guy; I’m just being a parent," she shared.

Jessica admits she's 'not perfect.'

"She'll come out the other side of it, and I’ll still be here. I just wanted to get to that point, and it worked," Jessica said via the magazine. "And the therapist allowed me to see that it's natural for kids to disagree with their parents and as a parent, it's not always about being right or rational in that moment."

She admitted, "I'm not gonna front, it's a process and I'm not perfect."

She thinks more people should have access to therapy.

There is no doubt that Jessica is an advocate for the benefits of therapy.

"Therapy gets you talking about what’s going on with you and unearths the things that aren’t feeling the best or might be confusing, or things that make you happy. And just unpacking it allows you to process it, and then you can repeat good behavior and find the behaviors you want to redirect," she explained.

jessica alba celebrity moms