Celebrity Parents Raising Teens Have Some Advice — Relatable Stories

Raising teenagers is not for the faint of heart. Your babies are no longer babies — but they aren’t quite adults either. This is a wild time of chaos and growth and laughter and tears, and so much mess. Teens still have so much to learn before they fly the nest, but they can also test your patience if you try to teach them, well … anything.

Celebrity parents have been there, and many of them have unique perspectives on raising humans from 13-18 years old (and stories of the struggle that’ll have every parent of a teenager nodding their head). From sharing an honest look at taking teenagers to therapy to teaching your kids to be bold and stand up for themselves, our favorite A-listers have tons of relatable quotes — and inspiring and genuinely helpful advice — for parents of teens.

Dwyane Wade, for example, has never been shy about his love for his kids, including his daughter Zaya, 16, who is transgender. “Unconditional love, simply put, is love without strings attached. It’s love you offer freely,” he wrote in December 2020. “You don’t base it on what someone does for you in return. You simply love them and want nothing more than their happiness. This type of love [is] sometimes called compassionate or agape love.”

Kate Hudson, who is mom to three kids ranging from 19 to 5, often opens up about the bittersweet reality of her eldest son Ryder growing up. “And then he was 18,” she wrote on his birthday in January 2022. “My heart is filled with love and excitement for your future. Ryder you incredible, unique, hilarious, loving human, I love you beyond.” But in her signature style, Hudson also turned to humor to help her cope: “PS Now your life is your responsibility and outta my hands! Good luck son!!!”

If you’re going through it with your own teenager right now, rest assured: you’re not alone. Scroll on to see what these celebrities have had to say about raising teens, for better or worse.

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Jennie Garth

Jennie Garth and her ex-husband Peter Facinelli share three daughters together named Luca Bella, born in 1997, Lola Ray, born in 2002, and Fiona, born in 2006. In a previous interview with People, Garth talked about how being a mother to three grown daughters is “not for the faint of heart.” She said, “But as they get to be teenagers, especially young women and young adults, it’s a whole different ball game. It’s like ‘Psychological Parenting 101,’ and it’s definitely not for the faint of heart.”

Jennifer Lopez

Four of the five kids Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck share in their blended family are teens, so Lopez is really in the trenches.

“The teenage years are tough,” she said during a May 2023 appearance on Live With Kelly and Mark. “They start challenging you and everything. You have this baby for a while and then it’s like your best little friend who loves being with you all the time, and all of a sudden they’re like, ‘Get out of my room.’”

She also lamented how quickly the time goes, as every parent of a teen can attest. “It’s crazy, I feel like I had them yesterday. They were just babies a little while ago,” she continued. “It’s the time when they are individuating and they are challenging everything you say and everything you do and everything you are. And that’s what it is. And you have to kind of just ride the waves. I feel like it’s like surfing. I’m just riding the waves — whoops, just got knocked over. Now, I’m back! I’m back!”

Will Smith & Jada Pinkett Smith

He may have had a breakthrough hit called “Parents Just Don’t Understand,” but Will Smith is undoubtedly a little more sympathetic to the parents’ plight these days.

In a 2020 interview with Ellen DeGeneres, Smith talked about his teens. “Jaden is 17, Willow is 15, and my oldest son Trey is 23. So like 23 is good but like teenagers should be an affliction,” he quipped. “You know when people come up to you like, ‘Hey Will how you doing?’ ‘Man I got teenagers. Simplex 2, man, simplex 2.’ It takes everything you have to raise teenagers.”

Tina Fey

During an appearance on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, Tina Fey used her signature wit to convey exactly what it’s like to be the mom of a teen.

“Having a teenage daughter is like having an office crush,” she joked. “… You’re thinking about them a lot more than they’re thinking about you, and you just, like, go up to their door and you’re like, ‘A bunch of us are gonna eat dinner … well, you’re probably busy.'”

Marcia Gay Harden

Marcia Gay Harden explained her parenting style to PEOPLE Now in 2019, sharing “I’m not a super restrictive parent. I want [my teenagers] to be free to make their own mistakes, but I do want to guide the mistakes a little bit.”

Rob Lowe

Father of two Rob Lowe got candid about the hardest part of raising teens in a 2022 interview with E! News.

“For me, the hardest part was 15, 16, 17, 18 — teenagers, not a big shocker. They’ve got to figure out their relationship with drugs and alcohol — and just being on top of it, not living in a dream state. Your kids are out there and they’re partying. Get real. And every parent is like, ‘My kids aren’t, but their friends are.’ Have your eyes open, be realistic, and know that that’s part of it. Your job is literally to keep them alive and to not do something stupid while they hopefully figure out how to navigate that part of their lives. Don’t be afraid to step in.”

Lowe also maintained a firm stance on keeping tabs on his kids. “Personal privacy does not exist in my house until you’re paying the bills,” he said. “I need to know what’s going on. Knock on wood, it worked for us.”

Julianne Moore

In 2015, Julianne Moore had two teens, and weighed in on their transition into adolescence in an interview with Town & Country magazine.

“Liv is 13, so she’s very much at the beginning of her adolescent stuff,” Moore told the outlet. “She’s just her own person. What’s amazing is how quickly that happens.” And she outlined the very relatable struggle of getting her kids to hang out with her: “It’s hard, as you know, to get teenagers to do anything with you.”

Jessica Alba

Jessica Alba has opened up about taking her daughters to therapy in the July/August 2022 issue of Glamour. “I went with both of them. And around puberty is when it’s the time I think, for me, with my girls,” the actress shared.

“That’s when they started to sort of shut down and get really like, ‘I don’t want to talk any more.’ And I’m like, ‘We’re not doing this. We’ve got to keep a line of communication here. How can I be a better parent to you? How do you want me to talk to you? Don’t shut me out.’”

“And I’m going to make mistakes,” Alba continued. “Here’s a safe space, you can’t get in trouble. Let me know what I’m doing wrong, or what you would like me to do differently.”

Dwyane Wade & Gabrielle Union

Dwyane Wade isn’t shy about addressing the unknown when it comes to parenting his teenagers. “I do the same thing I would do in basketball,” the former NBA player told Today in November 2021. “I’m gonna get help, I’m gonna go work on me. So if I don’t know something in this life, especially when it comes from my children, then it’s my job to go and learn these things.”

For her part, Union explained to PEOPLE in May 2022 what she teaches her kids about true beauty. “You can be a ‘stunner’ or ‘classically beautiful person’ but if your soul is rotten, you are not very beautiful at all,” she said. “We try to stress character, compassion, love, acceptance, and joy. That hopefully radiates from the inside out.”

Courteney Cox

When you’re a mom of teens, sometimes you have to beg for quality time. Courteney Cox, who shares daughter Coco, 18, with ex David Arquette, shared that there is a lot of “negotiating” with teens.

“When you have a teenager you barely get to see them. So much negotiating,” she wrote on Instagram on March 7, 2020. “Coco traded me one song if I let her go to a party. I took it.”

Mayim Bialik

Mayim Bialik was asked about her two sons in an interview with Your Teen magazine, and her answer was as relatable as they come.

“From the second I open my eyes, they say I am doing something wrong!” she said. “They say I sing too loud, walk funny, park weird, shop strange — you name it, and I can’t do it right by them!”

Reese Witherspoon

Reese Witherspoon wants her kids Ava, 24, Deacon, 20, and Tennessee, 11, to treat others with respect and be cognizant of the media they consume.

In an interview with Glamour in 2015, she said, “Look, you do the best you can. But it’s hard. When I find things egregiously misrepresentative of women, I’ll make a point to say to my son, ‘Turn that off. I don’t want to see women behave that way. And I don’t want to see men treat those women that way.’”

Witherspoon continued, “You hope you’re saying the right things — but also, as a kid becomes a teenager, you feel like there’s a ticking clock for you to tell them everything they need to know.”

Rosario Dawson

In a 2019 interview with InStyle, Rosario Dawson opened up about wanting her then-15-year-old daughter Lola to learn the importance of being present.

“My daughter still doesn’t have a cell phone,” Dawson said. “She’s on her computer at school all day, but she’s not on social media just yet. I’m hoping to just stay in the three-dimensional world as much as possible before we all just kind of plug in. It will be really interesting when she does.” The Rent star elaborated, “I think we’ve had all different kinds of dangers to navigate as we’ve gotten older, and this one [for this generation] is profound. … People think they’re communicating all the time through technology, but the most important thing is to create that space and time off of it and just really take each other in as humans.”

Dawson also talked about the dance parties she had with her daughter, and Lola’s classic teenage move: “She does give me that side eye when I don’t do a particular dance exactly the way it’s supposed to be done.”

Jennifer Garner

Like all moms, Jennifer Garner struggles with seeing her teen daughter grow up. “The heartbreak is just that she’s growing up at all,” Garner said in a March 2022 appearance on SiriusXM’s The Jess Cagle Show. “That’s what’s heartbreaking. It’s heartbreaking for the mom and for the teenager, needing to have that kind of severing of this baby-mama tie. That’s what’s so hard.”

During a November 2022 interview with Parents, the actress shared how important it is to teach her kids kindness. “I think the most powerful thing to do is to live it, and live it rippling out from your home, whether that’s a next door neighbor or someone at church, taking them a meal and taking your kids along as you do it,” she said. “For something bigger, like really being involved in an organization, let your kids see it matter to you. That’s the way to teach them.”

Michelle Obama

In a March 2021 interview with Dwyane Wade’s daughter Zaya, Michelle Obama said, “I feel like it does take time to know what your self is, for young people, so my first piece of advice is, be patient with yourself, number one.”

The former First Lady continued, “At your age, or in the teenage years and probably through your twenties, you’re going to be experimenting with so many versions of yourself. All young people are trying on different versions, different voices. They’re learning more about their intellect, they’re learning about what they love, what they’re good at what they like. This is the period of exploration.”

Angelina Jolie

“When your children are little you feel more ‘mommy,’” Angelina Jolie told HELLO! in September 2019. “When they are teenagers you start to remember yourself as a teenager. You see them going to punk clubs and you wonder why you can’t go. I’m in this fun moment where I’m rediscovering myself.”

But one thing that doesn’t change? The importance of teaching her kids kindness. “It’s important to be humble — know the freedoms you have and what you’ve been blessed with and make sure you help others,” she shared of her philosophy, continuing, “And always remember your place — we’re all human and very flawed. We’re tiny pieces in a much bigger world.”

Jolie concluded, “As they grow up, I find my children are strong individuals but still open-minded. I try to lead by example and be kind and gracious, as my mother was — and loving and tolerant.”

Kate Hudson

In 2022, Kate Hudson shared that her then-18-year-old son Ryder is now “all about himself,” according to an interview with Today. The actress added, “I also think it’s a good thing for teenagers to do.”

Hudson continued, “He’s finding himself and he’s really — Ryder, I couldn’t be more proud. And I’m such a lucky mom. He’s such a good person and hilarious, and I really look forward to his future. I’m excited for him. It’s wild. It’s hitting me now. Like it hits me once a week, I just start crying. ‘Cause it’s like, oh my gosh, in a couple months, that’s it. He can do whatever he wants, really.”

Gwyneth Paltrow

In a September 2019 interview with TODAY, Gwyneth Paltrow kept it real when it came to her teens. “It’s the best, they’re really coming into themselves, they’re hilarious, they’re smart, they can talk, they can muse about things. It’s the greatest,” she said, hilariously adding, “Yeah, they can be kind of dicks once in a while.”

Katherine Heigl

In a previous interview with Parents, Katherine Heigl talked about how she sets strict boundaries on social media for her teens, saying her eldest has “been sneaking my iPad and creating TikTok videos without my permission,” she said. “I know she thinks I’m being a tyrant, but I worry about the effect of social media on kids her age. I watched The Social Dilemma. So I’m like, ‘Go ahead and hate me. I’m trying to save you!’ ”

Jodie Sweetin

In a previous interview with Parents, Jodie Sweetin talked about raising her unique teen daughters, and how great it is that they’re finding themselves.

“Zoie is more of an athlete, a risk-taker, and out there while Bea is more of a performer,” she said. “They have their own social lives and interests. They’ve found their own groove and have their own lives. I mean, it does make the mornings a little bit more hectic, but thank G-d for the school bus.”

Jennifer Hudson

Jennifer Hudson said in an interview with Real Simple that she’s teaching her teen son priorities.

“Well, I’m blessed — he’s a good kid,” she said. “As all my boys know, you got to know how to act and behave. The more responsible you show to be, then the more you’re allowed to do. For little David, my biggest thing is getting his priorities in order. Knowing education comes first, clean your room, and help take care of home. Learn how to help out and contribute. Those are things that he is learning.”

Poorna Jagannathan

Poorna Jagannathan previously told SheKnows for the Aug 2023 digital issue that all parents need to know this; your teen will lie.

“I always thought I lied to my parents because they were strict so you’d have to lie to them to do anything,” she says. “But actually, teenagers are programmed to lie, regardless of what parent type you are, your kid’s just gonna lie.”

Nicole Ari Parker

And Just Like That’s Nicole Ari Parker previously told SheKnows she reminds her kids daily how valued and loved they are with Post-it notes.

“On the phone case, on the pillow, in the bathroom,” she says. “[The kids are] on the phone, they’re on social media, they’re getting a lot of information … and I still want to be present in their consciousness that they’re loved, and they’re safe, and they’re doing a good job, and they’re valued.”

Ellen Pompeo

Ellen Pompeo talked about how she tried to be seen as a “cool mom” by her teen daughter, for faking being on the PR list for Rhode Beauty, but she found out.

“She thought I was on the PR list and I just got it sent to me,” Pompeo revealed to Instagram. “That would make me a cool mom.” The entertainment multi-hyphenate continued, “But when she found out that I just went online and ordered it like everybody else, my stock dropped, yo. It dropped.”

Gisele Bundchen

Gisele Bundchen talked about how motherhood changes when your kids grow up, and to remember this important thing when raising teens.

“The most important thing [is] you have to make time to have conversations, because, I think, you know, they are changing — like every day is a whole new world.” The supermodel continued, “And it’s so important to kind of talk, it’s a huge thing,” she said on the The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon.