Katherine Heigl feels a lot of “anxiety” as a parent of two teenagers and just wants to be the best example she can be for them.
Katherine Heigl feels a lot of “anxiety” as a parent of two teenagers.
The 46-year-old actress has daughters Naleigh, 15, and Adalaide, 13, as well as eight-year-old Joshua with her husband Josh Kelley and doesn’t feel as “in control” as she once did with her eldest two.
She told PEOPLE: “It really increases your anxiety and your fear as a parent.
“You are not as in control as you were when they were little, where you had all the power of keeping them safe and guiding choices. They are their own little people now and they really have their own minds and they’re going through it. It’s a tumultuous time.
“Now that Adelaide’s 13, they’re both into makeup, they’re both into this TikTok dance and that TikTok dance.
“They’re spending more time together, but that can also go south.”
However, the former ‘Grey’s Anatomy’ actress does not get involved in the conflict between her two girls because she feels that they have to “work it out” themselves.
She said: “I do not try to interfere or navigate or referee. I walk out the room, I’m like, ‘They’ll work it out.’ And they always do. They’re very close, but they’re teenage girls. They’re going to fight.”
The ’27 Dresses’ star feels a particular “shame” whenever she loses her cool as a parent and had to say sorry to her children when she did it recently.
She said: “My most shameful moments as a parent are when I lose my temper. And I recently did and had to apologize.!
Most of all, Katherine just wants to be the “right mother” for her children so that she can set a good example for them when they themselves eventually become adults.
She added: “My prayer every night is that I am the right mother for each of my children and their individual needs so that when they get to be adults, they can go slay their own dragons.”
Katherine Heigl opens up about suffering from ‘anxiety’ as a parent of two teenagers
