Matthew McConaughey, 56, says parents should allow children to take small, manageable risks.
On Tuesday’s episode of the “Build or Break” podcast, McConaughey talked about the value of letting kids take such low-stakes risks — a lesson shaped by his own experience growing up.
“Look, kids aren’t afraid of heights until they fall,” McConaughey told podcast host Daniel Lubetzky. “Every parent knows this.”
McConaughey compared it to watching a child climb up a tree.
“You let your kid go out on a limb, right? Maybe it’s six feet off the ground, but there’s beautiful St. Augustine grass below, and you’re like, well, if they fall, they’re not going to have to go to the hospital,” he said.
Putting the “proverbial safety mat” under them at that stage could make children more wary of risks they might otherwise handle, and take away the confidence that comes from getting back up after a minor fall, he said.
“You’ve already taken away a beauty of ignorance, which is something that I know has gotten me through a lot of pickles in my life, because I was ignorant at the time to know how dire the actual situation was,” McConaughey said.
“I pulled it off because I didn’t give the crisis the credit it even deserved at the time. And that’s part of youth,” he said.
However, once a child is high enough that a fall could be fatal, McConaughey said that is when a parent should quietly guide them back down.
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McConaughey said he learned some of that outlook from his mother, Kay McConaughey, whom he called “the queen of denial.”
He said she had a habit of refusing to give setbacks too much “credit,” instead treating them as things to move past rather than crises to dwell on.
“Denial in that way is, sort of, part of the resilience that it takes to get to the time in your life where you do realize that, oh, that failure — which it was — was actually a gift,” he said.
This isn’t the first time McConaughey has shared insights on raising his three children. He previously shared a conversation starter he uses to get his teenagers to open up, which involves asking broad questions rather than pressing for details about their individual lives.
“Now they’re talking in the third person, but they’re talking about themselves and their own experience,” McConaughey said.
His mother, Kay McConaughey, has also talked about the old-school parenting approach she says helped her raise her three sons: setting clear boundaries and sticking to them.
“They had until 18 in my house, and we had a rule — you listen to me and you do what I say,” his mother said. “After you turn 18, you are out of here and can do what you please.”