Katie Piper 'won't lay down the law with her kids as bad experiences are valid'
Katie Piper has insisted she won't "lay down the law" for her children and tell them exactly what they can or can't do on social media, because she believes "bad experiences" are "valid".
The campaigning TV presenter, 39, has daughters Belle, nine, and Penelope, five, with husband Richard Sutton, and she is well aware that life won't always be happy for her kids, but believes the negatives will help them to grow.
Asked whether she would stop her kids from interacting on social media, she said: "I'm a person that likes to live in the present tense, so I don't like to fret over the future when it hasn't yet arrived.
"We're so far off it, they're five and nine, so I don't want to lay down the law and be like, 'It's going to be this way, and there's no flexibility.'
Katie shares her daughters with husband Richard (katiepiper/Instagram)
Katie says Belle and Penelope will have their own bad experiences (katiepiper_/Instagram)"I think I would just navigate it with each individual child, because they're both different personalities, and try and support it and help them through it. But I wouldn't like to parent where, 'This is my experience and this is what we're doing.' I think they have to have their own experiences, and not all of them are going to be good.
Strictly to make TV history with first-ever celebrity wheelchair user in line-up
"Even bad experiences are valid and have their place in people's lives. You can't have the bad experiences for your child."
Speaking about social media, she added: "There's loads of stuff we can access in life that we can practice moderation with, like alcohol and lots of other things. So, it is about moderation and not being on social(media) always and not having any other ways to socialise, not seeing it as the Holy Grail.
"I think when you start blaming the platform and not looking at how you're engaging with it, I think that is trying to put the blame onto something else. You've got to be responsible for yourself."
The star's latest W documentary series, Katie Piper's Jailhouse Mums, sees her travel across America visiting prisons and jails with very different approaches to pregnancy and motherhood behind bars.
Katie - who has also volunteered at a women’s prison in the UK - admitted she found it to be a "sobering" experience, and she hopes people will become more "empathetic" towards those behind bars when tuning into the series.
She added to The Radio Times Podcast: "It's quite sobering. It's naive to go through life thinking, 'That would never be me, I would never make that choice, that won't happen to me,' because I hate the word 'choice'.
"A lot of those women never had any choices. They were born into things, and left with very little chance and hope and help.
"I think, hopefully, the lockdown made people more empathetic. Because suddenly, everything changed for people. People lost businesses, money, savings, mental health, and you can see how you can be hit with these things that will just come into your life and turn it upside down.
"This is my biggest hope for the series, that it humanises this part of the population and gives an insight into a world that you think you know about, but you don't, and helps people create a little bit more empathy and understanding about it.
"Even if you think you don't care about what happens in prisons or the prison population, a large percent of that population will need to come back to society, so it will affect you in the long run."
Loose Women star quips she'd like to join throuple with Una Healy and David Haye
Read more similar news:
Comments:
comments powered by Disqus
