Eva Mendes may be a Hollywood star, but when it comes to parenting, she battles the same issues as many others.
The 49-year-old has been holding down the fort at home with her two daughters, Esmeralda, eight, and Amada, seven, while their dad, Ryan Gosling, has been touring the world to promote the upcoming Barbie movie.
While Ryan has been gone, Eva has sought professional help to be able to communicate better with her daughters now they are getting older.
Taking to Instagram, the mom-of-two praised the advice she received from teacher and author, Katie Plunkett, better known online as The Calm Classroom, which is "dedicated to creating clear and actionable self-care and social-emotional learning tools" to help parents and their children "learn and practice wellness strategies in the classroom and beyond".
Eva uploaded three gorgeous side-profile photos of herself before posting examples of more precise ways to communicate with her kids. Sharing some of the questions she has learned to ask, Eva shared several slides, the first one of which read: "Stop asking your kids how their day was. This works better…"
The second slide read: "If you really want insight into your child's mind and life at school, try asking a S.O.C.K. question. What's that? S.O.C.K. questions are specific, open-ended, creative, kid-friendly."
The actress then posted multiple variations of questions, including what to ask if you want to know about your child's feelings, with examples being: "What is something that made you smile today? If you could invent a new feeling, what would it be called? How would you describe it? If your mood were a type of weather, what would it be?"
Another example of how to ask about your child's relationships included the questions: "If you could choose your seat partner, who would it be? Why? Who is someone at school that makes you feel safe? Who is someone you played with today?"
© InstagramEva appeared to have been successful quizzing her daughters with S.O.C.K. questions as she captioned the post: "Gracias @thecalmclassroom for these superrr helpful tips. They work!"
Her followers were also grateful for the tips as many expressed their thanks in the comment section, with one responding: "Good post. Good words." A second said: "So true!!! Thank you so much for this reminder! You are so right and sweet."
© Photo: Getty ImagesEva's post comes after Ryan revealed that he only envisioned himself becoming a father if he had children with her following their meeting on The Place Beyond the Pines in 2011.
"It's true that I wasn't thinking about kids before I met her, but after I met Eva, I realized that I just didn't want to have kids without her," he told GQ.
© Moviestore/REX/Shutterstock"And there were moments on The Place Beyond the Pines where we were pretending to be a family, and I didn't really want it to be pretend anymore. I realized that this would be a life I would be really lucky to have."
He added: "I would never want to go back, you know? I'm glad I didn't have control over my destiny in that way, because it was so much better than I ever had dreamed for myself."
