Ryan Reynolds knows how to keep it light and compassionate as a dad while also adding balance and strictness when necessary, influenced by his difficult relationship with his own father.
The Canadian-American actor and entrepreneur, 47, opened up during a panel at HubSpot's INBOUND tech conference in Boston last week about working on conflict and balance as a father.
"I took a workshop on conflict resolution, and that changed my entire life," he shared onstage. "I just didn't know how to process things that I felt."
"Because I [had a] scarcity mindset when I was younger. I didn't know how to unfold that thing in your brain that conditions you just always to win or be right."
He explained, though, that the "scarcity mindset" was not something his four kids have ever had to deal with. Ryan and wife Blake Lively, 37, share daughters James, nine, Inez, seven, and Betty, four, plus son Olin, one.
"I have 4 kids and so far, none of them seem to have that [scarcity mindset], partly because they were born on 'Easy Street,'" he joked, speaking further on the art of conflict resolution.
"Something I love about [conflict resolution], and I know this is not very fancy, but what I love about it is that you can meet somebody where they are, and you don't have to be right or wrong. You can disagree and still connect."
He connected his parenting style to conflicts, adding: "Parents today are so different. We're so soft. I don't yell. I grew up with like — it was nuts, it was an improvised militia."
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"Now it's like, I can go look at all my resources for parenting and remind myself how to be perfectly compassionate," Ryan shared.
In a previous conversation with People, the Deadpool & Wolverine star spoke candidly about his complicated dynamic with his father James Reynolds after he'd been diagnosed with Parkinson's disease. The older Reynolds passed away in 2015 at the age of 74.
"It really destabilized my relationship with him because I didn't really know what was happening," and realized later that it was due to the hallucinations and delusions his father experienced years into the diagnosis.
Ryan continued, however, that he'd learned to examine those feelings more closely and understand where his father was coming from as he grew older. "I look back at it, and I think of it more as that was my unwillingness at the time to meet him where he was. I could have maybe been there with him toward the end, and I wasn't. He and I just drifted apart, and that's something I'll live with forever."
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"The healing for me really comes more through my relationship with my own kids, while taking some of the things from my father that are of immense value," he continued.
"[Now] I get to fill in those little gaps that maybe hurt me. I get to show up. When my kid is acting out or telling me I'm the worst — my dad would retreat into the power of silence, and that is not the way to acknowledge your kid."