How This TODAY Host Calms Her Kids’ Back-to-School Jitters
By Movieguide® Contributor
TODAY host Jenna Bush Hager has a few tricks up her sleeve for calming her kids’ first-day-of-school jitters.
Hager is mom to Mila, 11, Poppy, 9, and Henry or “Hal,” 5.
“Mila’s like, ‘How am I going to find 6th grade? I have to walk around, how am I going to find my class?’” Hager said on the TODAY show. “I was like, ‘I’m telling you, I walked in, my knees were shaking.’ And Hal was like, ‘You were?’ Because it’s OK to be nervous!”
She reaffirmed to them that it is “OK to be nervous” and shared her experience. She went to a small private school in her middle school years and then shifted to a public high school that had 1,000 kids in her freshman class.
Hager said she can sense when her kids feel fluttery, even when they don’t say it. When it came to Hal, she said, “I could feel it on him.”
“He looks miserable,” Jenna said about her son Hal in the photo, “but it’s going to be fine.
Her co-host Hoda Kotb confirmed that what Hager did is a good parenting technique.
“By the way, I think that’s one of the best parenting things that you do and I’ve noticed this a lot,” said Kotb. “Instead of, ‘It’s going to be fine!’ you always say, ‘I was scared, tell me why you’re [scared].’”
Last year, Movieguide® reported how Hager’s kids don’t have phones:
“I have a 10-year-old, she won’t be getting even a phone for a long time,” the TODAY host explained. “She knows that. But also, I want her to live in this world. I don’t want her just scrolling. I want her writing songs or reading.”
Hager frequently talks about parenting and who she hopes her kids—Mila, 10, Poppy, 8, and Hal, 4—will grow up to be.
“I spend almost all my time in parenting trying to raise kind kids,” she said during a TODAY WITH HODA & JENNA episode. “I don’t care about any of the other stuff. I don’t care about the…they are smart, great, but I don’t care that they are number one in their class or go to good schools. I just want them to be the type of kids that are kind.”
Hager’s middle kid, her daughter Poppy, just celebrated her ninth birthday on Aug. 13, while her youngest, Hal, just turned five on Aug. 2.
Hager shared a collage of photos with Poppy on her social media and said, “Happiest birthday to my sunshine girl: Poppy Louise! She’s hilarious and loving and completely original! Nine years with this beauty: and my world is more fun, more dazzling and definitely filled with more laughter! We love you!”
For Hal, she highlighted photos of him enjoying time outside.
She said, “Five years with this beautiful boy! I love you Hal Hager! Today and always! ❤️❤️❤️❤️”
