Watch: Hoda Kotb Shares Daughter Hope’s Type 1 Diabetes Diagnosis
Hoda Kotb is making space to process her feelings.
The Today alum shared how her motherhood journey with kids Haley, 9, and Hope, 7, has evolved ever since adopting an unconventional method recommended by her therapist on how to navigate emotionally-charged situations.
“He said, ‘This week, everything that goes wrong is your fault and say that to yourself,'” Kotb recounted on the Sept. 23 episode of her Making Space podcast, explaining that the approach was to ensure that she was “not coming in hot.”
And the 62-year-old soon found herself putting the technique to use when her oldest left home without telling the babysitter.
“One of my daughters leaves on her bike and goes to the ice cream truck and just rides home by herself,” she continued. “The babysitter’s calling me, ‘I don’t know where she is.'”
Though Kotb—who co-parents her daughters with ex-fiancé Joel Schiffman—initially arrived home “mad” at Haley, she took a beat to regain her composure. As the mom of two put it, “Before I turn the knob, I go, ‘This was all my fault.'”
And rather than immediately confronting Haley, Kotb simply sent her child up to bed after dinner.
“I get upstairs afterwards and I go, ‘Honey, do you know why you’re up here early?’” she recalled asking Haley. “‘You rode your bike off.'”
Kotb said Haley went on to tearfully confide in her that she had ran off because she was missing a friend.
“When she stopped crying,” Kotb continued, “I said, ‘OK, I get it. I understand that you miss your friend and I know that’s hard. But we never ride away by ourselves again.'”
Hoda Kotb/Instagram
And by “lowering the temperature” of the situation at the start and giving time for both her and Haley to process their emotions, the former morning show host said she was able to discipline her child while also getting to “the nut of why she rode off.”
“No one was crying and screaming,” Kotb explained. “It reminded me to take the sting out of what I’m doing.”
For a closer look at Kotb’s life as a mom, read on.
Instagram/Hoda Kotb
Instagram/Hoda Kotb
Instagram/Hoda Kotb
Instagram/Hoda Kotb
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