By Jessica Wedemeyer
2:33pm PDT, Sep 16, 2017
Jenna Dewan Tatum and hubby Channing Tatum may be at the top of the list of the world's most beautiful people, but much like Derek Zoolander, they've realized that there's more to life than being really, really ridiculously good-looking. That's why even though their 4-year-old daughter, Everly, is a total cutie, they're working hard to make sure she values other qualities in herself. The dancer-actress dished on how she's shaping her little girl into a "self-assured person" at such an early age during a recent chat with Wonderwall.com at Young Living Essential Oils' Scents of Self experience in New York City. Keep reading to see what else she told us about the times she hasn't been a great wife or mother, dealing with new aches and pains from dancing and more!
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Jenna Dewan Tatum on using adjectives other than "beautiful" with her 4-year-old daughter:
"In our day and age, with how important social media is to young kids and how much that's changing them and how they feel, everything is a little bit different. I think a lot about the best way to handle that. The best way possible is to enforce [your children's] own sense of individuality and confidence in themselves. So I allow [my daughter] to be free and to be herself. I allow her to express herself. I let her pick out her own clothes. One day she wanted to wear her hair in 15 ponytails — I'm not kidding. I said, 'OK, let's do it!' I want to have boundaries with her, but I also want her to feel very confident about who she is because I think that will really transform into her being a very self-assured person in life. I think as women, we have so much going on and we have so much going for us — but also against us — that you have to really find that self-assurance very early on. I'm very conscious about using adjectives other than just 'beautiful' with her. I tell her she's smart; she's funny. I tell her she's very adaptable. I say, 'Evie, you did so great going with the flow!' I try to help her find other things. I could sit there all day and look at her and go, 'You're so beautiful!' She is, and I do tell her that. But I think it's important to encourage other personality traits as well."
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Jenna Dewan Tatum on maintaining the balance between killing-it days and hot-mess days:
"I absolutely struggle. There are certain days where I'm like, 'Yes, I'm balancing everything well and I'm doing really good!' And I feel like I'm giving myself and my daughter and my life time, and it all feels good. There are certain days where you're just kind of a hot mess, and you do the best you can. You just try to balance it out a little bit, and hopefully your hot-mess days are less than your killing-it days."
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Jenna Dewan Tatum on the times when she hasn't been a great wife or mother:
"The biggest thing I've learned is to put myself first sometimes — to make my own self-care a priority. That was a huge lesson for me. That's something you have to learn. You don't normally do that as woman. We give away too much energy. As a dancer and as an actress, you learn and train to give so much away when you're in performances that you don't nurture yourself. At some point, everyone burns the candle at both ends. I did that a few too many times, and then I was no good to anybody. I wasn't a good wife. I definitely was not a good mother. I was exhausted. So I've learned to do things to boost myself and to prepare for that so I can go through my busy life and feel better."
Jenna Dewan Tatum on her favorite method of self-care:
"If I had my way and had one hour to do anything, I would make myself one of my concoction baths where I use an obscene amount of sea salt — about half of one of those big Epsom salt packages — and then I put different oils in depending on what I'm feeling and what I'm in the mood for. … If I could just sit there for an hour and not let anyone talk to me or bug me, that would be my perfect way to have me-time."
Jenna Dewan Tatum on how Young Living Essential Oils have helped her:
"I only wish I had known and used these oils back when I was a teenager and dancing — they would've helped me so much. You do hours and hours of athletic training and dancing and your body's really tired and you're really sore. … I did a performance on 'So You Think You Can Dance' with Travis Wall, and I hadn't danced in a while. But I pretended that I had danced in a while and was so sore the next day. I felt like I had been hit by a truck. My sister-in-law sent me the Young Living Essential Oils Deep Relief Roll-on oil. I had Channing rubbing that all over my back and my wrists for days, and it really helped. I went from being barely able to move to actually feeling like a normal person two days later."
Jenna Dewan Tatum on Young Living Essential Oils' Scents of Self experience in New York City:
"You feel the difference. You go from room to room and you really feel how your mood transforms and changes with each room that you go in [and its scent]. … I liked the peppermint room, which is about letting go and surrendering. It's the 'invigorating' room. It very much spoke to my tree-hugger, hippie self."
