Smith says 'hands off' parenting 'may have gone too far'

Of course, he was joking - but many a true word is spoken in jest!

In an interview with A.Dot on BBC Radio 1Xtra yesterday, the Hollywood star was asked if he afforded his kids - Jaden and Willow - "a lot of freedom of expression." Smith was quick to respond in the affirmative, laughing "Yeah, I think it may have been a mistake. I think we may have gone too far."

A.Dot wasn't about to let it go there, then saying: "How do you respond then, for example, if you encourage them to have freedom of expression and then people will start making jokes about say Jaden modeling women's clothes. How do you - as a dad - handle that?"

With style... Will responded: "There's a really powerful internal quality as an artist that as parents we encourage. You gotta get out on the edge, you have to try things, you have to be comfortable doing things that people don't agree with, and you have to be comfortable doing things that you could fail. And Jaden is 100% fearless, he will do anything... So as a parent it's scary, it's really terrifying - but he is completely willing to live and die by his own artistic decisions and he just doesn't concern himself with what people think."

Will and Jada must be doing something right... Thing is, nurturing artistic expression is one thing; how do you then tell them to be home by a certain time? Will sighed: "You're hitting on a really difficult issue in our house."

If you want more parenting tips, or find out something about his new film Concussion, or how he wants to Idris Elba to play Bond before him, here's A.Dot's interview in full.