Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith Used This Parenting Technique That Inspired Jaden and Willow To Be Unusually Close

The Smith family is a famously tight-knit bunch. Not only do Will, Jada, Jaden, and Willow frequently collaborate on artistic ventures, they’re also just a close family, despite whatever ups and downs they may go through. Jaden (22) and Willow (19) get along particularly well for siblings. According to Willow, that was their parents’ doing.

Jaden and Willow Smith say their parents are their ‘biggest inspirations’

When Jaden and Willow spoke to Interview Magazine, they were asked who their biggest inspirations were. Both Smith children said their parents.

Growing up, what stuck out to Willow was how many people sought her parents’ advice.

“All I saw was my parents trying to be the best people they could be, and people coming to them for wisdom, coming to them for guidance, and them not putting themselves on a pedestal, but literally being face-to-face with these people and saying, ‘I’m no better than you, but the fact that you’re coming to me to reach some sort of enlightenment or to shine a light on something, that makes me feel love and gratitude for you,'” she said. “They always give back what people give to them. And sometimes they keep giving and giving and giving.”

According to Willow, her parents have given her the best possible gift they could ever give her.

“What my parents have given to me is not anything that has to do with money or success or anything that society says people should be focusing on—it’s something spiritual that only certain people can grasp and accept. And that’s how I act and move in the world today,” she said.

Jaden also says his “parents are definitely [his] biggest role models.”

He goes on to say that he and his sister want to “change the world,” and they look to their parents for inspiration.

“It all comes from a concept of affecting the world in a positive way and leaving it better than it was than when we came,” he said. “I feel like that enters into all types of different areas because there are so many different outlets that life has to offer for us. That goes into technology, into music. That goes into science, into spirituality, into education.”

Why Jaden and Willow Smith are so close

It’s clear that Jaden and Willow are very close. The interviewer asked them if they’d always been that way.

“Yeah,” responded Willow. “It’s crazy, the sibling dynamic. I could’ve spent my entire childhood like, ‘I have to love this person.’ And it becomes a chore.”

Willow says their parents never forced them to be close. That way, they developed their own relationship on their terms.

“Our parents were never like, ‘You have to love them.’ It was more like, ‘You have your life. He has his life. And when you guys want to come together, when you guys want to commune, that’s up to you,'” she said. “And throughout us realizing ourselves and realizing each other, we just opened our eyes and were like, ‘Damn, you are the yin to my yang.’ Not a lot of siblings have that opportunity, because they’re always being pushed together so much. They need their time apart in order to realize themselves and realize who they are.”