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As much as you don't like disciplining your kids, you have to sometimes. Kids want that structure, that leadership, that guidance. I think that's what I try to give my children.

Structure is something that calms our nature; we know this of toddlers.

Our children are counting on us to provide two things: consistency and structure. Children need parents who say what they mean, mean what they say, and do what they say they are going to do.

One of the problems we have is children are not in school long enough in the day and during the year.

Children need continuity as they grow and learn.

As any parent knows, part of your mind is always engaged - wondering and worrying that everything is okay and calculating all the stuff that has to get done in the course of a day. When the children are asleep in their beds, I can go where I really need to go in my head.

As a child, I had always wanted to know what lay at the end of a corridor or behind a door in a picture, so I did a floorplan and elevations of Angelina's house and learned my way around it. The idea was that children should start to feel at home in it.

It's difficult to keep that perspective, I think, as a parent: to know your boundaries as to what's good parenting or just projecting your own expectations on your kids. That's the hardest.

The most important thing with children is to give them your time. Actually, that's all that matters.

Kids have been let down by adults - we've tried to give them too much, we've tried not to impose discipline. We've tried to make their lives easier and, in doing so, we've taken something away from them. Kids like boundaries, they also like to be pushed, need to learn what failure is all about, need guidance.