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I've always felt this, from when I was growing up to now with my son Riley. We don't let them be little. I was not a normal kid, but I had a sense of innocence far longer than we let kids.

As I get older and I see all my friends starting to have children, I see them have different reactions to the material that was probably not of great interest to them when they were younger, because they're re-experiencing it through their kids.

When you get a group of kids together, especially boys, the psychology of those kids requires that they find a weak kid or a sensitive kid or a soft kid.

Once you have kids, you think like a parent. You get a lot more protective.

A lot of kids get disappointed. They expect me to be, like, 'Bwaah.' 'If I spend a minute with them, they end up saying, 'Wow, you're a nice, normal guy.' They hate it when they catch me out of my makeup.

I don't know if it's that my own childhood felt brief, or I grew up too fast, or I was pushing myself too much at a young age, but I do feel like I am clinging to a certain childlike quality in myself, as a result of a childhood that was sometimes complicated.

When a kid graduates from being the youngest in a family to being a big brother or sister, there's an amazing transformation. They have to make a big effort, and when they accept their new position in the family, everybody breathes a sigh of relief. All of a sudden they seem bigger, and they seem smarter, and they feel good about it, too.

Don't live vicariously through your kids or try to shape them into who you wanted to be, like the popular kid or an athlete. Children should be given the opportunity to be themselves.

Children who cling to parents or who don't want to leave home are stunted in their emotional, psychological growth.

When I was a child, I did always feel that people were hiding things, and that they weren't expressing their true feelings. When adults are too complicated, and cover their emotions with layers of well-intentioned subterfuge, the child isn't seeing reality clearly enough and gets upset.