Gather around Jazmyn Simon's dinner table and prepare to speak your truth.
As the actress and her actor husband, Dulé Hill, raise 17-year-old daughter Kennedy and 3-year-old son Levi, both parents are trying to build a space where expressing feelings is not only welcomed but encouraged.
"I ask Kennedy, ‘How was school today?' and I don't want to hear, ‘Fine,'" Jazmyn said in an exclusive interview with E! News. "I want to hear the best part and the worst part and she'll tell me. There's no subject that is off limits."
"Even with Levi, a lot of little boys are taught you have to toughen up," Jazmyn continued. "We do not teach him that. We tell him you have all the feelings and you are allowed to feel every single one of them...There is nothing that my children can tell me that would ever shut the door on loving them."
But with open communication comes honest revelations. Jazmyn was shocked when her daughter was riding in the backseat of her car at the age of 3 and out of the blue, she told her mom, "I want to be pretty. I need my skin to be white."
Completely "flabbergasted" by the comment, Jazmyn said she wasn't sure what to say. But with some quick thinking, she shared a message about perfection that has inspired her new children's book, Most Perfect You.
"What I said to her was, ‘Well, Kennedy, when you were in my belly, I had a conversation with God. And I told God that I wanted you to have my favorite color. When you came out, I saw you and thought you were my favorite color. And actually, every single thing about you,'" Jazmyn recalled. "She sat in the backseat and said ‘Okay.' She never brought it up again...I think she owned the fact that someone thought that she was perfect."
Most Perfect You is described by publishers as a moving love letter to children struggling to accept themselves inside and out. The picture book aims to emphasize the unique beauty and strength of all children just as they are.
According to Jazmyn, who cited recent high-profile teen suicides, too many children are suffering today. As a result, she says it's time to reinforce messages of kindness and loving oneself.
"It's okay to cry. It's okay to feel bad. Tell me what's making you cry because what we need to do is raise a generation of children that love themselves and are kind to themselves," she said. "In the book, there's a page that says, ‘Despite all the physical attributes, I wanted you to have a big heart and to be kind to others and to be kind to yourself'….I hope in one small incremental way, that this book will help somebody to be kind to themselves."
Another wish Jazmyn has for her readers is that they stop comparing themselves to others. The Ballers star admits she can find herself envious of other actors' new gigs. She knows kids scroll similarly through social media platforms and see their peers' best moments. It's a cycle that could have consequences if you don't have the right mindset.
"The comparison doesn't stop," she said. "This book is a reminder that you too are perfect. Everybody is perfect. And we need to really reclaim what the word perfect means."
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Most Perfect You Book
Actress and activist Jazmyn Simon's tender picture book emphasizes the unique beauty and strength of all children, encouraging them to love their most perfect selves. "It really is an ode to self love and parenthood or anyone who watches children," the author told E! News. "It's an ode to loving yourself and not comparing yourself to other people."