People say being a parent is the most difficult job in the world, but people usually try to be the best possible parents to their children. While some people believe in the old-fashioned, traditional parenting methods, there are also those who have their own ways of raising their children that other people would probably classify as pretty unconventional. Of course, there are some celebrities with their own unusual parenting methods and today, we are going to take a look at some interesting parenting trends that those celebs have adopted.

So what is truly the best way to raise one’s child? The problem with that question is that there is no one correct answer and people usually find what works for them the best somewhere along the way of raising their children. However, numerous psychologists have spent years and years trying to find the best possible approach to parenting, and they have also come to a number of different conclusions. Ultimately, it is up to every parent to decide what the best way to raise their children is and sometimes, they get pretty creative with that. So let’s take a look at 15 pretty unconventional parenting rules that Madonna and other Hollywood moms follow!

Madonna’s Old School

If we were trying to give a name to Madonna’s parenting style, we would probably call her an old-school disciplinarian. She has a great number of rules her kids have always had to follow, some more unusual than the others. For example, they must follow the same macrobiotic diet as she does, which means absolutely no sweets, salt, dairy products, and no preservatives. They aren’t allowed to watch TV or read newspapers. If they leave some of their clothes on the floor, they never see them again, if they get sloppy and don’t do their laundry, the kids wear the same outfits to school until they’ve learned their lesson. The only bedtime story allowed in their household was David the English Rose– the book Madonna wrote herself and Guy Ritchie used to read it to the kids before going to bed.

Mayim Bialik

Mayim Bialik is a firm believer in the attachment parenting and she even published a book about it called Beyond The Sling: A Real-Life Guide To Raising Confident, Loving Children The Attachment Parenting Way. Some of the unusual rules she follows are long-term breastfeeding, having her children sleeping in the bed with her, home-schooling them, and basically being around them as much as possible. Even since they were just babies, her children had to be in a close physical proximity to her at all times so she carried them in the sling for as long as they could fit into one. They also never went through the process of sleep training, nor did they wear diapers. And while some people aren’t really supportive of this kind of parenting style, Bialik believes this is truly the best way to go to raise happy and healthy children.

Alicia Silverstone

When Alicia Silverstone’s parenting book, The Kind Mama, was published, it drew a lot of attention from the parenting community because some of her parenting advice was quite unconventional. She believes that babies shouldn’t wear diapers because they are much more content without them.She also thinks that not sleeping in same bed as your children is a form of neglecting them. Silverstone is also firmly against the vaccines because she thinks the negative effects outweigh the positive ones. However, the most unconventional of her parenting methods is definitely the way she feeds her children, as she was spotted pre-chewing their food and feeding them directly from her mouth like birds do. Also, before she started giving their children solid (pre-chewed) food, she used to breastfeed them way longer than other mothers usually do because she believes breastmilk has actual superpowers.

Jada Pinkett Smith

Jada Pinkett Smith’s parenting style can be described as pretty laid-back, as it appears that the only rule there is in their household is that there are no concrete rules. For starters, she believes that punishing your kids for whatever they did or didn’t do is simply wrong. In her mind, her kids are responsible for their own lives so she lets them choose their punishment themselves. She also doesn’t agree with the parents who have their children doing all kinds of chores. Sentences like, “Go clean your room,” don’t exist in the Smith household simply because Jada and Will want to treat their kids like the adults and they would never send an adult to clean their room. And while some other Hollywood moms are all about the attachment parenting, Jada believes that the exact opposite is the way to go and she teaches their kids independence from a very early age.

Celine Dion

Celine Dion tries to respect her children’s decisions as much as possible and she always gives them the freedom to choose what they want and what they don’t want to do. For example, he let her son, Rene Charles, decide when he wants to cut his hair, and when he decided he didn’t want to cut it at all, that was completely fine with his mom. Eventually, she had to take him for a haircut when the school ordered it, but he didn’t get his hair cut before the age of 8. Also, when her husband died, she took a very nice and unique approach to explaining to the children what happened to their father and she tried to turn the whole thing into a celebration of life to help her kids get through that hard time.

Gisele Bündchen

Gisele Bündchen took the parenting very seriously and she started planning and preparing for it from the moment she found out she was expecting a baby. She decided to give birth at home, and after that, she became a true baby-wearer. She also practiced the diaperless potty-training, called the elimination communication, where she held her son over a toilet after she fed him. And speaking of feeding, she believes breastfeeding is the only way to go and she even voiced her beliefs that it should be mandatory because that is what is the best for the children, as well as for their connection with the mother. She tries to spend all of her free time with her son to continue developing a strong mother-son connection, but she does have a nanny that is there for him when she has work to do.

Alanis Morissette

Alanis Morissette and her husband are very child-led attachment parents and she believes that this kind of parenting is what helps the child fend off all kinds of addictions later in life. One of the unusual trends she follows is breastfeeding the child way past the age than most moms do and, as a result, she was breastfeeding her son for over 6 years. According to her, her parenting methods are providing her son with a deep sense of connectedness and bonding. She also tries to have as much skin-on-skin contact with her child as possible and she always keeps him in her close proximity. To make that possible, she chose to home-school him instead of sending him off to school every day. And while there are people who don’t agree with her parenting style, she doesn’t seem to have a problem with that at all and she defends it as much as necessary.

Gwyneth Paltrow

Gwyneth Paltrow is known to be a big fan of healthy living and eating only the healthiest of foods so, of course, her children have a pretty specific diet they have to follow. She was macrobiotic for a couple of years, but she eased off of that and now, she and her kids follow their own kind of draconian diet. Another interesting rule she has in her house is that the kids can watch television only if it is not in their native English. She allows them to watch the shows in Spanish and French and she buys them cartoons and other shows whenever she travels to Europe in order to always have a stash of the interesting shows in foreign languages at their home. It appears that Apple and Moses will be quite the polyglots.

Lisa Whelchel

Lisa Whelchel is another celebrity mom who decided to share her parenting methods with the rest of the world by writing a parenting book called Creative Correction. She used her own experiences and ideas that she believes are the best possible approach to discipline and while some of her punishment methods are pretty conventional, there are those that are quite unusual. For example, if her kids talk back to her, offend anybody, say inappropriate words or things etc., she literally punishes their mouth by dripping a few drops of hot sauce on their tongue. The same punishment goes for lying and biting as well. According to her, the fact that it stings helps them memorize the punishment and it prevents them from doing the same bad thing again in the future.

Angelina Jolie

Every parent has told a lie to their kids at some point; from the story about Santa Claus to little, every-day things that most people consider inappropriate discussing with their kids. However, Angelia Jolie doesn’t believe that anything good can come out of telling lies to her kids (no matter how small and insignificant they are) so she always tells them everything like it is. However, she tries to present the truth to them in a way that is age-appropriate, but the kids are allowed to ask all the questions they have and they will always get a straight answer from their mom. She also believes that the kids should be allowed to make their own decisions about their looks, clothes, haircuts, etc. and she never forces them to wear stuff that other people would consider appropriate if they don’t want to.

Pamela Anderson

While most parents are doing everything they can to keep their kids away from alcohol and drugs, Pamela Anderson has decided to take a different approach and she never forbids her sons from doing anything. Actually, it's quite the opposite; she believes that the more you forbid something, the bigger the chance the kids will actually do it, so she openly encouraged her two boys to experiment with drugs in moderation, to drink alcohol if they want, and to have the girls over whenever they wanted. She believed that by buying them condoms and letting them spend the nights with their girlfriends at their place, there was a better chance they will practice it safely and without any unnecessary risks. One must admit that this is probably one of the most modern approaches we’ve seen lately.

Leah Remini

Leah Remini was labeled a pushover-mom because she let her kids do basically whatever they wanted whenever they wanted. She didn’t get her daughter, Sofia, off the bottle until she was over 4 years old and she often got up 6 or more times a night to feed her. All her daughter had to do was cry a bit and she would get exactly what she wanted. Leah has admitted that her daughter used to run her house however she wanted. Another issue was the potty-training since Leah’s daughter used the diapers much longer than other kids normally do, resulting in Leah changing her diapers constantly, which was pretty exhausting for her. Part of the reason why things were like that in Leah’s household is the fact that both Leah and her husband were Scientologists and one of the principles they followed was to treat the child like a little adult without forcing anything.

Bethenny Frankel

Bethenny Frankel has definitely had one of the most interesting approaches to breastfeeding out of all Hollywood moms. Apparently, she believed that drinking beer would help her produce more milk so she used to. Today, she admits that she was wrong and that it was one of her nannies who told her that drinking booze is a great way to stimulate the breast milk. However, Bethenny is way more careful with her daughter’s diet nowadays than she was while her daughter was just a baby. Apparently, she is raising her a vegetarian and buys only high-quality produce and food. And while she, obviously, always had her daughter best interests in mind, today she regrets not informing herself better about the beer-drinking during the pregnancy. After all, you probably shouldn’t always believe everything you hear…

Kelly Preston

Kelly Preston and her husband John Travolta are both Scientologists and one of the practices that they believe is very important for a child is the so-called silent birth. The Church of Scientology advises that the room be completely silent while the baby is being born so not only there is no screaming allowed, but the people in the room should avoid speaking by all means. For that reason, when Kelly Preston gave birth to her son Benjamin, nobody was allowed to talk because, according to her, it could cause unnecessary stress to the child that should come into this world as peacefully as possible. However, that is not the only unconventional rule that Scientologists follow when it comes to raising their children. The kids are treated as the adults from the very beginning and they are often separated from their parents in order to develop the necessary independence.

Penelope Cruz

Penelope Cruz is one of the Hollywood’s moms that have decided to engage in the RIE parenting— a parenting method developed in Hungary in the 1940's. Basically, the main difference between this parenting method and most of the others is that you should treat your child like an adult. That means no baby talk, no baby walkers, no sippy cups, no strollers, no high-chairs, etc. RIE parents believe that by using all of that baby stuff, you disrespect your child’s feelings because you don’t treat them as your equals. This method also doesn’t believe in praise; instead, it lets the child understand things by themselves. The whole focus is on respecting the baby’s experience, raising their self-confidence, and stepping back to give the kid a better chance to develop at the most comfortable pace.