Gisele Bündchen Addresses How She Handles 'Pushback' From Her Kids

Like any other parent, Gisele Bündchen admits she gets pushback from her children, but stands her ground as a mom and continues to teach them life lessons.

The supermodel shares two kids with former NFL player Tom Brady -- Benjamin, 14, and Vivian, 11. Bündchen and Brady got divorced in 2022, but they share co-parenting duties and seemingly remain on good terms for their kids.

When the children are spending time with their mom, Bündchen says she is teaching them all kinds of lessons, including jiujitsu for self-defense.

The supermodel uses analogies to help her kids learn and prepare for life ahead, such as comparing the way they make their bed to the way they go about life.

"The way you make your room, the way you organize and make your bed is the way you're going to do your life," Bündchen told Harper's Bazaar, "If you're not learning here and now, then when and with who?"

"The way I believed in courage and honesty and all the things I found to be important in my value system and have been guiding me in my life," she said, adding, "They were never organized, and now they have a container."

Of course, like any other parent, Bündchen's kids sometimes pushback, especially now that they live in different homes with different parenting skills as she and her ex, Tom Brady, navigate co-parenting.

"Sometimes, I get pushback, especially because now they’re in two different homes and there are two different ways," she explained. "But I feel like I owe it to my kids, because of what my mom taught me."

"You are where you come from," Bündchen continued to explain parenting and growing up. "All those things that I learned as a kid are things that are in me. It doesn’t change. In many ways, it's also what kept me safe, because my value system was so strong."

Adding, "Today, being in the place where I am in my life and having access to all the different things I’ve had access to, I feel like the simple things are best because I keep trying to go back to those things. At the end of the day, those are the things that make me the happiest."

The supermodel fell in love with jiujitsu and has since enrolled her kids in training classes so that they can learn the importance of self-defense.

"Here I think, 'Oh, I'm going to just learn self-defense because I want to make sure my kids can protect themselves when they're out in the world,' but then I learned with the brothers the philosophy and the lifestyle, the whole value system, which was amazing," she explained of the jiujitsu training.

In 2022, around the same time Brady and Bündchen were going through tough times, reports surfaced that the Brazilian fashion model spent one-on-one time with her ju-jitsu instructor, however, it was never confirmed that the two were intimately involved.

Bündchen says she does daily meditation, weight training, and Pilates in addition to jiujitsu to help her stay in shape and keep herself grounded.