Ryan Reynolds reveals the parenting advice he follows but wouldn’t give other parents

Ryan Reynolds has lifted the lid on a rather controversial parenting practice he recently instilled in his home, and recommends that no one follow in his footsteps.

The Canadian actor shares his four youngsters - daughters, James, nine, Inez, seven, and Betty, four, as well as a fourth baby born in February 2023 - with Gossip Girl wife Blake Lively, whom he married back in 2012.

Ryan shares his four kids with wife Blake Lively. (Eric Charbonneau/Getty Images)

The Hollywood couple are far from strangers when it comes to opening up on the ups and downs of family life, especially when it comes to the complexities that come with living in the public eye.

In the last few months alone, fans of the big-name power couple have learned that Blake, 36, implemented a pretty strict schedule-managing rule that baby-daddy Ryan, 47, had to follow when they first started dating, and last week, the couple revealed what it's like to see their other-half lock lips with someone else when they're acting in a movie.

This week, however, Ryan has turned his attention to his parenting blunders, revealing in conversation with the New York Times that he made a pretty controversial move recently, by allowing his nine-year-old to watch an R rated movie (which in the UK roughly translates as a 15).

In the actor's defence, the blockbuster that his eldest child James sank her teeth into was his own film, the recently-released Deadpool & Wolverine, in which he stars as the titular character alongside Hugh Jackman as the X-Men icon.

The actor stars in the new Deadpool movie alongside Hugh Jackman. (Karwai Tang/WireImage)

Anyone that's already seen the first two Deadpool movies will know exactly why the franchise has the mature age rating that it does, due to how much explicit sex, stomach-wrenching violence and heinous swearing features in it.

So how could Ryan allow his daughter to sit through such horror?

"Well, I’m not saying that other people should do this, but my 9-year-old watched the movie with me and my mom, who’s in her late 70s, and it was just was one of the best moments of this whole experience for me," he told the publication.

"Both of them were laughing their guts out, were feeling the emotion where I most desperately hoped people would be."

Reflecting on his own experience as a youngster, he continued: "When I saw rated-R movies when I was a kid, they left a huge impression on me because I didn’t feel like people were pulling punches, and it’s been a huge inspiration to so many of the things that I look to make now."