It's been four years since Channing Tatum and Jenna Dewan went their separate ways, and now, he's opening up about how their split affected his relationship with his daughter, Everly. In fact, Channing admitted that he was "pretty nervous" to become a single dad when this part of his life first began.
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He never thought he'd be a single dad.
As Channing said while appearing on Today with Hoda and Jenna, he had a lot of learning to do.
"I didn’t plan to be a single dad, that was not in the cards [or] in my planning at the least. And I was pretty nervous," he said, according to People. "I was like, 'She’s a girl.' I was like looking up YouTube on how to braid her hair. I didn’t want to be the dad who was bringing her to school looking like she had just slept on the street."
He admitted he doesn't know what kind of parent he is.
"I’m just trying to get by. I think like every other parent, you’re just trying not to mess your kids up. But you know you’re going to," he said.
Channing's daughter is now 10 years old, but before she was born, he thought that he would "get her in more trouble than I kept her out of." Instead, he's found that rules and boundaries are what work for them both.
He set 'house rules' for Everly.
"And weirdly, kids, even though they don’t want boundaries, they do want boundaries. Her anxiety goes down, her stress level goes down when she just understands the rules. And they’re not even your rules, we call them the house rules," he told the news program, adding that the rules are things like "you gotta always take your plate to the sink, you gotta pick up your clothes, you gotta brush your teeth — just really normal, simple stuff."
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His relationship with Everly has inspired him to write children's books.
Channing released his first book, The One & Only Sparkella, about a little girl who has trouble fitting in at school, in 2021, and it has since become a series.
"This series of books kind of came from that. It was me really figuring out how to talk to a little girl," he said.
It seems like he's figured out his single dad routine.
Although he's been open about the fact that walking this unexpected path after his divorce hasn't always been easy, it appears he and Everly are doing just fine.
Being a single parent is certainly a challenge, but Channing seems to have the hang of it!
