During a recent vacation, Dax Shepard and Kristen Bell decided to let go of the reins a bit with the kids. Over the summer, Shepard, Bell, and their two daughters Lincoln, 11, and Delta, 9, went on a family trip to Denmark. Like some Americans traveling to Europe, there were some definite culture shocks, especially when it comes to safety and parenting.
“We try to travel with the kids every summer somewhere where we just say we’re going to pick a place on the globe and we’re not going to know the language, we’re not going to know the smells, we’re not going to know what the food is like,” Bell, 44, shared during an appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live!
“We’re just going to see how other people live and we’ll observe.”
This year, the family of four stopped in Denmark. While enjoying the “coolest” country, Bell realized that “going on vacation as a parent is not a vacation. You’re just watching your kids in a different city.”
“It’s worse than being at home,” Kimmel joked.
Very true!
However, she noticed that something was a bit different while there. She and Shepard found the best way to get some kid-free time.
“The hack is when we went to Copenhagen, we stayed at this hotel that was right at Tivoli Gardens, which is like a seven-acre theme park,” she said.
“The hotel opens up into the theme park and so we just were kind of like, ‘Are we going to free-range parenting and roll the die here?’ They woke up at, like, 6 every morning. They scanned their bracelets to go outside. [We] didn’t see them for seven hours. Just running around Copenhagen.”
When Kimmel, 56, asked if “that was OK,” Bell laughed and joked that everyone returned from the trip alive.
“It was heaven,” she said. “We just had coffee. We played Spades, and then around 3, we’d be like, ‘Anybody see them?’ And then one of them would run up and need a Band-Aid or whatever.”
“And they were allowed on the rides without an adult?” Kimmel asked. “That seems like most of the rides have a thing… well that’s here, maybe not over in Denmark.”
“No, it’s real loosey goosey over there,” Bell said.
This isn’t the first off-the-wall parenting call by Bell and Shepard. In 2023, Kristen Bell admitted that her kids sometimes drink non-alcoholic beer. She and Shepard appeared on Dax’s podcast Armchair Expert and discussed the matter (and the public response) in more depth — and they both doubled-down on their parenting choice.
“My kids have ordered non-alcoholic beers at restaurants before, which sounds insane if you don’t know,” she began, while telling Clarkson about the family’s recent trip to Disneyland, where the Frozen actress was named a Disney Legend.
Bell explained that her kids’ taste for non-alcoholic suds came from Shepard, who is a recovering addict who drinks alcohol-free beverages from time to time.
The duo have also been open about mental health, having more than one kid and sex with their kids.
