Savannah Guthrie shared a very relatable parenting issue during Tuesday's edition of Today. The host, who has two children with her husband Michael Feldman, revealed that her seven-year-old son, Charley, refuses to wear pants in the cold weather and will only wear shorts.
Savannah and her co-host Hoda Kotb were joined by co-stars Carson Daly, Craig Melvin, and family psychologist Dr Jennifer Hartstein for a debate about whether parents should force their children to dress warmly for winter when they refuse to wear a coat or would rather wear shorts than longer pants.
Sharing her personal experience and clever solution to the problem, Savannah said: "We are living this at home. My seven-year-old would only wear shorts and I finally just hid the shorts.
"I just took them and put them away and now he has no choice," she added.
Giving her advice, Jennifer said: "I think you have to pick your battles with anything. Hiding them is great and [so is] seasonal transfer - putting spring and summer stuff away when winter stuff comes down. But do you need to have the battle every morning? Or do you come up with an agreement? If it's a certain temperature you can wear the shorts. Is this the hill you need to die on?"
© NBCWhen asked if kids are really putting themselves in any danger by going out without a coat, Jennifer responded: "They're not. Whereas we used to be outside for a long period of time, they're not outside that much.
"You want them to be safe. A little time in the cold is not going to make them sick," she added.
As well as Charley, Savannah shares a nine-year-old daughter named Vale with her husband Michael, who works as a public relations and communications director. The family live in a townhouse in New York City, and also own a vacation home in New York State.
Savannah, who has been married to Michael since 2014, has previously spoken about her parenting approach and the importance of setting boundaries.
"I've never subscribed to that old-fashioned notion of 'Wait until your father gets home'," she told Today.com last year.
"You're not parenting if your kid hasn't called you mean — that's how you know you're doing it right. I don't like hearing it, but you have to have boundaries, you have to have those limits, and your kids won't like them. So sometimes you have to let them think that you're mean," she continued, adding that her children make their beds every morning. "I always tell them, 'I'm not judging on perfection, I'm judging on effort,'" she said.
Savannah welcomed her first child, Vale, in 2014 at the age of 42, before going on to welcome her son in 2016. She's previously called Charley a "medical miracle" after undergoing several rounds of IVF before falling pregnant.
© Savannah Guthrie on InstagramOpening up about her pregnancy struggles back in 2019, she said: "Because we are older, it was important to me for her [Vale] to have a sibling, somebody to do life with," she told Health magazine.
© Photo: Getty Images"My husband and I, we decided, 'OK, let’s give it a shot,' you know? But it ended up taking more than one attempt. It took a few," said Savannah.
"But we were lucky. I always say, Charley was, like, the last egg out. He really was. And we're so blessed."
