Will Smith recently admitted it was a bad idea to adopt a “radical honesty” parenting style when raising his son Jaden, 26, and daughter Willow, 24, as it did not yield the expected results.

Per Complex, the rapper and actor expressed his regrets during an appearance on Heart Breakfast with Jamie and Amanda. Smith, 56, shares Jaden and Willow with Jada Pinkett Smith.

“We made a very, very, very terrible mistake with our children and we went with radical honesty. But don’t do it, I’m not advocating for it, I’m not advocating for it,” the Bad Boys: Ride or Die advised. “We made a deal from really young with our kids. The deal was if you tell the truth, you won’t get in trouble.”

Smith said using that parenting style on Jaden and Willow, however, went south. “The only way you can get in trouble in this house is if we find out you did something and you don’t tell the truth,” he said.

“It’s a mistake, it’s terrible. Because they do whatever they want and then just come tell you. It’s awful don’t try it. You want your kids to lie definitely, you don’t want to know some of the stuff your kids are thinking of doing.”

Besides Jaden and Willow, Smith shares a son, Trey, 32, with his ex-wife Sheree Zampino. Though Smith has a healthy relationship with his three children, that wasn’t the same for him.

In his Will memoir, Smith opened up about his complex relationship with his father and a moment in his life where he contemplated killing him because of a traumatic childhood experience, Face2Face Africa previously reported.

In the excerpts that were shared by PEOPLE, the Gettin’ Jiggy Wit It rapper recalled how a domestic violence incident involving his father and mother crucially impacted his life and made him vindictive towards his namesake, William Carroll Smith Sr.

“When I was nine years old, I watched my father punch my mother in the side of the head so hard that she collapsed. I saw her spit blood. That moment in that bedroom, probably more than any other moment in my life, has defined who I am,” he wrote.

The Fresh Prince of Bel Air star said that act of violence he witnessed had a significant influence on his personal life and career. He also added that he carried some guilt along the way.

“Within everything that I have done since then — the awards and accolades, the spotlights and attention, the characters and the laughs — there has been a subtle string of apologies to my mother for my inaction that day. For failing her in the moment. For failing to stand up to my father. For being a coward,” he wrote.

He added: “What you have come to understand as ‘Will Smith,’ the alien-annihilating MC, the bigger-than-life movie star, is largely a construction – a carefully crafted and honed character – designed to protect myself. To hide myself from the world. To hide the coward.”

The King Richard actor’s parents divorced in 2000, but they went their separate ways when he was a teenager. And though Smith and his father remained close, he said the memory of that violent incident still remained in his head. And the thought of seeking revenge against his father came again several years later while he was caring for him after he was diagnosed with cancer.

“One night, as I delicately wheeled him from his bedroom toward the bathroom, a darkness arose within me. The path between the two rooms goes past the top of the stairs. As a child I’d always told myself that I would one day avenge my mother. That when I was big enough, when I was strong enough, when I was no longer a coward, I would slay him.”

He continued: “I paused at the top of the stairs. I could shove him down, and easily get away with it. As the decades of pain, anger, and resentment coursed then receded, I shook my head and proceeded to wheel Daddio to the bathroom.”

Smith’s father passed away in 2016. But despite his violent nature, Smith explained his father was a family man.

“My father was violent, but he was also at every game, play, and recital. He was an alcoholic, but he was sober at every premiere of every one of my movies,” he wrote. “He listened to every record. He visited every studio. The same intense perfectionism that terrorized his family put food on the table every night of my life.”