“Not what they see, not what they hear, but the absolute best of themselves.” “We wanted to remind children that they are the best of themselves,” Simon explains. It also inspired the couple to sit down, with a sticky pad from the junk drawer (“Don’t judge: everyone has one,” jokes Simon.) and start to plan out what would ultimately become Repeat After Me. Working through those emotions was “heartbreaking,” they say, but necessary. That’s not how you feel,’” Simon recalls. “Her dad was like, ‘I’m fine is not a feeling. At the time, Kennedy was 15, and when they asked how she was feeling she replied brightly, “I’m fine.” It was traumatizing, and the couple wondered what was going through the minds of children, especially children of color, who were witnessing that. That murder was played over and over on the news and online. And then, in June, George Floyd was murdered, reigniting heated conversation about policing and race that America has never satisfactorily addressed. The Hills weathered the early months of Covid with the same sense of bleakness and fear as many of us. It’s easy to imagine this sense of thoughtfulness and levity helped buoy them (and was certainly tested) during the pandemic. Simon, Hill, and their children Levi, 4, and Kennedy, 18. And now you have a peek inside of our marriage. “Because I’m talking about a book where a kid turns things into chocolate and he’s talking about a motivational book. “And that’s why we’re together,” Simon says with a laugh. For Hill it’s The Little Engine That Could. For Simon, it’s The Chocolate Touch - a wacky and whimsical middle grade story. And because their latest collaboration is a children’s book, I ask them their favorite books from childhood. Throughout our conversation, the Hills have a kind of cooperative energy, owing, perhaps, to the fact that they met at work, on the set of Ballers, and haven’t stopped working together since. But the book came from a moment of tragedy, and a desire for entire communities, not just their children, to see the best in themselves. “I wanted to start her day on a good foot.” This daily practice, which the couple continued with their 4-year-old, Levi, is part of what inspired their new children’s book, Repeat After Me: Big Things To Say Every Day. ![]() “I read many, many years ago that when you say affirmations in first person, that your brain rewires itself to believe exactly what you’re saying,” Simon tells Romper. From the time Jazmyn Simon and Dulé Hill’s adult daughter Kennedy was 3 years old - back when Simon was raising her as a single mom, before Hill adopted Kennedy as a tween - mother and daughter would recite daily affirmations on the way to school.
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