Matthew McConaughey on His Mom Testing Wife Camila & His Parenting Style (Exclusive)

Matthew McConaughey is dishing on his new children’s book “Just Because” and his 11-year marriage to Camila Alves.

It turns out before Matthew and Camila said, “I do,” she had to get the approval of his tough Texas mom!

Matthew tells “Extra’s” Melvin Robert that his mom definitely “tested” Camila, calling it a “rite of passage” and an “initiation.”

“You don’t get in here easy,” he insisted. “You don’t get to hang out and date my son easy. My mom definitely tested her, but they love each other more for it.”

Now, Matthew and Camila have three kids and he has his first children's picture book out now.

Melvin commented, “You said this book, ‘Just Because,’ came to you at 2:30 in the morning… It was like a song, you said.”

Matthew explained, “It was a song. It was a rhythm in my head. Everyone knows, you get a song in your head and all of a sudden you start to think to that song and then you start to dream to that song… I started to dream to the rhythm.”

He then sang, “Just because you threw the dart, doesn’t mean that it is stuck. Just because you got skills, doesn’t mean there is no luck.”

So as a dad what is the greatest lesson that he is imparting on his kids?

“Responsibility breeds freedom,” he said. “You take care of your stuff, chores, you take care of yourself, you will have more freedoms in the future.”

As for how parenting has changed him, McConaughey said, “When you become a parent your peripheral vision becomes better… whereas before you're a parent, you can have tunnel vision. You can take one-trip tickets to anywhere you want to go. No more one-trip tickets when you become a parent. It’s round-trip tickets, because you know you have to get back and you’ve got dependents.

Matthew talked about meeting Kevin Bacon and telling him that becoming a dad was a dream come true. He also talked about his foundation on “Six Degrees with Kevin Bacon.” “I grew up watching him and I have run into him. We never worked together, but I was a fan of his back when I was a youngster… He’s a good dude.”

As for his parenting philosophy, Matthew told Melvin, “Try to put what they love and what they have an innate ability to do in front of them… Kids feel pressure more now. Feel like, ‘I gotta know what I’m gonna be.’ No, you don’t. Please don’t. Not yet. Now is the time to try a whole bunch of things out that will come. And I don’t want our kids to miss out being a kid.”

Matthew explained, “I know when I was younger, one of my regrets now is that I wanted to be older. Man, when I was 12, I wanted to be 15. When I was 15, I wanted to be 18 and I missed out on some teen years because I wanted to be older so quickly, so often.”

And although many fans have wanted Matthew to run for political office, he says they might have to wait.

“I don’t know. It’s an awesome category. A privileged category I’m quite honored with and I have a lot of reverence for… but I don’t know if that’s my most useful category, avenue. Maybe it will be. Right now, I’m enjoying being a dad. And being an artist… and an author.”