Monica Potter Talks to Craig Ferguson About Lying, Teaching Her Teenager to Drive (VIDEO)

Actress Monica Potter really doesn't appear old enough to have two teenage boys. But in fact, the 'Parenthood' star is 39 years old. (And she's looking good!) Her sons Danny and Liam are 19 and 15 years old, respectively. Which means that Monica was just a teenager herself when she had her first child.

On 'The Late Late Show' (weeknights, 12:37AM ET on CBS), Ms. Potter discusses the difficulties that resulted from teaching her oldest son to drive. One of the issues is that Danny Potter is a "big" guy, according to Monica. Danny is 6'3" and weighs about 250 pounds. By way of contrast, Monica is only 5'7" -- she's dwarfed in size by her own kid! Host Craig Ferguson points out the central problem here. "He's not a child; that's a dude," he says. Indeed.

However, Monica still wanted to keep her oldest son safe while he was learning to drive. But what is the best way to maintain control over an enormous teenager? The actress came up with a fairly basic solution: she just lied to him. So Monica and her husband made up a long list of driving rules that he had to obey -- then told Danny that the rules came from the insurance company, not from them. (One example of the rules: no touching the radio while in the car.)

And the whole "lying" plan totally worked. "He really bought it!" says Monica. But while she's explaining this whole scheme on national TV, Ms. Potter becomes aware of a slight flaw. "Well, now he doesn't [believe it], because he'll see this." Oh well. Monica can always come up with a different set of lies, once it's time to teach her younger son to drive.