52128392 Proud parents Sarah Jessica Parker and Matthew Broderick enjoy a day of fun at Tibidabo Amusement Park in Barcelona, Spain with their daughters Tabith & Marion on July 20, 2016. Missing from the family outing was their oldest child, James. **NO LATIN AMERICA/NO SPAIN/NO PORTUGAL** FameFlynet, Inc - Beverly Hills, CA, USA - +1 (310) 505-9876 RESTRICTIONS APPLY: SEE CAPTION FOR RESTRICTIONS

Sex and the City star Sarah Jessica Parker opened up to PEOPLE about her new HBO series Divorce, her past relationship with Robert Downey Jr., and family life with husband Matthew Broderick and their three children: son James Wilkie, 13, and 7-year-old twin daughters Tabitha and Loretta.

On what she learned during her 7-year relationship with Robert Downey Jr.: “It taught me how I love. And what’s the difference between loving and taking care of people and what’s necessary, and what grown-ups should and shouldn’t do for one another. Maybe it taught me a little bit about being a parent too, because the things that I ended up caring about, and the way I cared for Downey, were things that might be more suitable for a parent at a certain point.”

On parenting: “In a way, I think I’m asking myself those same questions now — I have an almost-14-year-old, so what I should and shouldn’t do for James Wilkie is a question. Like, at what point do I let him lose something? When do I say, ‘You gotta lose it in order to understand how to even cope? How are you going to develop your coping mechanisms if I’m fixing?’ When does a parent let go? When do you let go in a relationship? So I think I learned a lot about it. You don’t know you’re learning about it when you’re in it — you’re just in the day-to-day, caring about someone and loving them, and hopefully keeping them safe.”

On more lessons from Downey: “I also learned how to balance a checkbook because I had to, and I think those are pretty big things to be learning.”

For more from SJP, click on this video.