EXCLUSIVE: Michael Phelps on raising 'four little homies' who can talk about their emotions

As a 23-time Olympic gold medalist, Michael Phelps has overcome a lot of chaos in his life. But how does he fare when the chaos is coming from inside his own house?

Together with his wife, Nicole Phelps, the athlete is preparing to welcome a fourth boy to their crew (consisting of sons Boomer, 7, Beckett, 5, and Maverick, 4) in February 2024. In an exclusive interview with TODAY.com, Phelps jokes that by next year he'll have "a relay team" or a "golf foursome." He cautions that they aren't planning to get to a "starting five."

Acknowledging that everyone in the family will have to adjust to the change, Phelps says that his 2024 resolution as a father is to be in the moment as much as possible.

"I feel like I'm the best me, the best version of myself, when I'm present and in the moment ... and now having four little homies running around, I want to be as present and as active as I can in their life," he says.

Finding presence

Over the years, Phelps has been extremely open about his mental health struggles, even sharing his lowest point in 2014 when he locked himself in a room for four days and contemplated suicide.

He says that he really began to open up and feel better when he started therapy. "I literally just sat down and somebody asked me a question and that question triggered me. And I just went off — just unloaded absolutely everything — so I want anybody to have that ability that needs to have that ability."

Phelps isn't the only athlete who has spoken publicly about mental health struggles.

"I'm glad more and more people are opening up about it. Our stories are similar, yet they're different. Like, Simone (Biles), me, Naomi (Osaka) and Kevin Love, The Rock," he says. "We can just talk about these things and share these things, you know, open up and understand it’s OK not to be OK."

In addition to sharing his story, Phelps has worked with Talkspace, an online behavioral health care company, to help level the playing field and make mental health assistance more accessible.

And he's thrilled that Talkspace and the Baltimore County Public Schools have teamed up to provide free, unlimited telehealth therapy for all 32,000 BCPS high school students ages 13 and above. That means that help will literally be at students' fingertips via their cell phones.

"I'm super pumped for this to be in Baltimore County Public Schools. This is where I was in school, where I grew up. My mom still works at the board of education. So this is something that I hope other school systems can do as well," he says.

If this opportunity had been available when Phelps was in school, he would have "100%" used it: "This would have been a game changer for me back then."

Encouraging a "generational shift"

Phelps is extremely passionate about altering the narrative for the generation to come.

"No knock on my mom and dad, (but) they would always try to pretend like everything was great," he explains. "Let's just be ourselves and ... voice our struggles and emotions that we're going through instead of compartmentalizing them. I want to create that generational shift where instead of compartmentalizing and shoving these things down, we're opening up and talking about them."

That change begins at home, and Michael and Nicole Phelps have been making sure their boys have safe, age-appropriate ways to express their emotions.

"We implemented the 'lion breath' with them a couple of years back. The lion breath is basically just a deep breath and you get to roar as loud as you can."

The couple has also been teaching the boys to talk through their problems, especially when it comes to roughhousing or hurting each other's feelings. "As a dad, it's really cool to see them be able to just address the emotions that they have," he says.

Phelps wants his kids to express themselves rather than ignore their emotions as he did. "That was something that I did for almost two decades, maybe longer, and I can tell you it's not really good to do that, it's not safe to do that and it's definitely not healthy to do that."

As parents, the couple also helps the boys tune into the fact that daddy might have some "not so good" days. If Phelps is spending time alone in his office to give his mind a chance to reset, the boys will enter quietly, give him a hug and tell him that they love him.

"Those things are everything," Phelps says.

His "big goal" is to give his kids "a toolbox to help them get through the barriers that they're going to have to overcome at certain points in their life, whether it's mental health, whether it's through sports, whether it's through life."

Saving lives

"I thought I was all alone, standing on top of the mountain screaming and no one was listening, and now people are," he says. "The more we're able to open up and really talk about these things that we're struggling with, the more we're able to normalize those things."

Phelps likens therapy to using windshield wipers to clean a dirty car window. Once you actually turn the windshield wipers on, you can see where you're going.

He says, "Being able to save a life, for me, is way better than ever winning an Olympic gold medal."

This article was originally published on TODAY.com