Jennie Garth Shares How Working with Amanda Bynes on 'What I Like About You' Helped Prepare Her to Raise Teenage Girls

Jennie Garth is sharing some insight into how working with Amanda Bynes on their sitcom What I Like About You changed her perspective on raising teenage daughters.

The 54-year-old Beverly Hills, 90210 alum said working with Amanda 20 years ago gave her a fresh look at being a mom to teenagers.

“Working with Amanda was eye-opening for me,” Jennie told E! News, “because I didn’t know what it was like as the older person to play in the scenes with a younger person, or just to be around that kind of teenage energy.”

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“She had so much overflowing teenage energy,” she added.

The All That and Amanda Show star was only 16 when What I Like About You debuted on The WB in 2002. Even when the series wrapped in 2006, she would have only been about 20.

Jennie was 30 and had two daughters, Luca Bella Facinelli, and Lola Ray Facinelli, with her ex-husband Peter Facinelli. They also had one daughter after the show ended, Fiona Eve Facinelli, in 2006, before the couple split in 2013.

Working with Amanda made Jennie “feel excited” for her girls’ teenage years because she’d had “so much fun” with her younger co-star, who played her sister on the sitcom.

“I thought, ‘This is how I want to be with my kids when they’re older.’ Just loving all the songs that they’re loving and playing and being youthful with them,” Jennie shared. “And so she really brought out all of that in me, in which it made me less afraid to move forward as the mother of teenage girls. That was really incredible.”

The Dancing with the Stars contestant also said she enjoys rewatching What I Like About You still and praises Amanda‘s comedic timing.

She added, “I’ll just get sucked into it and find myself giggling.”

Last week, Jennie talked about working with producer Dan Schneider on The WB show and why she got “bad vibes” from him.