Tina Knowles recalled how her kids - who she has with ex-husband Mathew Knowles - started drifting apart when Beyonce was 11 and already a "little superstar" because she found her younger sister "irritating", so she decided an intervention was necessary.
Speaking at the LA Times festival of Books in Los Angeles last month, People magazine reports she said during a panel discussion: "Beyoncé was this little superstar at seven or eight years old.
"She was winning all these talent competitions. She had this little sister come along. I think she was like 11 then, and she was getting super, super popular. Her sister felt like everything was about her.
"In all families, if any of you have kids with an age difference, especially two girls, they start kind of going apart at 10 because the older girl has her own friends. She don't want to be bothered with that little five year old running around, getting all in her business and her things.
"The more (Beyonce) didn't want her around, the more sad Solange became.
"I wanted her to be sensitive to the fact that she was this little local star and that her sister had to deal with a whole bunch of stuff. ... I wanted them to be close."
Tina asked a client in her hair salon, who was a therapist, if they could recommend a child therapist who could help their daughters.
And while the 72-year-old matriarch was thrilled when the sessions did exactly what she had wanted for the sibling relationship between Beyonce and Solange, she admitted her wider family were opposed to the idea.
She said: "I took my kids to therapy, and my family did not like it. They were, especially in Black families, they were like, 'You gonna make those kids crazy.'
"It opened Beyoncé's eyes because she was like, 'This is my little sister. We're always gonna be close. I'm gonna take care of her and I'm not gonna let the age difference get between us.' "
"So, she was much kinder, and they've been close ever since.
"Like, they could've gone in different directions, but I was so afraid of that, and I always wanted them to be close. And so even though it was way ahead of the curve with people with therapy, it was the best thing I could have done for them."
Even Mathew didn't understand why Tina felt therapy was important for their daughters.
She recalled: "My husband at the time, he was like, 'They five and 10, like, or 11 and six. What do they need to go to therapy for?'
"But it was the best thing, and it made them understand that it's okay not to be perfect, not to know how to do everything, that you need to talk to people. To this day, my kids grew up knowing that it was okay to have someone to talk to and to share things with and not to try to keep them bottled up inside."
Tina is "shocked" these days if she meets anyone who doesn't understand therapy.
She said: "You're gonna find a heart doctor to help you.
"It's the same with therapy.
"I'm always shocked when people don't understand how important it is to have someone who knows how to deal with you during those rough times, during a break up or whatever."
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