Ryan Gosling has taught his 20-month-old daughter Esmerelda how to stand up for herself in the playground.

Ryan Gosling with Eva Mendes

Ryan Gosling with Eva Mendes

The father of two joked he has shown his eldest daughter - who he has with partner Eva Mendes, 42 - how to inflict a reasonable amount of "vengeance" in a clever way, after another child kept scrubbing out her name during playtime.

Speaking on 'The Ellen DeGeneres Show', he explained: "When I was a younger man I had a fantasy of getting into the graffiti world. I was living downtown, and I heard that if you tag over someone else's name that that's how you start a battle. So I did this for a few months and no one ever bothered to battle with me because I was so bad at it.

"Some kid has been erasing her name and writing their name over it. So now I'm in a proper tagging battle. And this kid has access to an unfair amount of chalk. I'm trying to explain to my little girl that this is [unacceptable]."

But Esmerelda - who is the older sister of the couple's newborn daughter Amada Lee - is clearly more peace-loving than her famous dad.

He added: "She doesn't care. She's like, 'Well let's just chalk anywhere else,' and I'm like, 'No, no. They're disrespecting your mother. Because, she gave you this name and they're erasing it.' "

Thankfully, the 35-year-old actor insisted he wouldn't allow the little girl to go overboard.

He added: "The only way to really get back at them is to erase their name. And not disrespect their mother, but definitely put her on notice. Because I think she's the chalk supplier. You've got to be careful when you're trying to teach your kid what a reasonable amount of vengeance is."

Meanwhile, Ryan recently revealed his joy at welcoming a second daughter and joked that it cheered him up after working with Russell Crowe on new movie 'The Nice Guys'.

He said: "It's heaven. It's like walking through a field of flowers every day. I live with angels."

"It's a ray of sunshine in a dark time, honestly, because with Russell really, it's sad. It's sad that we've turned out this way."