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Sisters and chocolate milkshakes—what could be better?

I had to delete the News app from my phone the other day. It was all too much! The world may be on fire, or maybe it isn't and the media wants us to believe it is, but I've decided it's all too much for me to take on.

My day to day is enough. If my focus is so outward-focused, my own household will fall by the wayside, which is counterproductive. The focus has to come back inward so that we can be a force for good in the world.

So much of what's going on in the world right now is heartbreaking and worthy of attention, but I can't even go to the bathroom without being interrupted so what am I to do about all of it? The most good I can do is right here at home.

I think the boldest thing we can do is live our daily lives intentionally, with love for our families, modeling respect for all people and the world around us.

In my opinion, if my children are introduced to all the bad in the world at too young of an age, they will be so paralyzed by all the horrors that they'll feel powerless to do any good.

Different people go about introducing tough topics at different ages, and many recommendations I see right now are the introduce tough topics to the youngest of toddlers—basically when they're still babies. For me, I like to first model, model, model. Allow my children to develop their own appreciation and love for people and the world around them.

For example, the environment. If I were to first introduce topics of pollution or endangered species, and lecture them on the importance of conservation, the basis for their experience with the world around them would be one of scarcity, concern, and maybe fear.

I think all those topics are worthy of discussion at an appropriate age. Everything in due time. For now (my kids are 6 months, 2, 4, and 6), it seems most appropriate to let them just BE in nature. First in the backyard, then the neighborhood, then parks around us, and so on. Start small, then broaden.

If I let them first experience the natural world and develop their own love and appreciation for it, a concern for protecting it will naturally stem from those precious early experiences of collecting rocks, playing in the mud, creating a "secret garden" underneath a bush in the yard.

I hesitate to even write about race because I am far from an expert and it's such a heated topic, but I again feel like modeling love and respect and inclusiveness for all people is the best way to address this topic with the youngest children. I will not be overtly talking about racism to my young children, regardless of whether that's what society is prescribing to me. My kids have no concept of discriminating against people based on what they look like.

A book I read recently talks about how if we're constantly scrolling through the media, we're marinating ourselves in the popular opinion. I had to turn off the news to be able to turn back on my own brain, my own conscience. Maybe some would say I'm putting my head in the sand, but I can't have the horrors of the world constantly in my face because I need to believe that the world my children are inheriting still has good in it, and that they will still have the power to go out into it someday and be forces for making it better.

Until then, I'm going to do my best to create a warm, nurturing environment for them right at home because I think that can be revolutionary.