Earth Day. What children actually understand about planetary responsibility.

Earth Day is April 22nd. My daughter has had climate awareness since she was six — not because I sat her down for a lesson, but because she is observant and the world is not hiding what is happening to it. She has asked me, several times, whether the planet will be okay. I have answered honestly: we don't know. What we know is that the actions people take in the next years will determine a great deal of what happens.

The honest answer to 'will the planet be okay?' is not 'yes, don't worry.' It is not 'no, everything is lost.' It is: this is a challenge that the current generation of children will inherit and that the choices they make will shape. That is a real answer. Children can hold it.

The Earth Day conversation that works is not the lecture. It is the specific question: 'What is one thing our family does that you understand is connected to the planet?' The answer the child gives reveals what they have actually absorbed from the texture of the family's environmental choices. This is the specific thing that produces the change. The change comes from the practice. The practice comes from the decision to try it once, this week, in