Where their children are concerned, Keith Urban and Nicole Kidman are an open book.
The couple graced the red carpet at Wednesday’s 2017 CMT Artists of the Year event at the Schermerhorn Symphony Center in Nashville, Tennessee, speaking to PEOPLE about how they address the Las Vegas shooting in their household that includes daughters Faith Margaret, 6½, and Sunday Rose, 9.
“We’re a very intimate family and we discuss many things,” said Kidman, 50. “We take responsibility of parenting so seriously, but we also keep an open conversation between our kids.”
She adds, “Sometimes we need guidance, too, but our family is based on an enormous amount of questions, love and support, and we’re trying to guide a 6-year-old and 9-year-girl right now into the world.”
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The “Blue Ain’t Your Color” singer — an honoree of the evening — touches on the fact that the balance of allowing their daughters to be kids while not hiding the reality from them can be a challenge.
“There’s darkness in the world and at some point you want to keep your kids from that because you want [them] to enjoy childhood and imagination and see the world in a beautiful way, but at some point learning how to navigate that is crucial for not letting the darkness tell you how to live,” says Urban, 49.
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“And that’s what we’re all in the midst of right now: How do we not let that kind of darkness change our living so much that it’s taken all the color out of it?” he asks. “How do we keep color in our life, and how do we keep it intimate and open and vulnerable?”
“It’s love. It’s what we’re dealing with,” Urban explains. “How do you love vulnerably, but protect yourself? It’s a real balance.”
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Urban joined fellow honorees Jason Aldean, Luke Bryan, Chris Stapleton and Florida Georgia Line‘s Tyler Hubbard and Brian Kelley to open the CMT Artists of the Year event with a tribute to the victims of the Las Vegas shooting.
“They saw some things on the news, and it affected the country music community in such a massive way,” Kidman says of Faith and Sunday. “They knew when they saw us reeling. And they’re so connected to us, they’re like, ‘What’s wrong?’ ”
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“So we’re in it together, trying to raise our children in this time,” adds the Emmy winner. “How do we navigate it, how do we protect, yet still give them strength and still keep them moving forward and focusing on what’s beautiful?”
“Not live in paranoia and fear,” agrees Urban, to which Kidman replies with a laugh, “And then we go to church on Sunday.”
- Reporting by JULIETTE VARA
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