How to find the words to explain the Bondi Beach mass shooting to children

I have no idea what actually happened, but she came home with all sorts of stories about what kids at school told her.

I explained, especially when they are scared and unsure, people sometimes say things that aren't true or fill in extra details if they don't have all the information.

Fast forward to this morning: I lay in bed before the kids were awake, tears in my eyes scrolling through horrific headlines about the mass shooting at Bondi Beach, and knew I had to tell her about it before she got to school.

There was no way I wanted her hearing about this from someone else, who might frame it in a way that was even more scary and confusing than it is already.

My girls are probably more exposed than most kids their age to the news, but early this morning, knowing people at a public gathering on a beach in Australia had been shot at and killed because of their religion, I struggled to find the words.

As news of the increasing death toll, the names of the victims and details about the alleged killers rolled in, there is no doubt parents all over the Illawarra were grappling with the same worries.

University of Wollongong Professor Marc de Rosnay, whose research focuses on emotional development in early childhood, says it is understandable parents worry about getting these big conversations right.

However, he said all that matters is that they give it a go.

"They're going to go [to school] and they're going to hear things," he said.

"Imagine, if you don't talk to them and they hear about it, how it's going to work in their imagination.

"Imaginations can be quite frightening places sometimes and [kids] can latch onto fearful things, and they can take on a disproportionate significance."

He said parents should be a source of balanced, integrated information to help their kids feel safe to come back and ask questions.

"You won't always get it right," he said.

"But it creates the opportunity for them to come back to you and to see you as someone who they're going to trust."

Prof de Rosnay said he sat down with his own 10-year-old on Monday morning to make "my own flawed" attempt at explaining the Bondi horror.

He advised to start with simple facts and allow children to ask questions.

"It's about letting them know what happened, letting them know that the police have responded, letting them know that people are being cared for in hospitals, letting them know that there are going to be chances to show solidarity with the people who were affected and sorrow for those things, letting them know that they're safe going to their school," he said.

As well as explaining the events, Prof de Rosnay said parents should speak to their children, especially older ones, about the "ugly vicious manifestation of anti-Semitism in our community".

"It deserves to have a second conversation and it's in some ways more complicated because the first conversation is just about some horrible events that happened," he said.

"The more difficult thing around this event in terms of talking to children is explaining why the Jewish community was singled out for this horror.

"That's something I'm wrestling with myself.

"But I don't have to get it right, I just have start that conversation and then lay those seeds and acknowledge what's happened, and then be there for the follow-up questions if they come."

While many parents may be worried about what the aftermath of the shooting may bring, he said it was important not to broach unknown catastrophes with children.

"That's where their imaginations can really run away," he said.

"Talking about unknown, imagined things that may happen in the future is a much more complicated space than processing what has happened. When things are in the realm of the unknown, the imagination... that can become very, very scary."

Prof de Rosnay said parents should also avoid trying to educate their child too much.

"Don't try to cram them full of information," he said.

"When children want more information and they know you're a good source of information, they'll come back to you. You can't solve everything. You can't explain everything."

Prof de Rosnay said children have informational as well as emotional needs.

"They're actually monitoring people to see whether people provide them with good information or not, and they trust people differentially even by four or five years of age," he said.

"They can differentiate who gives high quality information and who doesn't give high quality information.

"So when your child is asking you for information, you should slow down and give it. That is the right thing to do."

He said parents could allow their children to guide the conversation.

"You can say 'you can ask me anything, even yucky questions, because I'm your mum or I'm your dad, and I will answer even the most difficult questions'," he said.

"You don't need to be perfect - that's a really important message - what you need to be is a reasonable person who's listening and responsive to what the child is actually asking."

Prof de Rosnay said parents could also help their child feel comforted by telling them about how people had responded to the Bondi Beach killings.

"I think it's a very comforting and decent thing to do to point out that most nearly everybody is horrified by it, and that lots of people helped the injured, and that one man even took a gun off one of the shooters," he said.

"That reminds kids that most people are good and they want to do the right thing.

"But don't avoid talking about the thing that they want to know about. If they're bold enough to ask their question, they're showing you what they need to know."

Prof de Rosnay said many very young children would not be exposed or aware of anything to do with the Bondi attacks, and parents could consider keeping them away from any information.

"By the time a child is 6 or 7 they have much more perspective on the world, they see the world from different points of view and see the same situation from multiple viewpoints," he said.

"Three or four-year-old children are still very in a much smaller world."

"They might still come across something very unpleasant, and my advice to parents would be to be with the child, to resolve all the questions they have in that moment, but not to extend beyond that moment.

Just process it in the immediate context, comfort, and then move on, and they'll come back to it if they need to."

Prof de Rosnay said he was relieved that, thanks to the new age limits, more children would be spared unfettered access that social media can give during these horrific events.

However, he said there was value in children seeing things explained by community leaders.

"I'm very much hoping that [the ABC's] Behind The News will have made a child appropriate news coverage of this event," he said.

"And I think there's something powerful [for children aged between 7-10 and older] in hearing the Premier and the Prime Minister talking about these things in very sober terms.

"It's good for young children to hear those messages and to have the opportunity to talk about them and to understand them.

"This will give them ideas about society and safety and justice and fairness, which are all these important constructs that they're going to need to navigate the future."