"My 7 y/o asked me why 2 men are being executed. I told him".

What do you say to a child this young? How can you possibly make him understand?

My son saw the front page of the newspaper today. His puzzled eyes read the headlines. His brow furrowed and I could see the question forming before he even asked it.

His lips formed the words “Death by firing squad”.

“Transferred for execution”  he murmured under his breath, sounding out the sylables.

He saw the faces of two young men and asked me why.

What’s a firing squad….? Are they being shot….? Are they bad guys….?

It’s hard to keep your children insulated from the world around, as much your instinct is to protect them they read and watch and listen.

I am a big believer in talking to my children about the news, in allowing them to know what’s going on and be informed. I never hid the events of the Lindt Café, my eldest saw the news reports about Charlie Hedbo, they know of the plight of children on Manus Island.

But this is different, isn’t it? How do you explain to a seven-and-a-half year old that two young men who were barely in their 20’s when they were arrested for an act of stupidity are going to be shot for their crimes 10 years on? How do you explain the dangerous nature of their initial crime and yet still communicate the extreme nature of their punishment?

When I straw-polled my friends the short answer I got was: You don’t explain. Children shouldn’t know about this. Most expressed horror that I had even tried.

But as a journalist, my whole career has been news events. Much like my children I too grew up with parents who were journalists and as children we were encouraged to read the paper and know of current events.

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I remember as a very young child following the disappearance of Azaria Chamberlain with eagerness, I remember when TWA Flight 847 was hijacked and wondering about those 139 passengers on board. I remember watching the devastation of Chernobyl and lying awake wondering if the world was going to have a nuclear winter.

I remember knowing of these events and being curious and at times concerned but never feeling harmed by my knowledge.

Never being anxious, more just an awareness of what the world was like. And that’s why I feel confident with allowing my children to watch the news and read the paper.

I have three kids, but only one can read and the other two don’t sit still long enough to watch a news headline, let alone a whole bulletin.  I know it’s controversial this exposure I give them to real world events, but for me it is the right thing, and I know they have the resilience to deal with what knowledge I allow them to have.

The tricky thing though was what the answer to this question should be. Why are two men going to be executed for a crime?

Australians as a rule don’t support the death penalty but we seem divided on the issue of the Bali 9. A recent survey found that 52 % believe Australians sentenced to death for drug trafficking overseas should have that sentenced carried out.

Read more: Explain to me: Why won’t Australia save the Bali Nine?

I tried to tell my son that they had made a mistake many years ago, that they were greedy and wanted to make money quickly so they tried to take something people didn’t like to another country.

At seven he knows nothing really of drugs or crime. He thinks bad guys carry bombs and guns and dress in black. He struggles to comprehend the idea of young men, not much older than some of his friends’ bigger brothers going to other lands with drugs that could hurt people.

But what he struggled to get his head around even more, was the thought that ten whole years later they will be shot for their crimes. The government doesn’t shoot people he said, puzzled. Aren’t they here to help us?

It’s a complicated world to understand for small boy; a boy usually preoccupied with Minecraft and soccer.

‘Their house their rules” I tried to say, breaking it down to a phrase he hears on a daily basis. They broke the law in another country and sadly as much as many of us don’t agree they will be forced to be punished in the way that that country chooses.

My son was sad for a moment and asked me if there was anything he could do. You can live your life as a good man I told him as that is what these two men would want, and try to never make mistakes like they did.

And my son, who is has been taught by his school to believe in God even when I do not said… “and I can pray”.