WHAT a week it has been.
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The Paris attacks showed us many things but one which has stuck in my mind, is the impact on children.
While listening to a ABC Radio National program early this week, the announcer asked parents what they were doing in regards to discussion with their children about the attacks.
Had they raised it with them? Had their children asked questions about it and if so, how did they respond?
It was an interesting segment, but also brought to mind all the children who have witnessed all manner of attacks and bomb blasts, those that live in conflict zones, those that are kidnapped and forced to become child soldiers or sold into sex slavery.
How quickly must the innocence of a child disappear when such activities become a daily occurrence and way of life.
No wonder parents want to flee to another country to protect their children. Why wouldn't you.
Some may have seen the clip of a father, Angel Le and his young son interviewed by a reporter from the Le Petit Journal in Paris, this week.
When the reporter asks the boy, who must be aged just five or six, what he understands of the incident he replies that the attackers were "... very, very, very naughty. The bad guys are not very nice."
The boy goes on to say to his dad that they must move, but it is the response of his father, in a calm, reassuring voice that they will not be leaving France because of the "bad guys".
The father goes onto to say that while those people may have guns, they have flowers and the flowers laid by the people of Paris, were there to protect them.
The young boy accepts his father's explanation.
It's a beautiful, simple explanation to a young child.
Closer to home we heard of 11-year-old Hobart boy, Campbell Remess, who has made a number of teddy bears for survivors of the attacks.
Campbell's mother said he did not understand why people would do this but his solution was that he wanted to send them a smile.
It is a beautiful, simple gesture from a child on the other side of the world.
Out of something so bad, there are moments of hope.