Last Tuesday, while I was playing Barbie dolls with my three-year-old daughter, Eve, my husband rang to tell me to switch on the television.

He said something horrific was happening in New York.

I abandoned the Barbies and did as he suggested. Like the millions of others who had tuned in, I watched aghast.

"What is it, Mummy?" asked Eve, who has always been led to believe that daytime TV was banned in our household.

"It's a very tall building on fire," I said as a BBC news broadcaster stumbled over ways to describe the plumes of smoke pouring from the World Trade Centre.

"But the firemen will put it out," she said, anxious to get me back to playing her games. "Come on, Mummy. Turn off the telly."

"In a second," I said. An hour later, I was still glued to the screen. Eve, meanwhile, had resorted to drawing crayon faces on the living room walls.

Four days later I am still totally preoccupied with the events, while Eve has become increasingly more frustrated with my constant focus on news programmes and newspapers. I feel I should be explaining a little of what has happened to the world to her. But how can I do it without making her frightened or confused?

I did tell her that aeroplanes had crashed into the tall towers and that's why they were on fire. When she asked why it had happened, I wasn't sure what to say. It would have been too misleading to say it was an accident but I'm not happy about introducing the idea of terrorists to her. She currently lives in a world where the only things that scare her are the monsters of her imagination. She seems much too young to start worrying about whether she herself might become a victim of a terrorist attack.

As far as Eve is concerned, nothing has changed since Tuesday. She has attended nursery, eaten her meals, played with her toys and slept soundly. In years to come she will realise the significance of September 11, 2001, but I doubt she will have any recollection of the day itself, other than that Mummy abandoned her make-believe games to watch a fire on the telly. If she starts playing a game in which her Barbies throw themselves off a burning tower, however, I shall be consumed with guilt.

I'm sure most of us with young families have had similar experiences this week. Your kids may not have understood why you have looked so upset and anxious over what, to many of them, could have been scenes from a disaster movie. But they will, no doubt, have realised that the emotions you are feeling are very real. And there's little that frightens children more than seeing their own mums and dads look scared.

Of course, I hope our worst fears aren't realised and that the situation can be sorted out without further atrocities from any side. As the days pass, we might even start to think that the events were less terrible than the floods, famines and earthquakes that have caused greater losses of life in recent years.

But the difference with those awful tragedies is you can explain them to children in much simpler terms.