It is the responsibility of all parents to protect their children and ensure that they are always out of harm’s way.
Obviously, this could sometimes be a difficult task, as parents cannot be with their children all the time.
Indeed, it is also not a healthy practice for parents or adults to always be seen breathing down the necks of children for fear of some ill befalling the children.
Children need to be left on their own to explore the environment around them, particularly as they play, so that they could learn useful lessons for their development.
This notwithstanding, parents and adults in whose care children are placed need to ensure that wherever the children are, they will be safe.
At home, for instance, some parents negligently put kerosene and other harmful liquids in soft drink bottles, and since children know such bottles usually contain drinks they love, the temptation to drink them when they find them is high.
There have also been reported incidents of children who sometimes go out to play in their neighbourhoods and hide in unlocked abandoned vehicles simply to outwit their mates, only to lose their lives painfully through suffocation.
Other children whose schools are close to rivers and the sea have often gone to the seashore in a bid to catch beautifully coloured fishes to proudly show to their mates but have, unfortunately, died by drowning.
It is for these reasons that the advice by the Deputy Director of the Public Affairs Department of the Ghana Police Service, DSP Freeman Tettey, to all to ensure that all cars parked at home and in the workshops of mechanics are securely locked to prevent children from getting access to them is important and needs to be heeded to by all to protect children from harm.
Apart from ensuring that children are not open to unnecessary danger while at home or in school, there is also the need to make them regularly aware of the harm they could cause to themselves by engaging in certain acts.
