The theme for this year’s #ChildSafetyWeek is “Family life today: where is the risk?” At the just concluded #SchoolSafetySummit some of our speakers shared on how we can play an active role in reducing risks to all children.

1) Mrs Abolaji Gbadamosi stressed that all children want to feel loved and those with special needs have same body organs as those without. Therefore, to reduce sexual molestation in those quarters, the children need to be taught specialised body safety tips that suit their disability.

2) Mrs Lola Aneke stated that parents and teachers must engage in role play to show the children expected behaviour. They must show them both positive and negative consequences so that they learn.

3) Miss Obianuju Nwadialor stated that parents must take the initiative to research on the risks peculiar to their children and be proactive towards protecting them

4) AVM Femi Gbadebo stated that in the case of children with special needs, the parents need to accept the child first, then the siblings and other members of the community. Acceptance makes it easy to go through other steps that will reduce safety risks to the child.

5) Barr Taiwo Akinlami stated that parents have a responsibility to ask questions. The risk to the child and family life can come from school. Therefore parents need to ask the schools about their child protection policies.

Feel free to download my free e-book titled Child Safety 101: a guide to keeping children safe in an African home on www.thesafetychic.com

Child Safety Week is an initiative of Child Accident Prevention Trust (CAPT). It aims to raise awareness of risks of child accidents and how to prevent it. This year, it will hold between 3rd and 9th of June. The theme is “Family life today: where’s the risk?” With globalisation and advances in technology, there are more risks to child safety today. Therefore we ought to prepare for it and not wait for something to happen first. Knowledge empowers so I am an advocate for equipping the child early so they can protect themselves from harm. Every parent, aunt, uncle, educator, school owner, child minder needs to think of how to do this in an interesting way.

Here are some options:

1) Q & A sessions: Identify a particular area on child safety you want to teach the child and prepare questions on it. Ask the child, gauge their responses to see why they answered in a certain way and teach the correct thing if they do not know. Make it fun and interesting

2) Story book reading: Stories have proven to be an effective way to pass knowledge to children. Whenever I read my child safety book, #TheAdventuresOfMuna with children, it always leads to a robust conversation. You can get book copies and also SafeVille a comic by Barr Taiwo Akinlami the children will learn whilst being entertained

3) Mini Presentation: Give the child a topic to research on and present their findings to a group. Most times when people find out something for themselves, they never forget.

4) Drama/Role Play: Methods of teaching which use creative or entertaining tools are always a winner with children. They could act out a little skit of someone bumping into a wall due to fixation on a mobile device or a child being kidnapped because he or she accepted something from a stranger etc.

5) Songs: This is perfect for smaller children. Songs that are catchy and easy to learn will keep the safety message top of mind

Which of these ideas will you be implementing with your children at home or students in school? I would love to see what you do. You can share with the hashtag #ChildSafetyWeekNG