Every now and then we publish stories of young children who are found wandering the streets of Picayune without supervision.

These stories strike us because they usually involve children too young to tell the good Samaritans who found them where they live, or who their parents are.

It’s scary to think of the set of circumstances that combined to create such a scenario. While it’s possible that the parent simply fell asleep, and as children sometimes do, he escaped whatever confines the parent put in place to end up wandering the streets alone.

One factor to consider is that no matter what circumstances arose to find the incident in question, most of the time the parents of these children are charged with more than just neglect.

Many times additional charges are also levied against the parent or caretaker, as in Thursday’s incident.

These instances paint a scary picture of the environment these children are growing up in.

We would like to think that every child grows up in a caring home with plenty of people to look out for their well-being.

But the sobering fact is that, at times, that is simply not the case. Parents can be, for whatever reason, inattentive.

But we would like to think that parents put forth their best efforts to provide a safe and caring environment in which their children can mature into adulthood.

We hope this incident was a sobering moment for this parent, and others for that matter, and it will prompt additional measures being employed to ensure this child will not be found wandering the neighborhood again.

It would be horrible to have to publish a story of a wandering child being struck by a car or hurt by an individual with malicious intent.