Teaching them their address

So I read this article this morning that a 3 yr old was wandering the streets, and when questioned by police, insisted his name was 'spongebob'. Aside from the situation itself being scary, I thought that was pretty humerous with his name. Thank God they were able to find his parents pretty quickly.

That being said, at what age do you start teaching your kids their address, phone number, etc in case something happens??? Do you teach your kids to dial 911??

And on that subject, we only use cell phones, so we don't have a landline in our house. Should we get a landline for the sole purpose of emergency's?? I guess if something happens to the kids, DH and I obviously know how to dial 911 with our cell phones, but if something were to happen to say one of us while the other spouse was out, the kids wouldn't know how to operate our cell phones well enough to dial 911....

 

We haven't started teaching any of that yet to our 3 year old. I'd be afraid that he might give out our address to people that have no need to know it. I'll be curious to see what other people have to say about this.

 

I think I probably started teaching when they were three. I started with their first/last name combo, mommy and daddy's first/last name, the town we live in and then the street. I'll quiz them when we are riding in the car. I have to start working on it with Liam now.

And we've always had a land line and always will. They have taught them in preschool about 911.

 

I don't know when you're supposed to do it but they're expected to know these things when they start kindergarten. I've tackled their first/last name, mommy's & daddy's first & last name, address, and how to dial 911 (both on the landline and the cell). FYI, they only need to dial the number on the cell; they don't have to unlock it for 911 to work. Our 911 training was recent and we will tackle their phone number next. I quiz them whenever I think of it and remind them of anything they've forgotten. I've told them they need to know these things to go to kindergarten and that's excellent motivation for them to work on memorizing (they cannot wait to go!)

We talk about different scenarios and what they should do but obviously that doesn't guarantee they will perform under duress. I'm sure the child in the story you reference knows his first name, at least.

 

Right now they know our street and I will start our address and phone number soon. I will teach them in a song-type of way. I think at an early age, it is easier to remember when it is like a song. I taught them how to spell their name to the tune of Mickey Mouse (mic-key-mouse, mickey mouse, donald duck)

 

When my girls were about 2 we started teaching them their first and last names, and DH and my first and last name. They also know our street name and town, but not the house # or our phone number or about 911. We'll work on that when they are around 3.

 

DH started teaching our kids to say their full names when they were about 2.5. It was mostly for fun, but also a good safety precaution. Of course there's no guarantee they would actually say their names if a stranger asked them (they're very shy), but at least they know them.

They also know what city they live in ("bouldahcolowado") and they sort of know our street, but unfortunately it starts with a "th" sound, which they can't really pronounce. Still, they might wind up in the right neighborhood at least.

They learned about 911 in preschool (though they think it's "9-1-1-1" -- close enough for now). They don't know how to dial a cellphone (or a landline) -- maybe we should work on that, but I sort of shudder at the thought of teaching them to initiate a phone call. :blink:

 

they did addresses in pre-school so now both kids know they live on wes oak street in old forge and they've known their full names since about 2...they're working on our names now (Ian thinks Tony's name is Daddy Charnetski LOL)

 

My thoughts exactly on teaching them 911. They already know how to DIAL the phone, thank goodness it hasn't been any sequence of numbers that makes sense, YET.

They've known our first names for awhile. That's a problem in our house. If they feel they aren't getting our attention, they'll use our first names. We have to remind them that it's "Mommy and Daddy". They also know their first names, I'm working on convincing them they have a middle name as well (My one daughter keeps saying, "No mommy, I'm 'T' when I tell her it's 'T,A') so maybe I'll just work on the last name bit...

Didn't know they had to know all that for kindergarten. That's good to know, even though we are a few years from that still (they're 2.5 with birthdays in January, Kindergarten won't be until they are 5.5 almost 6 I think)

 

My girls know all of our first names and the town and state where we live. We have been working on last name for a while (they SOOO don't get it for some reason) and are now working on street.

 

We work on the first/last name combination starting at two-ish. Then phone number and address around 4ish. I guess we dont work on phone number enough because mine dont know that still. My 5 yr old knew our old street address, and my 4yr old knew the street name. .but we just moved 2 months ago, so we are still working on our new address.

They didnt say they had to know these things when my son started Kindergarten though.

 

We started working on it when Nadia was 3, and by 4, she was pretty good at her first and last name, including spelling, street address and home phone number.

They drilled this in during her final year of preschool, and her pediatrician also asked if she knew these things at her 5-year well visit.

I'm still dubious about her ability to pick up the phone and dial 911 under pressure, though. Maybe on the land line, but our cell phones are all-touchpad, and you do have to unlock it to even get a screen to dial.

ETA -- Alden, the /th/ is one of the last sounds that kids get. All the sounds should be accurate by age 7 -- and this is the only one that Nadia still has trouble with. She still pronounces it /f/ or /v/ instead of /th/. But, it's actually easy to correct if you show them that you put your tongue between your teeth to say it...

 

My kids know their last name, the street we live on, and the town we live in. They don't know the street number yet, but then we only have 8 houses on our street and anyone on the street would know which house my duo belonged to.

I think we started talking about it around age two.

 

Mine got their full name at about 2/2.5 and ours about the same time too. At 3, one knows our full address and the other has it sometimes but gets the numbers mixed up. They both know city and state too. I don't think they can do 911 yet.

 

I came up with a song to help my 5 year old remember the phone number. It worked great and my (then) 3 year old picked it up effortlessly.

 

They do know their whole names, first, middle, and last, but need prompting. If you say "What's your whole/full name?" to Bea, she says "Beatrix", because she thinks you mean her full first name, since she goes by Bea. You have to ask specifically "What's your first name? What's your last name?" etc.
I haven't taught phone number, it just seems so long, with the 10-digit numbers here. I guess I should.
They do know what town they live in, I have just started introducing street. We're in a small town though, I know we're the only ones of our last name in town.

ETA - They also know our first names. I hadn't thought about dialing 911. I have to look at my phone, since we only use cellphones here, and see how they could dial without unlocking it.

 

They know we live on XYZ street and our and their names! I am hesitant to give them our St. # yet. Scared they'll give it out for some reason. We haven't even BEGUN our phone #! :blush:

 

One of my boys knows his first/last name as of today, the other one is just catching on to the fact that he has a name (so that's the reason he ignores me all of the time, huh? ).

This is good info to think about - thanks for bringing it up!

 

My girls know their full names and our names, but I haven't started with address and phone number because as a pp said, I don't want them to just give it out to anyone and they just don't understand that kind of stuff yet.

 

It's a good reminder to me to keep working on this. So far ours only know their full names and the country we live in (their grandparents live elsewhere and so we fly often).

Just as a funny: their childminder started teaching them our full names, but didn't know that my surname is different from DH's. We're married, but I kept my maiden name. When I told the girls that "No, it isn't Mummy K---- it's Mummy G----" for weeks they kept replying, "Nah, it's Mummy K----, Orly (our childminder) says so". They just didn't get that perhaps mummy might know her own name the best!