In today's world everything is not right, and yes, we all know that. There are some truly sick people out there that won't mind to hurt someone. With this in mind we began teaching our 4 year old one of our cellphone numbers for emergency purposes. I know he doesn't recognize all the numbers, but at least when he is in trouble or gets lost he will be able to ask someone to phone us. Because that is the first question we ask a child that looks lost

What is your parents number?

The sad part is that in South Africa, especially, we can't teach the children the police services number. In some parts of Namibia that is also true, but for most parts we teach the learners the National Emergency number since here they still do their jobs.

How do you teach a preschooler the emergency number?

This is where the tricky part comes in, but I do think sometimes we underestimate our children.

1. Start by teaching your child to recognize the numbers 0-9. This way they will learn the emergency number a lot faster.
2. Use clothes pegs to assist the child. Write the number on a piece of paper and they must then match the number on the clothes peg to the number on the piece of paper.
   
3. Use cups. Write the numbers on them. the child then packs the numbers in order. You can also start of by writing the numbers on a piece of paper and have them pack the numbers in that order. The more they repeat it the faster they will be able to do this without the assistance of the piece of paper.
   
4. Make a mock telephone number keypad and let them press the number like they will press it on a phone
   
5. After they have done a lot of activities to memorize their emergency number you can let them start to write it down.
   

We all want our children to be safe, so it is up to us to teach them all the necessary skills to keep safe even if we are not there.