Anonymous wrote:Age 3 - 4. Of course they tested it. Hung up and then had to answer the phone and explain to them what had happened.

Here in canada that have to send police to check. So when my 1 year old by accidentally called 911 (which I could show as redial on the phone showed a miscellany of numbers) the police came. Son had hung up, but 911 called back and told me they had to send someone. Son thought it was great when police showed up...

OP this is why we kept a landline. It costs me $30 a month and would instantly give a land location to 911. Cell phones don't. They give an area. My kids learned as soon as they were ready.

Anonymous wrote:3-4 my phone number too at that age.

+1 This is when you can start telling them what to do if they get separated from you in a crowd. Knowing your cell phone number should be part of the plan.

Anonymous wrote:The address point is a good one—it always astounds me how many kids don’t know theirs even when they are not panicked. This is a good reason to keep a landline as they can quickly tell where you are calling from and will come even if hour kid is crying too hard to say anything or accidentally hangs up.

My 5 year old exchanged addresses with her best friend. The paper I got handed had just the zip code on it. I asked my DD what she told her friend and she told me she wrote down our house number for her.

So while she *knows* our full address, this clearly doesn't translate all the time!

We've talked about it, but I've never actually had my DD look at my phone to see how to do it. I'm not sure how we "practice" dialing the phone without accidentally calling 911!

But I guess I should teach her how to dial a cell phone. She does know to go to neighbor's house if she ever needs help, so I suppose that would do in most emergencies.

I started teaching him at 2. He’s 6 now and I need to remember to keep refreshing his memory on the steps. We only have iPhones.

I have a heart condition and I taught my 3.5 year old DD to use a landline with speed dial. She can call 911, my parents, her dad or our neighbors.

I’ve shown my 7 year old (starting about age 5) now to use the emergency function on my phone and we’ve roll played. I say “9-11, what’s your emergency”. And then go through having her stay on the line, unlock the doors, give her address etc.

The point about knowing where my phone is is a good one! I had a line in my home office for a bit and maybe this is a reason to get it again.

Just going over this with my son who just turned 5.

I'm confident he could call 911 if something went wrong. And he is old enough that he did not test.

Anonymous wrote:At what age.

unneccesary and just makes you look kind of silly.

At what age.

The address point is a good one—it always astounds me how many kids don’t know theirs even when they are not panicked. This is a good reason to keep a landline as they can quickly tell where you are calling from and will come even if hour kid is crying too hard to say anything or accidentally hangs up.

We don't have a landline, but we've taught DS how to call 911 using the emergency function on a locked phone and we have an old phone always plugged in, and the iPad. Periodically I have him practice how to get to the emergency screen, and how to locate the emergency contact list in a phone. We have our address posted on the refrigerator in case he needs to tell 911 (when I was about 10 I had to call 911 from my house and I panicked and blanked on our address), and he knows if he's at someone else's house to look for a piece of mail. We started teaching him around 3, but we had a landline then. We went no landline when he was 7 I think, and he had no trouble with the cellphone.

3-4 my phone number too at that age.

She was three. She'd already figured out the code to my phone thanks to her Angry Birds fascination, so we talked about emergencies and how to call for help. Due to the aforementioned interest in mobile gaming, she seemed to know where my phone was before I did. Around 4 or 5 she knew how to FaceTime my relatives, so that was an additional option to call for help.