Australian mum Laura O’Donnell, 30, wanted to make sure her daughter Madeline, three, knew their phone number so she could ask an adult to help and give out the number if she was in an emergency.

But as Madeline is so young, Laura had to find a method to help her remember. So she created a giant phone pad and song to teach her daughter.

She tells Metro.co.uk: ‘I was scrolling through Facebook and saw a staged video where a little girl was pretending to be lost to see what strangers would do.

‘A lot stopped to help the girl and the most common questions they asked was “Where’s your mummy or daddy?” followed by “Do you know your phone number?”

‘I’m pregnant so I’m not sure if it was an emotional mum moment or if it was the hormones but it had me in tears.

‘That inspired me to do something and I felt the need for my daughter to be able to answer those questions if ever she needed to. I follow a lot of craft activity pages and I recalled seeing something about it from there but I couldn’t recall what profile it was on so I created my own and it works for us.’

Laura realised that trying to teach her the number all in one go was too much so she worked on sections and then putting them together.

Laura and Madeline (Picture: Laura O’Donnell)

She says: ‘I’ve created a very simple wall phone, out of paper, blue-tack and a marker.

I made it a decent size to try to hold her attention because she’s only three, so her attention span last about five minutes if I’m lucky, before shes off playing something else.

‘I started the activity using my whole phone number but quickly realised that its a bit overwhelming so I’ve but it into three sections – four numbers three numbers and the last three numbers.

‘She quickly got the hang of those after I caught her humming them to herself so I added the next lot and the last lot.’ The family have found lots of different ways to incorporate it into her daily routine to keep practising it.

‘She’s doing a good job with it, and understands it completely but we are in no rush to learn it,’ Laura adds.

‘We practice a couple times a day and she seems to enjoy it until she walks away and that’s fine.

‘It’s not just about knowing the numbers in her mind but it’s also working on number recognition and the pattern of the numbers that would be on a phone.

‘It’s left up on the wall and we play all kinds of games to practice it.

Tonight she and her father did one lap around the couch and said: “Find the next set of numbers”.

We do it again and again until the phone number is finished and ending it by saying the whole phone number together.

(Picture: Laura O’Donnell)

‘I’ve also started including the phone number song into her bedtime routine, getting her to copy me and end it by singing “That’s my mummy’s phone number”. We try to keep it fun and entertaining.’

Madeline loves the game and she’s even taken to using it to play tricks on he rparents.

Laura laughs: ‘She loves tricking me knowing that she’s picking the wrong number sometimes because she goes around it on purpose leaving it to last, she thinks she’s hilarious.’

The mum shared the hack on Facebook as she wanted to encourage others to teach their kids about phone numbers to help keep them safe.

She says: ‘I definitely think everyone should teach their children their phone number with any method that works for them and the child. It doesn’t have to be at three, but I do think it’s something every child should know.

‘For us, it’s important that she knows the number for when she goes off without me. I’ve been lucky enough to be able to be a stay at home mum so that hasn’t been an issue yet. It gives me a little peace of mind that she knows how to contact me if shes at a friends or if she gets lost and hopefully it also gives her a feeling of security.’

Read more: metro.co.uk