PARENTS SHOULD SURF NET WITH CHILDREN
The creator of Australia's latest children's Internet site featuring Australia's most famous children's character, Freddo Frog, today urged parents to surf the Internet with their children as a family activity.
Mr Ron Smith, Managing Director of the Green Web, which will release Freddo Frog's Internet site today at a special briefing at the Frog Exhibit at the Melbourne Zoo said, "the new technology can provide children access to a wide range of information and should not be treated as an electronic babysitter where children are left to surf the web solo."
"Apart from parents not knowing what their children are accessing, they are missing out on an opportunity to travel the information highway with their children in a way that has not been possible before."
"Parents should involve themselves in the new technology and accept that surfing the net with their children will become as common as reading the bedtime story in the future."
Mr Smith said, Freddo Frog's site had been specifically designed to involve parents with their children through its interactive nature to encourage creative writing, colouring activities and learning about environmental and personal safety issues, whilst having green fun."
"Freddo Frog, an Australian icon who has over 120 million contacts with consumers every year in Australia and a recognition factor of 98% spreading across several generations of Australians, is one of the most highly identifable characters in Australia."
"The messages on the environment such as alerting children and their parents to the importance of water conservation and pollution to protect local creeks and rivers had been blended into Freddo Games as the first campaign, which would ensure thousands of people continued to see these important messages everyday."
"The Freddo Frog site on the green web promotes the action parents can take to provide their children with examples of good environmental management in the home, such as washing the family car on the lawn to restrict the soap and other chemicals flowing down the drain and into the local creek threatening the habitat of wildlife and water quality."
Mr Smith said, Freddo would also be promoting child accident prevention through his Look Before You Leap Campaign to alert parents to dangers around the home and children to good safety practices such as helmet wearing and seltbelt practices.
"When you consider on an average day in Australia around 5,000 children have accidents that require medical attention and 200 children are admitted to hospital and there are one or two deaths, the issue of child accident prevention is one which we all need to be concerned with in the home," Mr Smith said
Ron Smith
Managing Director
Green Webb Pty Ltd
