Correlates of physical activity parenting: The Skilled Kids study

Abstract

We examined the relationship between physical activity parenting (PAP) and child, family, and environmental factors in families. The participants were 840 families with young children (n = 993; 5.40 ± 1.14 years) and parents (n = 993; 35.8 ± 5.29 years). Parents' self-reported PAP (co-participation, (in)direct support, and encouragement), child-specific (sex, age, temperament, outdoor time, organized physical activity or sports, sedentary time, media time, PA enjoyment, motor skills compared to peers, PA, and sport facility use), family-specific (respondent's sex, age, education, exercise frequency, family income, family status, number of children in the family, child's birth order and partner's PAP, and exercise frequency), and environment-specific (residential density, access to sport and outdoor facilities, type of house, and access to electronic devices) factors were collected. Children's motor skills and anthropometrics were measured. After adjusting for the family cluster effect, child, family, and environmental factors were entered into a linear mixed-effects model, with PAP as the response variable. The final model consisted of statistically significant factors, and parental education, which was forced into the model. Nine child- and family-related factors explained 15% of parenting variance between the children and 52% between the families. Partner's PAP (B = 0.68, P < 0.001) had the strongest association, whereas the child's temperament (B = 0.08, P < 0.001) and birth order (B = -0.10, P < 0.001) had smaller but novel associations with the respondent's PAP. Partner's PAP and a range of child- and family-related factors should be considered when promoting parental support for child PA.

Individual, Family, and Environmental Correlates of Motor Competence in Young Children: Regression Model Analysis of Data Obtained from Two Motor Tests

“…Ten childcare centers (27%) declined to participate due to a lack of space, interest, time, or a low number of children. The aim of the Skilled Kids study and the recruitment process have been described in detail in previous studies [33,40,41]. For the recruited childcare centers, the respective directors first approved the participation, and the staff was informed about the study.…”

“…The TGMD-3 protocol was carefully followed according to the manual described previously [33,40]. TGMD-3 has been demonstrated to have a good to excellent intra-rater and inter-rater reliability [43], and it is valid and reliable both internationally [13,45] and in the Finnish context [33,40]. Within this study sample, the inter-rater reliability of the TGMD-3 gross motor index was 0.88 (95% confidence interval (CI) = 0.85-0.92), tested among 167 children [40].…”

“…Temperament is rather stable [49,56] over time; thus, children who tend to have an active type of temperament, as well as children who show persistency when faced with challenges can be motivated and persistent in learning and rehearsing motor tasks. Interestingly, a recent study by Laukkanen et al [33] demonstrated that children with an agreeable temperament (referring to a factor created from the total scores for sociability, activity, and attention span-persistence) tended to have more parental support for PA. Accordingly, there is evidence that the lack of fit between a child's temperamental characteristics and parents' responses [56] can influence the overall development of the child.…”

“…For example, a child's PA or MC has been found to be positively associated with his/her father's [31] or mother's PA behavior [32]. Additionally, Laukkanen et al [33] recently found that children with an agreeable temperament (individual correlate, biological characteristic) had more parental support for PA (family correlate). In contrast, children with a less agreeable temperament had less opportunities to participate in PA with their parents and received less frequent parental support for PA.…”

Gender differences in the rate of motor activity of senior (older) preschool children

“…In a number of studies, the problem of reducing motor activity and muscle effort is justified by social factors [3,4,6,7,8,9]. This is most often associated with the realities of modern civilization: physical inactivity, changing interests, new forms of leisure (computer games, watching TV, etc.)…”