Family Leisure, Self-Management, and Satisfaction in Spanish Youth

Abstract

Youth values leisure as a right, a source of growth and integral development, and a context for experimentation. It has been shown that organized leisure leads to more benefits than unorganized leisure; when undertaken (Throughout the document, an attempt will be made to use inclusive language, although “under Law 3/2007 of 22 March, for the effective equality of women and men, any reference to positions, persons or groups included in this document in masculine, are to be understood as including both women and men.”) by the young people themselves, these benefits lead to the development of prosocial skills, self-efficacy, autonomy, and increased independence, personal motivation, and responsibility, as well as acting as a protective factor against risky behaviors. When organized leisure activities are also shared with the family, the benefits influence a positive family environment. This study focused on analyzing the relationship between family-shared leisure practices that are managed by Spanish youth in post-compulsory secondary education and the importance and satisfaction granted to these experiences. The sample consisted of 1,764 post-compulsory secondary education students from all over Spain. Youths responsibility for the organization of their leisure activities, the perception of the relationship between enjoyment of the activity and involvement in its management, the organization of the spaces in which leisure activities are carried out, their satisfaction with them, and the importance attached to shared practice and family experiences were recorded. The results showed a shortage of self-managed youth leisure practices, but increased responsibility, spatial organization, and satisfaction were confirmed when leisure experiences are shared with the family. The need to encourage opportunities for children to self-organize their leisure practices from an early age is commented on.

Barriers and Facilitators to Leisure Physical Activity in Children: A Qualitative Approach Using the Socio-Ecological Model

“…It could also mean that the activities they do during their leisure time are not those that they necessarily like or enjoy, but are those they can do. The choice of activity has been shown to be key to the maintenance of physical activity during adolescence [13,17,31].…”

“…Leisure time, along with the school, has been identified as a perfect moment to practice physical activity and support healthy behaviors, through active play and sports [10,11]. In addition, it is an opportunity for children to choose the activities they engage in (whether active or not) [12][13][14]. Previous studies focusing on leisure time have concluded that physical activity and its practice are affected by individual (age and fitness), psychological (preferences and satisfaction), sociocultural (gender, family and friends) and infrastructural influences (equipment, security and proximity) [13,[15][16][17][18][19].…”

“…Furthermore, reviews and meta-analyses have concluded that the outcomes of programs to promote physical activity after school time are modest and inconsistent [20,21]. Moreover, to the best of our knowledge, most of the research focused on measuring the amount of physical activity [7,20,22], as well as identifying the barriers or facilitators to physical activity participation, use questionnaires [13,[17][18][19][23][24][25][26] or are based on the perspective of adults (parents and teachers) and adolescents, while fewer directly center on children's own perceptions [27][28][29][30].…”

“…Despite the importance of leisure time to create healthy-life patterns for children, few qualitative studies have attempted to understand the factors affecting physical activity practice from the perspective of children [27][28][29][30]. Recent studies have shown that children's and adolescents' perception of their options during their leisure time have an impact on their physical activity practice [13,19,25,31]. In addition, discrepancies have been found between the preferences of children and parents [27] as well as the influence of parents on their children's physical activity participation.…”

“…In this sense, the promotion of physical activity requires a physical and psychosocial environment to help promote facilitators and reduce barriers. To the best of our knowledge, a number of studies, mainly quantitative ones, have addressed children's perception of barriers and facilitators when they participate in physical activity during their leisure in southern Europe, especially in Spain, and in relation to family dynamics [13,[17][18][19]. The results of two recent studies focused on how children and adolescents presented barriers (gender inequalities, time constraints and lack of safety) and facilitators (friends and time sports) during their leisure time in Spain [45,46], one of which adopted a qualitative approach.…”