Parental Travel Behaviors and Children's Independent Mobility: A MultiSite Study

Children who are allowed greater independent mobility (IM) are more physically active. This study investigated associations between parents' current travel mode to work, their own IM and school travel mode as a child, and their child's IM.

Children in grades 4 to 6 (n = 1699) were recruited from urban, suburban, and rural schools in Vancouver, Ottawa, and Trois-Rivières. Parents reported their current travel mode to work, IM, and school travel mode as a child. Children self-reported their IM using Hillman's 6 mobility licenses. Multiple imputation was performed to replace missing data. Gender-stratified generalized linear mixed models were adjusted for child age, parent gender, urbanization, and socioeconomic status.

The older a parent was allowed to travel alone as a child, the less IM their child had (boys: β = -0.09, 95% confidence interval [CI], -0.13 to -0.04; girls: β = -0.09, 95% CI, -0.13 to -0.06). Girls whose parents biked to work (β = 0.45, 95% CI, 0.06-0.83) or lived in Trois-Rivières versus other sites (β = 0.82, 95% CI, -0.43 to 1.21) had higher IM. IM increased with each year of age (boys: β = 0.46, CI, 0.34-0.58; girls: β = 0.38, 95% CI, 0.28-0.48).

Parents who experienced IM later may be more restrictive of their child's IM. This may help explain the intergenerational decline in children's IM.