Parental influence on children's motor competence for active play: A longitudinal analysis

Area of Science:

• Child Development
• Pediatrics
• Physical Activity and Health

Background:

• Active play is crucial for children's physical activity (PA) levels.
• Parental influences on children's motor competence for active play are not well understood.

Purpose of the Study:

• To analyze whether parental influences predict children's motor competence for active play.
• To identify specific parenting constructs that impact motor skill development in children.

Main Methods:

• Utilized data from 199 parent-child pairs from the InFANT cohort study (ages 5 and 9.5 years).
• Assessed parental efficacy, facilitation, and attitude towards PA at age 5.
• Measured children's motor competence for active play at age 9.5 via parent proxy-report.
• Employed regression models, adjusting for covariates like child sex, socioeconomic position, and prior motor competence.

Main Results:

• Parental efficacy, facilitation, and attitude were significant predictors in separate models.
• In the multivariate model, parental facilitation (β=0.20, p<0.01) showed the strongest predictive power.
• Parental attitude (β=0.17, p=0.03) remained significant, while efficacy (β=0.13, p=0.15) did not.

Conclusions:

• Parental factors, particularly facilitation and attitude, are important for developing children's motor competence for active play.
• Interventions targeting parents can effectively promote children's physical activity and motor skill development in unstructured settings.