IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jijerp/v18y2021i9p4481-d541908.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Children’s Independent Mobility and Physical Activity during the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Qualitative Study with Families

Author

Listed:
  • Chelsea A. Pelletier

    (School of Health Sciences, University of Northern British Columbia, Prince George, BC V2N 4Z9, Canada)

  • Katie Cornish

    (Health Research Institute, University of Northern British Columbia, Prince George, BC V2N 4Z9, Canada)

  • Caroline Sanders

    (School of Nursing, University of Northern British Columbia, Prince George, BC V2N 4Z9, Canada)

Abstract

Children’s independent mobility (CIM) is the freedom of children to move around their neighbourhood without adult supervision and is closely related to overall physical activity participation. The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted movement behaviours for children, with evidence indicating a decrease in physical activity. The aim of this study was to explore experiences of CIM and physical activity during the COVID-19 pandemic from the perspectives of children and their parents. We completed 21 family (at least one parent and one child aged 7–12) semi-structured interviews with 45 participants living in small urban and rural areas of British Columbia, Canada. Three themes were identified through a reflexive thematic analysis: (1) keeping everyone safe from COVID-19; (2) change in pattern and types of activity; (3) social impacts with family, friends, and community. Participants expressed a perceived increase in unstructured activity and a decrease in structured physical activity during the pandemic, which many parents viewed as a positive change. Parents and children indicated negative feelings due to spending less time with peers and reflected positively about spending more time with family. Parents and children expressed fear and anxiety in trying to keep their families safe from virus spread and creativity in adapting play behaviours. Findings highlight the impact of the pandemic on social friendship networks for families and a shift in activity patterns for children toward unstructured play.

Suggested Citation

  • Chelsea A. Pelletier & Katie Cornish & Caroline Sanders, 2021. "Children’s Independent Mobility and Physical Activity during the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Qualitative Study with Families," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(9), pages 1-12, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:18:y:2021:i:9:p:4481-:d:541908
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/9/4481/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/9/4481/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Katriona O’Sullivan & Serena Clark & Amy McGrane & Nicole Rock & Lydia Burke & Neasa Boyle & Natasha Joksimovic & Kevin Marshall, 2021. "A Qualitative Study of Child and Adolescent Mental Health during the COVID-19 Pandemic in Ireland," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(3), pages 1-15, January.
    2. Isabel Marzi & Anne Kerstin Reimers, 2018. "Children’s Independent Mobility: Current Knowledge, Future Directions, and Public Health Implications," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 15(11), pages 1-15, November.
    3. Negin A. Riazi & Sébastien Blanchette & François Trudeau & Richard Larouche & Mark S. Tremblay & Guy Faulkner, 2019. "Correlates of Children’s Independent Mobility in Canada: A Multi-Site Study," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 16(16), pages 1-14, August.
    4. Fyhri, Aslak & Hjorthol, Randi & Mackett, Roger L. & Fotel, Trine Nordgaard & Kyttä, Marketta, 2011. "Children's active travel and independent mobility in four countries: Development, social contributing trends and measures," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 18(5), pages 703-710, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Monika Szpunar & Kendall Saravanamuttoo & Leigh M. Vanderloo & Brianne A. Bruijns & Stephanie Truelove & Shauna M. Burke & Jason Gilliland & Jennifer D. Irwin & Patricia Tucker, 2022. "Children’s Physical Activity during COVID-19 in Ontario, Canada: Parents’ Perspectives," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(22), pages 1-16, November.
    2. Ana Lourenço & Fernando Martins & Beatriz Pereira & Rui Mendes, 2021. "Children Are Back to School, but Is Play Still in Lockdown? Play Experiences, Social Interactions, and Children’s Quality of Life in Primary Education in the COVID-19 Pandemic in 2020," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(23), pages 1-15, November.
    3. Lea Rossi & Nick Behme & Christoph Breuer, 2021. "Physical Activity of Children and Adolescents during the COVID-19 Pandemic—A Scoping Review," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(21), pages 1-18, October.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Janet Loebach & Marcos Sanches & Julia Jaffe & Tara Elton-Marshall, 2021. "Paving the Way for Outdoor Play: Examining Socio-Environmental Barriers to Community-Based Outdoor Play," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(7), pages 1-25, March.
    2. Yang Zhou & Meng Wang & Siming Lin & Caiyun Qian, 2022. "Relationship between Children’s Independent Activities and the Built Environment of Outdoor Activity Space in Residential Neighborhoods: A Case Study of Nanjing," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(16), pages 1-24, August.
    3. Melody Smith & Rebecca Amann & Alana Cavadino & Deborah Raphael & Robin Kearns & Roger Mackett & Lisa Mackay & Penelope Carroll & Euan Forsyth & Suzanne Mavoa & Jinfeng Zhao & Erika Ikeda & Karen Witt, 2019. "Children’s Transport Built Environments: A Mixed Methods Study of Associations between Perceived and Objective Measures and Relationships with Parent Licence for Independent Mobility in Auckland, New ," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 16(8), pages 1-22, April.
    4. Negin A. Riazi & Kelly Wunderlich & Lira Yun & Derek C. Paterson & Guy Faulkner, 2022. "Social-Ecological Correlates of Children’s Independent Mobility: A Systematic Review," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(3), pages 1-15, January.
    5. Lingyi Qiu & Xuemei Zhu, 2021. "Housing and Community Environments vs. Independent Mobility: Roles in Promoting Children’s Independent Travel and Unsupervised Outdoor Play," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(4), pages 1-17, February.
    6. Longxi Li & Michelle E. Moosbrugger, 2021. "Correlations between Physical Activity Participation and the Environment in Children and Adolescents: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis Using Ecological Frameworks," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(17), pages 1-21, August.
    7. Elise Desjardins & Zahra Tavakoli & Antonio Páez & Edward Owen Douglas Waygood, 2022. "Children’s Access to Non-School Destinations by Active or Independent Travel: A Scoping Review," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(19), pages 1-18, September.
    8. Helen F. Dodd & Lily FitzGibbon & Brooke E. Watson & Rachel J. Nesbit, 2021. "Children’s Play and Independent Mobility in 2020: Results from the British Children’s Play Survey," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(8), pages 1-20, April.
    9. Ester Ayllón & Nieves Moyano & Azucena Lozano & María-Jesús Cava, 2019. "Parents’ Willingness and Perception of Children’s Autonomy as Predictors of Greater Independent Mobility to School," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 16(5), pages 1-14, February.
    10. Elias, Wafa & Katoshevski-Cavari, Rachel, 2014. "The role of socio-economic and environmental characteristics in school-commuting behavior: A comparative study of Jewish and Arab children in Israel," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 32(C), pages 79-87.
    11. Isabel Marzi & Anne Kerstin Reimers, 2018. "Children’s Independent Mobility: Current Knowledge, Future Directions, and Public Health Implications," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 15(11), pages 1-15, November.
    12. Raktim Mitra & Guy EJ Faulkner & Ron N Buliung & Michelle R Stone, 2014. "Do parental perceptions of the neighbourhood environment influence children’s independent mobility? Evidence from Toronto, Canada," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 51(16), pages 3401-3419, December.
    13. Ermagun, Alireza & Levinson, David, 2016. "Intra-household bargaining for school trip accompaniment of children: A group decision approach," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 94(C), pages 222-234.
    14. Dieneke Van de Sompel & Liselot Hudders & Lore Vandenberghe, 2020. "Cycling for a Sustainable Future. Stimulating Children to Cycle to School via a Synergetic Combination of Informational and Behavioral Interventions," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(8), pages 1-18, April.
    15. João De Abreu e Silva, 2018. "The Effects of Land-Use Patterns on Home-Based Tour Complexity and Total Distances Traveled: A Path Analysis," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(3), pages 1-16, March.
    16. Tania Clarke & Ruth Platt, 2023. "Children’s Lived Experiences of Wellbeing at School in England: a Phenomenological Inquiry," Child Indicators Research, Springer;The International Society of Child Indicators (ISCI), vol. 16(3), pages 963-996, June.
    17. Ed Ferrari & Mark A Green, 2013. "Travel to School and Housing Markets: A Case Study of Sheffield, England," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 45(11), pages 2771-2788, November.
    18. Sharmin, Samia & Kamruzzaman, Md. & Haque, Md Mazharul, 2020. "The impact of topological properties of built environment on children independent mobility: A comparative study between discretionary vs. nondiscretionary trips in Dhaka," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 83(C).
    19. Mitra, Raktim & Buliung, Ron N., 2015. "Exploring differences in school travel mode choice behaviour between children and youth," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 42(C), pages 4-11.
    20. Liu, Yang & Min, Shisheng & Shi, Zhuangbin & He, Mingwei, 2024. "Exploring students' choice of active travel to school in different spatial environments: A case study in a mountain city," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 115(C).

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:18:y:2021:i:9:p:4481-:d:541908. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.