Table 2 Parents’ Experiences (i.e., Barriers, Solutions) of Getting their Children Active During the Pandemic and Perspectives on Return to Play/Sport
Question | Theme | Example Quotes |
|---|---|---|
What challenges did you experience with getting your children active while at home? | Closures of Supportive Spaces | - “At one point in [city] where I am, they actually closed hiking trails. They came and they put big like boulder things like big cement blocks. That was probably the most upsetting thing because I was like… this is the last thing that we can do outside.” - “He would just look at you and he’d say, can’t go there [outside], Mom, because the [in]fection, that’s what he calls it, I know, and the [in]fection. Yeah. And it was heartbreaking.” - “We would go for walks by the park and just had to try to explain to her that they had closed it, but it was a little bit heartbreaking for us because we knew that as she got older, she was more able to play and use these to use the equipment. So, it was hard to not allow her to do that…” |
Weather | - “Now that it’s getting a bit colder and now that we returned to work, I don’t feel like she’s getting nearly enough activity.” - “In the summer, we’re very, very active. But yeah, in the winter now, like now it’s getting hard again because I will get up and get bundled up and take them out. But my four-year-old wants to wear shorts all day, every day. I can’t, like he fights every morning when I try to take him to school to put splash pants or snow pants on, even like he hates it. So, he just refuses to get ready to go outside.” - “It was hard to get them outside to play where they wouldn’t freeze after 5 min.” - “When the rainy gray season starts, they don’t really want to go outside.” | |
Lack of Motivation | - “It’s a lot of onus on me, like I said, in front of the computer all day for work, I’ve got a really high, high stress job that is very difficult. And the last thing I want to do is like I don’t want to have to be the instructor or the teacher on the computer again.” - “So, am I giving her as much experience as what she would be getting at school or sport? Definitely not, you know. I don’t have the energy to do that.” | |
Financial Implications | - “I looked into, you can swim, which is allowed if it’s a private lesson, but it’s one on one, but it was prohibitively expensive. So, I wanted to do it, but I can’t afford it.” - “We tried to purchase some aids in the form of like a climber or like a swing set or bike but like literally everything was sold out like or anything that was left available was like exorbitantly priced.” - “I also become a little bit resentful about spending the money on that. I’m all I want to support small businesses, but I, I have two kids enrolled and I’m paying two hundred dollars a month for them to rent somebody dancing [with regard to online classes].” | |
Disruption and Change to Routines | - “Oh, it was really hard. We fell into a pretty unstructured routine, I guess. Bedtimes were later. Sleep ins were later.” - “I got really, really lax with the routine. So, they were doing whatever they wanted to do more often. And I just I had to kind of let go of the control and let go of what I thought a successful day was going to look like.” | |
Increase in Screen Time | - “My kid plays Fortnite and he does a lot of gaming and he’s on the computer a lot. So, I really struggle with trying to get him off of the technology because it’s been so much more accessible to him. So, trying to get him outside, even to play basketball, to go sit in the backyard, to do something outside, it’s a lot harder now.” - “We’re going through a lot of temper tantrums, fits, him being very angry because I’m trying to take the devices away…” - “Screen time has increased totally. Because at the beginning, there was nothing for you really to do but to watch TV. There was nowhere to go. Nowhere to go and really nothing to do sort of thing.” | |
Quality of Virtual Instructions | - “She found it really discouraging. In fact, how they had done it was pre-recorded. It wasn’t like a Zoom live type dance session. So, she got really frustrated that the instructor couldn’t see her or wasn’t speaking back to her or that like, you know, she’s not making suggestions like, can we do this? Can we do that? And it was so regimented.” | |
Housing Type (i.e., Presence or Not of Outdoor Space) | - “We have no yard; we have no balcony. And our neighbor in the summer at one point just said, look, if you want to use our backyard, you can come sit here, which made a huge difference.” - We found it very challenging. So, we live in a townhouse that does not have a basement or backyard. We had to try to utilize just the front yard space, which isn’t impossible. But it just made it difficult because we’re right on a street, so then we were scared because we are on a corner lot that is adjacent to the exit of a cul, kind of like a cul de sac sort of thing. So, people come out of there with the vehicle.” | |
What solutions did you undertake to deal with these challenges? | Engaging in Activity Indoors | - “We set up obstacle courses with like furniture in our house like, I don’t know, unsafe probably things. But we had fun and yeah. And we did dances and songs…” - “Like we have like a Google Play, and I would let them use Spotify and they would just dance around inside to random kid songs…” |
Bubbling with Neighbours and Other Families | - “We have a communal courtyard outside our house. And I think once the sun came back, there was one family that sort of approached my son and they were like, are you OK if they play together?... And sometimes some of the kids wear masks, some don’t.” - “I’ve actually networked on like via Instagram and Facebook and things like that. I’ve actually been able to network with quite a bit of other moms that are that feel the same way I do about everything and want their kids to be active and want their kids to socialize. So, we have like playdates and stuff at the parks and like we’ll meet up outdoors and try and let the kids run around and still socialize and things like that. So that’s been a godsend.” | |
Getting Outdoors | - “We have amazing greenery in the area. There’s lots of trails and creeks and all that kind of stuff. We’re right by the lake. So, there’s a ton of nature outdoor stuff to do in the summer. Thank goodness.” - “We went hiking every single week. Lots of activity, lots of outside time. With so much international travel and like cross provincial travel, we never really explored Ontario. We had no idea what was close by and we’ve hiked everything now close by so well, when you think you’ve done it all, there’s more to do with it. So that was a radical change. We started to explore our own backyard. You know, lots of good changes for the future.” | |
Virtual platforms | - “There are all these free programs available on YouTube and stuff to get them up and dancing.” - “They would they found this YouTube channel where they could do kids exercises. So, they would do that every day just to kind of keep them off the screens and active.” | |
Housing Type/ Presence of Outdoor Space at Home | - “We are so lucky that I have a big yard, so we have like the trampoline in the back. A yard to play in the front yard, all that kind of stuff, so it definitely helped having an outdoor space.” - “…like when I’m working, I’m comfortable running them on their own in the backyard.” | |
Do you intend to make any changes to your child(ren)‘s active play/sports programming as a result of the pandemic? | Children’s Views on Masks and Physical Distancing Rules | - “I think when people think that, like, oh, kids can’t wear masks or kids won’t be able to do this. The kids actually have no problem with it. They’re taking their cues from us. Kids know what’s normal based on what everyone else is doing around them. So, it’s really just when their parents are against it, they have a big issue with it. And pre-COVID kids had to wear masks in the hospital, sometimes for various reasons. And we never had a kid freak out. They just did it, all the nurses did it. So, they did it.” |
Willingness to Have Children Return to Play | - “I think that risk is so low that it’s, it’s an acceptable level of risk because the risk to my child not being able to access physical activity and all the developmental goodness that comes with interacting with his peers in this kind of group setting, that’s a greater risk to his health than the very small chance that he contracted COVID or something else.” - “I would like to get back to a situation where kids are allowed to play with each other and touch each other and be close as quickly as possible, and as soon as anything like that is offered, I will be signing my kids up.” - “I’m more worried about how it’s being dealt with and what it does for kids to be told to stay away from each other, to wear masks when they see other people. Like I find that the potential psychological impact on kids to be more dangerous.” | |
Physical Distancing Rules | - “One of the neighbor’s child is in hockey, and he doesn’t want to go because of all the protocols, because it’s not as fun.” - “I’m very comfortable with what they’re doing at hockey. I mean, everyone only one parent is allowed in the arena with the kid. There’s only ten people allowed the dressing room. Everyone has to wear masks…” | |
What are your overall feelings regarding your child(ren)‘s eventual return to play/sports? | Lack of Motivation to Parent | - “I just really I had to just focus on me, like, really, I had to, like, maintain my mental health a little bit. I just I had to kind of let go of the control and let go of what I thought a successful day was going to look like.” |
Parents’ Reduction in Activity | - “And for both my husband and I, were both super into running... but since Sunday, neither of us have even ran one kilometer, you know what I’m saying? So, like, it just it shows you how much the pendulum swings for sure. It was good up until we were really isolated.” | |
Children’s Social Connectedness | - “So, you know, I think [child] has some mental health problems, because now with all this happening, you know, everyone’s getting on each other’s nerves, and I know [child] getting frustrated with us and we’re getting frustrated with each other because we are trying to be careful and trying to go by most of these guidelines.” - “They went through this stage where they were like, does it really matter? You know, nothing’s going to go back to normal like, you know, week after week, you know, just kept continuing and just knowing that school could not come back so they really just the school not going back to, like, what’s going on so they were like, who cares? And I just I took it easy on them. You know, because they are children still and, you know, everybody was going through the same thing. But this is really new for a child that was go, go, go. And all of a sudden, you’re, like, you know what? You don’t have to go anywhere. You stay at home and watch the iPad if you want to, or you could watch TV if you want is it was an adjustment for them.” - “There would be like an episode where she might get upset and she cries, and that hurts your feelings, too, because she’s justified and you don’t know how else to explain it to her, and she just has to get through it and but you’re like, there’s no reason for this (…) She’s not getting in trouble, but you’re kind of giving her so many rules and all she just wants to do is just throw the ball and just sort of be free, so. It just maybe stifles her a little bit and then can cause a little bit of frustration, (…) we had to deal with a lot of that.” | |
Parents’ Social Connectedness | - “Well, I guess when you’re at the dance studio five nights a week and then all of a sudden you’re not there anymore.... it’s like for her, it was more like the loss of activity. For me, it was I feel it was my that was my social time.” - “I’m glad that this is my second child and not the first one because we were so lucky to be able to be a part of so many, like mommy and baby groups before. I think it was really beneficial for her and now we can’t do that with our second.” |