Table 3 Children’s Experiences (i.e., Barriers, Solutions) of Getting Active During the Pandemic and Perspectives on Return to Sport

What challenges did you experience with getting active while at home?

Not Being Able to See Important Personnel (i.e., Friends, Coaches)

- “It impacted me like, very much, because I couldn’t see my dance friends. I couldn’t go to dance, and I couldn’t do much.”

- “I was trying to get used to not going outside, not going to the park, and not seeing my friends but it was really hard.”

- “I miss seeing my friends and getting to go to competitions or swim meets and just having fun.”

- “I miss seeing how people can teach me new ways to get better at stuff or like to play with a group of people instead of just one person.”

Engaging in a lot of Screen Time

- “I’d pretty much be sitting on my phone talking to my friends all day.”

- “We watched a lot of tv shows, YouTube, and TikTok.”

Lack of Things to do at Home

- “It’s challenging not being able to play with my family because they’re like doing work and stuff and because my dad still goes to his job.”

Closures of Outdoor Spaces and Sport Facilities

- “I can’t go on the slide, and they took off? the swing, the monkey bars and the rings.”

- “When you get to be in person is much more fun than trying to dance on your own at home when you don’t have the studio, or mirrors, or space.”

What helped you to deal with these challenges? [solutions]

Maintaining Sport or Activity Engagement at Home

- “I had some online gym classes, and I would go outside and roll out my mat. I’d go on my trampoline, and my friend made me download this workout app so I’d workout with her on the phone.”

- “I played hide and seek with my sister. We also played tag, skipping rope, hula hoop and hopscotch.”

- “I miss basketball, but me and my mom play basketball together.”

- “I have a hockey set-up in my basement, so I play hockey in the basement.”

Being Able to See Others Outside

- “When things started to cool down, I would be allowed to go hang out with a few friends that we like, knew parents of.”

- “We went and played at parks and at my school. We got outside and built an igloo.”

- “I got to see the neighbourhood kids in the summer, and I made some new friends.”

Talking to Friends Virtually and on Virtual Platforms

- “We made a group chat, and we’ll play games together and stuff and talk about what we did, what we ate, what we learned online, at school, and asking each other about what all were doing at home.”

- “Knowing we were all kind of going through the same thing was helpful. And knowing that it wasn’t just me who was missing all of the activities and sports events we had lined up.”

- “I used to do dancing online, but it [the internet] was always freezing.”

- “I went on hockey training camp on Zoom five days a week, 1 h per day, for 6 weeks.”

Have you and/or your parents/guardians already made any changes as a result of COVID-19 to your active play or sport programming? For example, are you back in any team activities or planning to go back?

Parents as Primary Decision Makers

- “My mom’s thought process was like if were going back to school, and they want me to keep my social bubble, I’m already exposed to the same people. Dance isn’t going to be much worse, because it’s going to be the same precautions as school. And a lot of my dance friends are also from school.”

- “I’m not the one who decides... it’s my mom.”

- “After corona, I’m planning to go back only if my mom lets me, and now that its corona, no, I’m not planning on doing anything.”

- “We heard that dance was coming back, and we just went back. It was like a no brainer.”

Perspectives on Health Protocols at Sport

- “It was still super easy with the protocols.”

- “I don’t mind wearing my mask.”

- “It’s kind of the same as before besides the 5 or 10-min period for them to clean. So instead of having 45-min classes, we had 35-min classes, but we still got the same amount of dance in, we just had to go a bit faster.”

- “It was harder because I kept losing my mask. I couldn’t keep track of it at gymnastics.”

- “At hockey, there’s a usually a guy waiting at the door and he’s going to ask you questions about if you were out of the city and if you have any symptoms of Covid and then you would go in.”

Compared to your routine before the pandemic started (as a reminder, this was in March), do you think you were more or less active back then than you are now?

Reduction in Activity Levels

- “I was more active before because with Covid you can’t do very many activities.”

- “I miss that I used to be really energetic in dance and I’m sad I missed my dance recital.”

- “I thought I was just going to, like, not be active enough to go back [to dance]. But I think other girls felt the same too.”

- “I’m less active because we don’t have any games. We’re just doing drills.”