A team of researchers, headed by Kristen Copeland, MD, Division of General and Community Pediatrics at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center have published interesting findings regarding various factors affecting the amount of physical activities children participate in child care centers.
As physicians, educators, and parents contemplate the noticeable increase in childhood obesity over the past decade, the Copeland research findings provide some insight into how we may be able to address this serious health issue.
What might we be doing to encourage the development of couch potatoes?
Their research confirmed some pretty basic things that are happening, sometimes subtly and sometimes not so subtly, that reduce the amount of physical activity our children engage in. The areas of concern are as follows.
Clothing Concerns
Parental clothing concerns could be divided into two groups. First, some parents do not have the financial means to provide adequate clothing for their children. This often means children arrive at school without proper coats, hats, mittens, or scarves.
Some families do not want their child to get their clothes dirty. They often do not want expensive clothing or designer clothing ruined. As educators we can understand this financial component.
Many times a child will arrive at school in inappropriate clothing simply because she wanted to wear a party dress. Or he wanted to wear a pair of cowboy boots. As children grow and learn to make decisions and express themselves through clothing, parents find it difficult to say, no to inappropriate clothing. The beloved flip-flops, party shoes, and cowboy boots do not provide safe footing for a child to climb and run. This often results is the child avoiding physical activity.
While the researchers did not address this, it is my belief that sometimes what appears to be uncooperative parents is actually parents being unaware of what their child needs to safely engage in outdoor activity. Additionally, our mobile and culturally diverse society includes families who simply do not know how to properly dress their child for their present geographic area.
Getting Ill
Some parents, and some cultures, feel that allowing their child to go outside for physical activity will make their child ill. Or at best, worsen a current sniffle. The report observes that some parents take their child’s coat with them when they leave the child at the center. They do this knowingly so their child will not be able to go outside to play. In some cases this will mean that one parent can keep the entire class of children indoors for the entire day. As educators we need to seriously think about that…keeping children inside all day, when their day can be as long as 10 hours. As adults it would be rare for us to stay inside all day without a breath of fresh air or a change of scenery.
Additionally, parents genuinely worry that their child may be injured in outdoor activity. A scraped knee is one thing, but one broken arm might mean financial disaster at a time when many families do not have health insurance.
As educators of young children, it behooves us to develop programs that will incorporate complete parent cooperation. The key may be two-fold: parent education and school policy development.
School and classroom orientations can really help parents understand that outdoor activities are not just kids running around. Clear goals, stated from the teacher, will allow parents the opportunity to explore the value of physical activity. How is developing coordination relevant to my child being successful in school? Developing a visible chart that will graphically help parents and children see physical progress may be helpful.
Teachers should always include the safety measures taken for outdoor play. Discussing teacher supervision, safety checks, and equipment design can go a long way to helping parents understand that teachers take safety seriously. And parents need to participate in a frank discussion of what it means, for a child, to be confined to a classroom for hours on end.
These open discussions can go a long way to helping a school develop a sensible outside activities policies. Parents can discuss these goals before they enroll their child in a school. Publishing physical education curriculum expectations is comforting to parents. It gives those who have anxiety permission to cooperate. School administrators and teachers should not forget that they are imbued with great authority with parents and children. What school administrators and teachers view as important will become important for parents and children.
And, of course, school staff and parents will need to acknowledge the need for flexibility. A child who insists on wearing party shoes to school can…but will need to change to sneakers to go outside.
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