Evidence of the parental strategies that enabled preschool children’s outdoor/nature experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic.
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Eight facilitating and three hindering parenting strategies impacted children’s experience of the natural environment.
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Facilitating: exploring local nature as a family; using parks and play equipment; believing the benefits of outdoor play.
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Hindering: reducing outdoor time in playparks and avoiding outdoor experiences, particularly during wet and rainy weather.
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Key learnings could translate to inform post-pandemic interventions to increase preschool children’s exposure to nature.
Abstract
Outdoor and nature experiences including play have been shown to be beneficial for children's physical, cognitive, social and emotional development. Parents/carers play an important role in encouraging or impeding their child's access to the outdoor environment and participation in outdoor play. The COVID-19 pandemic and associated restrictions on free movement and social interactions placed an unprecedented pressure on families to manage the drastic change in their daily routines. This paper reports findings from two combined data sets generated in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic and provides a deeper understanding of the interconnected nature of how contextual factors influence parenting processes and outcomes relating to young children's outdoor and nature experiences and subsequent child health. Findings have the potential to inform the messaging of existing outdoor play policies and the content of new interventions aiming to promote the exposure of children to the natural outdoor environment.