Background & purpose
Parents play important roles in a child's development. There is an absence of information about the association between parents’ and children’s fundamental movement skill (FMS) competence. This study examined the associations between FMS competence of parents and their preschool children. The differences between their mean skill scores were also determined.
Methods
Preschool children (49.4% boys) at age four to six years old and their parent (27.8% male) were recruited from 12 kindergartens. Parental and child FMS competence in underhand throw, horizontal jump, and run were assessed from 79 child-parent dyads using Test of Gross Motor Development – 3. Their static balance performance was measured with Movement Assessment Battery for Children. Separate linear regression models were conducted for underhand throw, horizontal jump, run and static balance to examine the extent to which parents’ FMS competence predicted their child’s FMS competence. All models were adjusted for child BMI and parental BMI. Comparisons between children’s and parents’ FMS competence were carried out using paired t-tests.
Results
Parents’ underhand throw predicted their child’s underhand throw (β = .26, p = .02) that accounted for 12% of the variance. There were no statistically significant associations when the models were run for horizontal jump, run and static balance. The parents had significantly better performance on horizontal jump and static balance than their children (p < .001), but poorer in underhand throw (mean diff = 0.44 [95% CI. 0.22, 0.65]) and run (mean diff = 0.27 [95% CI. 0.09, 0.44]) than their children.
Conclusion & implications
The findings suggest that interventions aiming to improve children’s FMS could target parents by enhancing their FMS knowledge and skills. It could be fruitful to empower parents to play an active role to support and enrich their children’s FMS learning experiences outside of school.
• Innovative perspectives on physical education, physical activity, health and wellbeing a
