by Charlene Shannon-McCallum (University of New Brunswick)
My most extensive work in the area of leisure education has involved working with parents of children who were overweight or obese and who had been referred to a pediatric lifestyle management program (LMP). There is considerable research that supports the notion the parents influence their children’s leisure. Parents are leisure role models and key socialization agents who pass on their leisure interests and skills to their children. However, parents are also important facilitators of their children’s leisure. They facilitate leisure experiences by creating opportunities; offering their children choices about how to spend their leisure time; supporting participation through spectating, financing, or transporting children to activities; and understanding their child’s needs and interest and how they can be met through leisure. However, facilitating leisure can be difficult without knowledge of children’s interest or leisure barriers or knowledge of community resources. My work with parents focused on helping them develop greater leisure awareness in general (e.g., value of leisure for children, their role as parents in facilitating leisure, leisure resources in the community, barriers to leisure participation and strategies for overcoming these barriers)
There was one simple exercise I used with parents that seemed to consistently open up parents eyes about their children’s leisure and generate conversations between parents and children about leisure. It was called What Am I Good At? It prompted parents to engage in discussion with their child about the activities their child felt he/she was good at, the activities he/she wanted to improve at, and activities he/she felt he/she would be good at if given a chance to try it. Parents would complete the exercise with their child and then during a one-on-one session with me (or another leisure educator), discuss what they had discovered and how to act on these discoveries.
Some parents were surprised to learn that things they thought their child was good at, were not things that their child perceived being skilled at. Parents also discovered that there were activities their child felt he/she was good at that they (parents) were not encouraging participation in (e.g., child expressed being good at soccer, but the parent did not know and so was not explicitly supporting this activity by offering to play soccer with him/her or registering child for soccer). Considering this question also provided parents with insight into why their child was more drawn to sedentary activities (greater perceived competence) than physical activities (perceived need to improve).
Discussion about the activities children wanted to improve in revealed some of the motivations for improving at certain activities – to be able to keep up with friends, so the activity would be more fun to participate in, to be included in activities that their friends were doing. Again, in some cases parents were surprised to learn that although their child did not enjoy skating, for example, and declined invitations to skate with friends, he/she was interested in developing skill in this activity so participation would be more comfortable.
Finally, having an understanding of activities their child believed he/she would be good at if an opportunity to try it came along, helped parents to understand new activities that might capture their child’s interest and/or build his/her confidence. In some cases, parents were not aware that their child even knew, for example, what taekwondo was – prompting conversations about where they had seen or heard about the activity and expanding parents understanding of where and from whom their child was learning about leisure activities. One father explained that after he found out his daughter thought she would be good at hoola hooping, he purchased one and they both worked on increasing the time they could keep the hoola hoop going.
Parent leisure education can support parents in their roles as facilitators
This simple activity, perhaps a conversation starter really, generated incredible awareness for parents. Many parents expressed feeling that the information from this activity put them in a better position to facilitate and support changes to leisure behaviour that would see their children engaging in more physically active pursuits (one of the goals of the LMP). Others felt that it was a good starting point for understanding their children’s experiences in various leisure activities.
I’m interested in what other tools leisure educators (practitioners or researchers) have used outside of therapeutic recreation settings that have helped generate awareness about leisure or could prompt conversations among family members about leisure. I’m also interested in considering how practitioners and researchers can make these types of tools accessible to members of the general public (e.g., parents) so that opportunities for increasing leisure awareness can be more readily available. Are there ways of disseminating useful tools and producing instructions for interpretation that would guide individuals to think about and assess their personal and family leisure? Are there avenues for helping parents develop knowledge that supports them in their roles as leisure facilitators for their children? Or, must leisure education happen within a program context?
Leisure Education 