Viviene A. Temple
RMIT University

Movement-seeking behaviours should be fostered in young children to maximise their potential to adopt and maintain a physically active lifestyle. This study examined the constraints and facilitators to meaningful movement for children in family day care. The views of key stakeholders (caregivers, parents, and coordination unit staff) were examined via focus group interviews and questionnaires. There was general agreement among stakeholders that physical activity is an important part of young children's lives and should be an essential component of family day care. However, there was concern about the variability in provision of opportunities for physical activity and that the variability reflected individual caregivers' predilection. Despite this, there was little support for structured or programmed physical activity. The major barriers to physical activity described by stakeholders reflected a confluence of environmental and social factors. Major facilitating factors mentioned were training and resources for caregivers.

Introduction

There are 343 registered family day care schemes across Australia. These are coordinated by trained staff under the auspices of local government, community groups or religious organisations. They are funded and guided by the Commonwealth Government in cooperation with State Government and a National Resource Unit (National Family Day Care Council of Australia, 2003). Each scheme consists of caregivers and the relevant coordinating unit. A sponsoring local government or non-profit community-based organisation establishes the coordination unit that in turn manages the scheme and interacts with operators, parents and caregivers (Comans, 1999). This unit is responsible for recruiting and supporting caregivers, placing children, monitoring care and financial administration. Within the coordination unit, fieldworkers support and resource caregivers through regular home visits and telephone contact. The fieldworker's main roles include monitoring standards of care, assisting with selection and training of caregivers, conducting playgroups, and reporting to the program coordinator. The care environment, because of its regulatory control and commitment to quality practice, provides a unique opportunity to impact upon the physical activity participation of young children.

Importance of physical activity for young children Regular participation in physical activity has been well-established as an integral part of a healthy lifestyle in adults (Pate et al., 1995). Chronic diseases such as coronary heart disease, hypertension and osteoporosis are a result of life-long processes, usually surfacing clinically in the older adult years (Corbin, Pangrazi & Welk, 1994; National Centre for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, 2000). Clinical markers of hypokinetic disease have been observed in children (Boreham, Twisk, Savage, Cran & Strain, 1997; National Centre for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, 2000).

The increasing prevalence of overweight and obesity within the Australian population is a concern, with overweight children often becoming overweight adults (Crespo & Arbesman, 2003; Goodman, Lewis, Dixon & Travers, 2002; Serdula et al., 1993). While some evidence exists to support the tracking of cardiovascular disease risk factors into adulthood (Kemper, Snel, Verschuur & Storm-van Essen, 1990; Wang, Ge & Popkin, 2000), data demonstrating the tracking of physical activity behaviours is more limited (Kohl & Hobbs, 1998). The lack of supporting evidence may be as much a problem of assessing physical activity in children as much as it is one of tracking (Kohl & Hobbs, 1998). The lack of hard evidence for tracking physical activity has been substituted with a commonsense argument based on the belief that early positive physical activity experiences will predispose people to enjoy physical activity in later years (Booth, 2001; Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 1997; Corbin & Pangrazi, 1998; Medical Journal of Australia, 2000).

Importance of movement skill development for young children It is generally agreed that, during the preschool years, children should be encouraged to practise movement skills and engage in appropriate physical activity for health, social and psychological reasons (American Medical Association, 1999; Corbin et al., 1994; National Association for Sport and Physical Education, 2002; Shilton & Naughton, 2001). Body management activities, manipulation opportunities with a variety of equipment, and both locomotor and non-locomotor activities should form the basis of a young child's preschool movement experience (Carson, 1994; Council on Physical Education for Children, 1994; Gallahue & Ozmun, 1998; Sanders, 1992).

Fundamental movement skills are basic movement patterns (catch, throw, kick etc.) that can be adapted, combined and refined to provide a foundation for lifetime sporting, recreational and physical activities (Carson, 1994; Gallahue & Ozmun, 1998; Seefeldt, 1979). These movement skills are best advanced within a supportive social environment with consideration for the affective and cognitive domains.

Barriers and facilitators for early childhood movement Literature exploring physical activity levels of children placed in care environments is limited. Deal (1993), using heart rate and log book recordings to investigate daily activity patterns of three-to-five-year-old children attending day care, found children in the study were largely sedentary when in care. This, and other investigations of preschoolers in the home environment, shows that little time is spent engaged in vigorous activity and most time is devoted to sedentary or low-level activity (Deal, 1993; Freedson, 1989; Saris, 1986).

Higher levels of physical activity have been associated with outdoor play (Burdette, Whitaker & Daniels, 2004; Deal, 1993; Klesges, Eck, Hanson, Haddock & Klesges, 1990). The positive effect of an outdoor environment on activity levels of children may be because of the greater tendency for large-muscle-group activities and higher levels of overall physical activity in comparison to indoor environments (Deal, 1993). However, this does not mean that children will naturally engage in an ideal range of physical activities in outdoor environments. Taggart and Keegan (1997) found children in centres rarely engaged in the fundamental movement skills of kicking, catching or striking, while the dominant behaviours were climbing, jumping and running. This is consistent with other research which found that balls and bean bags for throwing, using a bat/racquet, and kicking activities were not commonly (18%) provided at early childhood centres (Schiller & Broadhurst, 2002), and that equipment commonly requested for purchase by preschool teachers would not facilitate fundamental movement skills requiring object control (Sonenstein, Gates, Schmidt & Bolshun, 2002).

Adult presence also influences the play patterns of pre-primary children during outdoor play. Children participate in fundamental movement skills for longer periods when an adult is present (Taggart & Keegan, 1997). Interaction and encouragement from adult caregivers precipitated greater engagement in the ball-related skills of catching, throwing, kicking, and using bats (Taggart & Keegan, 1997). Children benefit when teachers and caregivers offer programmed outdoor experiences as well as child-initiated experiences to ensure breadth of learning (DeBord, Hestenes, Moore, Cosco & McGinnis, 2002; Taggart & Keegan, 1997).

Guidelines for early childhood movement

This investigation explored constraints and facilitators to meaningful movement for children in family day care. Specifically, the following research questions were addressed:

1. What were the common understandings and feelings about young children's need for physical activity and meaningful movement experiences?
2. What were parents, caregivers and coordination unit staff perceptions of the level and types of physical activity young children are engaged in within family day care settings?
3. What constraints and facilitating factors did parents, caregivers and coordination unit staff perceive in relation to the provision of physical activity and meaningful movement experiences for children in family day care?

Method

Recruitment
Subsequent to ethics clearance, caregivers, coordination unit staff and parents were recruited into the study. All participants provided informed consent. Following a presentation by the principal investigator outlining the study during a regular in-service education session for caregivers, a letter of invitation to participate was sent in the mail. Caregivers interested in participating called the telephone number listed, briefly discussed the study's requirements, and were invited to enrol in the study. Parents of children in family day care within Shire B were invited by their family day care scheme to participate in a focus group discussion exploring physical activity. Of the 344 families invited, only two expressed an interest in attending, despite many attempts to find times that best suited parents and the offer of child care. The methodology for collecting information from parents was consequently changed from focus group discussion to a distributed questionnaire. It contained both closed- and open-ended questions based on the focus group discussion guide. All families in Shire B were subsequently mailed an ‘invitation to participate' letter, an informed consent pro forma, the questionnaire, and a pre-paid and addressed envelope.

Participants
Caregivers and coordination unit staff
Participants for five of the six focus groups were caregivers from Shire A (3 groups, 16 participants) and Shire B (2 groups, 8 participants). The sixth focus group consisted of three coordination unit staff from Shire A. All of the caregivers were women aged between 36 and 51 years. They had been caregivers for an average of eight-and-a-half years (range 1-19 years), and looked after an average of four children per day (range 2-5 children) for approximately seven hours per day (range 4-16 hours). All of the caregivers cared for at least one child aged between three and five years and 89 per cent also looked after at least one child aged two years or younger.

Parents
From the questionnaires mailed to parents, 45 responses were received. For the purpose of this study, only the participant whose name appeared upon the questionnaire response form was counted in the descriptive statistics (n=45). Of the 45 respondents, two were male, 39 were female, and three were of unknown gender. The combined parent/guardians had an average of two children each (66 in total), of which 73 per cent were under the age of five (range 10-60 months). Children aged under five years spent an average 10.3 hours (SD=8.3 hours; range 1-40 hours) in family day care per week and constituted the focus for the parent/guardian questionnaire. Care needs to be taken with the interpretation of the parent data, as only those who felt strongly about physical activity may have responded to the survey.

Procedures
Focus group interviews
The focus groups were conducted in accordance with the methods described by Krueger and Casey (2000). The purpose of the interviews was for stakeholders to provide their perspective of physical activity participation by young children and opportunities and barriers for physical activity in family day care environments. Focus group interviews were held in Shire meeting rooms at a convenient time. The interview length ranged from 60 to 90 minutes and all interviews were tape-recorded. Initially an icebreaking activity was conducted and the purpose of the study was explained to the participants. It was emphasised that children aged between three and five years constituted the focus for the discussion. In addition, physical activity was defined for the participants in the following way: ‘Physical activity is where most of the body is moving, for example: riding a tricycle, running or helping in the garden. It would not include quiet play such as puzzles or drawing.' The discussion had two distinct components. The first was participants' views of physical activity and young children in general; the second focused more specifically on the family day care environment.

Parent questionnaire
In order to be comparable with the data collected from caregivers and coordination unit staff, eight open-ended questions were derived from the focus group discussion guide. The questionnaire also contained three closed questions concerning the number of children in care, their ages, and the time they spent in care.

Data analysis
Unabridged transcripts provided the basis for analysis of focus group interviews. Essentially, a long-table analysis (Krueger & Casey, 2000) was made, using a computer to help manage the data. Each quote or section of the transcript was categorised and coded before it was moved electronically to topic areas. The topic areas reflected the discussion guide at this stage. Subsequently, each author independently made a content analysis of each topic and a thematic analysis across all questions. The aim was to identify typical responses among participants and to reveal diversity between respondents. To contribute to the verification and validation of the findings, the identified content and themes were examined for consensus, a process Patton (1990) describes as ‘analyst triangulation'. A similar process of analysis was used for the open-ended responses to the eight questions in the parent questionnaire. Each author independently reviewed the responses to derive common themes and illustrative examples of those themes. Data presented in this paper reflects content and themes where there was agreement.

Results

Perceptions of young children's physical activity
All respondents felt that physical activity was an important component in the lives of young children and the family day care environment. Caregivers and parents indicated that children are very active when in day care, but both groups qualified this somewhat by indicating that it depends on the weather and opportunities provided by individual caregivers. Coordination unit staff agreed that children were active when opportunities were provided, but their overall impression was that children were not physically active in family day care.

Caregivers were generally uncertain about the role physical activity plays in later life, and articulated a limited role for it in the development of the child. In contrast, coordination unit staff felt strongly that children were not as active as they used to be, and were concerned about inactivity, lack of fitness and poorly-developed skills. They indicated that inactive children would become inactive adults. Coordination unit staff and parents could clearly convey a role for physical activity in a child's development. They mentioned that basic movement skills were the building blocks for more complex skills, and that physical activity helped develop confidence, self-esteem, cooperation and creativity. Caregivers and coordination unit staff expressed a strong desire for play to be unstructured, although a small proportion of respondents felt that structured physical activity was needed. Specific activities consistently mentioned as important physical activity for children in family day care were riding bikes/tricycles/pedal cars; rolling, trapping and catching balls; and the locomotor fundamental movement skills (hop, jump and run). Notable silences were creative play, and most of the other ball-related fundamental movement skills (such as batting, throwing and kicking a ball). Only parents mentioned dance as an important movement category.

Role of parents
Both coordination unit staff and caregivers perceived parents as obstacles to physical activity provision through trying to restrict activities. This included wanting to restrict time spent outdoors and excursions such as walking to the park. The issue of appropriate clothing was mentioned consistently. Caregivers and coordination unit staff indicated that many children came to family day care in clothes that impeded participation in physical activity. These constraints included oversized shoes, ‘good' clothes that the parents wanted kept clean, and not having appropriate clothing for outdoor activity in the winter. Parents did not identify themselves as being a barrier to their child's activity when in care. Of the 45 parents surveyed, none mentioned clothing or imposition of restrictions as potential barriers. When asked why they valued physical activity, parents most frequently listed the development of movement skills and coordination, enhancement of social interaction, and establishing lifelong activity habits.

Diversity of children in care
Caregivers and parents indicated that the diversity of children in care was a constraint to providing a physical active environment. Caregivers reflected that children of different ages had needs that could be incompatible. For example, when babies slept the older children could not be outside or participating in activities which created disturbance. Several caregivers felt they had little time to facilitate physical activity for three-to-five-year-olds because of other demands on their time such as feeding younger children, changing nappies and toilet training. In addition, dropping off and picking up children from kindergarten took up a lot of time. Caregivers also felt that many children were used to more sedentary activities such as watching television and videos at home, and they had to battle to persuade the children to do otherwise.

Coordination unit staff clearly diverged from this view and felt babies and toddlers were used as an excuse to minimise the need to facilitate participation for three-to-five-year-old children.

Physical environment
All participants described environmental barriers to physical activity. These included lack of space, a lack of undercover areas for poor weather (both summer and winter), and local playgrounds that were unsuitable for young children or had been vandalised. Several caregivers indicated that they had outdoor spaces such as sheds and verandas available for play in poor weather, but other caregivers indicated that this was not always the case. One focus group member declared, ‘I don't have anything; we just have to stay inside.' Little gross motor activity was allowed indoors. In particular, caregivers would not allow running, throwing, climbing, catching, or riding bicycles/tricycles indoors.

Staff attitudes and capabilities
According to coordination unit staff, caregivers do not give priority to physical activity. They said caregivers were not physically active themselves, lacked ideas, knowledge and competence for providing physical activity, and were resistant to training. They went so far as to say that some caregivers actually discouraged physical activity. Caregivers and parents did not totally disagree with these views, but placed a great deal more emphasis on the beliefs and backgrounds of individual caregivers. Summed up by this caregiver: ‘I think if you are an active person yourself it will rub off on the children you look after. If you sit and watch tele [TV] then the kids will sit and watch tele. ... So how do you regulate something like this?' An emergent theme across caregiver interviews was a general lack of confidence, knowledge and skill regarding physical activity participation and provision.

Resources and policies
According to coordination unit staff, the toy library and play group operated by the family day care scheme were great resources, but under-utilised. Caregivers felt that the play group was a good idea, but found access a struggle because of transportation difficulties. The range of toys available from the toy library was considered inadequate by caregivers, who suggested that greater emphasis should be placed on larger equipment such as obstacle-course materials. Other facilitating factors mentioned by caregivers and coordination unit staff were resources, support and encouragement. Caregivers said they wanted to share ideas and learn new activities, and there were many thoughts about what ‘resources' could consist of, including posters for the wall, a book to refer back to, a box of cards, a workshop and a video. The coordination unit staff said resources and training were the greatest areas of need because they felt caregivers had difficulty being flexible or adaptable when considering physical activity. A notable silence from caregivers and coordination unit staff related to policy and quality assurance practices. Only parents mentioned that monitoring of physical activity and/or outdoor time could be valuable.

Discussion

When asked what types of physical activity children should engage in, all stakeholders mentioned outdoor play and gross motor activities. More emphasis was placed on locomotor movement skills than on ball-related movement skills. These findings are consistent with Taggart and Keegan's (1997) observations of children's play in pre-primary centres, where they found children rarely engaged in ball-related fundamental movement skills. Only parents mentioned that children should engage in group games and social play. All stakeholders mentioned social development as a positive outcome of physical activity, but only parents mentioned it as a process. There was little support from stakeholders for programmed or structured physical activity. In contrast, staff from long day care centres in the same geographical region were favourably disposed toward structuring physical activity (Temple & O'Connor, 2003). There needs to be a balance of child-initiated and caregiver-initiated or supported movement experiences (DeBord et al., 2002; Taggart & Keegan, 1997) so that children experiment with a wide variety of movements (Taggart & Keegan, 1997) and they have opportunities to enhance their fundamental movement skills (Kelly, Dagger & Walkley, 1989). Given that parents reported that their children were spending many hours per day in family day care, it is important for some time to be devoted to structured physical activity that affords opportunities to participate in positive movement experiences. It would seem unlikely that many parents would find time to engage children in activity before or after work. Deal (1993) noted that the greatest portion of time in the home environment was devoted to sedentary or low-level activity. The third question posed by this study sought to shed some light on the constraints and facilitating factors for activity in care, with the environment and significant others emerging as major themes. The environment as a facilitating factor or a constraint was a confluence of the physical features of the environment and social features such as rules for play, or presence or absence of suitable clothing. For example, outdoor play spaces when the weather was not too hot or too cold/wet were generally adequate according to stakeholders. However, undercover or indoor play places were much smaller (or non-existent) than outdoor play areas, and the indoor play spaces were governed by rules that restricted many gross motor activities. A cyclical activity pattern associated with weather has been observed in other literature (Poest, Williams, Witt & Atwood, 1989; US Department of Health and Human Services, 1984). Poest et al. (1989) found that only 27.5 per cent of preschool children were consistently involved in year-round physical activity. Given the rapid fall-off in activity because of extremes in weather, it is even more important for organisations such as family day care to program activity and provide creative solutions to counter the impact of these environmental constraints.

Another social factor which interacted with the physical environment was the diversity of children in care. Coordination unit staff disagreed that this diversity was the issue, and felt that if caregivers had more confidence and training they could find creative solutions to keep the older children more active during those times. Caregivers also felt that resources and training would be helpful in this area, a notion supported by Poest et al. (1989), who indicated that training would better equip instructors to implement movement activities for preschool-aged children. Children's physical activity participation is influenced by those who care for them. We heard that some children were sent to day care in clothes that inhibited activity and that some parents sought to constrain outdoor time and particular activities. We also heard that there was variability in the provision of physical activity opportunities, as well as opportunities for sedentary behaviour such as watching television. One caregiver reflected that it would be difficult to regulate such practices, and a parent suggested that physical activity should be monitored. A loose framework for programming physical activity exists within the National Standards for Family Day Care (National Family Day Care Council of Australia). Within this framework, utilisation of a programming model is encouraged when planning for children's development (Department of Family and Community Services, 2000). Redefinition of the quality elements for family day care would allow physical activity to assume greater prominence, consistency of practice, and meet minimum recommendations for physical activity suggested by groups such as NASPE (National Association for Sport and Physical Education, 2002). Associated with this redefinition should be concomitant training and provision of resources to help caregivers acquire the confidence and competence to afford physical activity opportunities for children in family day care.

Conclusion and recommendations

References

Table 1. Physical activity guidelines for children birth to five years
Guideline 1	Preschoolers should accumulate at least 60 minutes daily of developmentally-appropriate physical activity (structured).
Guideline 2	Preschoolers should engage in at least 60 minutes and up to several hours of daily, unstructured physical activity and should not be sedentary for more than 60 minutes at a time except when sleeping.
Guideline 3	Preschoolers should develop competence in movement skills that form the building blocks for more complex movement tasks.
Guideline 4	Preschoolers should have access to indoor and outdoor areas that encourage performing large-muscle activities.
Guideline 5	Individuals responsible for the wellbeing of preschoolers should be aware of the importance of physical activity and facilitate the child's movement skills.

(National Association for Sport and Physical Education, 2002, pp. 9-11)

Table 2. Summary of key themes from focus group interviews and questionnaires
Key themes	Coordination unit staff	Caregivers	Parents
Role of parents	C: Some parents do not want their children to be outdoors during care C: Overprotective parents C: Children wearing inappropriate clothes	C: Children sent to care in clothing inappropriate for physical activity. For example, in good clothes the parents wanted kept clean, or without outdoor wear in winter	C: Majority unaware of physical activity taking place in care F: Majority positively predisposed toward physical activity in family day care
Diversity of children in care	C: Younger children used as an excuse for not engaging three-to-five-year-old children in more physical activity	C: Some children come to day care predisposed to sedentary behaviour. Difficult to motivate C: Time taken to drop-off and pick-up children from kindergarten, school etc. C: 3-5-year-olds need to be quiet and indoors when the babies are sleeping F: Same age group would be easier	C: Babies decrease outdoor time because supervision is needed indoors
Physical environment	C: Little undercover outdoor space available F: See possibilities in small spaces and with little equipment	C: Lack of suitable outdoor space for poor weather C: Local playgrounds unsuitable for young children, vandalised or no undercover area C: Rules for indoor play	C: Bad weather C: Caregiver's facilities
Staff attitudes and capabilities	C: Majority of caregivers do not give priority to physical activity; do not encourage children to participate C: Caregivers lack knowledge, confidence and ideas for physical activity C: Caregivers resistant to training	C and F: Diverse caregivers group. Some provide little physical activity, others a great deal C: Caregivers in general lack skill, knowledge and confidence related to physical activity F: Want support and encouragement	C and F: Quality and quantity of physical activity provision depends on the particular caregiver
Resources and policies	F: Specific family day care toy library and play group	C: Toy library inadequate; play group inaccessible F: Caregivers want resources	F: Physical activity and outdoor time should be monitored

NB. C = constraint and F = facilitator

AJEC, Vol. 30 No. 4, December 2005, pp. 1-9.

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