Because of these changing trends, parents need to make a more concerted effort to help their child develop an active lifestyle. Parents may accept responsibility for socializing their child to have good manners and to be considerate of others but may not consider the physical domain as part of their responsibility. Many may assume that children receive their physical education through school. While physical education provides children with a variety of educational and behavioral experiences, the limited amount of time in the curriculum is not sufficient for promoting activity or fitness. For children to develop active patterns of living, it is important for them to receive activity-promoting messages and experiences at home.
Parents can clearly have a major impact on the development of active lifestyles in their children.
To make use of this potential intervention target, more work is needed to characterize and document the nature and extent of parental influence on physical activity behavior in children. Reference List References identified with an EJ or ED number have been abstracted and are in the ERIC database. Parental and peer influences on leisure-time physical activity in young adolescents. The exercise of control. Analysis of children's physical activity and its association with adult encouragement and social cognitive values.