Parents’ orientation is more important for children’s visits to greenspaces than the availability of spaces and time

Abstract

The decline in children’s interactions with nature has been a great concern in the past few decades. The reason often discussed is the increase in children living in urban settings where greenspaces and time are limited. However, parents’ orientations toward children’s nature play could also strongly influence the extent of children’s interaction with nature. To understand the relative importance of parental orientation for the frequency of children’s visits to greenspaces (FCG), compared with the availability of greenspaces and time and child’s screen time, we constructed structural equation models (SEM) using questionnaire data obtained from 516 parents with primary school-age children in Japan. We examined the SEMs for four types of greenspaces (forests, farms, rivers and parks) and two children’s age groups (1–3 and 4–6 graders in primary school). In general, parents' permission for free play was the most important factor for FCG across greenspaces and age groups, followed by parents’ perceived benefits of nature play. Parents’ incident concerns reduced FCG indirectly via reducing permission for free play. Urbanization had negative and positive effects on FCG for farms and parks, respectively. Parents’ and children’s time constraints and children’s screen time only had minor or insignificant effects on FCG. Our study demonstrates that parental orientations were more important for FCG than the availability of greenspaces and time. Measures to promote positive orientations, in particular to facilitate greater permission for children’s free play in greenspaces, would be important to reconnect children with nature.