Unsupervised Play Research Articles

Structural equation modeling analysis of risk factors for digital game addiction in adolescents: A web-based study

AimDigital game addiction warrants study as it has serious negative impacts on adolescents' lives. This study aims to examine digital game addiction in adolescents and its factors. MethodsThis cross-sectional study sample consisted of 297 students among 2400 students enrolled in four high schools located in Turkey's Mediterranean region. Data were collected from the adolescents using the Digital Game Addiction Scale for Children between September and December 2021. The STROBE checklist was used for reporting. ResultsThe study found that adolescents who are male, who started playing digital games before the age of six, whose play is unlimited and unsupervised, who play for >10 h a day, who play digital games on the computer, and who do not participate in any other activities are the most at-risk group for digital addiction. ConclusionsStarting to play digital games in early childhood, and having unlimited and unsupervised play increases the risk of digital game addiction. It is recommended that school-based intervention programs are designed to prevent and reduce digital game addiction. In this regard, awareness projects, involving teachers, adolescents, and parents should be planned.

Role Plays Interventional Approach towards Mothers of Toddlers Regarding Prevention of Choking and Pulmonary Aspiration

Background: Toddlers are exposed to a variety of risk factors which includes playing with small material like coins, marbles, rings, unsupervised play and eating, children with decreased consciousness which may leads to choking. Children's respiratory crises and cardiac arrest are frequently brought on by choking or the introduction of an outside object into the airway, especially in children within the 6 months and 3 years of age. Childhood injuries have recently been a public health concern due to the frequency of pulmonary aspiration and choking in children under two years old, as well as mother referrals to medical institutions. According to research conducted in the United States, choking on external items caused 2.9% of children under the age of 4 is prone to die.Aim and Objective: To assess effectiveness of role play regarding prevention of choking and pulmonary aspiration among the mothers of toddler and associate findings with demographic variables.Material and methods: This research were adopted a pre-post experimental research approach among mothers of toddler between the age group of 20-40. 135 mothers of toddler involved in this research. Data were analyzed using the IBM Corp. Released 2016. IBM SPSS Statistics for Windows, Version 26.0. Armonk, NY: IBM Corp. Qualitative variables were described as numbers and percentages.Results: Before intervention minimum knowledge score was 6.54 and maximum knowledge score percentage was 27.25%. After intervention maximum knowledge score was 70.12%. the average knowledge score has increased by 10.28 and currently represents 42.97% of the total possible points.Conclusion: Choking is a medical condition in which acute blockage of upper respiratory tract occur by a solid particle such as coins, lollypop, hairclips, grapes, marbles, foreign objects accidentally which leads to respiratory crisis like asphyxia as well as cardiac arrest. Toddlers and elderly age group are prone for choking and pulmonary aspiration, and it occur when the unsupervised play and eating, children with decreased consciousness which may leads to choking. It is incorrect to refer to any circumstances in which an obstruction of the airways causes a people to die as a result of choking. The word "choking" excludes deaths caused by diseases other than those caused by strangling, drowning, and gagging, which are all distinct medical conditions. Thus, the prevention of choking and pulmonary aspiration can be done by increasing knowledge and awareness about common sign and symptoms which includes gagging, watery eyes, reddening of face, coughing as well as teaching about preventive measures are choking technique which includes back blow and abdominal thrust and Heimlich maneuver among the mothers of toddler. In this study, the effectiveness of role play regarding prevention of choking and pulmonary aspiration among the mothers of toddler is improved from 26.96% to 70.12%.

Self-efficacy experiences in day care and primary school from the children’s perspective: A starting point for the reflection of didactic and methodological competences of adult educators

This paper discusses self-efficacy as a key factor in children managing the transition to primary school, the threshold to formal education and further learning processes. In presenting results of a qualitative-longitudinal interview study of German preschool and primary school children’s perspectives on their self-efficacy experiences, it furnishes evidence for enhancing self-efficacy in pedagogical practice in a so-called mastery climate. Co-determined or self-determined opportunities for playing without adult intervention prove to be central in this to children’s self-efficacy. Following on from this, the discussion will make references to the pedagogical relevance of child-led or unsupervised play for the promotion of self-efficacy in both settings. In addition, based on the reflection of the concept of generational order, the study points to concrete starting points to focus on necessary didactic and methodological competences of adult educators for the appropriate design of child-oriented co-determined or self-determined learning settings.

Short- and Long-Term Effects of Superhero Media on Young Children's Risk-Taking Behaviors.

Unintentional injuries, the leading cause of death for American children, are caused by a range of psychosocial factors, including risk behavior. One factor that may impact child risk-taking is modeling of superhuman risk-taking from superhero media, both immediately following superhero exposure and based on lifetime exposure and engagement. Fifty-nine 5-year-olds were randomly assigned to view either a 13-min age-appropriate superhero television show or a comparable nonsuperhero show. After the viewing, children engaged in three risk-taking measures: (a) activity room, unsupervised play for 5 min with assortment of apparently dangerous items that might encourage child risk-taking; (b) picture sort, 10 illustrations of children in risk situations, with participant response concerning intended risk-taking in that situation; and (c) vignettes, 10 stories presenting situations with varying degrees of risk, with participant response on intended choice. Parents completed questionnaires concerning children's long-term superhero media exposure and individual superhero engagement (e.g., if child's most recent Halloween costume was of a superhero). Correlations and regressions evaluated effects of immediate superhero exposure, lifetime superhero exposure, and lifetime superhero engagement on children's risk-taking. Mixed results emerged. Lifetime superhero exposure was significantly related to children's risk-taking outcomes in two bivariate (vignettes and picture sort) and one multivariate (picture sort) model. Neither immediate superhero exposure nor lifetime superhero engagement was strongly related to risk-taking. Children's lifetime superhero exposure may influence children's risk-taking. Given American children's substantial media exposure, research should continue to unpack the role of superhero media on children's unintentional injury and other health risk behaviors.

Learning words in a second language while cycling and listening to children’s songs: The Noplica Energy Center

Children’s songs are a great source for linguistic learning. Here we explore whether children can acquire novel words in a second language by playing a game featuring children’s songs in a playhouse. The playhouse is designed by the Noplica foundation (www.noplica.nl) to advance language learning through unsupervised play. We present data from three experiments that serve to scientifically prove the functionality of one game of the playhouse: the Energy Center. For this game, children move three hand-bikes mounted on a panel within the playhouse. Once the children cycle, a song starts playing that is accompanied by musical instruments. In our experiments, children executed a picture selection task to evaluate whether they acquired new vocabulary from the songs presented during cycling. Two of our experiments were run in the field, one at a Dutch and one at an Indian preschool. The third experiment features data from a more controlled laboratory setting. Our results partly confirm that the Energy Center is a successful means to support vocabulary acquisition in a second language. More research with larger sample sizes and longer access to the Energy Center is needed to evaluate the overall functionality of the game. Based on informal observations at our test sites, however, we are certain that children do pick up linguistic content from the songs during play, as many of the children repeat words and phrases from the songs they heard. We will pick up upon these promising observations in future studies.

<em>Little Women</em>'s Literary Lessons

Little Women's Literary Lessons Sari Edelstein While I was growing up in downtown Chicago in the fallout of my parents' hostile, seemingly endless divorce, Little Women offered a fantasy of the warm-and-fuzzy family I craved, along with pastoral visions of unsupervised play, Christmas celebrations (even without presents!), and an iconic figure of the girl-writer. As a child, I longed for the snugness, the safety, and the New England propriety of the March family—all the things absent from my own messy Jewish upbringing. And so it is perhaps no surprise that Little Women has now come to occupy a vaunted place on my syllabi and in my scholarship. Over the years, my relationship with Alcott's novel has shifted from an unfettered embrace to a critical engagement with questions that have been at the core of my intellectual life for the past decade: How do women writers imagine their work in relation to mainstream journalism? Under what terms can women enter the public sphere? How do ideas about age—and age propriety—serve to discipline women and girls? These questions are at the fore of the chapter "Literary Lessons," in which aspiring author Jo March encounters the work of S. L. A. N. G. Northbury, a thinly veiled reference to the prolific story-paper author E. D. E. N. Southworth. Inspired by the popularity and profitability of Northbury's stories, Jo enters and wins a story contest, planning to use the prize money to send Beth to the seaside to convalesce. But when she proudly announces her victory to her family, the reaction is deflating: her father responds, "never mind the money" (214). What Jo learns here are not merely "literary lessons"; she is also receiving instruction in how to appropriately inhabit the role of the female author, a lesson later reiterated by Professor Bhaer. In short, women should not write for publicity and profit; to do so is to be "S. L. A. N. G.," deviant, and outside of normative values. Though her family and love interest chastise her, Jo later returns once more to writing sensation fiction. In a subsequent chapter she seeks out inspiration from newspapers, studies faces in the street, and goes to the public library, but this impressive research agenda is ultimately linked to the desecration of her "womanliest attributes" (275). Here we are introduced more fully to the notion [End Page 113] that intellectual and imaginative pursuits can corrupt a woman and speed up her maturation; Jo "was fast brushing the innocent bloom from her nature by a premature acquaintance with the darker side of life, which comes soon enough to all of us" (275). It seems that even imaginatively leaving the sanctuary of the home accelerates Jo's decline, so she returns to the cloistered domestic sphere, forgoing the personal expansion and professional success she so eagerly sought. In Alcott's world there is no way to become a big woman, as the development of such a being is rigorously guarded against, under threat of expulsion from the idealized family unit. Of course Alcott herself wrote Little Women for money and also published sensation fiction under the pseudonym A. M. Barnard; thus, Jo's forays into the story-paper world suggest Alcott's own vexed relationship to the category of woman writer. Little Women marks the space of literature and authorship as contraband even while recognizing the potential for the literary realm to foster connections and meaning beyond the hallowed domestic space. These scenes capture the novel's double-voicedness, its palpable disdain for the very structures it celebrates, and it is these ambivalences that make it eminently teachable and readable. When I return to Little Women as an adult, the coziness I initially found so appealing strikes me now as claustrophobic and fraught, and I am thankful that, unlike Jo March, I have been able to forge a life devoted to literature. Indeed, in spite of its ostensible lessons about the impropriety of female authorship, the book has given me a point of entry into the robust critical and writerly communities that Legacy so importantly facilitates. [End Page 114] Sari Edelstein University of Massachusetts Boston Copyright © 2019 University...

Children's out-of-home leisure activities: changes during the last decade in Norway

ABSTRACT This study, based on two nationally representative samples of children aged 6–12 years and their parents from 2005 and 2013–2014, explores changes in children's play, through changes in participation in three different out-of-home leisure activities during the last decade in Norway as well as the interactions between these activities. The study finds that there has been an increase in the share of children who participate in organized leisure activities; that they start to participate at a younger age; and that the intensity of participation in organized leisure activities has increased. During the same period, there has been a decrease both in the extent of unsupervised play outdoors and in the degree to which children visit friends’ houses. A key empirical finding is that there is a strong positive association between participation in organized leisure activities and, respectively, the extent of unsupervised outdoor play and visits to friends.

‘Real Play Families’: a New Zealand case study

ABSTRACTThis case study examined the experiences of three New Zealand families selected to participate in a four-week ‘Real Play Families’ project. The overall aim of the project was to explore the issues faced when embedding traditional, unstructured, and largely unsupervised play practices in the modern family environment. The project commenced with an initial workshop day, including a two-hour information seminar for parents, real play activities for the children, and a combined debriefing session. Data from parent and child focus group interviews and social media postings were reviewed to generate a comprehensive, triangulated picture of the experiences of each family. The analysis focused on how the families derived meaning and value out of real play, drawing upon their initial perspectives, experiences, challenges, and post-project reflections. Our findings suggest that providing families with appropriate advice and social support around real play can prompt positive and rewarding outcomes for children and parents.

Tiger vs. Nightmare by Emily Tetri

Reviewed by: Tiger vs. Nightmare by Emily Tetri Kate Quealy-Gainer, Assistant Editor Tetri, Emily Tiger vs. Nightmare; written and illus. by Emily Tetri. First Second, 2018 64p ISBN 978-1-62672-535-5 $17.99 R* Gr. 2-4 For restless kids everywhere, bedtime is the beast that cannot be tamed, especially if sleep only means just another night of bad dreams and loneliness while everyone else comfortably snoozes away. No number of glasses of water, comforting stories, and reassuring hugs can make that shadow in the corner go away or those creaking noises sound less creepy. If only they had a nocturnal pal like Tiger does. She and her monster have got their bedtime routine down pat: Tiger brings her monster dinner, the two play games, Tiger hits the sack, and her monster takes its place at the foot of the bed ready to fight off any nightmares that may try to disrupt Tiger's sleep, just as it's been doing since Tiger was a baby. Unfortunately, in the wee hours of one night, a beastly bad dream appears, ruthlessly throwing the monster across the room and leaving Tiger whimpering in the dark. Tiger's tired and grumpy the next day, but she's more concerned about her friend, who seems distant and frightened. After several more sleepless nights for Tiger, the monster finally admits its inability to defeat the frightening nightmare, and now Tiger has to take things into her own hands (er, paws) and figure out how to deal with the increasingly powerful dream. This slim graphic novel hits the sweet spot for early readers, both in structure and theme. Tiger's a goofy mix of Watterson's Hobbes and Disney's Stitch, and her monster is a scribbly, quirky maybe dragon/porcupine, making them a pleasingly humorous and accessibly sympathetic duo. Narrative boxes pair with dialogue bubbles, creating a cohesive, energetic text, and Tetri helpfully maps out the story's tension with her skillful use of paneling, lending structure and balance to scenes of defined emotion or physical action, while barely containing the chaotic nightmare within diagonal, unwieldy frames or unleashing it altogether in full spreads. Daytime scenes are appropriately filled with light and laughter, with a smiling Tiger set against hues of golds, greens, and teals, while inky blues and blacks darken the pages as the bad dream shows up, providing younger readers with mood cues. Tiger's experience is placed squarely in a kid-centered world: adults hover at the fringes, and Mom and Dad indulge what they consider Tiger's active imagination. Tiger and her monster know what's really up, though, and they delight in their unsupervised play and roll their eyes at the decidedly unimaginative grownups. Independence has its drawbacks, however, and when the skeletal, horned fiend slinks in, monster and Tiger only have each other to rely on. Tetri handles their struggle to face their frightening dream with tenderness and compassion. Tiger is well aware that the nightmare is just a product of her mind, but, she argues to the monster, it [End Page 53] still feels scary. "Yeah, it is. It's weird how that works," the monster concedes. Plenty of kids—insomniacs or not—will appreciate this recognition that fear can be an overwhelming feeling, even when you know it's just a figment of your imagination and even when you've tried your hardest to overcome it. The art gives the title the comfort of a younger picture book, but the story itself deals directly with the emotional growth of growing kids, as they wrestle with the anxieties that come with shifting challenges—in sleeping or otherwise—that must be confronted when growing up. They'll cheer, then, when Tiger blasts her nemesis into oblivion with a cry of defiance and she and her monster become a kickbutt pair of nightmare-fighting buddies. (See p. 96 for heading information.) Copyright © 2018 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois

Segurança infantil dos 1 aos 5 anos: o que sabem os cuidadores?

Introduction: Accidents in the early years of childhood are the leading cause of morbidity and premature mortality. This study aimed to assess preschool children caregivers’ knowledge about child safety.Methods: Cross-sectional study, using a structured selfadministered questionnaire to caregivers in a Family Healthcare Unit, between September and December 2014.Results: Fifty-six caregivers agreed to participate, 80% females, median age (minimum-maximum) of 34 (22-63) years, caregivers of 99 children, with a mean 1.7 child/family. Eightynine percent routinely search about child safety and 37% states that it is topic discussed in all child healthcare visits. Only 14% answered all road safety questions correctly and despite 95% use a child-restraint system, only 18% applies it properly. In drowning prevention, only 31% promotes the use of inflatable swimming armbands and 11% of caregivers allows unsupervised play in the bathtub. In relation to falls prevention, we highlight that baby walkers are handled by 41% and only 29% of caregivers perform all appropriate preventive measures. Burn avoidance was the subject with greater shortcomings, with a total of 27% correct attitudes, and none of the caregivers answered accurately to all questions. On the other hand, choking and poisoning were the areas with higher rates of correct answers (54% and 41% respectively).Conclusions: Child safety proved to be a caregivers’ concern. However, daily incorrect behaviors are still common. Health care professionals have the responsibility to promote more effective awareness programs and approach this topic to caregivers more regularly in their practice.

Delayed presentation of intracameral graphite foreign body in a child: school trauma

We report a case of large graphite foreign body (FB) in the anterior chamber of eye of a 4-year-old child, incurred during unsupervised play. Despite delayed presentation, the eye had few signs of resolved inflammation which allowed safe extraction of the FB bimanually through limbus. School play, especially in young children, should be under supervision and free of sharp objects. Graphite is inert while inside the eye, and even large pieces can be well tolerated for long time in absence of infection.

Pediatric Eye Trauma in the Republic of Tajikistan: More Than Meets the Eye

ABSTRACTPurpose: Pediatric eye injury (PEI) is the leading cause of preventable monocular vision loss in children, with an estimated prevalence of 5.7 million cases. Epidemiological information on PEI is rare, skewed towards high-income countries, and commonly overlooked by non-governmental ophthalmological organizations. This study aims to quantitatively and qualitatively determine incidence of PEI in the Republic of Tajikistan.Methods: Data were collected from all pediatric eye injury records (N = 454) admitted to three pediatric ophthalmology hospitals in two regions of Tajikistan between 2010 and 2012.Results: A review of the records revealed a cumulative annual incidence of 12.8 PEI cases/100,000, with marked inter- and intra-regional differences. Mean age was 7.0 years (95% confidence interval, CI, 6.7–7.4), and male to female ratio was 2.5:1. PEI occurred predominantly outdoors (63%), in rural settings (76%) during unsupervised play, and typically resulted from the eye being hit (53%) by a pointed object (51%), resulting in an open-globe injury (56%). Median time-to-presentation was 24 hours (range 9.6 hours–10 days) and median duration of hospitalization was 15 days (range 2–29 days). Of the 454 cases, 111 (25%) resulted in a blind eye, 62 (14%) in severe visual impairment, and 45 (10%) in moderate visual impairment.Conclusions: PEI is a major cause of pediatric monocular visual impairment in Tajikistan, with a high rural incidence of severe blinding injuries. Potential risks and outcomes relate to Tajikistan’s cultural, historical, and physical settings. We anticipate that the information provided by this study will facilitate development of culturally derived strategies to reduce PEI in Tajikistan.

Cooperation Over Coercion: The Importance of Unsupervised Childhood Play for Democracy and Liberalism

Unsupervised childhood play is how children learn the sort of informal rule-making and rule-enforcing that is so critical to a liberal society’s attempt to minimize coercion. It is a key way that children learn the skills necessary to engage in social cooperation in all kinds of social spaces within the market and, especially, outside of it. We learn how to problem solve in these ways without the need to invoke violence or some sort of external threat, which enables us as adults to cooperate peacefully in intimate groups as well as within what Hayek called the Great Society. A society that weakens children’s ability to learn these skills denies them what they need to smooth social interaction and undermines their ability to participate in what Tocqueville called “the art of association.” Losing the skills learned in unsupervised play makes coercion more likely by threatening our ability to create and sustain the rule-governed relationships that are at the core of liberal societies. If we parent or legislate in ways that make it harder for children to develop these skills, we are taking away a key piece of what makes it possible for free people to generate peaceful and productive liberal orders.

The influence of ethnicity on children's independent mobility

Introduction: Independent mobility (unsupervised play and travel) is an integral component of physical activity. The Kids in the City (KITC) study is investigating family and neighbourhood influences on the independent mobility and physical activity of children 9–11 years living in six suburban neighbourhoods in Auckland, New Zealand. A mixed methods approach has been used to collect quantitative (GPS, accelerometer, travel diaries) and qualitative (go along interviews) data from children. Parents’ role as ‘gatekeeper’ to their children's independent mobility and physical activity has been examined through computer-assisted telephone interviews (CATI) and focus group discussions.

Outdoor Play: A Survey of Parent's Perceptions of Their Child's Safety

Anecdotal reports suggest that parents may be restricting outdoor play in response to a perceived lack of safety and fear of violence and crime in urban environments. The study objective was to determine whether parents who perceived their neighborhood as unsafe would be most likely to restrict their child's outdoor play and report the greatest worries related to neighborhood characteristics. A convenience sample of primary caregivers of children aged 5 years to 7 years were recruited from a pediatric primary care center based at an urban academic children's hospital. Study participants completed a 23-question survey available in English and Spanish. Two hundred fifty-four parents completed the survey. Most were English speakers (69%), female (89%), and aged between 21 years and 35 years (76%). Sixty-two percent let their child play outside often or sometimes; whereas 19% reported never allowing their child to play outside. Parents were less likely to allow outside play as their degree of worry increased about traffic (p < 0.0001), rundown parks (p < 0.003), crime (p < 0.0001), witnessing violence (p < 0.0001), being a victim of violence (p < 0.0009), drugs (p < 0.0001), gangs (p < 0.004), and weapons (p < 0.003). Frequency of outdoor play was not correlated with the sex or age of the child or number of children in the family. Spanish speakers were less likely to allow outside play (p < 0.008) but more likely to allow unsupervised play (p < 0.03). Decreased frequency of outdoor play correlated with increased parental concerns about safety, however, many parents still report allowing outdoor play at least sometimes.

Sport and recreation-related injuries and fracture occurrence among emergency department attendees: implications for exercise prescription and injury prevention

Objective:To investigate the epidemiology of sports and recreation-related injury (SRI) among emergency department (ED) attendees.Design:Descriptive epidemiology study.Setting:An Irish university hospital ED.Participants:All patients aged over 4 years attending a large regional...

Shopping Cart Injuries, Entrapment, and Childhood Fatality

Shopping carts may be associated with a variety of injuries, particularly in toddlers and young children. These usually relate to falls from carts or to tip-overs. Injuries that are sustained include hematomas/contusions, abrasions, lacerations, fractures, and fingertip amputations. Fatal episodes are uncommon and are usually due to blunt craniocerebral trauma from falls. A case involving a 19-month-old girl is reported who became entrapped when she inserted her head through the side frame of a cart that had been removed from a supermarket and left at her home address. Death was caused by neck compression. Although rare, the potential for lethal entrapment during unsupervised play means that the presence of stray shopping carts at private residences and in public places, including playgrounds and parks, is of concern. Strategies, such as coin deposits, should be encouraged to assist in the return of such carts to supermarkets.

Fatal unintentional traumatic asphyxia in childhood.

The present study was undertaken to examine specific features of unintentional traumatic asphyxial deaths in childhood. Coronial files and records at the Forensic Science Centre in Adelaide, South Australia, were examined over a 35-year period from 1966 to 2000 for all cases of traumatic asphyxial death occurring in children under the age of 17 years. Six cases of unintentional fatal traumatic asphyxia were identified. All of the victims were boys with an age range of 2-15 years (mean 6.8 years) and all were found dead at the scene. Fatal traumatic asphyxia resulted from entrapment beneath a chest of drawers, beneath a table tennis table, between a pile of wooden pallets and a metal fence, between a conveyor belt and its frame, and under a motor vehicle (in two cases). Fatal traumatic asphyxia in childhood is a rare event, with younger children commonly being trapped by furniture or by industrial equipment while playing, and older children being trapped under motor vehicles in similar circumstances to adult traumatic asphyxial deaths. Unsupervised play of young children around heavy and potentially unstable pieces of furniture may be dangerous, particularly if more than one child is present. Unsupervised play of young children in industrial yards should be avoided.

Penetrating needle injury of the eye causing cataract in children

Purpose To review the presentation, management, and outcome of children with cataract caused by ocular needle penetration. Design Retrospective, noncomparative interventional case series. Participants Forty-two children with cataract caused by ocular needle penetration. Intervention Cataract surgery. Main outcome measures Best-corrected postoperative visual acuity. Results Injuries were unintentional and occurred during unsupervised play. The type of needle involved was hypodermic in 24 cases, sewing in 7, and undetermined in 11. Endophthalmitis developed in 14 cases and retinal detachment in 6. Endophthalmitis occurred in 12 cases (50%) of hypodermic needle injury but in no case of sewing needle injury. With a mean postoperative follow-up of 2.3 years, the best-corrected visual acuity was 20/40 or better in 19 cases, 20/50 to 20/80 in 7, 20/100 to counting fingers in 6, light perception in 1, no light perception in 6, and undetermined in 3. Eyes with endophthalmitis and/or retinal detachment had a worse visual prognosis. Conclusions Ocular penetration causing cataract occurred in children during unsupervised play with inadequately stored or disposed of hypodermic or sewing needles. Endophthalmitis occurred frequently in injuries caused by hypodermic needles but not in those caused by sewing needles. Visual outcome after management was good in approximately half of the cases especially if endophthalmitis or retinal detachment did not develop.

Children’s (in)dependent mobility and parents’ chauffeuring in the town and the countryside

The rural environment is generally regarded as offering better possibilities for children’s unsupervised play and independent mobility than urban areas do. This paper raises the question to what extent rural children’s leisure time is actually less institutionalised and more directed to the local neighbourhood than that of children living in towns. Empirical evidence from a travel diary and an interview study in a Swedish middle–sized town and adjacent rural area shows that rural children are engaged in urban–based activities to the same extent as are urban children, and that they enjoy less daily independent mobility than children living in towns. The paper further highlights the time–space adaptation on the part of parents to their children’s leisure activities and the related chauffeuring.