An exploration of parent perceptions of a take-home loose parts play kit intervention during the COVID-19 pandemic

Calli Naish; Patricia K Doyle-Baker; Meghan S Ingstrup; Gavin R McCormack

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0292720

An exploration of parent perceptions of a take-home loose parts play kit intervention during the COVID-19 pandemic

PLoS One. 2023 Oct 10;18(10):e0292720. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0292720. eCollection 2023.

Authors

Calli Naish^{1

2}, Patricia K Doyle-Baker^{3

4

5}, Meghan S Ingstrup¹, Gavin R McCormack^{1

3

4

6}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Community Health Sciences, Cumming School of Medicine, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada.
² Faculty of Arts, Department of Communication, Media and Film, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada.
³ Faculty of Kinesiology, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada.
⁴ School of Planning, Architecture and Landscape, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada.
⁵ Alberta Children's Hospital Research Institute, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada.
⁶ Faculty of Sport Sciences, Waseda University, Tokyo, Japan.

Abstract

The restrictions introduced in response to the COVID-19 pandemic affected the regular routines of Canadians, including access to play and physical activity opportunities, while limiting social connections. In response to this, a recreation centre created take-home play kits that contained loose parts with the aim of facilitating unstructured play. Between August 2021 and January 2022, ten parents participated in semi-structured interviews via telephone or videoconferencing platforms that captured their experiences of the take-home play kits. Using Thematic Analysis, we identified themes and subthemes reflecting parent perceptions and experiences of the take-home play kit. Three themes emerged: (1 A forced renaissance of play; (2) Bringing unstructured play home, and; (3) Parenting is child's play. Parents shared how the pandemic resulted in decreased physical activity and social opportunities for their children. The parents described how the take-home play kits supported unstructured play as well as their perspectives on the importance of unstructured play. Parents in our study suggested that a take-home loose parts play kit could be a useful resource to help engage children in unstructured play in both indoor and outdoor environments.

Copyright: © 2023 Naish et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

COVID-19* / epidemiology
Canada
Humans
Pandemics*
Parenting
Parents

Grants and funding

GRM/PKD received funding support for this study from Vivo for Healthier Generations Society (https://www.vivo.ca). Vivo is a charitable enterprise in Calgary, Alberta, on a mission to raise healthier generations in that city and beyond. In addition to operating a local recreation centre, Vivo undertakes research and innovation that is focused on developing, testing and scaling novel healthy living interventions with the community. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.