Abstract:

The family is undoable the main factor in the child's primary socialization. From the very beginning of the socialization process parents play a crucial role in all patterns of behaviour, including those from which the later habit of exercise and various forms of involvement in kinesiological content (Perasović, 2010). All children need parental support which is manifested trough emotional support, counselling support and number of different forms of material and financial assistance (Bosnar, 2003). An appropriate level of physical activity (PA) can ensure optimal growth and development of children and preserve their health (Alić, Valjan Vukić and Kuna 2022). Children should be guided from an early age to carry out certain forms of physical exercise and to develop awareness about the benefits of sports. Parents and educators have the largest role in it because they spend the most time with children. More over previous research shows that parents can influence children to be more physically active (Elliot and Drummond, 2017).
The aim of this research was to determine existence of differences in parental support for children's physical activities with regard to the parents’ level of physical activity.
The research was conducted on a sample of 162 parents of fourth grade pupils attending elementary school from Zadar County, Croatia. The total sample of respondents was divided into two subsamples with regard to the criterion of sufficient or insufficient levels of health-oriented physical activity (Nsuficient= 114, Ninsuficient= 58). A Questionnaire of parental support in sports (Croatian adaption of Sallis; 2002) was used to assess parental support for their children's participation in PA. In order to determine whether there were statistically significant differences in parental support for children's physical activities with regard to the parents’ level of physical activity, the Mann Whitney U test for independent samples was used.
The results of the research indicate that parents with sufficient PA level provide great support (AS=4.30) for their children's engagement in PA, mostly in the form of encouraging children to be physical active (AS=4.73) and because of their knowledge about the benefits of PA for their children (AS=4.51). There is room for improvement in terms of their active involvement by joining the children during the implementation of physical activities (AS=3.51) and to serve as a role model (AS=3.94). Parents which have insufficient level of PA provide very good support (AS=3.49) for their children's engagement in PA, predominantly in form of financial support (AS=4.93) and bring children to sports activities (AS= 4.34). Parental support could be improved if they join with their children performing PA (AS=3.51) and to serve as a role model (AS=3.94). Furthermore, the obtained results of this research have shown that parents with sufficient PA level indicate greater support for their children to engage in sports activities compared to parents who do not have sufficient physical activity. Moreover, sufficiently physically active parents posses more knowledge about positive effects of PA for their children, encourage more their children to be physically active, they are better role model for their children during physical exercise and they more jointly participate in the exercise itself compared to insufficient physically active parents.

Keywords:

Differences, children, parental support, physical activity.