Literature Review Parent's Impact on Children's Physical Activity Levels - Essay Example

But these studies have been anything but simple. The evolution of man when studied on children is an uphill task to say the least. There are many complex phenomena that are involved in it, and one should be conscious while making the same assumptions for adults that one makes for children. There were a huge number of interesting findings that lead to learn more about the way children behave in general, especially in the realm of physically activity. One would like to assume, that since there are obvious differences between children, this it would be fair to assume that they are different on some form of physical attribute as well.

Eccles et al (1997) concludes that, children have more competence beliefs for physical values in so far as learning from the parents is concerned. This variation is not only of academic value, but would also end up determine possible patterns of behavior, which would in turn establish both individual as well as social behavior, that can have economic as well as political implications. Therefore, in order to form a conclusion about the ability of children to read and the differences therein, it is important to consider the biological and psychological basis of the same.

In a recent study, children's development was shown to be affected by the content of the activities (Oakhill and Petrides, 2007). Therefore, an act that actually triggers their fancy, and would be of some value to their interests is likely to have them engrossed in the activity for a greater amount of time. The way children start physical development, and the differences therein are crucial to understand before an impression about their future development can be formulated. It is the difference in choice of toy that they start showing initially, from which the first signs of gender identity appear to develop.

Parents' role in encouragement and support It has now been established that children from a very young age start to develop affiliation and understanding of the parents. Even when a child is of a few months, he/she starts to show sense of attachment as Piaget has been able to conclude through his work. From about 9 months onwards, children start to get appreciation of familiar figures, and their absence as potent matters of existence. This then transforms into attachment in due course, which transcends into role identification.

Stewart, et al, (2003) elucidates that "physical activity interventions targeted at children should include and evaluate the efficacy of individual-level and community-level strategies to increase parents' capacity to provide instrumental and motivational support for their children's physical activity." This further is also supported by Cleland, et al, (2005) wherein it is established that parental exercise influences their children's participation in extracurricular sports.The behaviorist theory entails that a person learns every thing from its environment, and that a person is more likely to produce an act, which he has seen before.

It can also be understood in the context of imitating or modeling, whereby similar acts are repeated. "Environmental influences such as parental approval and social custom shape us into wanting certain things and not wanting others" (Rathus, p. 399, 2002).In the same light, Garrett, et al (1999) purport that it is worth considering that children are nor necessarily a unanimous group; they