Children's Daily Routine Response to COVID-19 Emergency Measures in Serbia

Abstract

Objective: The emergence of coronavirus in Serbia as well as in other European countries led to the declaration of a state of emergency, which, among other measures, included a switch to online education, the lockdown of public life and organized sports, and a curfew from 5 pm to 5 am. This study aimed to investigate the extent to which these measures affected children's daily routines. More specifically, it aimed to determine how children maintained their learning, physical activity, and screen time routines from the period before the state of emergency was declared.Methods: Response to an online parent-reported questionnaire was conducted (N = 450). The factorial validity of the scales was prepared using confirmatory factor analysis, with acceptable fit indices. Based on that, the authors tested the interrelations between dimensions using structural equation modeling in SPSS, AMOS 24.0.Results: The study results indicate a positive relationship between school achievement and study time (β = 0.25). They also indicate that children who were physically active before the pandemic continued their activities during the emergency state (β = 0.53). Physical activity impact during the COVID-19 emergency measures reduces children's behavior changes (β = 0.55). Finally, they highlight that children who spent more time with multimedia content had greater changes in anxiety, sensitivity, nervousness, and worry due to COVID-19 emergency measures (β = −0.38).Conclusions: Healthy lifestyle habits formed in childhood are suggested to be responsible for the greater “resistance to change” shown by the children from this study.

Impact of the COVID-19 Quarantine on Young Children’s Family-Based Daily Activities in Greece

“…Overall, our results showed increases in the frequency of occurrence in all the categories of activities depicted by the questionnaire during the quarantine, solo and joint, with the exception of out of home social engagements, restricted because of the pandemic. Similar changes in the frequency of family-based activities have been reported by other studies on the COVID-19 quarantine in different countries, associated mainly with the increased time parents and children spent at home (Lee et al, 2021;Toran et al, 2021;Vukovic et al, 2021). These changes have mostly been described as stressful for both children and parents and have been associated with difficulties in parenting practices (DiGiorgio et al, 2020;Russell et al, 2020;Spinelli et al, 2020).…”

“…On the other hand, studies with a mere focus on children's everyday activities during the quarantine period have been rather scarce (Toran et al, 2021), despite the fact that such activities normally shape young children's daily lives and the recognition that continuation of daily habits in periods of crisis serves as a protective factor for children's psychological well-being (Russell et al, 2020;Vukovic et al, 2021). When conducted, most of the studies on this topic have focused on the negative implications of the detected changes, such as for example the decrease in children's movement and physical activity and the simultaneous significant increase in the amount of time spent by children in screen-based activities (Cachón-Zagalaz et al, 2021;Moore et al, 2020;Schmidt et al, 2020).…”

Physical Activity of Children and Adolescents during the COVID-19 Pandemic—A Scoping Review

“…Facilitating factors, meaning factors that enabled children and adolescents to be more physically active, were found on an individual level but also on a context level. Individual factors increasing physical activity of children were being male [ 35 , 36 , 37 ], following a daily routine [ 27 , 38 ], spending time on outdoor physical activity [ 35 , 38 ], taking part in online PE classes [ 27 , 38 , 39 ], more time available [ 40 ], no school [ 40 ], use of digital platforms [ 41 ], prior fitness status [ 28 , 42 , 43 , 44 ], and health-related quality of life [ 44 ]. Context-specific factors, i.e., factors relating to the family context, were having more than one child at home [ 29 , 33 , 45 ], higher parental education [ 36 ], perceived parental capability [ 35 ], living in a house [ 46 ], low dwelling density [ 46 ], access to parks [ 46 ], parental encouragement and support [ 27 , 47 , 48 ], parental engagement in physical activity [ 47 ], family dog ownership [ 47 ], household income [ 47 , 48 ], family coexistence [ 49 ], and access and size of outdoor space available [ 45 , 48 , 50 , 51 ] (see Table 2 ).…”

The impact of COVID-19 on Physical Activity of Czech children

“…Our findings are similar to others [ 28 , 30 , 45 ] demonstrating a significant decline in PA in children during COVID compared to pre-COVID. This problem is quite complex however, due to the multifactorial nature of various changes in PA during COVID such as: social status and family income [ 19 ], city dwelling versus villages or suburbs [ 44 ], parental education levels [ 18 ], pre-pandemic sports habits [ 46 ], the level of national restrictions, and age [ 26 ] among others.…”

“…For effective reduction of childhood obesity, the girls are recommended to take at least 11.000 and the boys at least 13.000 steps/day five days per week at minimum [ 58 ]. According to Vuković et al, children who were physically active before the pandemic tend to continue their activities during the emergency state [ 46 ]. The insufficient amount of PA of Czech children before COVID became even more pronounced during COVID [ 21 ].…”