Table 5.
Mesosystem barriers to physical activity for schoolchildren.
| Mesosystem | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Categories | Subcategories | Code | Parents’ Verbalizations |
| Lack of communication between the school and the family | Children do not tell their parents what they do in physical education class | I ask my daughter ’what did you do today in gymnastics?’ and ugh... they don’t tell me anything specific, I don’t know... I’m a bit lost with gymnastics at school, especially in young children. When I was young I used to wear a tracksuit three days a week or I don’t know what the days were but they never did gymnastics” (M1, FG3). | |
| Parents do not ask their children what they do in physical education | “Because I... I would ask him about the classes, ’What have you done in class?’, and he would say ’well look, we have learnt this or that’, but in physical education I have never asked him ’What have you done in physical education?’, he does say ’well today mum we have played tag or this’, because they are new things that they don’t... but they don’t... they don’t talk to me about anything else, I don’t know what they call the things they do” (M4, FG8). | ||
| Lack of knowledge regarding the activities they carry out at school | “Because neither... as you can’t see them, of course, you can’t know... and that is what... or if they have an indoor sports facility day, because of the weather, I don’t know what activities they have there in the indoor sports facility, I just don’t know” (F6, FG3). | ||
| Lack of family conciliation | Overscheduled children | Excess of homework | “...It’s that homework has enslaved them [...] they already have a working day, as young as they are, of many hours” (M4, FG1). “But I had to take them out of basketball, because they either went to basketball or they did their homework, or one thing or the other. They didn’t get to everything on time” (M4, FG5). |
| Excess of organized after school activities | “...Those who have music school, music school takes up five or six hours a week, so they have the music school. So I have two children at the language school and with that they are already overworked” (F5, FG6). “Because of course, right now there are five days with activities, there are days, every day there are two activities except Friday with one, and it’s impossible, but not because I don’t want to” (F1, FG7). |
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| Lack of time for free play | “They have all the day taken, let’s say, and the little play they have is almost when they have to go to bed, at least my children” (F6, FG3). “I think that children outside of [...] between school, classes and everything, they don’t have time to enjoy themselves” (M4, FG5). |
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| Overburdened parents | Excessive workload | “I try to compensate a bit for the time I can’t spend during the week [...] But during the week I can’t spend time with her for playing, I can’t spend time dedicated to her, for example” (M8, FG6). “Many of us work so of course, you try to go with enough time, because if I take the child in a rush, I have to turn around again, so we have the same rhythm, not all of us, but at least in my case, I go with just enough time from one thing to another, so I can’t allow myself to take time out and say I’m going to walk, because I need that time for something else, so it’s not like that. Some people use the car for convenience, that’s true, but for me, at least in my case, it’s because of my work” (M2, FG3). |
|
| Caring for several children | “But of course, it is also based on the fact that I have a young one and then I have the other older one, so of course you have to distribute...” (M7, FG6). | ||
Abbreviations: M = Mother; F = Father; FG = Focus Group. Distinction of FG by rural or urban setting: Rural area: FG3, FG4, FG7, and FG8; Urban area: FG1, FG2, FG5, and FG6.