Developing a risk reframing intervention to increase parental tolerance for risky play in primary-school-aged children in the UK (INTERPLAY UK)

The goal of this project is to create a digital tool called INTERPLAY UK that encourages parents to let their children engage in more "risky play" activities. These types of activities, which can involve physical challenges and some degree of risk, have been shown to be beneficial for children's physical and mental health. However, modern parenting norms, urban environments, and technology have made it more difficult for children to engage in these activities.

As a result, many children in the UK are not getting enough exercise and the occurrence of childhood obesity keeps on increasing. By creating opportunities for fun and healthy movement behaviours, which occur during risky play, children from all levels of deprivation, ethnicity, or weight can benefit.

The proposed research will be divided into four distinct work streams, each with its own specific purpose contributing to the development of the digital intervention prototype, called INTERPLAY UK [Increasing pareNtal TolErance for Risky PLAY in the UK]. The first work stream aims to understand how a digital risk-reframing intervention could be tailored towards gender-specific concerns by exploring congruence and discrepancies in parental attitudes toward different types of risky play.

This will be achieved by analysing quantitative data from a previously completed ESRC-funded survey study of 1919 UK caregivers. The second work stream will expand the content of the Go Play Outside! programme, to develop new materials, and make it relevant to UK parents including fathers/co-partners and families from across the socioeconomic spectrum.

This will be accomplished by using original participatory approaches to listen to both parental and child perspectives to understand their wants and needs with regard to intervention content and digital delivery features. The third work stream will validate a questionnaire of parental tolerance of risky play with an objectively-captured measure of child risky play 'in the wild' using state-of-the-art movement sensors and heart rate monitors, and for the first time, from a child's perspective. The fourth work stream will undertake a feasibility study of the INTERPLAY UK intervention.

The findings of this project will inform a broad audience and provide a novel contribution to child health by advancing digital intervention development that uniquely combines the promotion of both child physical and mental health. By drawing on current quantitative population-level data and combining these with insights from in-depth qualitative research with UK caregivers and children, the culturally-adapted risk reframing intervention will be optimised to provide caregivers with the skills and motivation to plan family playtime and establish rules about child play and autonomy.

The project will seize every opportunity to disseminate and discuss ideas, through to communicating the findings at the end to maximise impact for the wider research community, play organisations, parenting charities, local councils, policymakers, families and wider audiences. This will be achieved through scholarly journal articles, research seminars, conferences, knowledge exchange workshops and public engagement activities.

In summary, the project aims to create a digital tool that helps parents support their children's physical and mental health by promoting safe but challenging play activities. A scalable intervention such as INTERPLAY UK will also act as a source of practical information for teachers and parenting charities to signpost families to to promote healthy child movement behaviours.