Study: Not Enough Activity in Child Care

Updated: Wednesday, 04 Jan 2012, 5:54 PM MST
Published : Wednesday, 04 Jan 2012, 5:54 PM MST

PHOENIX - When you drop your kids off at day care or pre-school, you hope they're both learning and playing.

Usually we hear parents and teachers complaining that kids need to hit the books more -- now we're hearing some kids just need to have more fun.

Kung fu is what kids do every Wednesday at Phoenix Preparatory Preschool and Child Care.

“Kids two and a half and older get to learn everything from basic stretching, crab crawls, line drills so they have a lot of fun with that,” says Margot Magnum from Phoenix Preparatory Preschool and Child Care.

Children also play outside for an hour in the morning, and in the afternoon, weather permitting.

Preschool owner Margot Magnum says playtime is important.

“That’s something that keeps them very active and enjoying physical activity instead of being sedentary,” says Magnum.

But not all schools and centers are like this one. A new study shows many children spend too much time at daycare sitting and studying, and not enough time just being kids.

The study, by a doctor in Cincinnati, found a lot of centers have limited outdoor space or don't have money for playground equipment.

It also suggests that some parents are concerned about injuries and many put pressure on schools to pursue academics.

Reasons for Limited Playtime:
* Limited outdoor space
* No money for outdoor equipment
* Parents concerned about injuries
* Pressure to pursue academics

Mother Jean McDade has seen this first-hand.

“I think there is a lot of pressure. I’ve started looking at schools for Trevor, kindergarten. Some of the schools were all about stats,” says McDade.

Magnum says physical activity and education go hand in hand.

“The physical activity helps complement the education in the aspect that the children are then able to focus and it allows them to do that.”

Experts say kids should be outside up to two hours a day.

Keep your comments civil - MyFOXPhoenix.com reserves the right to remove comments that are obscene, profane, abusive, hateful, racist, spam, "trolling," or otherwise inappropriate. Repeat offenders will be banned. If you see such comments, report them to us by flagging them. (Click on 'Flag' beneath a post -- hover your mouse below the post's text for it to appear.)

Comments should be flagged for: spamming, violating our commenting policy, being clearly unrelated and attacking other commenters personally. Comments should not be flagged for: Disagreeing with the content or disputes with other commenters.

Be sure to refer to our Terms of Service.

Stay on topic: Don't discuss an entirely different subject or spam the section asking about another story. Send us an e-mail instead. Continue to spam comment sections and your acccount will be banned. Keep your posts brief and to the point. Remember this is a comment section, not your personal blog.

When posting a comment on myfoxphoenix.com, a valid e-mail address, Facebook, Yahoo!, OpenID or Twitter account is necessary. The e-mail is not available for viewers to see. You will be required to verify the e-mail address before posting a comment. Users with third party logins (Facebook, Twitter, etc.) are already considered verified accounts.

Choose a user name you'll remember - don't use your real name unless you want it to be known.

Accounts that use obscenities in their user names and/or avatar pictures are not allowed.

To avoid your posts being labeled as spam, simply provide a link to an article instead of copying and pasting the entire text.

Posts with obscenities will be removed by moderators.

Click here if you need help signing up for an account or using your profile.

Comments Powered By Disqus

Study: Not Enough Activity in Child Care

Top Stories

Popular

Most Commented