Parents’ Engagement, Fundamental Movement Skills, and Physical Activity in Early Childhood: A Narrative Review

1. Introduction

Over the past few decades, obesity among young children (i.e., ages 2-19 years) has steadily increased in the United States [1]. According to the World Health Organization [2], 39 million children under age five were classified as having overweight or obese body composition in 2020. Once thought to be conditions that affected people in high income countries, these conditions are increasing in low- and middle-income countries too [2]. Being overweight or obese during early childhood (i.e., 0-7 years) can have numerous consequences for children such as cognitive impairment [3], physical ailments [4], and psychological distress [5]. Additionally, some researchers believe that childhood obesity can predict obesity during adulthood [6]. Obesity during adulthood can diminish quality and outlook on life and put adults at increased risk for chronic diseases [7] and mental health issues [8]. Indeed, obesity can have detrimental effects during both childhood and adulthood. From an economic perspective, overweight and obesity impacts health care costs and productivity [9]. Therefore, there is a need to investigate this global health epidemic and implement innovating strategies that target and reduce children’s unhealthy behaviors.

1.1. Children’s Fundamental Movement Skills (FMS) and Physical Activity (PA)

Human movements are generally categorized into gross and fine movements. Gross movements incorporate the large muscles of the body such as the quadriceps (legs), and fine movements can be achieved with smaller muscles such as the abductor pollicis brevis (hands). Both types of movements are necessary because they work together to move the body [10]. One mechanism that can alleviate overweight and obesity throughout the lifespan is the acquisition of fundamental movement skills (FMS) during childhood. FMS are considered to be foundational to more complex movement sequences. They usually include stationary or balance skills, locomotor skills, and object control or manipulation skills [11,12,13]. Stationary skills include balancing one leg at a time or standing on toes only. Locomotor skills are walking, running, or galloping. Object control skills include catching a ball with both hands and throwing a ball with one hand [13,14]. According to the conceptual model proposed by Stodden and colleagues [15], acquisition of FMS in early childhood can set a child on a positive spiral of engagement, which includes greater involvement in PA and can indicate a healthier weight. In contrast, when FMS are not learned early on, children can embark on a negative spiral of disengagement, which includes lower PA and unhealthy and obese weight statuses. PA is any bodily movement that results in energy expenditure [16]. The Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans recommend that preschool-aged children (ages 3-5 years), should aim for engaging in activities of various intensities for three hours daily, and caregivers and parents should encourage children to be active. School-aged children (ages 6-17 years) should aim for 60 minutes of activity. For youngsters, who engage in regular participation in PA can improve their bone health and weight status [17]. Studies have shown the benefits of PA on children’s cognitive (e.g., executive functions, language) [18] and social and emotional development (e.g., social maturity [19].

Longitudinal studies provide evidence about early childhood FMS acquisition and PA in late childhood [20] and adolescence [21]. Barnett et al. [21] found that object control skills were a significant predictor of adolescent moderate to vigorous PA, but not locomotor skills. Moreover, other studies have examined PA levels and sport participation of older children who were classified as having low, average, and high FMS in early childhood [20,22]. These studies showed early FMS classifications are significantly associated with later PA. Children of low FMS decreased in PA over a four-year period, in contrast to children of high PA whose PA remained stable over time [20]. Furthermore, high FMS children demonstrated greater physical strength (e.g., sit-ups, standing broad jumping) and club level sport participation than children of low FMS [22].

Both FMS and PA are necessary for young children’s healthy development. Many early childhood education centers have designated times for children to be active and develop their movement skills. Researchers have implemented FMS and PA programs in various early childhood settings such as day care and Head Start [23,24]. These programs focused on delivering activity sessions during the center’s hours. Additionally, many programs have been delivered by teachers or research staff. However, studies that examine the role of parents’ engagement in young children’s FMS and PA are rare [25]. Including parents and involving them in their children’s FMS and PA development can be a potential source for remedying childhood overweight and obesity.

1.2. Parents’ Engagement in Young Children’s Development

Parents’ engagement is defined as when a parent or caregiver is present and active in their child’s life [26,27]. Parents’ are a child’s first teachers and role models and can teach children skills such as identifying letters and numbers [28] and encourage children to be physically active [29]. The term parent engagement can be synonymous with parent involvement. Goodall and Montgomery [27] distinguish between these terms by suggesting that parent involvement with their children’s school is different from parent engagement in their children’s learning. Researchers have examined various levels of parent engagement and parent involvement and their effect on children’s cognitive and social and emotional development. A systematic review [30] categorized parent involvement as a positive parenting behavior and overall, positive parenting behaviors were associated with young children’s executive functions. Other researchers [31] evaluated interventions that were either school based (i.e., parent involvement with the child’s school) or home-based (i.e., parents’ engagement with their child at home). Researchers concluded that parent engagement interventions had a positive effect on young children’s social and emotional competence and that parent engagement interventions were more effective than parent involvement interventions [31].

A few systematic reviews have evaluated the role of parents in young children’s FMS and PA. Mitchell and colleagues [32] reviewed studies that examined a variety of parental influences on young children’s physical activities (e.g., parent behaviors, perceptions, social learning variables), but the studies included were reviewed until the year 2011. Recently, Stevenson et al. [33] reviewed motor skill interventions that included direct or indirect parent engagement. Both reviews included studies that examined parents’ role on young children’s FMS or PA, but not both. Given that previous reviews have synthesized the role of parents’ engagement on children’s developmental domains (e.g., cognitive, social and emotional), the major aim of this study was to fill this gap and add to the existing literature by conducting a narrative review to identify studies that examined the role of parent’s engagement on young children’s FMS and PA. The primary research question was 1.) What role does parent’s engagement play in young children’s FMS and/or PA? It is hypothesized that parent’s engagement would have a positive impact on young children’s FMS and/or PA.

2. Materials and Methods

The following databases were searched in January 2024: SPORTDiscus, Professional Development Collection, SocINDEX, and Family and Society Studies Worldwide. The keywords “parent engagement” OR “parent involvement” AND “motor skills” OR “motor development” AND “physical activity” OR “exercise” AND “young children” OR “early childhood” were entered in each database to identify works published between January 2010 and January 2024. All citations were peer reviewed, written in English, and included access to the full text. A total of 1975 citations were identified and downloaded on the Zotero reference manager. Using Google sheets, 690 duplicates were removed, leaving 1285 unique citations to review (see Figure 1).

Titles and abstracts were screened by authors to determine eligibility for a full review. Citations were eligible for full text review if they included a parent construct in the title or abstract, a child construct or variable related to FMS or PA, and the study was about children. Citations were excluded if they were a position or protocol paper, the study focused on sports participation, the study included adolescents/adults, or if the sample was non-typically developing (e.g., spine deficiencies, cerebral palsy, autism, brain dysfunctions, developmental coordination disorder). This reduced the number of citations to 94. Data extraction was guided by Harris and colleagues’ [34] guidelines and included year of publication, country where the study was conducted, primary focus of study, participant characteristics and setting, research design, description of parent’s variable(s), description of children’s variable(s), data source(s), analysis, and outcome(s). Articles were excluded at this phase if the mean or standard deviation of the children’s age was over 7 years or if the age was not mentioned (N = 22), the parent variable measured was not relevant to the study such as parent education level or demographic characteristics (N = 18), if the overall scope of the paper was not related to the subject (N = 39), or if the paper was not originally written in English (N = 1). This process resulted in 14 studies. Four additional articles were added from the first author’s own citation manager, and one article was added as a follow-up study from a previously excluded citation (i.e., protocol paper). A grand total of 19 articles were included.

2.1. Quality Assessment

A quality assessment checklist was developed according to the Strengthening the Reporting of Observational Studies in Epidemiology (STROBE) [35,36]. Ten criteria were included that best characterized studies on this topic. Each author independently reviewed each article and rated whether the article adequately presented the information with a 1, or if it was inadequately presented or absent with a 0. The authors initially achieved ≥ 70% agreement for each of the articles. They met and discussed the inconsistent ratings to reach consensus and achieve 100% agreement. The scores for each article were summed up to determine overall quality. Articles that scored 0-3 were considered low quality, 4-7 moderate, and 8-10 high quality (see Table 6A). The Physiotherapy Evidence Database scale (PEDro) [37] was also included to assess the quality of two randomized controlled trials. Eleven items were scored with a 1 indicating “yes” the criteria was present or 0 indicating “no” as absence. The authors achieved 100% agreement on the quality of the two studies (see Table 6B).

• Background/rationale: Explain the scientific background and rationale for the investigation being reported (STROBE #2). Description of the background (e.g., health, obesity) and rationale for the current study.
• Objectives: State specific objectives, including any prespecified hypotheses (STROBE #3)
• Study design: Present key elements of study design early in the paper (STROBE #4).
• Setting: Describe the setting, locations, and relevant dates, including periods of recruitment, exposure, follow-up, and data collection (STROBE #5)
• Data sources/measurement: For each variable of interest, give sources of data and details of methods of assessment (measurement). Describe comparability of assessment methods if there is more than one group (STROBE #8). Description of the parent variables, how they were measured, the children’s FMS/PA variables, and how they were measured.
• Statistical methods: (a) Describe all statistical methods, including those used to control confounding. The statistical methods addressed the research question/objectives of the study.
• Descriptive data: (a) Give characteristics of study participants (e.g., demographic, clinical, social) and information on exposures and potential confounders (b) Indicate number of participants with missing data for each variable of interest(c) Cohort study—Summarise follow-up time (eg, average and total amount) (STROBE #14). Participant descriptives, means/SD’s of parent and children’s variables are presented in the text or table/graph.
• Outcome data: Cohort study—Report numbers of outcome events or summary measures over timeCase-control study—Report numbers in each exposure category, or summary measures of exposureCross-sectional study—Report numbers of outcome events or summary measures (STROBE #15). Results from the analysis (e.g., correlation, ANOVA, etc.) are presented with statistically significant and non-significant results.
• Key results: Summarize and discuss key results with reference to aims/purpose, study objectives and/or research questions. (STROBE #18)
• Interpretation: Give a cautious overall interpretation of results considering objectives, limitations, multiplicity of analyses, results from similar studies, and other relevant evidence (STROBE #20)

Table 1. Inclusion and exclusion criteria.

Inclusion Criteria	Exclusion Criteria
Included a parent construct construct/variable	Study included a parent construct/variable about parent’s education/demographic characteristic
Included a child construct related to FMS/PA	Study included constructs/variables that were not FMS/PA related
Study was about typically developing children ages 0-7 years	Study included non-typically developing sample (i.e., adolescents, adults)
	Position or protocol paper

Note: FMS: Fundamental Movement Skills; PA: Physical Activity.

Table 1. Inclusion and exclusion criteria.

Inclusion Criteria	Exclusion Criteria
Included a parent construct construct/variable	Study included a parent construct/variable about parent’s education/demographic characteristic
Included a child construct related to FMS/PA	Study included constructs/variables that were not FMS/PA related
Study was about typically developing children ages 0-7 years	Study included non-typically developing sample (i.e., adolescents, adults)
	Position or protocol paper

Note: FMS: Fundamental Movement Skills; PA: Physical Activity.

3. Results

3.1. Study Characteristics

Nineteen articles met the inclusion criteria (see Table 2, Table 3). Most of the studies were conducted in North America (6), followed by Europe (5), Australia (3), Asia (2), and South America (2), and Africa (1). Fifteen studies were cross sectional, one was longitudinal, two were randomized controlled trials, and one was a quasi-experimental design. Two articles from Europe were cross sectional studies about the Skilled Kids program [38,39]. Across these studies, 53 parent variables were evaluated and classified into the following categories: parents own PA, parents PA practices, parent’s engagement/involvement, parents’ psychological characteristics (see Table 4). Thirty-three variables that measured children’s FMS (19) and PA (14) were identified (see Table 5).

3.2. Children’s Measurement Tools

Thirteen studies measured children’s FMS [38,39,40,41,42,43,44,45,46,47,48,49,50]. Most studies measured children’s FMS using the Test of Gross Motor Development-2 [41,43,47] and Test of Gross Motor Development-3 [38,39,48]. One study measured FMS using the Motoriktest for Vier-bis Sechsjahrige Kinder test [40], the Peabody Developmental Motor Scales [51], and the Movement Assessment Battery for Children-2 [46]. Szeszulski et al. [42] used the locomotor skills section of the TGMD-3 to measure children’s locomotor skills. Additionally, they included the Progressive Aerobic Cardiovascular Endurance Run (PACER) to measure product of locomotor skills. Williams et al. [45] measured functional motor skills (e.g., holding a pencil, catching) by asking parents about their children’s skills. Two studies [49,50] used the Ages and Stages Questionnaire-3 to assess motor skills.

Children’s PA was measured with parent questionnaires [41,51,52,53] and a checklist (Burdette Outdoor Playtime Checklist) [43]. Five studies used Actigraph accelerometers [47,54,55,56] and Movband4 [48].

3.3. Parents’ Measurement Tools

Parent’s PA was measured with subjective tools such as questionnaires (e.g., Godin Leisure Time Exercise Questionnaire) [38,40,41,42,51,52,53,54] or survey (i.e., Active Australia Survey) [21]. Three studies measured parent’s PA with Actigraph accelerometer devices [54,55,56].

3.4. Themes of Parent’s Engagement

3.4.1. Parent’s Own PA and Children’s FMS and PA

Ten studies examined the relationship between parent’s own PA and children’s FMS [40,41,42,47] or PA [51,52,53,54,55,56]. One study reported positive associations between parent’s PA and children’s FMS [41], two studies reported no relationships [42,47], and Cools and colleagues [40] reported both positive and negative associations. When examining parent’s PA and children’s PA, Carson et al. [52] and Neshteruk et al. [54] reported similar patterns, such that, parents who reported low PA also had children who were 2.77 times more likely to have low PA and parents who spent the most time in MVPA also had children who spent a substantial amount in MVPA over a 10-hour period (i.e., 59 minutes). Two studies [51,53] reported no significant relationships between parents’ PA and children’ PA. Furthermore, Barkin et al. [56] and Ruiz et al. [55] reported positive and negative associations based on PA intensity and duration. Low and moderate PA levels were related, but not vigorous levels of PA. As parent’s duration in MVPA increased from one to 10 minutes and 30–40 minutes, children’s time in MVPA increased. However, once parent’s reach 40–50 minutes in MVPA, children’s time decreased.

3.4.2. Parent’s PA Practices and Children’s FMS and PA

Five studies examined the role of parent’s PA practices on children’s FMS [40,43,54] and PA [43,54]. PA practices were measured with questionnaires developed for studies [40,43,54], the Family Physical Activity Environment Questionnaire [38], and the Preschool Physical Activity Parenting Practices Instrument [42]. These questionnaires included a variety of behaviors that parents’ do to impact their children’s FMS or PA, such as asking the school teacher about the children’s motor skills [40], co-participating in PA with children, providing direct support for children’s PA, encouragement/praise when children participate in PA [38], providing transportation to do PA, watching children participate in PA, and informing children of the health benefits of PA [43]. Szeszulski et al. [42] also included discouraging practices such as screen time promotion and parents’ concern for children’s safety.

Two studies evaluated parent’s PA practices and children’s FMS [40,42]. Cools et al. [40] reported a negative association between parent’s inquiry about children’s motor development and girls’ FMS. Interesting, Szeszulski et al. [42] found that discouraging PA practices such as promotion of screen time was associated with greater locomotor skills performance. Concern for children’s safety was related to lower locomotor scores on the PACER test. Laukkanen et al. [38] examined mothers and fathers PA practices and found that fathers reported significantly higher practices and provided more direct PA support for their children, compared to mothers.

Two studies examined parent’s PA practices and children’s PA [43,54]. Trost and Brooks [43] evaluated the Moovosity intervention’s effectiveness on parent’s support and children’s FMS. The intervention did not have a significant impact on parent’s support for their children’s PA. Neshteruk et al. [54] conducted a latent profile analysis based on parents PA practices and created three groups: Rewarder, Activity Supportive, and Screen Time Permissive. Children in the Rewarder group spent more time in MVPA compared to the other two groups.

3.4.3. Parents Engagement/Involvement and Children’s FMS and PA

Six studies examined parent’s engagement or involvement in children’s FMS [40,45,47,48,49,50] and PA [48]. Parent’s engagement was measured with questionnaires [40], face to face interviews [45,50], survey [47,48], or observation [49]. Brian and colleagues [48] reported positive associations between parent’s engagement and children’s FMS and PA. Both Barnett et al. [47] and Williams et al. [45] reported non-significant relationships between parent’s engagement and children’s FMS and functional motor skills, respectively. Cools et al. [40] reported both positive and negative associations based on children’s gender. Greater father involvement was related to boys’ higher FMS performance. In contrast, father involvement with girl’s dance activities was significantly negatively related to girls FMS. Onyango et al. [50] reported increases in mother’s motor engagement activities from baseline to endline in a RCT in Africa. Mother’s engagement had the largest effect size on children’s gross motor skills. Nurulfa et al. [44] conducted an observational study of parent’s and children’s interactions. Researchers measured their appreciation of each other and their interactions. When children were divided into three separate age groups (i.e., 3-4, 4-5, 6-7 years), it was discovered that the parents of children, ages 4-5, engaged with them more than the parents of children in the other two age groups. Solis-Cordero et al. [49] also employed a similar observation method in their RCT. Caregiver engagement increased from baseline to endline in the intervention group, but the increase was non-significant.

3.4.4. Parents Psychological Characteristics and Children’s FMS and PA

Four studies examined parent’s psychological characteristics and children’s FMS [39,40,46,47]. Parent’s psychological characteristics included their beliefs, perspectives, attitudes, or confidence towards their children’s movements. Two studies [39,40] reported positive associations between parent’s beliefs of the importance of children’s PA and children’s FMS, and parent’s perspective of their children’s FMS and children’s FMS. Hu and colleagues [46] reported a negative relationship between parent’s attitude and children’s functional motor skills. In one study, separate analysis was conducted for locomotor and object control skills [47]. While parents’ confidence in children’s PA was not a significant predictor for children’s locomotor skills, it was a significant predictor for children’s object control skills. In Laukkanen and colleagues study [38], parents were asked about their perception of their partner’s PA practices (e.g., co-participation in PA with children, encouragement/praise when children participate in PA). Partners PA practices were a significant predictor in parent’s PA practices.

3.5. Quality Assessment

Seventeen studies were evaluated using the adapted STROBE checklist and two were assessed with the PEDro scale. One study was categorized as being of low quality [39], six were moderate quality [40,41,42,44,46,53] and 10 were of high quality [38,45,47,48,50,51,52,54,55,56]. The two RCT’s achieved the maximum score indicating that they were high quality [43,49].

Table 6. A Quality assessment for each article.

Author and Year	Back.	Obj.	Design	Setting	Data Sources	Stat. Meths.	Descr.	Outc.	Results	Interp.	Total Score
Cools et al. (2011)	1	0	0	0	1	1	0	1	1	1	6
Honda Barros et al. (2012)	1	0	1	1	1	1	0	1	1	1	8
Carson et al. (2015)	1	1	0	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	9
Salaj et al. (2016)	1	0	0	0	1	1	1	1	1	1	7
Laukkanen et al. (2018)	1	0	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	0	8
Szeszulski et al. (2021)	1	0	0	0	1	1	1	1	1	1	7
Sääkslahti & Niemistö (2022)	0	0	0	0	0	1	0	0	0	0	1
Rutkauskaitė et al. (2021)	1	0	0	1	1	1	0	1	1	0	6
Nurulfa et al. (2021)	1	0	0	1	1	1	1	0	1	0	6
Williams et al. (2014)	1	0	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	0	8
Hu et al. (2014)	1	0	0	1	1	1	0	1	1	1	7
Neshteruk et al. (2020)	1	0	1	1	1	1	1	0	1	1	8
Ruiz et al. (2011)	1	0	1	0	1	1	1	1	1	1	8
Barnett et al. (2013)	1	0	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	9
Barkin et al. (2016)	1	0	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	9
Brian et al. (2022)	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	10
Onyango et al. (2023)	1	0	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	9

Note: Total score scale 0-3 low quality, 4-7 moderate quality, 8-10 high quality.

Table 6. A Quality assessment for each article.

Author and Year	Back.	Obj.	Design	Setting	Data Sources	Stat. Meths.	Descr.	Outc.	Results	Interp.	Total Score
Cools et al. (2011)	1	0	0	0	1	1	0	1	1	1	6
Honda Barros et al. (2012)	1	0	1	1	1	1	0	1	1	1	8
Carson et al. (2015)	1	1	0	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	9
Salaj et al. (2016)	1	0	0	0	1	1	1	1	1	1	7
Laukkanen et al. (2018)	1	0	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	0	8
Szeszulski et al. (2021)	1	0	0	0	1	1	1	1	1	1	7
Sääkslahti & Niemistö (2022)	0	0	0	0	0	1	0	0	0	0	1
Rutkauskaitė et al. (2021)	1	0	0	1	1	1	0	1	1	0	6
Nurulfa et al. (2021)	1	0	0	1	1	1	1	0	1	0	6
Williams et al. (2014)	1	0	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	0	8
Hu et al. (2014)	1	0	0	1	1	1	0	1	1	1	7
Neshteruk et al. (2020)	1	0	1	1	1	1	1	0	1	1	8
Ruiz et al. (2011)	1	0	1	0	1	1	1	1	1	1	8
Barnett et al. (2013)	1	0	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	9
Barkin et al. (2016)	1	0	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	9
Brian et al. (2022)	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	10
Onyango et al. (2023)	1	0	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	9

Note: Total score scale 0-3 low quality, 4-7 moderate quality, 8-10 high quality.

Table 6. B Quality assessment for each article based on PEDro scale.

Table 6. B Quality assessment for each article based on PEDro scale.

Author and Year	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	Total
Trost and Brooks (2021)	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	10
Solis-Cordero et al. (2023)	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	10

4. Discussion

The major purpose of this narrative review was to evaluate published studies that examined the role of parent’s engagement on young children’s (i.e., ages 0-7 years) FMS and PA. Nineteen articles met the inclusion criteria. Fifteen studies were cross-sectional and primarily conducted in North America (N=6). Thirteen studies examined parent’s engagement and children’s FMS and ten studies examined parent’s engagement on children’s PA. Fifty-three parent variables were extracted from the studies and placed in four categories of parent’s own PA, parent’s PA practices, parent’s engagement/involvement, parent’s psychological characteristics. Additionally, 31 variables were extracted and placed into the broad categories of children’s FMS and PA.

4.1. The Role of Parent’s Engagement on Children’s FMS

Of the thirteen studies that examined parents’ engagement in children’s FMS, six studies reported that parent’s engagement was beneficial for children’s FMS performance. In one study, authors conducted separate analysis for mother’s and father’s engagement and children’s FMS. Cools et al. [40] showed that father’s engagement (i.e., father’s own PA, engagement in play) was beneficial to boys FMS. However, when fathers engaged with girls, girls scored lower in FMS. Additionally, this study reported how fathers who were physically active less than once a month and exercised daily, also had children with low FMS. Several authors have examined the unique role of fathers in children’s development. Fagan and colleagues [57]examined the role of fathers’ and father-figure’s engagement (e.g., reading to their child) and children’s language competence. Children whose father’s read to them at home reported greater language competence. A systematic review by Amodia-Bidakowska et al. [58] focused on father-child play and its role in children’s development and concluded that it can have a beneficial role on children’s social, emotional, and cognitive development. These studies demonstrate the important role fathers may have in young other domains of children’s development; however, our results showed otherwise for girls. In the current review, most parent participants reported were female [42,45,47,48]. Davison and colleagues [59] reported on the scarcity of father participants in childhood obesity prevention research and the lack of studies where researchers conduct analysis on father’s variables. Given that the current review included few father participants and previous research highlighted the underrepresentation of fathers, future researchers should actively recruit fathers and involve them in childhood obesity prevention interventions to further understand their role in children’s FMS.

Parent’s engagement yielded mixed findings on children’s locomotor and object control skills. For example, Trost and Brooks [43] and Barnett and colleagues [47] both reported positive associations between parent’s engagement and children’s object control skills, but not children’s locomotor skills. These differences may be attributed to the suggestion that object control skills may require greater perceptual resources, in comparison to locomotor skills [60]. Due to the higher demand needed to execute object control skills, parent’s may be more inclined to be engaged with their children when learning these skills. In contrast, Brian and colleagues [48] reported increases in both locomotor skills and object control skills as parent’s attended monthly motor skill sessions. In Barnett et al.’s [47] study, parent’s engagement was defined under the broad categories of parent’s own PA, engagement, and psychological characteristics and in Trost and Brooks [43], parent’s engagement was under the parent’s PA practices category. The greater impact of parent’s engagement on children’s locomotor and object control skills in Brian and colleagues [48] study may be attributed to the nature of parent engagement activities. Parents participated in activities such as learning about the importance of FMS, opportunities to practice teaching FMS, and were provided resources (e.g., website, bag of equipment) that may have been meaningful strategies to impact young children’s locomotor and object control skills. This observation is noteworthy given that worldwide, young children are more proficient in locomotor skills than object control skills [61] and participation in object control skills may predict later childhood and adolescent MVPA. Future researchers can consider instructional sessions embedded with behavioral change strategies to promote parent’s engagement in young children’s locomotor and object control skills. Additionally, professionals who work with children (e.g., pediatricians, early childhood educators), should encourage parents and caregivers to be active with their children and engage with them in different activities.

4.2. The Role of Parent’s Engagement on Children’s PA

Ten studies also examined the role of parent’s engagement on children’s PA. Parent’s engagement can also have a positive impact on young children’s PA. Most studies that examined the relationships between parent’s own PA and children’s PA showed that parent’s PA was beneficial for children’s PA [52,54,55,56]. Furthermore, Carson and colleagues [52] showed that this relationship was dependent on family structure (i.e., single, two-parent homes). Essentially, parent’s low PA was related to child’s low PA in two-parent homes, however, this relationship was not observed in single parent homes. In Carson et al.’s [52] study, most parents were female and part of a two-parent home. Parents in two-parent homes may have greater availability to devote time to their children and role model behaviors for them. Single-parent homes are associated with less time and less supervision towards young children [62]. The disparate characteristics in family structure can influence young children’s development. Parents in single parent homes may spend less time with their children and as a result, associations between parent and children’s PA are absent. Furthermore, single parents may be less available to role model healthy behaviors, such as PA participation. Future researchers should consider the challenges faced by single parents in their children’s PA engagement and provide opportunities for them to be active. Developing strategies and programs specifically for single parents with limited time, while supporting the importance of PA may be a viable avenue to promoting PA in single-parent homes.

Studies in this review also reported on the intensities of children’s PA (i.e., low, moderate, vigorous, MVPA). Two studies by Ruiz et al. [55] and Barkin et al. [56] showed similar patterns. Children’s low PA was associated with parent’s low PA. Ruiz and colleagues [55] showed that parent and children’s moderate PA levels were not associated. In a similar vein, Barkin et al. [56] also reported that as parents PA increased, so did children’s. Children’s MVPA continued to increase as parents went from 1 to 10 minutes and 30 to 40 minutes. However, once parents reached 40-50 minutes, children’s MVPA decreased. These studies showed that parent and children’s PA are related, however this relationship is dependent on the amount of time that parents spend in PA and the intensity of the PA. These studies suggest that preschoolers and parents do not engage in higher levels of PA (i.e., moderate, moderate-to vigorous, vigorous). More intense PA is necessary to achieve greater health benefits and offset health conditions such as obesity and overweight [63]. Both researchers and practitioners can develop activities and programs to help children, parents, and people of all ages learn about PA of various intensities and how to implement them.

4.3. Strengths and Limitations

This study has some strengths. It adds to the literature about parents’ engagement in children’s developmental domains (e.g., cognitive, social and emotional) by broadening the scope to include motor development and PA. Second, this study expands on the previous findings from Mitchell et al. [32] and includes motor competence. FMS are considered to be the building blocks of later PA and understanding parent’s role in this domain could be a potential avenue for early intervention to mediate developmental delays. While this study adds to motor development and parent engagement literature, its limitations must be noted. First, four databases were searched, and an updated search could not be conducted due to lack of accessibility to the databases. Therefore, this restricts the studies that were found and reviewed. Second, most studies that met the inclusion criteria were conducted in North America (N=6). These studies shaped the current perspective on parent’s engagement in children’s motor competence and PA. Third, most of the parents in these studies were female with only a few studies reporting father participants.

5. Conclusions

Childhood overweight and obesity continue to be a public health concern in early childhood. When children learn FMS and engage in regular PA during early childhood, they are more likely to maintain their PA participation in the middle and later childhood years. Therefore, caregivers, parents, and childhood early childhood professionals should encourage and facilitate opportunities for children to be physically active.

In summary, this narrative review evaluated 19 studies to understand parent engagement and how it impacts young children’s (ages 0-7) FMS and PA. Parent’s engagement (i.e., parents own PA, parents PA practices, parent’s engagement/involvement, parents’ psychological characteristics) is beneficial for young children’s FMS and PA development. Future researchers should consider targeting fathers, father figures, and single mothers in their studies and identifying strategies to enhance their participation. Including these populations may be unexplored avenues to help mediate effects of childhood overweight and obesity.