Media releases

• Sport organizations need to be part of resumption plan: Brock expert

  Friday, May 15, 2020 | By Brock University

  MEDIA RELEASE: 15 May 2020 – R0087

  At first Madelyn Law was excited to hear that gymnastics was listed as one of the sports that could resume in Ontario starting Tuesday, May 19.

  As a gymnast herself and the mother of two athletic kids, it seemed like good news, until she thought about it a bit more.

  “I want nothing more than a sport like gymnastics to get up and running as soon as possible,” says Law, Associate Professor of Health Sciences at Brock University, who has spent her career engaged in public health research. “It would be great to see our children being physically active and getting back in the game, but I believe the guidance about what this looks like and deeming specific sports to be OK at this time is misguided.”

  Law says gymnastics is a good example of a sport that needs more consideration.

  “You have a club of kids who have not been training properly for two months. They’ll need assistance from their coaches in a hands-on way — beside them, and helping them flip over. That can’t happen safely from six feet away,” she says.

  There’s also the concern over how to keep equipment disinfected when you have multiple gymnasts all using the same apparatus or jumping into a sponge pit.

  “Just because this is an individual sport, does not mean that they can physically distance from their peers or coaches,” Law says.

  She says it’s misguided to think that holding practices for a team sport like soccer is less safe for public health reasons than gymnastics.

  “If players brought their own soccer ball and were given their own space to train, the coaches could still help them with drills while allowing the players to see their friends and feel like they have some sort of normalcy,” she says. “There would need to be changes and not all skills could be done, but it’s better than nothing.”

  She says more consideration needs to be taken around each sport, and adds that sport organizations themselves should play a significant role in the decisions around resumption of activity timelines.

  “We don’t need individuals who may not know the intricacies of specific-sport participation telling sport organizations that they can open or not,” Law says. “They need to work more closely with sport organizations to say, ‘You can open if you meet the specific public health guidelines.’”

  Madelyn Law, Associate Professor of Health Sciences at Brock University, is available for phone and video interviews with the media.

  For more information or for assistance arranging interviews:

  * Dan Dakin, Manager Communications and Media Relations, Brock University ddakin@brocku.ca or 905-347-1970

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  Categories: Media releases

• Early research results show impacts of pandemic on children and youth

  Thursday, May 14, 2020 | By Brock University

  MEDIA RELEASE: 14 May 2020 – R0086

  Two girls passing notes to each other through their shared backyard fence. A boy breathing a sigh of relief for not having to face unpleasant classmates at school.

  These are some of the stories being captured in Brock University research on the experiences of children and youth during the COVID-19 pandemic.

  When she started her study at the end of March, Professor of Child and Youth Studies Rebecca Raby was concerned — and curious — about how young people are coping with the pandemic.

  “Clearly, there are children who are in a lot of distress out there,” she said. “But I suspect we’re also going to hear stories about really cool, compelling things that kids have started to initiate at home with parents, siblings, on their own or online.”

  She and her six-member student team have been conducting bi-weekly, online interviews with 25 children and youth from ages eight to 16 from a wide range of backgrounds and living arrangements. In between the structured, formalized interviews are informal check-ins via text or other messaging.

  The research team is compiling some interesting stories.

  One of the six children Brock PhD student Laurel Donison has been surveying is an eight-year-old girl whose friend, also eight, lives next door. Not having access to social media or a smartphone, the two were playing in their respective yards when they figured out a way to communicate despite the tall fence that separated them.

  “The girl showed me during our video call the hole she made in the fence between her yard and the yard beside her so that she and the other girl were able to pass each other notes, draw each other pictures and talk through the fence this way,” says Donison.

  Raby says that although it’s difficult to generalize the diverse experiences of children and youth while sheltering at home, some broad trends are starting to emerge.

  These include activities such as building, cooking, baking, writing, making art, videos and fake fingernails, sewing, gardening and playing instruments.

  “What I found most surprising is the significance of the arts in helping the young people to cope,” says Raby.

  Also notable to Raby was the number of children and youth who have reported having difficulties with online learning, specifically when they need to ask questions about things they don’t understand. Children with learning disabilities, English as a second language or for those whose parents are working during the day and are thus unable to answer questions find it especially challenging.

  Not so unexpected is that children and youth are missing face-to-face interaction with friends and peers.

  “Clearly, a really important component to their lives is hanging out with friends,” says Raby. “Many have expressed sadness about not being able to hang out together.”

  An overwhelming majority also miss being at school, although one 13-year-old boy reported feeling relieved that he didn’t have to face his peers, who he felt ignored him.

  Raby says most children and youth seem to know “a lot about what is going on,” mostly through news reports and school lessons, likely adding to the worries they widely expressed about their parents and grandparents getting sick and stress over people not physical distancing.

  Other common patterns among the child and youth research participants include:

  • An appreciation for how schoolwork and other tasks provide structure to the day and, at the same time, enjoying the ability to schedule their own time and order of tasks.
  • Challenges with self-motivation, especially if schoolwork isn’t interesting or if there are too many distractions online and in their surrounding environment.
  • Girls seem more likely to be doing chores than boys, especially in terms of taking care of younger siblings or helping them with homework.
  • Frequent connection with friends and other activity online; a relaxing of family rules about online time and overall less regulation of online activities.

  The research team’s interviews will proceed for another few months and then the team will more deeply analyze the data collected from the interviews.

  Professor of Child and Youth Studies Rebecca Raby is available for phone and video interviews on the research.

   

  For more information or for assistance arranging interviews: 

  * Dan Dakin, Manager Communications and Media Relations, Brock University ddakin@brocku.ca or 905-347-1970

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  Categories: Media releases