Family joint activities in a cross-national perspective

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Parents and children joint activities are considered to be an important factor on healthy lifestyle development throughout adolescence. This study is a part of the Cross-National Survey on Health Behaviour in School-aged Children – World Health Organization Collaborative Study (HBSC). It aims to describe family time in joint activities and to clarify the role of social and structural family profile in a cross-national perspective.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>The research was carried out according to the methodology of the HBSC study using the anonymous standardized questionnaire. In total, 17,761 students (8,649 boys and 9,112 girls) aged 13 and 15 years from 6 European countries (Czech Republic, Finland, Greenland, Lithuania, Spain, and Ukraine) were surveyed in the 2001–2002 school-year. The evaluation of joint family activity is based on 8 items: <it>(1) </it>watching TV or a video, <it>(2) </it>playing indoor games, <it>(3) </it>eating meals, <it>(4) </it>going for a walk, <it>(5) </it>going places, <it>(6) </it>visiting friends or relatives, <it>(7) </it>playing sports, <it>(8) </it>sitting and talking about things (chatting).</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Students from Spain and Ukraine reported spending the most time together with their families in almost all kinds of joint activities, whereas students from Greenland and Finland reported spending the least of this time. Boys were more likely than girls to be spending time together with family. Joint family activity goes into decline in age from 13 to 15 years. Variability of family time in a cross-national perspective was relatively small and related to children age category. Considering national, gender and age differences of studied population groups, we found that the distribution of joint family activities tends to be dispersed significantly by family structure (intact/restructured family) and family wealth.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Our study compares children and parent joint activities in European countries and reveals differences and similarities in these patterns between countries. The findings underline the role of family structure (intact/restructured family) and family wealth in the distribution of time spent in joint family activities, which should be considered by health promoters.</p

Sustainable Development Goals summit 2023 and the global pledge on disability-focused early childhood development.

info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Accentuate the positive, eliminate the negative? The variable value dynamics of non-suicidal self-hurting

Medical accounts mostly frame non-suicidal self-hurting as an adverse event, the frequency of which has supposedly increased to a current ‘epidemic’ level, and which can be predicted probabilistically in terms of risk factors. This set of presuppositions gives rise to the common stigmatisation of those who present to Accident and Emergency services as a result of self-hurting. It is now being challenged in a small but growing body of social science literature which emphasises the diversity of self-hurting, and its range of socially situated meanings for those who self-hurt, family and health professionals. The present paper contributes to this research strand by discussing the accounts of their self-hurting given by a sample of 25 UK adults who had not been in contact with health or other services for this reason. The analysis focused on three value issues: the positive gains which motivated research participants to self-hurt; their own active efforts to mitigate associated risks; and the longer-term downsides which some respondents identified