Scottish Parents' Survey 2021 - children and young people's play: results

4. Factors that would encourage children to play more outside

Parents were asked about possible factors that would encourage their children to play outside more.

The most commonly identified factors were: improvements to local play parks (48%); if parents felt more confident in the safety of the local area (40%); if parents had more time to take their children to play outside (36%); and if there were more nearby accessible places for their child or family’s specific needs or disabilities (33%).

15% of parents said that nothing would encourage their child to play outside more. Figure 4.1 shows the responses to this question.

Base: 1004

Parents of children aged between 0-11 were more likely than parents of young people aged between 12-17 to identify specific factors, such as improvements to local play parks (55% compared with 34%) and safety in their local area (45% compared with 30%). Parents of young people were more likely than parents of children to say nothing would encourage their children to play outside more (31% compared with 7%).