Back gardens and friends: the impact of COVID-19 on children and adolescents use of, and access to, outdoor spaces

Abstract

Ireland is a nation of house owners rather than apartments. 86.5% of all survey respondents live in a house and 99.3% of them have access to outdoor space for playing and hanging out. The top three most common outdoor spaces that children use and have access to are back gardens (26.6%), front gardens (20.1%) and communal green areas (14.18%). It is noticeable that the outdoor play spaces are in very close geographical proximity to the home. Almost 7 out of 10 respondents with a front or back garden say they have fixed play equipment. This number decreased as the children got chronologically older. Only 4.9% of respondents live in an apartment and 69.8% have access to outdoor space for playing and hanging out. Clearly children and adolescents living in apartments were more severely affected in relation to the availability of outdoor play and hanging out spaces and places. This short paper only briefly addresses a small section of the study's research findings that impact on children and adolescents use of outdoor space during the lockdown period of COVID-19 and it is hoped that a more detailed and wider discussion will be forthcoming. The humble, ordinary, mundane back garden was portrayed by children, adolescents and parents as a classroom, playground, socializing space, garden and allotment, sports pitch, family play space, hobby room, exercise space and eating area.