Many mental health disorders among adults find their roots in early childhood (Thomson et al., 2019). Studies suggest that mental disorders can affect children’s various aspects of life, such as educational outcomes (Patel et al., 2007), attentional function (Vloet et al., 2010), and eating behavior (Hill et al., 2018). Accordingly, understanding factors contributing to children’s mental health is vitally important for reducing the risk of mental disorders later in adulthood. Physical activity (PA) has been emphasized repeatedly among various factors that predict children’s mental health. Previous studies have covered various benefits of PA on children’s life (Christiansen et al., 2018; García-Hermoso et al., 2020a). Studies suggest that PA affects children’s health, quality of life (Shoesmith et al., 2020), and sleep quality (Chong et al., 2020). The long-term PA is an essential measure in balancing blood pressure, insulin level, and wellbeing (Leary et al., 2008).

Being aware of its benefits has not guaranteed a high level of PA among children of various ages globally. In studying children’s PA, there has been an agreement that compared to the past, children’s active transportation participation, such as walking and cycling to school, has decreased significantly (Salmon et al., 2005). Despite the proven benefits of active plays in children’s PA level (Chong et al., 2020; García-Hermoso et al., 2020a; Shoesmith et al., 2020), most children in present times show lower outdoor playing activities than previous generations (Valentine and McKendrck, 1997; Hillman, 2006). According to WHO, children and adolescents aged 5–17 years should at least do 1 h of moderate-to-vigorous intensity activities on average.

Children might do not get engaged in recommended weekly PA regularly (Cavill et al., 2001). The level of children’s PA is associated with various factors. Previous studies suggest that children’s disabilities (Bedell et al., 2013), desire and motivation for physical activities (Wohlfarth et al., 2013), gender (Loucaides and Jago, 2008), and self-perception (Wright et al., 2019) can make a difference in the PA level of children in comparison with their counterparts.

Parents also might prevent or encourage children’s PA in various ways and for multiple reasons. For example, children’s independent mobility (CIM) is considered an essential source of PA (Carver et al., 2012). CIM is defined as children’s freedom and ability to move around public spaces without any adults’ absence or supervision. It covers activities such as walking, cycling, or independent playing. Studies suggest that CIM positively affects children’s PA and weight status (Schoeppe et al., 2013).

Meanwhile, CIM is mainly dependent on parents’ permission. Parental fear and concern about traffic safety and strangers are associated with more constraints on CIM (Carver et al., 2010). Parents’ decisions substantially determine the extent and range of independence mobility (Carver et al., 2010). Compared to the past, nowadays, parents do restrict children much more from playing in local parks or streets (Karsten, 2005).

More recently, the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has been an additional reason for reducing children’s PA. COVID-19 added to the complexity of managing children’s PA. The closing of schools plus online education eliminated school-based PA from children’s life. Before COVID-19, children might spend 5–40% of recommended PA time at school (Ridgers et al., 2006). Besides, parents are aware of the benefits of PA for children; they are also mindful of the negative consequences of a lack of PA on overweight or even obesity (Towns and D’Auria, 2009; Norman Ã. et al., 2015). Accordingly, the decision-making and managing of children’s PA during the COVID-19 pandemic are much more on the parents’ side than before the pandemic (at least as long as there are no general curfews on all possible PA modes, of course).

Due to the importance of PA and its demonstrated positive effects on children, the issue is well-covered in the literature, yet less is known about the factors that the parental PA restrictions impact children’s perceived wellbeing and mental health during the COVID-19 pandemic. Addressing the impact of the parental decision on PA level of children and their perceived consequences of these decisions provides a piece of valuable information that hardly could be examined in studies that were confined to the pre-COVID-19 era (Timperio et al., 2004; Weir et al., 2006; Schoeppe et al., 2013; Wohlfarth et al., 2013). This study attempts to shed light on the perceived impact of PA level on children’s wellbeing and mental health during the COVID-19 pandemic. Such an evaluation has to address the system of parents-children, so we included the perspective of the impact of COVID-19 on parents to gain a complete picture. Such effects can be classified regarding psychological states such as increased stress level (Brown et al., 2020; Xu et al., 2020), anxiety (Drouin et al., 2020), mental health (Limbers et al., 2020; Wu et al., 2020), as well as physical and wellbeing states (Patrick et al., 2020).

The result of this study can fill a part of the gap in previous studies. First, most of our knowledge of factors contributing to children’s wellbeing is limited to the pre-COVID-19 pandemic. Second, most studies on parents’ PA avoidance factors have emphasized neighborhood safety and stranger danger. Less is known about the impact of parents’ stress and perceived risk in this regard. By addressing these issues, we attempted to contribute to studying children’s mental health during epidemic diseases. Keeping in mind the effect of mental disorders on other aspects of children’s lives and even its consequences on their adult mental health, it is essential to study factors contributing to children’s wellbeing and mental health. This study presents pioneering research on parents’ role in children’s wellbeing and mental health during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Before COVID-19, mental health was a central and critical topic for research: it is estimated that more than 10% of children and adolescents around the world have a mental disorder (Kato et al., 2015), particularly in a pandemic crisis of this extent such figures and further potential deterioration of this condition, mental disorders have to be focused. People were affected concerning wellbeing and mental health, not only adults (Yeasmin et al., 2020) but also children (Parola et al., 2020). Among various factors contributing to children’s mental health, we concentrated on the role of PA. We focused on the parental role in reducing children’s PA during the COVID-19 pandemic and its consequences on children’s mental health and wellbeing. We attempted to canonize the role of parents in PA avoidance.

The literature well covers parents’ influence on children’s PA (Sallis et al., 2000). Stress and perceived risk have been shown to affect parents’ avoidance behaviors in urban parks (Khozaei et al., 2021). Previous studies have revealed that PA impacts mental health (Bélanger et al., 2019). Parental influence was shown to substantially affect children’s perception and participation in PA (Cheung and Chow, 2010). Besides, parental encouragement (Welk et al., 2003) or involvement (Ornelas et al., 2007), as well as role model factors (Bois et al., 2005) in PA, has proved to predict PA among children. Carver et al. (2012) provided statistical evidence that parents’ PA avoidance can affect children’s PA level. Moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA) is correlated with reducing mental disorders such as depression, anxiety, and mental health improvement (Carson et al., 2016). It has been well-established that outdoor physical activities positively affect peoples’ mental health more than indoor PA (Thompson Coon et al., 2011; Bailey et al., 2018).

Spending time outdoors has been associated with children’s attention improvement (Ulset et al., 2017). Based on these ideas, we raised the following research hypotheses:

In this study, we aimed to examine the impact of parental stress and perceived risk on children’s avoidance of PA and, consequently, on children’s PA and wellbeing levels. Understanding the contributors to children’s wellbeing during pandemic disease is the first critical step in contributing to children’s health during epidemic diseases. We defined four hypotheses (H1–H4) addressing the conceptual research model (Figure 1).

The purpose of this study was four-fold. First, we explored the effect of perceived risk on avoiding parental PA. Second, we investigated the impact of parents’ stress on the parental avoidance of children’s PA. Third, we studied the effect of parental PA avoidance on children’s PA. Finally, we investigated the effect of children’s PA on their mental health and wellbeing. The model studied in this report, along with its parameter estimations, is displayed in Figure 2.

It was late 2019 that people worldwide heard about an unknown, deadly virus that presumably originated from China for the first time. It did not take long that the transmitted virus outside the China borders brought about similar symptoms, death, and fear globally. Accordingly, staying home and keeping social distancing turned into a worldwide slogan, and attitude and respective measures were implemented all over the world. Coping with the lengthy lockdowns and curfews, fear of death, losing the job, and uncertainty about the future greatly stressed people on a global scale.

COVID-19 posed numerous challenges for people confronted with restrictions, lockdowns, and quarantine situations (Grossman et al., 2020; Picaza Gorrochategi et al., 2020; Zhu et al., 2020).

Parenting is taken as concerns about financial support of family, training, and taking care of children’s education, concerns about job stability, and tolerating working conditions. Parenting has always been considered a difficult task, yet the burden of COVID-19 faced parents with a more significant challenge (Cluver et al., 2020; Griffith, 2020). Job insecurity concerns during COVID-19, providing children with proper mobile electrical devices for online learning, responding to children’s new demands, working from home have been all-new aspects of parenting for children. There is no wonder that several studies have canonized the parents’ stress during COVID-19 (Brown et al., 2020; Calvano et al., 2021; Chung et al., 2020; Xu et al., 2020). The impact of parents’ emphasis on various aspects of children’s life is becoming increasingly difficult to ignore.

In this study, we aimed to investigate the relationship between five latent constructs: perceived risk of COVID-19, avoidance of PA, parental stress, children’s PA, and children’s mental health. Four hypotheses were developed and tested using SmartPLS 3. Through a consequential model, we examined some factors contributing to children’s mental health. Results of the study provided empirical evidence for the hypothesized relationship between the supposed latent constructs.

The findings supported the first hypothesis. Similar to Carver et al. (2012), it appears that perceived risk affects parental PA avoidance. Based on the literature, parents prefer to avoid their adolescent or children’s PA outdoor in any risky conditions such as neighborhood safety (Weir et al., 2006), traffic (Timperio et al., 2004; Carver et al., 2010), and danger of strangers (Carver et al., 2010). Notably, for the PA level, we referred to a well-established instrument (IPAQ) for which we could not rely on Persian norms as this instrument is not yet validated for Iran. However, a posteriori analyses for our sample revealed a reliable scale also for our adapted version for the Persian language.

Parents’ stress was revealed to affect children’s PA avoidance significantly. Accordingly, the second hypothesis was also supported. There might be several explanations for this result. First, previous studies have already shown the negative impact of stress on ones’ PA. For example, Salmon (2001) asserted that “people who are less disturbed by stress might simply be more ready to take up exercise training” (p. 46). Hence, the inactivity of stressed parents might influence PA restrictions for their children. Second, parents with higher stress levels might have more negative thoughts and will likely expect bad events. This might explain the higher probabilities of restrictive behaviors on children’s spending time outdoor.

Our findings supported the third hypothesis as well. Parents’ PA avoidance proved to have a strong negative effect on children’s overall PA level. We could demonstrate that children with parents who applied more restriction rules on children’s PA also showed lower PA levels. Previous studies argue that spending time outdoor can positively affect youth’s level of PA (Schaefer et al., 2014; Gray et al., 2015). Accordingly, they also justify that avoidance of children from the time of expenditures’ outdoor leads to the low level of children’s PA. This result is consistent with the findings of other studies (Timperio et al., 2004; Weir et al., 2006).

The fourth hypothesis examined the impact of children’s PA on their mental health and wellbeing. The result of the study supported the research hypothesis. Children with less PA level considered themselves less healthy, and their overall wellbeing was less than those with higher PA levels. It is widely accepted that PA is associated with children’s health (Christiansen et al., 2018; Bélanger et al., 2019; García-Hermoso et al., 2020b) and children’s activity limitation increases the chance of being overweight (Holderness et al., 2017). The current findings support those previous findings.

Taken as a whole, the result of this study highlights the importance of PA on children’s mental health. It also canonizes the role of parents on children’s PA level during pandemic disease. Before COVID-19, children were performing PA in various, freely choosing contexts. Structured activities and sports courses in the school or walking and cycling to get to the school are all essential measures to add active hours to children’s lifestyle. Physical playing indoors or outdoors and engaging in group games are typically also part of children’s PA. COVID-19 made many children’s routine PA impossible or even explicitly prohibited them. Parents, as the most critical gatekeepers, significantly controlled children’s PA, especially in pandemic times. Nowadays, the children’s average physical activities might not even meet the recommended PA daily level (Table 6). This study intriguingly demonstrates the adverse effects of children’s less PA during the long-term stressful periods such as epidemic diseases. It shed light on an essential fact that the children who had less PA in the last 7 days also perceived themselves as less healthy. As the current pandemic situation has limited the children’s average time to spend time outdoors, it is essential to facilitate access to good physical playing possibilities, e.g., providing gaming devices to encourage physical play on safe outdoor fields. All these issues should be taken very seriously by parents, by caring institutions, and, of course, by state officials.

In canonizing the parental stress and children’s mental health, we further compared the respondents regarding the demographic background and living environment. We found that housing type, parents’ job security, number of siblings, number of members living together in-home, and history of death or hospitalization of relatives or family members due to COVID-19 were associated with parents’ stress and children’s mental health. Further studies might consider other factors such as neighborhood condition, housing area and the number of rooms, and the possible connection with nature as factors that can affect the parents’ stress and children’s mental health. Besides, the comparative study of children’s mental health in rural areas and urban environments might provide valuable information.

Our study is among the very first research approaches examining the impact of parents’ stress on PA restrictions. We believe that understanding factors contributing to children’s mental health and wellbeing is essential in times of continuing lockdowns. Of course, future research has to test also the developments and adaptations taking place during such a long-term crisis similar to COVID-19 because our present study only provides a single-shot measurement of the target variables. Further studies might also canonize the role of parenting strategies and the management of children’s PA during such critical periods of life on children’s overall wellbeing. Insights generated from such studies will be an important learning lesson for other crises to come in the future.

Due to the closing of schools, we did not have access to an extremely large number of participants. We were confined to schools that had social media groups for students and parents. Some of the school principals also disagreed in distributing the required online link among the students and respective explanations of research aims for their parents. These are challenges that increase the difficulties in conducting such studies in this area under the circumstances of a pandemic.

The raw data supporting the conclusions of this article will be made available by the authors, without undue reservation.

Ethical review and approval was not required for the study on human participants in accordance with the local legislation and institutional requirements. Written informed consent to participate in this study was provided by the participants’ legal guardian/next of kin.

FK analyzed the data. Both authors were involved in the research design, manuscript preparation, and approved the submitted version.

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article, or claim that may be made by its manufacturer, is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.