CoChat
Sign Up
Cited by 309Child and Adolescent Psychosocial and Emotional DevelopmentYouth Development and Social SupportRecreation, Leisure, Wilderness Management

Free-Time Activities in Middle Childhood: Links with Adjustment in Early Adolescence

McHale, Susan M, Crouter, Ann C, Tucker, Corinna J·2001·Child Development
DOI 10.1111/1467-8624.00377
Open this paper in CoChat — free account

Abstract

This study assessed links between free-time activities in middle childhood (hobbies, sports, toys and games, outdoor play, reading, television viewing, and hanging out) and school grades, conduct, and depression symptoms both concurrently and 2 years later, in early adolescence. It also explored two mechanisms that might underlie activity–adjustment links: whether the social contexts of children's activities mediate these links, child effects explain these connections, or both. Participants were 198 children (M= 10.9 years, SD= .54 years) in Year 1, and their parents. In home interviews in Years 1 and 3 of the study, mothers rated children's conduct problems, children reported on their depression symptoms, and information was collected on school grades from report cards. In seven evening phone interviews, children reported on the time they spent in free-time activities during the day of the call and their companions in each activity. Links were found between the nature of children's free-time activities and their adjustment. The social contexts of free-time activities explained activity–adjustment links to a limited degree; with respect to child effects, evidence also suggested that better adjusted children became more involved in adaptive activities over time.

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1111/1467-8624.00377

Cites

30 of 30 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Recomputing p-values needs the paper’s full text.

Claims the paper makes

We couldn’t retrieve this paper’s full text, so its claims and self-check weren’t run. The registry and citation checks still apply.

Claims other papers make about this one

Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?

Cites

Flagged first, then by citations

1 of the 31 references couldn’t be matched to a known paper.

Cited by

Sorted by citations

Related

Authors
McHale, S. M., Crouter, A. C., & Tucker, C. J.
Affiliations
  • Pennsylvania State University (US)
  • University of New Hampshire (US)
ORCID
Venue
Child Development
Publisher
Oxford University Press (OUP)
Published
2001-11-01
Volume
72
Issue
6
Pages
1764-1778
ISSN
  • 0009-3920 (ISSN-L)
  • 1467-8624
DOI
10.1111/1467-8624.00377
OpenAlex
W2037109108
Cited by
309
References
31
Citations by year
2026: 10 · 2025: 8 · 2024: 8 · 2023: 9 · 2022: 9 · 2021: 17 · 2020: 10 · 2019: 10 · 2018: 13 · 2017: 7 · 2016: 10 · 2015: 21 · 2014: 15 · 2013: 15 · 2012: 17
FWCI
6.25
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
closed
Licence
Locations
  • Child Development (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • University of New Hampshire Scholars Repository (University of New Hampshire at Manchester) (submittedVersion)
Funders
  • National Institutes of Health
  • National Institute of Child Health and Human Development
  • Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (R01-HD32336-02, R01HD032336)
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Child and Adolescent Psychosocial and Emotional Development
  • Social Sciences › Safety Research › Youth Development and Social Support
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Recreation, Leisure, Wilderness Management
Keywords
leisure, middle childhood, early adolescence, child adjustment, school grades, conduct problems, depressive symptoms, hobbies, sport, outdoor play, television viewing, reading, toys and games, child effects, peer companionship
MeSH terms
Adolescent, Adolescent Behavior, Child, Female, Follow-Up Studies, Humans, Leisure Activities, Male, Parents, Social Adjustment, Socioeconomic Factors

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review