Recreation Rescue

Theories

Leisure theories are ideas to help us understand leisure, why we do it, how it affects us, and how we can improve it. Using and understanding these theories can help us push the limits of leisure and evolve how it's implemented into our lives.
There are three major concepts according to Kraus:
 “Play, recreation, and Leisure.” (p. 2)
 These three concepts branch off into theories about recreation as a whole;

 Play motivated to burn excess energy. (Kraus, 2021, p.5)
Relaxation Theory: Play to restore energy (Kraus, 2021, p.5)
Preparation Theory: Play is a way for children to practice and prepare
 for adult life. (Kraus, 2021, p.5)
Flow Theory: The sweet spot between skill and challenge leading to a              state of ‘flow’ where one is fully immersed in play.
(Kraus, 2021, p.6)
Play as Social Necessity: Play is important to develop children and to build a community around them. (Kraus, 2021, p.6)
Identifying these theories when it comes to recreation one can better understand the intricacies of how and why people participate in recreation leading to further implementation of Recreation, Leisure, and Play in one's life.

Theories of Leisure Compensatory Theory: leisure compensates for the boredom or excitement of ones job.
Spillover Theory: The idea that leisure is parallel to work and
canevencome as a result.
Personal Community Theory: One's leisure is influenced by their peers.
Self Development Theory: When one's personal development becomes their primary motivator for leisure. Haeker(2002) 

Lifespan

Leisure throughout lifespan can be defined as the impact of leisure on physical and mental well-being.
Focusing on college students their choice of leisure activities is influenced by their status as students. According to Kraus (2021):

 “Students living at home are likely to have unstructured time, often holding jobs and traveling back and forth to school, and they frequently find much of their recreation with friends in their neighborhoods. Students living on college campuses generally take part in social or religious clubs, athletic events, fraternity, or sorority social functions, college union programs, and entertainment or cultural activities.” (p. 52)
Leisure and recreation are a key factor to developing a healthy life, and this is where one can find specific types of leisure based on the stages of life.

Children use different types of play as leisure to develop.

In adolescence leisure can become a bit more deviant, but this is also where we see sports, friends, and hobbies really start to define who someone is.

 In early adulthood people are at their physical peak, but also because of work they start to stress and have less time for leisure.

 In middle adulthood a person starts to decline physically but is at their peak mentally but still work is very constraining for them as now late into their career.

In old age people have the most free time but they also are constricted by themselves being old. Things become harder, their mental starts to decline and they often have a lot of time to themselves leading to loneliness.
(Kraus, 2021, p.47-53)
Having an appropriate amount of leisure time and activities throughout one's lifespan can significantly increase the well-being of one's life.
By improving aspects such as social life, physical and mental health, and work/life balance one can clearly see the substantial impact leisure has on improving one's life in its entirety.

Constraints & Sociocultural Factors



Intrapersonal constraint- factors that affect an individual’s preference for, or interest in, an activity

  •  Self-consciousness about bodies Not being skilled at a particular activity
  • Gender - such as girls not wanting to participate in football because it is stereotyped for men
  • Interpersonal constraint- associated with the individual’s relationship with others
  • Having no friends
  • Unhealthy relationships at home
  • Bad coworkers
  •  Getting together with friends to watch a baseball game, but really having no interest in the game
  • Structural constraint- physical or environmental factors that intervene with participating in activities
  • Age
  • Money
  • Disability (mental or physical)
  • Location
  • Transportation Access to safe facilities

Sociocultural Factors- factors that revolve around how people behave and relate with one another in society

  • Age
  • Race/Ethnicity
  • Gender
  • Sexual Orientation
  • Socio-economic Status