Quarter of Aussie kids don’t have space to play at home

ONE in four Aussie kids doesn’t have anywhere to play at home, according to new research commissioned as the national average house size falls to a 17-year low.

Almost half of the nation’s children are falling short of the minimum three hours’ “offline” play a day recommended by leading child development expert Dr Brendon Hyndman.

The average new house built in 2018-19 was 228.8sq m, down 1.3 per cent on a year ago to the smallest house size since 2001-02, according to data commissioned by CommSec from the Australian Bureau of Statistics. Australia is still building some of the biggest houses in the world, but, on average, US houses are bigger by about 5 per cent.

The ACT built the biggest houses in Australia in 2018-19, ahead of Victoria, Western Australia and Queensland. The average house in NSW is 10 per cent smaller than Victoria.

A quarter of the 1036 parents polled in the nationally representative survey for Ikea said the size of their home meant there wasn’t enough room for any play, with 22 per cent saying they would play more if they had a bigger house; 75 per cent of respondents identified homework taking priority over play time, making it the key barrier to play identified.

Dr Hyndman said parents should consider how they could “make more processes, activities and tasks” more playful as one of three ways the minimum amount of play could be hit.

This was alongside schools and parents each setting at least one hour of free play time aside, separate from eating, each day – when devices were switched off.