Women in Sport hope to highlight the “special mutual support” that mothers and daughters can provide for each other in a new campaign over the next month.

The #TimeTogether campaign will see the charity inviting mums and daughters to set aside time to develop their relationship with each other, and with exercise, throughout October. It is a development of the charity’s research, looking at how the relationship between mother and daughter can be instrumental in encouraging teenage girls to be active.

The research has shown that teenage girls cherish alone time with their mum and view their relationship as a ‘safe space’ without any fear of judgement. A host of supporting organisations, including the Wildlife Trust and the Canal and River Trust, will be offering activity ideas for mums and daughters across the UK to try, and share their experiences using #TimeTogether on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.

Stephanie Hilborne OBE, Chief Executive of Women in Sport, said: “Our insights show that girls in their teens feel burdened by schoolwork and social expectations, and at the same time the lives of their mothers are often fraught with growing pressures of work and providing emotional support and care for relatives.

“We want every mother and every daughter to feel they have permission to take time out to have fun outside and be active. There has rarely been a more important time for such special mutual support and to be active together than in this pandemic.”

Currently only 42% of teenage girls meet physical activity guidelines and just under a third of girls (32%) are inactive, engaging in less than an average of 30 minutes activity per day. (Sport England Active Lives Children and Young People Survey Academic Year 2018/2019)

Mums are often reluctant to allocate time for themselves to be active with 32% of women saying that they could not prioritise exercise during lockdown as they had too much to do for others. (Women in Sport, Lockdown Research, 2020)

Women in Sport’s CEO added: “When my daughter was a teenager we would practice shooting for netball in the garden and go for walks with the dog.

“This time together built a new relationship on a more equal footing, and I could see she valued these safe conversations, not least because her school friendships were increasingly plagued by social media dramas and conflicts.”

The #TimeTogether campaign will be running from 5th to 31st October. For more information visit www.womeninsport.org/timetogether