**1. Introduction**

Throughout childhood, children develop and extend their basic motor repertoire in contexts of social interaction (e.g., (pre)school, interactions with peers, sport clubs). Basic motor competencies (BMCs) are necessary for participation in the culture of sport and exercise [1,2]. They facilitate a basic capacity for the development of higher competency levels and further participation in sports and exercise [2]. BMCs are also the prerequisite for acquisition of sport-specific motor skills and positively influence a physically active lifestyle over an individual's lifespan [2]. BMCs further lead to the development of a large repertoire of movement skills [3]. This process is strongly influenced by opportunities for practice [4]. Preschools and primary schools should offer situations in which children can extend their BMCs [5]. Physical education (PE) classes with various movement situations are particularly suitable, as all children participate in them in contrast to extracurricular activities. The development of BMCs is a core development task in preschool and primary school and is also addressed in PE curricula [5].

For all children, school is an expanded social environment with new tasks and challenges [6]. Interpersonal relationship skills are addressed in the curricula and defined as a central life skill by the World Health Organization (WHO) [6,7]. Interpersonal relationship skills help children to relate to the people around them in a positive way. Moreover, they are acquired in contexts involving social interaction and are important for making friends

**Citation:** Bretz, K.; Seelig, H.; Ferrari, I.; Keller, R.; Kühnis, J.; Storni, S.; Herrmann, C. Basic Motor Competencies of (Pre)School Children: The Role of Social Integration and Health-Related Quality of Life. *Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health* **2022**, *19*, 14537. https://doi.org/10.3390/ ijerph192114537

Academic Editors: Clemens Drenowatz and Klaus Greier

Received: 20 September 2022 Accepted: 4 November 2022 Published: 5 November 2022

**Publisher's Note:** MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

**Copyright:** © 2022 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/ 4.0/).

and getting involved in peer groups [6,8]. Social interactions and peer relationships are central to healthy child development [9,10]. Friendships are associated with a variety of positive psychological and behavioral outcomes for children, which continue into early adulthood [11]. Children choose friends and peers by participating in similar activities (e.g., sports, music, art) or interacting with those who behave similarly [12]. In early childhood, children are more likely to choose same-gender friendships and different genders show different play behavior, which can already be observed at preschool age [13]. While boys more often engage in physically active games, girls desire friendly closeness and cohesion more than boys [13]. Girls exert a lot of effort establishing and maintaining positive social relationships and spend time in smaller groups with closer friends [12,14].

In order to ensure adequate learning opportunities for every child, it is important to promote social integration in the class in addition to subject-specific competencies in PE [15]. This is particularly important in the context of sport and play situations, as this can only happen in the interplay between BMCs and social integration [9].

Positive associations between BMCs and social relationships have been found in preschool-aged children [16]. In addition, 9 to 12 year old children with poorer motor competencies have been found to be less preferred by their peers in both play and classroom settings [17]. Children with developmental coordination disorder, in particular, have been found to be less socially integrated and more likely to experience exclusion in class [18].

Integration with peers and interactions with friends are highly important for children's quality of life, as well as their well-being [19]. Health-related quality of life (HRQoL) is a multidimensional and complex construct described as an individual's perception of his or her position in life [20]. It includes physical, emotional, mental, social, and behavioral components of well-being and functioning from the subjective perspective [20]. The assessment of HRQoL in children has increasingly become the focus of health research [21]. An assessment of HRQoL can be used to identify subgroups or individuals who are at higher risk of health problems [22]. Therefore, HRQoL is especially examined in children with special needs or diseases, such as developmental coordination disorder or chronic illness [23,24].

Both BMCs and social integration have a positive influence on children's mental and physical health [25,26]. Studies investigating the determinants of HRQoL in (pre)school children show that children with higher motor competencies have better HRQoL levels [24,26–28]. Moreover, children with low motor competencies show a higher risk of negative interpersonal (peer problems) and intrapersonal (low self-assessment) consequences at the psychosocial level, which can result in worse mental health and well-being [18,29,30]. Integration with peers and interactions with friends are highly important for quality of life, as positive relationships with friends have a strong effect on children's subjective well-being [25,28].

However, little research has been conducted on the connections between (basic) motor competencies, social integration, and HRQoL in children, especially in preschoolers [26,31]. As previous studies have investigated the relationship between motor competencies and HRQoL mainly in children with DCD or special needs, there is a need to investigate this relationship in normally developing children as well. What should be taken into account in particular is the idea of participation, especially in PE. The aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between BMCs, social integration, and HRQoL in children in their first years of (pre)school.
