The aim of this paper is to identify external factors, such as technology, the socioeconomic status of the family or the availability of sports programs, which influence children's interest in participating in sports activities outside of class from the perspective of parents. For the purposes of analyzing the influence of external factors on children's interests in sports activities, a survey questionnaire containing 14 questions was used. All respondents expressed their agreement with a certain statement using a 5-point Likert scale, except for categorical variables. The sample consisted of 401 subjects, average chronological age 39.38±5.95 years. The results show that, according to parents, there are various factors that influence children's participation or non-participation in extracurricular sports activities. Parents mostly support children to participate in extracurricular sports activities because children interact with peers (70.82%), children are physically active and acquire certain health characteristics (72.56%) and the last thing is that discipline is encouraged in children and teamwork (54.11%). Parents also pointed out the obstacles that lead to children not participating in extracurricular sports activities, and these were mainly answers such as lack of time due to obligations (46.88%), lack of accessible sports facilities (42.14%) and lack of organized sports activities (38.40%).