Comparing Fathers' Physical and Toy Play and Links to Child Behaviour: An Exploratory Study

Abstract

Increasing amounts of research show that fathers' involvement in children's lives contributes to the child's social, emotional and cognitive development; however, much of the evidence comes from fathers' caregiving and object play. This exploratory study compared the characteristics of 24 Australian fathers' play in two contexts -toy play and physical play -and examined the association of these play contexts with children's development. Correlational analyses revealed few conceptual similarities between toy play and physical play (rough-and-tumble). Rough-and-tumble quality was associated with children's emotional and behavioural functioning and self-regulation, while intrusiveness in toy play related only to self-regulation. The findings are discussed in terms of widening the conceptual and methodological reach of fathering measures in order to better capture the range of fathers' parenting behaviours and to be able to determine mechanisms of influence.

The Quality of Father–child Rough‐and‐tumble Play and Toddlers’ Aggressive Behavior in China

“…For a sample size of 42, the inclusion of four predictors was expected to provide a good estimate of coefficients (Austin & Steyerberg, ; Knofczynski & Mundfrom, ). Child temperament variables were entered before parenting attitudes because child temperament may exert a stronger effect on fathers’ parenting than on mothers (McBride, Schoppe, & Rane, ), and previous studies have found that father report of parenting warmth, consistency, and reasoning style was unrelated to father–child RTPQ quality (StGeorge et al., ). Results for the regression model are reported in Table .…”

“…The father–child overall RTPQ score was associated with fewer child emotional and behavioral problems, as rated by both mothers and fathers (Fletcher et al., ). In a second study, father–child overall RTPQ score predicted fewer mother‐rated child emotional and behavior difficulties (StGeorge, Fletcher, & Palazzi, ). These authors have suggested that the intimate context of father–child RTP may provide children with opportunities to practice complex prosocial skills, regulate aggressive impulses, and sustain reciprocal play.…”

Towards a neuroscientific understanding of play: A neuropsychological coding framework for analysing infant-adult play patterns

“…During early life, play is a ubiquitous activity, and engaging in play is positively associated with the development of social skills, cognitive skills, language and emotional well-being (Fung & Cheng, 2017; Lyytinen, Laakso, Poikkeus & Rita, 1999; Pellegrini, Kato, Blatchford & Baines, 2002; St George, Fletcher & Palazzi, 2016; Thibodeau, Gilpin, Brown, & Meyer, 2016). Current conceptualisations of play in the behavioural sciences view it in broad terms as behaviour that is voluntary, engaging, non-functional, and associated with the expression of positive affect (Burghardt, 2005; Lillard et al, 2013; Miller 2017).…”

“…what is the individual playing with? For example, physical play is play with one’s own body and other people, for example, climbing, sliding, chasing (Pellegrini et al, 2002; Power, 1999; St George et al, 2016;); sociodramatic or pretend play is play with a make-believe world, and the focus of play is more than a concrete observable entity (Lillard et al, 2013); games with rules involve playing with a set of rules that participants agree to abide by to partake in the play experience, for example, board games or playground games such as tag (Hassinger-Das et al, 2017); and functional/exploratory play involves playing with physical objects, such as toys and blocks, and includes constructing models or making things (Pellegrini & Gustafson, 2005; Power, 1999).…”

“…Another common approach is to code various socioemotional dimensions of play globally, i.e., to allocate scores for the entire play session. St George et al (2016) observed parent-child object play and gave each parent a score on 10 different dimensions, including sensitivity (how responsive the parent was to the child’s signals), positive regard (demonstrations of love and affection), and stimulation of cognitive development (teaching). None of these approaches captures specific, temporal information about play behaviour.…”