About this srcd poster session

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Panel information
Panel 22. Social Relationships

Abstract

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Play is an important context and mechanism for socioemotional development (Marcelo & Yates, 2020). Research illustrates that there are numerous factors that can influence children’s play and play opportunities, such as their caregivers’ perceptions of when and how children play (Zhao & Gibson 2022). The emerging generation of caregivers has more progressive values compared to prior generations. However, this group is underrepresented in the literature on parenting and development (Kara & Cagiltay 2020). Thus, the current study explores the understanding of how this generation of caregivers perceives the importance of play and how these relate to children’s peer play and their socioemotional behaviors. Moreover, we also examine if and how children’s peer play mediates the relation between parents’ play beliefs and socioemotional behaviors.
201 caregivers (58.2% Female; 32.8% White; 24.3% Black; 21.8% Asian; 12.9% Latinx; 6.7% Multiracial; 1.5% Native American/Pacific Islander) of preschool-aged children (Mage= 4.45; 53.2% Female) were assessed on their play beliefs and children’s age salient behaviors. Parent Play Beliefs Scale (Fogle & Mendez, 2006) was used to assess parent beliefs on play and development with two subscales: supporting play in development and valuing academics over play in development. Caregivers completed the Penn Interactive Peer Play Scale (Fantuzzo & Hampton, 2000) which includes three subscales- disruption in play, disconnection with others in play, and interaction with others in play. Caregivers reported completed the Dodge and Coie’s (1987)’s measure of reactive and proactive aggression. Caregiver also completed the five-item Prosocial Scale from the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (Goodman, 1997, 2001).
Separate mediation analyses (see Tables 1 and 2) evaluated relations between caregiver’s play beliefs (i.e., play support, academic support) and socioemotional behavior (i.e., reactive aggression, proactive aggression, prosocial behavior) as explained by peer play behavior (i.e., disruption, disconnection, interaction). All analyses controlled for child gender, child ethnicity-race, and child age. Parameter estimates and 95% bootstrap confidence intervals (CI) across 5000 resamples are reported here. Mediation analyses revealed significant indirect effects of play support (but not academic support) on proactive aggression through play disconnection and play interaction. We also found significant indirect effect of play support on prosocial behavior as explained by disconnection. Disconnection partially mediated the contribution of play support to higher proactive aggression and lower prosocial aggression. Play interaction also partially mediated the contribution of play support to proactive aggression. These findings illustrate that caregivers’ support for play has important implications for children’s peer play and their socioemotional behaviors, such as aggression and prosocial behaviors.
How children engage with peers during play serves as a critical pathway to social behaviors such as aggression and prosocial tendencies. Thus, this study highlights the importance of caregiver beliefs in play in child development. This indicates that interventions aimed at promoting caregiver support for play and fostering an interactive play environment could be effective in reducing aggressive behaviors and enhancing prosocial development in children. Given the mediating role of peer play, interventions may need to focus on improving quality of peer interactions during playtime in both home and school settings.

Author information

Author	Role
Ruth Lattime Liyue Babich, Clark University	Presenting author
Ana K. Marcelo Ph. D., Clark University	Non-presenting author
Jay Nunez, Clark University	Non-presenting author
Kate Smolens, Clark University	Non-presenting author

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