̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge - play

Play 'humanises' paediatric care and should be key feature of a child-friendly NHS – report

tdk25 — Mon, 31 Mar 2025 10:01:53 +0000

Play should be a core feature of children’s healthcare in forthcoming plans for the future of the NHS, according to a new report which argues that play ‘humanises’ the experiences of child patients.

̽��ֱ��report, by ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge academics for the charity Starlight, calls for play, games and playful approaches to be integrated into a ‘holistic’ model of children’s healthcare – one that acknowledges the emotional and psychological dimensions of good health, alongside its physical aspects.

Both internationally and in the UK, health systems have, in recent decades, increasingly promoted play in paediatric healthcare. There is a growing understanding that making healthcare more child-friendly can reduce stress and positively improve younger patients’ experiences.

Despite this recognition, play often remains undervalued and inconsistently integrated across healthcare contexts. For the first time, the report compiles evidence from over 120 studies to make the case for its more systematic incorporation.

In the case of the UK, the authors argue that the Government’s forthcoming 10-year health plan for the NHS offers an important opportunity to embed play within a more holistic vision for childhood health.

̽��ֱ��report was produced by academics at the Centre for Play in Education, Development and Learning (PEDAL) at the Faculty of Education, ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge. Starlight, which commissioned the review, is a national charity advocating to reduce trauma through play in children’s healthcare.

Dr Kelsey Graber, the report’s lead author, said: “Play and child-centred activities have a unique capacity to support the emotional and mental aspects of children’s healthcare experiences, whether in hospital or during a routine treatment at the GP. It won’t directly change the course of an illness, but it can humanise the experience by reducing stress and anxiety and enhancing understanding and comfort. Hospital-based play opens up a far more complete understanding of what it means for a child to be a healthy or well.”

Adrian Voce, Head of Policy and Public Affairs at Starlight, said: “With the government promising to create the healthiest generation of children ever as part of its new long term health plan, this compelling evidence of the benefits of play to children’s healthcare is very timely. We encourage ministers and NHS leaders to make health play teams an integral part of paediatric care.”

̽��ֱ��report synthesised evidence from 127 studies in 29 countries. Most were published after 2020, reflecting intensified interest in children’s healthcare interventions following the COVID-19 outbreak.

Some studies focused on medically-relevant play. For example, hospital staff sometimes use role-play, or games and toys like Playmobil Hospital to familiarise children with medical procedures and ease anxiety. Other studies focused on non-medical play: the use of activities like social games, video games, arts and crafts, music therapy and storytelling to help make patients more comfortable. Some hospitals and surgeries even provide “distraction kits” to help children relax.

In its survey of all these studies, the report finds strong evidence that play benefits children’s psychological health and wellbeing. Play is also sometimes associated with positive physical health; one study, for example, found that children who played an online game about dentistry had lower heart rates during a subsequent dental procedure, probably because they felt more prepared.

̽��ֱ��authors identify five main ways in which play enhances children’s healthcare based on the available body of evidence:

Reducing stress and discomfort during medical procedures. Play is sometimes associated with physiological markers of reduced distress, such as lower heart rates and blood pressure. Therapeutic play can also ease pain and anxiety.

Helping children express and manage emotions. Play can help to alleviate fear, anxiety, boredom and loneliness in healthcare settings. It also provides an outlet for emotional expression among all age groups.

Fostering dignity and agency. In an environment where children often feel powerless and a lack of personal choice, play provides a sense of control which supports mental and emotional wellbeing.

Building connection and belonging. Play can strengthen children’s relationships with other patients, family members and healthcare staff, easing their experiences in a potentially overwhelming environment. This may be particularly important for children in longer term or palliative care.

Preserving a sense of childhood. Play helps children feel like children, and not just patients, the report suggests, by providing “essential moments of happiness, respite and emotional release”.

While play is widely beneficial, the report stresses that its impact will vary from child to child. This variability highlights a need, the authors note, for informed, child-centred approaches to play in healthcare settings. Unfortunately, play expertise in these settings may often be lacking: only 13% of the studies reviewed covered the work of health play specialists, and most of the reported activities were directed and defined by adults, rather than by children themselves.

̽��ֱ��report also highlights a major gap in research on the use of play in mental healthcare. Just three of the 127 studies focused on this area, even though 86% emphasised play’s psychological benefits. ̽��ֱ��report calls for greater professional and academic attention to the use of play in mental health support, particularly in light of escalating rates of mental health challenges among children and young people. More work is also needed, it adds, to understand the benefits of play-based activities in healthcare for infants and adolescents, both of which groups were under-represented in the research literature.

Embedding play more fully in healthcare as part of wider Government reforms, the authors suggest, could reduce healthcare-related trauma and improve long-term outcomes for children. “It is not just healthcare professionals, but also policy leaders who need to recognise the value of play,” Graber said. “That recognition is foundational to ensuring that children’s developmental, psychological, and emotional health needs are met, alongside their physical health.”

̽��ֱ��Cambridge report argues that play should be a recognised component of children’s healthcare in the Government’s forthcoming 10-year plan for the NHS.

Hospital-based play opens up a far more complete understanding of what it means for a child to be a healthy or well

Dr Kelsey Graber

Sturti, via Getty Images

Children’s hospital ward

̽��ֱ��text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Images, including our videos, are Copyright © ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge and licensors/contributors as identified. All rights reserved. We make our image and video content available in a number of ways – on our main website under its Terms and conditions, and on a range of channels including social media that permit your use and sharing of our content under their respective Terms.

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From family archive to stage: ̽��ֱ��remarkable journey of ‘Not for a cat’ play at the Cambridge Festival

zs332 — Mon, 31 Mar 2025 09:20:39 +0000

A recently rediscovered play, Not for a Cat: A Play for the Nuclear Age, will be premiering at the Cambridge Festival. The play was originally written in the 1950s by Wallace R. Harper, a student at the Cavendish Laboratory at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge in the 1920.

Pre-school play with friends lowers risk of mental health problems later

tdk25 — Tue, 14 Jun 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Researchers at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge analysed data from almost 1,700 children, collected when they were aged three and seven. Those with better peer play ability at age three consistently showed fewer signs of poor mental health four years later. They tended to have lower hyperactivity, parents and teachers reported fewer conduct and emotional problems, and they were less likely to get into fights or disagreements with other children.

Importantly, this connection generally held true even when the researchers focused on sub-groups of children who were particularly at risk of mental health problems. It also applied when they considered other risk factors for mental health – such as poverty levels, or cases in which the mother had experienced serious psychological distress during or immediately after pregnancy.

̽��ֱ��findings suggest that giving young children who might be vulnerable to mental health issues access to well-supported opportunities to play with peers – for example, at playgroups run by early years specialists – could be a way to significantly benefit their long-term mental health.

Dr Jenny Gibson, from the Play in Education, Development and Learning (PEDAL) Centre at the Faculty of Education, ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge, said: “We think this connection exists because through playing with others, children acquire the skills to build strong friendships as they get older and start school. Even if they are at risk of poor mental health, those friendship networks will often get them through.”

Vicky Yiran Zhao, a PhD Student in PEDAL and first author of the study added: “What matters is the quality, rather than the quantity, of peer play. Games with peers that encourage children to collaborate, for example, or activities that promote sharing, will have positive knock-on benefits.”

̽��ֱ��researchers used data from 1,676 children in the Growing up in Australia study, which is tracking the development of children born in Australia between March 2003 and February 2004. It includes a record, provided by parents and carers, of how well the children played in different situations at age three. This covered different types of peer play, including simple games; imaginative pretend play; goal-directed activities (such as building a tower from blocks); and collaborative games like hide-and-seek.

These four peer play indicators were used to create a measure of ‘peer play ability’ – the underlying ability of a child to engage with peers in a playful way. ̽��ֱ��researchers calculated the strength of the relationship between that measure and reported symptoms of possible mental health problems – hyperactivity, and conduct, emotional and peer problems – at age seven.

̽��ֱ��study then analysed two sub-groups of children within the overall cohort. These were children with high ‘reactivity’ (children who were very easily upset and difficult to soothe in infancy), and those with low ‘persistence’ (children who struggled to persevere when encountering a challenging task). Both these traits are linked to poor mental health outcomes.

Across the entire dataset, children with a higher peer play ability score at age three consistently showed fewer signs of mental health difficulties at age seven. For every unit increase in peer play ability at age three, children’s measured score for hyperactivity problems at age seven fell by 8.4%, conduct problems by 8%, emotional problems by 9.8% and peer problems by 14%. This applied regardless of potential confounding factors such as poverty levels and maternal distress, and whether or not they had plentiful opportunities to play with siblings and parents.

̽��ֱ��effect was evident even among the at-risk groups. In particular, among the 270 children in the ‘low persistence’ category, those who were better at playing with peers at age three consistently had lower hyperactivity, and fewer emotional and peer problems, at age seven. This may be because peer play often forces children to problem-solve and confront unexpected challenges, and therefore directly addresses low persistence.

̽��ֱ��benefits of peer play were weaker for the high reactivity sub-group, possibly because such children are often anxious and withdrawn, and less inclined to play with others. Even among this group, however, better peer play at age three was linked to lower hyperactivity at age seven.

̽��ֱ��consistent link between peer play and mental health probably exists because playing with others supports the development of emotional self-control and socio-cognitive skills, such as the ability to understand and respond to other people’s feelings. These are fundamental to building stable, reciprocal friendships. There is already good evidence that the better a person’s social connections, the better their mental health tends to be. For children, more social connections also create a virtuous cycle, as they usually lead to more opportunities for peer play.

̽��ֱ��researchers suggest that assessing children’s access to peer play at an early age could be used to screen for those potentially at risk of future mental health problems. They also argue that giving the families of at-risk children access to environments which promote high-quality peer play, such as playgroups or small-group care with professional child minders, could be an easily deliverable and low-cost way to reduce the chances of mental health problems later.

“ ̽��ֱ��standard offer at the moment is to put the parents on a parenting course,” Gibson said. “We could be focusing much more on giving children better opportunities to meet and play with their peers. There are already fantastic initiatives up and down the country, run by professionals who provide exactly that service to a very high standard. Our findings show how crucial their work is, especially given that the other risk factors jeopardising children’s mental health could often be down to circumstances beyond their parents’ control.”

̽��ֱ��study is published in Child Psychiatry & Human Development.

Children who learn to play well with others at pre-school age tend to enjoy better mental health as they get older, new research shows. ̽��ֱ��findings provide the first clear evidence that ‘peer play ability’, the capacity to play successfully with other children, has a protective effect on mental health.

Games with peers that encourage children to collaborate, for example, or activities that promote sharing, will have positive knock-on benefits

Vicky Yiran Zhao

Jay Chen on Unsplash

Children playing

̽��ֱ��text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Images, including our videos, are Copyright © ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge and licensors/contributors as identified. All rights reserved. We make our image and video content available in a number of ways – as here, on our main website under its Terms and conditions, and on a range of channels including social media that permit your use and sharing of our content under their respective Terms.

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Learning through 'guided' play can be as effective as adult-led instruction

tdk25 — Wed, 12 Jan 2022 09:01:39 +0000

Teaching younger children through 'guided' play can support key aspects of their learning and development at least as well, and sometimes better, than traditional, direct instruction, according to a new analysis.

̽��ֱ��research by academics at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge gathered and assessed data from numerous, widespread studies and information sources, which collectively documented guided play’s impact on the learning of around 3,800 children aged three to eight. Guided play broadly refers to playful educational activities which, although gently steered by an adult, give children the freedom to explore a learning goal in their own way.

Overall, the study found that this playful approach to learning can be just as effective as more traditional, teacher-led methods in developing key skills: including literacy, numeracy, social skills and essential thinking skills known as executive functions. ̽��ֱ��findings also suggest that children may master some skills – notably in maths – more effectively through guided play than other methods.

̽��ֱ��relative merits of play-based learning compared with more formal styles of instruction is a long-standing debate in education, but most of that discussion has focused on ‘free’ open-ended play.

̽��ֱ��new study is the first systematic attempt to examine the effects of guided play specifically, which is distinctive because it uses games or playful techniques to steer children towards specific learning goals, with support from a teacher or another adult using open-ended questions and prompts.

This may, for example, involve creating imagination-based games which require children to read, write or use maths; or incorporating simple early learning skills – such as counting – into play. Such methods are common in pre-school education, but are used less in primary teaching – a deficit which has been criticised by some researchers.

̽��ֱ��analysis was carried out by academics from the Play in Education, Development and Learning (PEDAL) Centre at the Faculty of Education, ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge.

Dr Elizabeth Byrne, a co-author, said: “It’s only recently that researchers have started to conceptualise learning through play as something that exists on a spectrum. At one end you have free play, where children decide what to do with minimal adult involvement; at the other is traditional, direct instruction, where an adult tells a child what to do and controls the learning activity.”

“Guided play falls somewhere in between. It describes playful activities which are scaffolded around a learning goal, but allow children to try things out for themselves. If children are given the freedom to explore, but with some gentle guidance, it can be very good for their education – perhaps in some cases better than direct instruction.”

Paul Ramchandani, Professor of Play in Education, Development and Learning at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge, said: “ ̽��ֱ��argument is sometimes made that play, while beneficial, adds little to children’s education. In fact, although there are still some big questions about how we should use guided play in classrooms, there is promising evidence that it actively enhances learning and development.”

Guided play has rarely been systematically studied in its own right, but the team found 39 studies, undertaken between 1977 and 2020, which had captured some information about its value compared either with free play or direct instruction, usually in the course of wider research.

By combining the results of studies which looked at similar types of learning outcome, the researchers were able to calculate how much of an overall positive or negative effect guided play has on different aspects of numeracy, literacy, executive functions or socioemotional skills, compared with other approaches. These effect sizes were measured using Hedge’s g; a widely-used statistical system in which a result of 0 represents no comparative gain, and 0.2, 0.5 and 0.8 represent small, medium and large effects respectively.

̽��ֱ��results offer significant evidence that guided play has a greater positive impact on some areas of children’s numeracy than direct instruction. For example, guided play’s comparative effect size on early maths skills was 0.24, and 0.63 on shape knowledge. There was also evidence that guided play better supports the development of children’s cognitive ability to switch between tasks.

Alongside other positive findings, there was also no statistically significant evidence that guided play is less effective than direct instruction on any of the learning outcomes studied. In short, guided playful activities tend at the very least to produce roughly the same learning benefits as more traditional, teacher-led approaches.

̽��ֱ��researchers offer various possible explanations about why guided play may improve numeracy in particular. One possibility is that the gentle prompting that guided play entails may be a particularly effective way of teaching children to work through the logical steps that maths-based tasks often involve.

Equally, the fact that guided play often involves hands-on learning may be important. “Children often struggle with mathematical concepts because they are abstract,” Byrne said. “They become easier to understand if you are actually using them in an imaginary game or playful context. One reason play matters may be because it supports mental visualisation.”

More broadly, the authors suggest that guided play may influence other characteristics which have a positive, knock-on effect on educational progress – enhancing, for example, children’s motivation, persistence, creativity and confidence.

Dr Christine O’Farrelly, a Senior Research Associate at the Faculty of Education, said: “It’s likely that playful activities have the sort of positive impact we saw in our analysis partly because they are acting on other skills and processes which underpin learning. If we can understand more about how guided play shapes learning in this way, we will be able to identify more precisely how it could be used to make a really meaningful difference in schools.”

̽��ֱ��study is published in the journal Child Development.

Play-based learning may also have a more positive effect on younger children’s acquisition of important early maths skills compared with traditional, direct instruction.

If children are given the freedom to explore, but with some gentle guidance, it can be very good for their education – perhaps in some cases better than direct instruction

Elizabeth Byrne

Faculty of Education

Researchers and children at the PEDAL Centre during the Cambridge Festival

Yes

Supporting mums’ mental health strengthens ‘protective’ playmate role with children

tdk25 — Fri, 07 May 2021 07:58:44 +0000

̽��ֱ��finding comes from a granular analysis of 3,600 five-second clips, which researchers took from recordings of 60 mother-toddler pairs playing together. Mothers with minimal anxiety were more likely to play ‘pretending’ games with their children. Similarly, even when compared with the children of mothers with only moderate levels of anxiety or depression, those whose mothers had no such mental health challenges spent around 10% more time engaging in make-believe play.

̽��ֱ��study focused on pretend play because this helps young children to develop essential social and emotional skills. If those skills are less well-developed, they may experience difficulties as they get older: for example, when trying to make friends or settle in at school. This can, in turn, impact further on behavioural development.

Tellingly in this context, the researchers also assessed the children for signs of behavioural problems two years after the first part of the study, and found some evidence that these were less common among children whose mothers engaged in more pretend play when they were toddlers.

Dr Zhen Rao, from the Centre for Research on Play in Education, Development and Learning (PEDAL), at the Faculty of Education, ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge, said: “Parents are usually their child’s first play partners, so they fulfil an essential role, through pretend play, in helping children to learn skills like how to communicate, control their emotions, and co-operate with others. ̽��ֱ��associations we found show that supporting families affected by mental health challenges may also enhance children’s access to this important form of play.”

Paul Ramchandani, Professor of Play in Education, Development and Learning at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge, said: “After more than a year of the COVID-19 pandemic and repeated lockdowns, we know that parental anxiety is rising. Now, even more than usual, it is critical that parents who are struggling with depression or anxiety receive appropriate support. As this study indicates, in the long run, it could significantly benefit their children, as well as them.”

According to Public Health England, around one in three children live with at least one parent reporting symptoms of emotional distress. Little is known, however, about how this affects parent-child play, and whether a resulting deficit in certain types of play affects the child’s development.

For the study, researchers worked with the families of children aged between 24 and 36 months. All of the children involved were selected because routine health assessments had indicated that they were potentially vulnerable to developing behavioural problems.

̽��ֱ��parents were given a bag of toys and asked to play with their child ‘as they normally would’. Five-minute video recordings were made of each mother-toddler pair, and these were then split into five-second clips. ̽��ֱ��researchers documented instances of pretend play by both the mothers and children: for example, moments when they pretended to be eating food using a toy picnic set, or created make-believe characters using puppets.

̽��ֱ��research also used a series of standard questionnaires, both at the outset and two years later, to measure maternal depression, maternal anxiety, and child behaviour problems. Anxiety was scored on a scale of 0-21 and depression on a scale of 0-27. Behaviour problems were documented using the Child Behaviour Checklist (CBCL).

In general, the researchers found that when mothers engage in more make-believe play, their children do as well. They also found that mothers with higher levels of anxiety do this less, although there was no similar association among mothers with depression.

̽��ֱ��results also suggested, however, that children engage in more make-believe play if their mother has lower depression or anxiety. Overall, child pretend play fell by 1% for every unit increase measured in maternal anxiety, and similarly by 1% for every unit increase in maternal depression. Children whose mothers had ‘moderate’ anxiety (10-14 on the 0-21 scale) therefore typically engaged in imaginative pretend play for around 10% less time than those of mothers with no anxiety issues.

“This means that if there are two mothers who pretend play with the same frequency, but one has higher anxiety or depression level, the child of that parent will tend to engage in less pretend play,” Rao said.

̽��ֱ��study also found some limited evidence that children whose mothers engaged in more pretend play were less likely to exhibit behavioural problems two years later. ̽��ֱ��children’s CBCL scores at the two-year follow-up fell slightly for each 1% increase documented in the mother’s pretend play at 24-36 months. This suggests that pretend play may be a protective factor preventing the development of behavioural problems in children.

Further research is required to explain exactly why maternal depression and anxiety may cause children to engage in less make-believe play, but there are several potential explanations. For example, parents struggling with mental health challenges may be less likely to notice when a child is trying to engage them in a pretend activity, or may simply feel too negative to join in.

While the researchers stress that pretend play is only one mechanism through which maternal mental health may impact on children’s outcomes, it may also be relatively easy to address. “Ideally, of course, we want to reduce anxiety and depression in the mothers, but we may also be able to provide advice or tools which support pretend play and reduce the risk of adverse outcomes for their children,” Rao said.

̽��ֱ��findings are published in the journal BMC Psychology.

Helping parents with depression or anxiety could also improve their ability to engage in potentially ‘protective’ forms of play with their children that can reduce the risk of behavioural problems, new research suggests.

If there are two mothers who pretend play with the same frequency, but one has higher anxiety or depression level, the child of that parent will tend to engage in less pretend play

Zhen Rao

Marisa Howenstine via Unsplash

Children playing with a parent

Yes

Children use make-believe aggression and violence to manage bad-tempered peers

tdk25 — Tue, 06 Oct 2020 08:55:06 +0000

Academics from the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge believe that the tendency for children to introduce aggressive themes in these situations – which seems to happen whether or not they are personally easy to anger – may be because they are ‘rehearsing’ strategies to cope with hot-headed friends.

̽��ֱ��finding comes from an observational study of more than 100 children at a school in China, who were asked to play with toys in pairs. Children whose play partners were considered bad-tempered by their peers were 45% more likely to introduce aggressive themes into their pretend play than those whose partners were reckoned to be better at controlling their temper.

Importantly, however, a child’s own temperament did not predict the level of make-believe aggression. Instead, children often appeared to introduce these themes specifically in response to having an irritable playmate.

This may mean that, while many adults understandably discourage children from pretend play that seems aggressive, in certain cases it may actually help their social and emotional development. ̽��ֱ��paper’s authors stress, however, that further research will be needed before they can provide definitive guidance for parents or practitioners.

Dr Zhen Rao, from the Centre for Research on Play in Education, Development and Learning (PEDAL), at the Faculty of Education, ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge, said: “If children have a friend who is easily angered, and particularly if they haven’t coped well with that behaviour, it’s possible that they will look for ways to explore it through pretend play. This gives them a safe context in which to try out different ways of handling difficult situations next time they crop up in real life.”

Aggressive pretend play has been the subject of considerable wider research, much of which aims to understand whether it predicts similarly aggressive real-life behaviours. Most of these studies, however, tend to focus on whether these associations are linked to the child’s own temperament, rather than that of the children they are playing with.

̽��ֱ��Cambridge study aimed to understand how far aggressive pretend play is associated with not only children’s own, but also their play partner’s anger expression. It also distinguished between aggressive pretend play and its ‘non-aggressive, negative’ variant: for example, pretend play that involves imagining someone who is sick or unhappy.

̽��ֱ��research was carried out with 104 children, aged seven to 10, at a school in Guangzhou in China, as part of a wider project that the team were undertaking in that region.

Participants were asked to organise themselves into pairs – many of them therefore picking friends – and were then filmed playing for 20 minutes. ̽��ֱ��toys they were given was deliberately neutral in character (for example, there were no toy weapons), and the children could play however they wanted.

̽��ֱ��researchers then coded 10-minute samples of each pair in 120 five-second segments, earmarking instances of pretend play, aggressive themes, and non-aggressive negative themes.

Separately, they also asked peers to rate the children’s tendency to become angry. Each of the 104 children in the study was rated by, on average, 10 others, who were asked to decide whether they were good at keeping their temper, easily angered, or ‘somewhere in between’.

̽��ֱ��researchers then analysed the data using a statistical model called an Actor-Partner Interdependence Model, which is a means of measuring and testing the influence that two individuals have on one another. This allowed them to work out how far children were playing a certain way of their own volition, and how far they were being influenced by their partner.

On average, the children spent only about a fifth of the recorded session participating in pretend play, of which around 10% involved aggressive themes and 8% involved non-aggressive negative themes. Pretend play was observed in all children. More than half (53.5%) showed at least one instance of aggressive pretend play, and 43% of the children showed at least one instance of negative pretend play.

̽��ֱ��children’s own ability to control their temper, as reported by their peers, did not significantly predict the amount of their pretend play involved aggressive themes. If they had a play partner who was considered quick to anger, however, they were 45% more likely to create pretend situations that involved some sort of aggressive element. This percentage is to some extent shaped by how the data was segmented, but nonetheless indicates a greater likelihood that children will do this if they are playing with someone peers regard as easy to anger.

There was no evidence to suggest that either child’s temperament influenced the frequency of non-aggressive, negative pretend play. ̽��ֱ��researchers also found that boys were 6.11 times likelier to engage in aggressive pretend play than girls.

̽��ֱ��theory that children may introduce these themes to rehearse ways of handling bad-tempered peers is only one possible explanation. For example, it may also represent an attempt to stop playmates becoming angry by giving them a pretend situation in which to ‘let off steam’, or simply to keep them playing by appealing to their nature.

“Our study highlights the importance of taking into account a social partner’s emotional expression when understanding aggressive pretend play,” Rao added. “Further research is clearly needed to help us better understand this in different social contexts. ̽��ֱ��possibility that children might be working out how to handle tricky situations through pretend play suggests that for some children, this could actually be a way of developing their social and emotional skills.”

̽��ֱ��research is published in the British Journal of Developmental Psychology. Dr Rao’s research is funded by an ESRC postdoctoral Fellowship.

Children are more likely to introduce violent themes into their pretend play, such as imaginary fighting or killing, if they are with playmates whom peers consider bad-tempered, new research suggests.

For some children, this could actually be a way of developing their social and emotional skills

Zhen Rao

woodleywonderworks via flickr

Boy playing with a toy gun made of wood

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Playtime with Dad may improve children’s self-control

Anonymous — Tue, 30 Jun 2020 07:58:06 +0000

̽��ֱ��study, by academics at the Faculty of Education, ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge and the LEGO Foundation, pulled together fragmentary evidence from the past 40 years to understand more about how fathers play with their children when they are very young (ages 0 to 3). ̽��ֱ��researchers wanted to find out whether father-child play differs from the way children play with their mothers, and its impact on children’s development.

Although there are many similarities between fathers and mothers overall, the findings suggest that fathers engage in more physical play even with the youngest children, opting for activities such as tickling, chasing, and piggy-back rides.

This seems to help children learn to control their feelings. It may also make them better at regulating their own behaviour later on, as they enter settings where those skills are important – especially school.

Paul Ramchandani, Professor of Play in Education, Development and Learning at the Faculty of Education, ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge, said: “It’s important not to overstate the impact of father-child play as there are limits to what the research can tell us, but it does seem that children who get a reasonable amount of playtime with their father benefit as a group.”

“At a policy level, this suggests we need structures that give fathers, as well as mothers, time and space to play with their children during those critical early years. Even today, it’s not unusual for fathers who take their child to a parent-toddler group, for example, to find that they are the only father there. A culture shift is beginning to happen, but it needs to happen more.”

Parent-child play in the first years of life is known to support essential social, cognitive and communication skills, but most research focuses on mothers and infants. Studies which investigate father-child play are often small, or do so incidentally. “Our research pulled together everything we could find on the subject, to see if we could draw any lessons,” Ramchandani said.

̽��ֱ��Cambridge review used data from 78 studies, undertaken between 1977 and 2017 – most of them in Europe or North America. ̽��ֱ��researchers analysed the combined information for patterns about how often fathers and children play together, the nature of that play, and any possible links with children’s development.

On average, they found that most fathers play with their child every day. Even with the smallest children, however, father-child play tends to be more physical. With babies, that may simply mean picking them up or helping them to gently raise their limbs and exert their strength; with toddlers, fathers typically opt for boisterous, rough-and-tumble play, like chasing games.

In almost all the studies surveyed, there was a consistent correlation between father-child play and children’s subsequent ability to control their feelings. Children who enjoyed high-quality playtime with their fathers were less likely to exhibit hyperactivity, or emotional and behavioural problems. They also appeared to be better at controlling their aggression, and less prone to lash out at other children during disagreements at school.

̽��ֱ��reason for this may be that the physical play fathers prefer is particularly well-suited for developing these skills.

“Physical play creates fun, exciting situations in which children have to apply self-regulation,” Ramchandani said. “You might have to control your strength, learn when things have gone too far – or maybe your father steps on your toe by accident and you feel cross!”

“It’s a safe environment in which children can practise how to respond. If they react the wrong way, they might get told off, but it’s not the end of the world – and next time they might remember to behave differently.”

̽��ֱ��study also found some evidence that father-child play gradually increases through early childhood, then decreases during ‘middle childhood’ (ages 6 to 12). This, again, may be because physical play is particularly important for helping younger children to negotiate the challenges they encounter when they start to explore the world beyond their own home, in particular at school.

Despite the benefits of father-child play, the authors stress that children who only live with their mother need not be at a disadvantage.

“One of the things that our research points to time and again is the need to vary the types of play children have access to, and mothers can, of course, support physical play with young children as well,” Ramchandani added. “Different parents may have slightly different inclinations when it comes to playing with children, but part of being a parent is stepping outside your comfort zone. Children are likely to benefit most if they are given different ways to play and interact.”

Children whose fathers make time to play with them from a very young age may find it easier to control their behaviour and emotions as they grow up, research suggests.

Physical play creates fun, exciting situations in which children have to apply self-regulation

Paul Ramchandani

Family Equality via Flickr

Portrait of playful girl covering father's eyes in park

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Attribution-Noncommercial-ShareAlike

Gendered play in hunter-gatherer children strongly influenced by community demographics

sc604 — Thu, 26 Sep 2019 05:15:00 +0000

Based on observations of more than one hundred children in two different hunter-gatherer communities in sub-Saharan Africa, an international team, led by researchers from the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge, found that younger children were generally more likely to play in mixed-gender groups. In small communities, however, boys and girls were more likely to play together, likely due to a lack of playmates of the same gender.

As children get older, they begin to imitate the adults around them and learn culturally-specific gender roles through play. ̽��ֱ��results, reported in the journal Child Development, demonstrate the similarities with and differences from Western societies, and the importance of context when studying how children acquire various gendered behaviours.

Play is a universal feature of human childhood, and contributes to children’s cultural learning, including gender roles. Studies have shown that children are more likely to play in same-gender groups, with boys more likely to participate in vigorous ‘rough-and-tumble’ play, and girls more likely to pretend in pretense, or imaginary, play such as doll play.

However, as most studies on the development of gender focus on children from Western societies, it is difficult to determine whether observed gender differences are culturally-specific or represent broader developmental trends.

“We all tend to make a lot of assumptions about the development of gender roles, mostly through a Western lens,” said the paper’s first author Sheina Lew-Levy, who recently completed her PhD in Cambridge’s Department of Psychology. “However, very few studies have been done on gender roles in hunter-gatherer communities, whose organisation is distinct from other societies.”

̽��ֱ��two hunter-gatherer communities in the study, the Hadza of Tanzania and the BaYaka of Congo, typically live in mobile groups averaging 25-45 individuals and have multiple residences. Labour is generally divided along gender lines, with men responsible for animal products and women responsible for plant products, although they are relatively egalitarian.

Earlier studies of play in hunter-gatherer children have found that children overwhelmingly play in mixed-gender groups, which is less common in Western children over the age of three. ̽��ֱ��team in the current study, which included researchers from the ̽��ֱ�� of Nevada, Las Vegas, Washington State ̽��ֱ�� and Duke ̽��ֱ��, found that children in smaller hunter-gatherer camps were more likely to play in mixed-gender groups than those in larger camps, most likely due to a lack of playmates of the same gender.

Younger boys and girls spend similar amounts of time engaged in play, and they both spent times in games, exercise and object play. Typically, girls and boys engage in gender roles through play. In the BaYaka community, for example, fathers are highly involved in childcare. ̽��ֱ��researchers found that BaYaka children’s doll play reflected adult child caretaking, with no strong differences in BaYaka boys’ and girls’ play with dolls.

“Context explains many, although not all, gender differences in play,” said Lew-Levy. “We need a more inclusive understanding of child development, including children’s gendered play, across the world’s diverse societies.”

Reference:
Sheina Lew-Levy et al. ‘Gender-typed and gender-segregated play among Tanzanian Hadza and Congolese BaYaka hunter-gatherer children and adolescents.’ Child Development (2019). DOI: 10.1111/cdev.13306

̽��ֱ��gendered play of children from two hunter-gatherer societies is strongly influenced by the demographics of their communities and the gender roles modelled by the adults around them, a new study finds.

We all tend to make a lot of assumptions about the development of gender roles, mostly through a Western lens

Sheina Lew-Levy

Alyssa N. Crittenden

Hadza children engaged in cooking play

Yes