探花直播 of Cambridge - Zhen Rao

Supporting mums鈥� mental health strengthens 鈥榩rotective鈥� playmate role with children

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

探花直播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 鈥榩retending鈥� 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.

探花直播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, 探花直播 of Cambridge, said: 鈥淧arents are usually their child鈥檚 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. 探花直播associations we found show that supporting families affected by mental health challenges may also enhance children鈥檚 access to this important form of play.鈥�

Paul Ramchandani, Professor of Play in Education, Development and Learning at the 探花直播 of Cambridge, said: 鈥淎fter 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.鈥�

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鈥檚 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.

探花直播parents were given a bag of toys and asked to play with their child 鈥榓s they normally would鈥�. Five-minute video recordings were made of each mother-toddler pair, and these were then split into five-second clips. 探花直播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.

探花直播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.

探花直播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 鈥榤oderate鈥� 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.

鈥淭his 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,鈥� Rao said.

探花直播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. 探花直播children鈥檚 CBCL scores at the two-year follow-up fell slightly for each 1% increase documented in the mother鈥檚 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鈥檚 outcomes, it may also be relatively easy to address. 鈥淚deally, 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,鈥� Rao said.

探花直播findings are published in the journal BMC Psychology.

Helping parents with depression or anxiety could also improve their ability to engage in potentially 鈥榩rotective鈥� 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

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

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

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

探花直播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鈥檚 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. 探花直播paper鈥檚 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, 探花直播 of Cambridge, said: 鈥淚f children have a friend who is easily angered, and particularly if they haven鈥檛 coped well with that behaviour, it鈥檚 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.鈥�

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鈥檚 own temperament, rather than that of the children they are playing with.

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

探花直播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 鈥� many of them therefore picking friends 鈥� and were then filmed playing for 20 minutes. 探花直播toys they were given was deliberately neutral in character (for example, there were no toy weapons), and the children could play however they wanted.

探花直播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鈥檚 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 鈥榮omewhere in between鈥�.

探花直播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.

探花直播children鈥檚 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鈥檚 temperament influenced the frequency of non-aggressive, negative pretend play. 探花直播researchers also found that boys were 6.11 times likelier to engage in aggressive pretend play than girls.

探花直播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 鈥榣et off steam鈥�, or simply to keep them playing by appealing to their nature.

鈥淥ur study highlights the importance of taking into account a social partner鈥檚 emotional expression when understanding aggressive pretend play,鈥� Rao added. 鈥淔urther research is clearly needed to help us better understand this in different social contexts. 探花直播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.鈥�

探花直播research is published in the British Journal of Developmental Psychology. Dr Rao鈥檚 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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