Mother–child and Father–child Play Interaction: The Importance of Parental Playfulness as a Moderator of the Links Between Parental Behavior and Child Negativity

Abstract

Based on the premise that father-child play is an important context for children's development and that fathers "specialize" in play, similarities and differences in the role of playfulness in the father-child and mother-child relationship were examined. Participants in this study included 111 families (children's age: 1-3 years). Father-child and mother-child play interactions were videotaped and coded for parental playfulness, sensitivity, structuring, and nonintrusiveness as well as child negativity. Results indicated that mothers and fathers did not differ in playfulness and that mothers and fathers who were higher in playfulness had children with lower levels of negativity. However, playfulness differently moderated the links between parents' and children's behaviors for mothers and fathers. A double-risk pattern was found for mothers, such that the links between child negativity and maternal sensitivity, structuring, and nonintrusiveness were significant only for the subgroup of mothers with low levels of playfulness. When mothers had high levels of playfulness, these effects were negligible. For fathers, a double-buffer pattern was revealed, indicating that the links between child negativity and paternal sensitivity and structuring were significant only for fathers with high levels of playfulness. When fathers had low levels of playfulness, these effects were negligible. These findings demonstrate the important role that parental playfulness has on parent-child interaction as well as the need to examine moderation patterns separately for fathers and mothers.

Commentary on Fathers’ Play: Measurement, Conceptualization, Culture, and Connections With Child Development

“…Two types of play are addressed by these studies: the quality of pretend play (“playfulness;” Cabrera, Karberg, Malin, & Aldoney, ; Menashe‐Grinberg & Atzaba‐Poria, ) and physical “rough‐and‐tumble” play (RTP) (Ahnert et al., ; Anderson, Qiu, & Wheeler, ; StGeorge & Freeman, ). Both types of paternal play appear to have meaningful relations to a variety of child outcomes.…”

“…Conceptually, all studies have paid careful attention to the operationalization of their play measure. Playfulness was operationalized in two of the studies as a global quality measure of the degree of creativity, imagination, humor, and curiosity that parents use when they play with their child (Cabrera et al., ; Menashe‐Grinberg & Atzaba‐Poria, ). RTP quality and reciprocity dominance were described and assessed by observation of father and child behaviors on a large number of carefully selected items (Anderson et al., ).…”

“…A noteworthy difference in conceptualization between the studies is the extent to which the play measures reflect relatively pure parental behavior versus the relationship with the child. The operationalization of playfulness (Cabrera et al., ; Menashe‐Grinberg & Atzaba‐Poria, ) is more a measure of parent behavior whereas activation intensity and quality (Ahnert et al., ), as well as RTP quality and reciprocity dominance (Anderson et al., ), explicitly include behaviors of the child in the play measures. In the latter cases, the play measure is arguably a good and important estimate of the quality of the parent–child play relationship, but the child's contribution to the measure may inflate associations with child outcome.…”

“…This set of studies is exceptional in that all samples are from different countries and backgrounds, including 111 Israeli fathers and mothers (Menashe‐Grinberg & Atzaba‐Poria, ), a U.S. sample consisting of low‐income African American ( n = 35), Latino ( n = 19), and other ( n = 19) fathers and mothers (Cabrera et al., ), 42 Chinese middle‐class fathers from two‐parent families (Anderson et al., ), a large sample of 300 Austrian fathers, 70 mothers, and some German fathers ( n = 30), the latter with adverse backgrounds (Ahnert et al., ), and in the meta‐analysis (StGeorge & Freeman, ), 16 samples from five different Western countries. Given the difficulty of recruiting fathers for research (cf.…”

“…Despite the available knowledge base on the relations between play and child development (Lillard et al., ; Roopnarine & Davidson, ), the number of different domains of child development that appear to be linked to fathers’ play in the studies in this special issue is striking. The empirical studies show direct relations between fathers’ play and better subsequent vocabulary skills (Cabrera et al., ), less child negativity (Menashe‐Grinberg & Atzaba‐Poria, ), less internalizing problems (Ahnert et al., ), and less aggression (Anderson et al., ). The meta‐analysis of StGeorge and Freeman demonstrates relatively strong associations with social competence, and weaker or less consistent associations with emotional skills, self‐regulation, and aggression.…”