Play beliefs and responsive parenting among low-income mothers of preschoolers in the United States

The Relationship Between Parental Play Beliefs, Preschoolers’ Home Experience, and Executive Functions: An Exploratory Study in Ethiopia

“…This would improve the home environment and thereby create better opportunities for children to engage in cognitively challenging activities that could contribute to their EF development. Moreover, there is also empirical evidence confirming that parental play support beliefs and academic focused beliefs were, respectively, positively and negatively related to their children's integrative play skills (LaForett and Mendez, 2017).…”

“…Moreover, as home activities were measured using individual items, the reliability of the scale was not proven. Finally, as the interpretation of the findings regarding parental beliefs and children's activities at home (Parmar et al, 2004;Fogle and Mendez, 2006;LaForett and Mendez, 2017) needs the demographic and sociocultural contexts to be taken into account, it is questionable how the results can be generalizable to other sociocultural contexts. Therefore, subsequent work is needed to (1) test the predictors on cognitive flexibility, (2) replicate the study in different sociocultural contexts, (3) improve the validity of children's home activities scale, and (4) determine the path by which parents' play beliefs and preschoolers' home activities relate to EF development.…”

“…The academic focused belief, on the other hand, represented a view that play is a less worthwhile activity for children's development in contrast with explicit academic activities, such as reading to a child. Such beliefs of parents could impact the extent to which they support play activities at home, the nature of play activities, and the degree of their involvement in their children's play (Farver and Wimbarti, 1995;LaForett and Mendez, 2017). In this regard, a comparison of parents' involvement in their children's play indicated that mothers, who valued play for its educational and cognitive benefits, were more likely to join their children's play, while mothers who hold a belief that the value of play is merely for entertainment did not exert meaningful efforts to facilitate their children's play (Farver and Howes, 1993;Farver and Wimbarti, 1995).…”

Effects of Individualized Education Programs on Cognitive Outcomes for Children with Disabilities in Head Start Programs

“…Other preschool programs serving low-income communities would benefit from adapting learning objectives and instructional practices employed by Head Start programs if they are struggling to meet the needs of children with multiple disabilities. To better understand the underlying mechanisms associated with relatively greater achievement of children with multiple disabilities in Head Start, additional research is needed to systematically study factors that may moderate the relations between personal and demographic risks and child outcomes in Head Start, such as the quality of teacher-child relationships (LaForett & Mendez, 2016).…”

Introducing the Play in Education, Development and Learning (PEDAL) Research Centre

“…When children are very young it can often be that parents lead much of the play, though even in a child's earliest days a parent's ability to follow their child's lead and respond sensitively is a key part of successful parenting. As children grow and develop they can take the lead in play activities more, but parents can continue to influence children's play through shared activities (Göncü, Mistry, & Mosier, 2000;LaForett & Mendez, 2017;Muhonen, von Suchodoletz, Doering, & Kärtner, 2019). These shared play experiences mean that parents can structure and scaffold their child's exploration and learning, but also continue to develop and foster their relationship (Ginsburg, 2007).…”