Pretend play as the space for development of self-regulation: cultural-historical perspective

Abstract

Self-regulated behavior is a prerequisite for learning and success in life. Considerable research confirms that mature forms of play support the development of self-regulation in the early years. This study explores the relationship between (3–6-year-olds) children’s pretend play and self-regulation skills. Teachers filled out a child’s play and self-regulation checklist evaluating the level of children’s play and self-regulation skills. The findings revealed that the levels of children’s play and self-regulation skills are statistically significantly linked: the better the child performs an assumed role in play activity, the higher the level of their self-regulation. The results also suggest that a child’s playing skills, gender, and age predict children’s self-regulation skills manifested in play activity.

The Effectiveness of Pretend Play Method Based on Local Wisdom towards Social Skills of Children

“…The results of this research reinforced previous research concluding that the pretend play method could improve the children's social skills and their interactions between peers. The results of the observation showed that the children who were involved in playing pretend play tended to be less disturbing their friends and always participating in group activities (Bredikyte & Brandisauskiene, 2023). The pretend play method was a very important to stimulate the children's development such as cognitive, language and social skills as it was evidenced by the results of a research that used the pretend play method on average having improvement in the development (Jaggy et al, 2023b).…”

“…Moreover, through pretend play, the children could learn to understand what the other friends felt in which their roles were played. Furthermore, through pretend play, the children could express themselves in the aim for they could be more independent person and able to control themselves and understand about responsibility (Bredikyte & Brandisauskiene, 2023). Therefore, the researcher applied the pretend play method based on local wisdom for the children's learning.…”

“…Such findings begun to help adults understand what children expect by pretending play (Parker et al, 2022). For this reason, it is needed to try pretend play as a new method based on local wisdom because it refers to the concerns of the society about the development of the children following the modern era and the loss of the local wisdom values that have been passed down to ancestral heritage as a guidance and directive of life in the society (Bredikyte & Brandisauskiene, 2023).…”