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You Pretend, I Laugh: Associations Between Dyadic Pretend Play and Children's Display of Positive Emotions.

ABSTRACT: Background: Understanding how pretend play is related to positive emotions is important for supporting children's development and promoting their wellbeing. However, previous studies have mainly examined this association at individual levels and overlooked the potential links at interpersonal levels. This is an important knowledge gap because pretend play is commonly performed in social contexts. The current study investigates how peer pretend play is associated with children's display of positive emotions at both individual and dyadic levels. Methods: One hundred and eight Chinese children (M _age = 8.95 years, SD = 0.99, 51.9% girls) were observed playing in peer dyads with toys. An interaction of 10 min was coded for each child's pretend play behavior, social and emotional pretend play themes, and display of positive emotions. Multilevel modeling was used to examine age and gender differences in peer pretend play. Actor-Partner Interdependence Models (APIM) were estimated to test the hypothesized associations between dyadic pretend play and children' display of positive emotions. Results: Compared to children whose playmates engaged in less pretend play, children whose playmates engaged in more pretend play were more likely to display positive emotions (p = 0.021). Additionally, children's display of positive emotions was predicted by both their own (p = 0.027) and their playmate's (p = 0.01) pretend play with emotional themes. Compared to younger children, older children were less likely to engage in pretend play (p = 0.002), but more likely to engage in pretend play with social themes (p = 0.03) when the total frequency of pretend play was controlled for. Boys were 4.9 times and 2.16 times as likely as girls to create aggressive pretend themes (p < 0.001) and non-aggressive negative pretend themes (p = 0.007), respectively. No significant gender differences were found in positive pretend themes. Conclusions: Pretending with peers may increase not only children's own, but also their play partner's display of positive emotions. Pretend play may not simply decline in middle childhood as previously assumed.

SUBMITTER: Rao Z

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8262317 | biostudies-literature |

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Project description:BackgroundThe healthcare setting is stressful for many people, especially children. Efforts are needed to mitigate children's healthcare-related anxiety. Medical play using the Teddy Bear Hospital (TBH) concept can expose children to healthcare settings and help them develop positive experiences in these settings. In this role-playing game, children bring their soft toys and act as parents to the 'sick' teddies in a pretend hospital or clinic play setting. The objective of this systematic review is to evaluate the effectiveness of the TBH in improving children's health outcomes and well-being.MethodsWe searched the reference lists of included studies from four electronic databases (PubMed, CINAHL, Scopus and Google Scholar) from inception until November 2020. We included pre-post, quasiexperimental and case-control studies, as well as randomised controlled trials (RCTs) that discussed medical play using the TBH concept as an intervention. Studies that involved sick patients and used interventions unlike the TBH were excluded. We assessed the quality of the included studies using the Cochrane Collaboration's 'Risk of bias' tool.ResultsTen studies were included in this systematic review. Five specifically investigated the TBH method, while the others involved the same concept of medical play. Only three studies were RCTs. All of the studies report more than one outcome-mostly positive outcomes. Two report lower anxiety levels after intervention. Two found better healthcare knowledge, with one reporting increased feelings of happiness regarding visiting a doctor. Two studies found no change in anxiety or feelings, while another two found increased levels of fear and lowered mood after the medical play (which involved real medical equipment).ConclusionsThe practice of TBH has mostly positive outcomes, with lower anxiety levels and improved healthcare knowledge. Its effectiveness should be verified in future studies using a more robust methodology.Prospero registration numberCRD42019106355.

Project description:ObjectivesThe current study examined the influence of early parental stress and positive parent personality during infancy on sleep in middle childhood. Further, the role of positive parent personality as a buffer of the association between parental stress and sleep was considered.MethodsParticipants included 381 twins and their primary caregivers who were recruited from birth records in the United States. Primary caregivers completed survey assessments via phone when twins were 12 and 30 months of age to assess multiple dimensions of parental stress and positive parent personality. Approximately 6 years later (M = 5.78, SD = 0.42), twins participated in an intensive assessment that included wearing actigraph watches to provide an objective measurement of sleep, while primary caregivers completed daily diaries regarding twins' sleep.ResultsPositive parent personality was associated prospectively with longer actigraphy sleep duration and higher parent-reported sleep quality/daytime functioning. Parental stress was associated prospectively with greater variability in sleep duration. Positive parent personality moderated the parental stress - sleep-timing relation, such that greater parental stress was associated with a later midpoint of the sleep period only for children with parents low on positive personality (e.g., low optimism). All other findings were non-significant.ConclusionsFindings suggest that both positive attributes and stress may influence sleep in middle childhood and that low parent positive personality may exacerbate associations between parental stress and later timing of sleep periods in children. Early interventions to promote healthy sleeping may consider focusing on decreasing parental stress and increasing parental empathy and optimism as early as infancy. Statement of contribution What is already known on this subject? Early-life experiences, especially adversity, have been related to health outcomes among adults and children, such that negative experiences are associated with poor health outcomes. Poor sleep (e.g., short duration, poor quality) among children is associated with negative outcomes including poorer cognitive performance and higher adiposity. What does this study add? This study used a prospective design to understand relations between early parent-related factors and child sleep. Early parental stress and positive parent personality were associated with objective sleep quality. Positive parent personality during infancy may have promotive/protective influences on sleep later in childhood.

Project description:BackgroundThere is increasing recognition of the importance of children's play from a public health perspective, given the links between play and children's physical and mental health. The present research aimed to develop and evaluate a new parent-report questionnaire that measures the time children spend playing across a range of places and includes a supplement to evaluate how adventurously children play.MethodsThe questionnaire was developed with input from a diverse group of parents and experts in children's play. It was designed to yield a range of metrics including time spent playing per year, time spent playing outside, time spent playing in nature and level of adventurous play. The reliability of the questionnaire was then evaluated with 245 parents (149 mothers, 96 fathers) of 154 children aged 5-11 years. All participants completed the measure at time 1. At time 2, an average of 20 days later, 184 parents (111 mothers and 73 fathers) of 99 children completed the measure again.ResultsCross-informant agreement, evaluated using Concordance Correlation Coefficients (CCCs), ranged from 0.36 to 0.51. These fall in the poor to moderate range and are largely comparable to cross-informant agreement on other measures. Test-retest reliability for mothers was good (range 0.67-0.76) for time spent playing metrics. For fathers, test-retest reliability was lower (range 0.39-0.63). For both parents the average level of adventurous play variable had relatively poor test retest reliability (mothers = 0.49, fathers = 0.42). This variable also showed a significant increase from time 1 to time 2. This instability over time may be due to the timing of the research in relation to the Covid-19 lockdown and associated shifts in risk perception.ConclusionsThe measure will be of value in future research focusing on the public health benefits and correlates of children's play as well as researchers interested in children's outdoor play and play in nature specifically. The development of the measure in collaboration with parents and experts in children's play is a significant strength. It will be of value for future research to further validate the measure against play diaries or activity monitors.

Project description:Polybrominated diphenyl ether (PBDE), flame retardants (FRs) have been ubiquitously detected at high concentrations in indoor environments; however, with their recent phase-out, more attention is being focused on measurements of exposure to alternative FRs such as organophosphate FRs (OPFRs). In our previous research, we found that PBDE residues measured on children's handwipes were a strong predictor of serum PBDE levels. Here we build upon this research to examine longitudinal changes in PBDEs in indoor dust and children's handwipes, and explore the associations between handwipes and dust for alternative FRs. Children from our previous study were re-contacted after approximately two years and new samples of indoor dust and handwipes were collected. PBDE dust-levels were significantly correlated between two different sampling rounds separated by two years; however, PBDE levels in handwipes were not correlated, perhaps suggesting that the sources of PBDEs remained relatively constant in the home, but that behavioral differences in children are changing with age and influencing handwipe levels. OPFRs [i.e. tris(1,3-dichloroisopropyl) phosphate (TDCPP), tris(2-chloroethyl) phosphate (TCEP), tris(2-chloroisopropyl) phosphate (TCIPP)], 2-ethylhexyl-2,3,4,5-tetrabromobenzoate (EH-TBB, also known as TBB), di(2-ethylhexyl) tetrabromophthalate (BEH-TEBP, also known as TBPH), and 1,2,5,6,9,10-hexabromocyclododecane (HBCD) were also ubiquitously detected in house dust samples and geometric mean levels were similar to PBDE levels, or higher in the case of the OPFRs. Significant associations between handwipes and house dust were observed for these alternative FRs, particularly for EH-TBB (rs=0.54; p<0.001). Increasing house dust levels and age were associated with higher levels of FRs in handwipes, and high hand washing frequency (>5 times d(-1)) was associated with lower FR levels in handwipes. Overall these data suggest that exposure to these alternative FRs will be similar to PBDE exposure, and the influence of hand-to-mouth behavior in children's exposure needs to be further examined to better estimate exposure potential.

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You Pretend, I Laugh: Associations Between Dyadic Pretend Play and Children's Display of Positive Emotions.

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