Abstract
The diverse set of studies in this special issue on fathers' play includes empirical research from several countries, observational measures of play, and multiple children's outcomes, including language, negativity, social competence, aggression and internalizing problems. The chief conclusion across studies is that the role of paternal play is important in various domains of child development. This is encouraging, yet also disturbing given the results of the State of the World's Fathers: Time for Action report 2017, revealing the low amount of care fathers provide to their children worldwide, relative to mothers. In this commentary, the measurement and conceptualization of play are discussed, as well as cultural considerations regarding the meaning and consequences of play. The findings of the studies are integrated in order to guide future research, addressing what domains of child development appear to be influenced by what types of paternal play, and discussing the contexts that affect paternal play. Lastly, the collective results are related to recent efforts to increase fathers' involvement and implications for interventions are discussed.
Highlights
THE MEASUREMENT AND CONCEPTUALIZATION OF PLAYTwo types of play are addressed by these studies: the quality of pretend play (“playfulness;” Cabrera, Karberg, Malin, & Aldoney, 2017; Menashe-Grinberg & Atzaba-Poria, 2017) and physical “rough-and-tumble” play (RTP) (Ahnert et al, 2017; Anderson, Qiu, & Wheeler, 2017; StGeorge & Freeman, 2017)
The diverse set of studies in this special issue on fathers’ play includes empirical research from several countries, observational measures of play, and multiple children’s outcomes, including language, negativity, social competence, aggression and internalizing problems
The chief conclusion is, as was expected, that the role of paternal play is important in various domains of child development
Summary
Two types of play are addressed by these studies: the quality of pretend play (“playfulness;” Cabrera, Karberg, Malin, & Aldoney, 2017; Menashe-Grinberg & Atzaba-Poria, 2017) and physical “rough-and-tumble” play (RTP) (Ahnert et al, 2017; Anderson, Qiu, & Wheeler, 2017; StGeorge & Freeman, 2017). The conceptualization of physical play is addressed in the meta-analysis (StGeorge & Freeman, 2017) by ranking studies according to the explicit inclusion of RTP, playfulness, positive affect, and role reversal in their operationalization This rank (i.e., quality) of the definition, did not appear to influence the strength of the associations with child outcomes, leading StGeorge and Freeman (2017) to suggest that the excitement and arousal of the physical interaction may be more important than the play-fighting element. Anderson et al (2017) showed that Chinese fathers’ reciprocity dominance is a stronger predictor of less child aggression than the quality of RTP assessed in a more comprehensive manner These findings demonstrate the importance of careful identification and operationalization of key elements of play to gain knowledge about what aspects of play influence which child outcomes, increasing our understanding of the mechanism by which play affects child development
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