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FATHER PLAY: IS IT SPECIAL?
Author(s) -
Cabrera Natasha J.,
Roggman Lori
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
infant mental health journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.693
H-Index - 75
eISSN - 1097-0355
pISSN - 0163-9641
DOI - 10.1002/imhj.21680
Subject(s) - socioemotional selectivity theory , psychology , developmental psychology , aggression , competence (human resources) , negativity effect , vocabulary , early childhood , anxiety , social psychology , linguistics , philosophy , psychiatry
Both mothers and fathers play with their children, but research on parent–child play interactions is conducted with mothers three times more often than it is with fathers. The articles in this special issue address this gap by focusing on the nature and quality of father–child play, across cultural contexts, and considering whether father play offers something unique and special for early human development, in infancy or early childhood. The studies show that fathers can be just as developmentally supportive as are mothers in terms of being playful and engaged with their children in ways that are related to greater child socioemotional competence, emotion regulation, and vocabulary, and to less aggression, anxiety, and negativity. We encourage future research to examine the cultural influences, family system dynamics, and specificity of timing and types of father–child play in relation to children's developmental competence.