The significance of parental mentalizing for four-year-old children's solitary pretend play.
<h4>Background</h4>Pretend play is a signature behavior of early childhood and is considered to reflect the child's emerging symbolic function, enabling the interpretation of social signals, language development, and emotion understanding. While theory links parental mentalizing wit...
| Main Authors: | , , , , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Public Library of Science (PLoS)
2024-01-01
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| Series: | PLoS ONE |
| Online Access: | https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0297671&type=printable |
| _version_ | 1797324296559788032 |
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| author | Johanne Smith-Nielsen Anne Christine Stuart Katrine Isabella Wendelboe Ida Egmose Camilla Overbye Roos Mette Skovgaard Væver |
| author_facet | Johanne Smith-Nielsen Anne Christine Stuart Katrine Isabella Wendelboe Ida Egmose Camilla Overbye Roos Mette Skovgaard Væver |
| author_sort | Johanne Smith-Nielsen |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | <h4>Background</h4>Pretend play is a signature behavior of early childhood and is considered to reflect the child's emerging symbolic function, enabling the interpretation of social signals, language development, and emotion understanding. While theory links parental mentalizing with children's pretend play, only a few studies have investigated this association. These studies are limited to infancy and early toddlerhood, and child pretend play is assessed during play with an adult (social play). Based on the assumption that child solitary pretend play reflects the child's 'baseline' pretend play ability, in this study, we investigated children's pretend play at its peak, i.e., during the preschool age, without the facilitation of another player. The overall objective was to investigate if parental mentalizing increases pretend play complexity in children.<h4>Methods</h4>The sample consisted 99 Danish mothers and their 4-year-old children. Employing a cross-sectional design, we hypothesized that parental mental state language, as an indicator of 'online' mentalizing during interaction with the child, is a mechanism through which 'offline' mentalizing, measured as parental reflective functioning, is associated with child solitary pretend play. Child pretend play complexity was observed and coded with an adapted version of the 12-Step Play Scale. Maternal offline mentalizing was assessed with the Parental Reflective Functioning Questionnaire, and maternal online mentalizing was assessed by coding the mothers' mental state language during interaction with the child using a modified version of the mind-mindedness coding scheme.<h4>Results</h4>While there was no direct effect of maternal offline reflective functioning on child pretend play, online mental state language mediated the link between offline maternal reflective functioning and child pretend play.<h4>Conclusions</h4>These results provide support for the theoretically assumed link between parental mentalizing and children's capacity for pretend play. Furthermore, our study contributes to the literature on parental mentalization, suggesting that parental mentalizing facilitates child development only if the parent can translate this ability into 'mentalizing in action'. |
| first_indexed | 2024-03-08T05:54:02Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-d3cba5183415425383dbc200a95bf15a |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 1932-6203 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-03-08T05:54:02Z |
| publishDate | 2024-01-01 |
| publisher | Public Library of Science (PLoS) |
| record_format | Article |
| series | PLoS ONE |
| spelling | doaj.art-d3cba5183415425383dbc200a95bf15a2024-02-05T05:30:49ZengPublic Library of Science (PLoS)PLoS ONE1932-62032024-01-01191e029767110.1371/journal.pone.0297671The significance of parental mentalizing for four-year-old children's solitary pretend play.Johanne Smith-NielsenAnne Christine StuartKatrine Isabella WendelboeIda EgmoseCamilla Overbye RoosMette Skovgaard Væver<h4>Background</h4>Pretend play is a signature behavior of early childhood and is considered to reflect the child's emerging symbolic function, enabling the interpretation of social signals, language development, and emotion understanding. While theory links parental mentalizing with children's pretend play, only a few studies have investigated this association. These studies are limited to infancy and early toddlerhood, and child pretend play is assessed during play with an adult (social play). Based on the assumption that child solitary pretend play reflects the child's 'baseline' pretend play ability, in this study, we investigated children's pretend play at its peak, i.e., during the preschool age, without the facilitation of another player. The overall objective was to investigate if parental mentalizing increases pretend play complexity in children.<h4>Methods</h4>The sample consisted 99 Danish mothers and their 4-year-old children. Employing a cross-sectional design, we hypothesized that parental mental state language, as an indicator of 'online' mentalizing during interaction with the child, is a mechanism through which 'offline' mentalizing, measured as parental reflective functioning, is associated with child solitary pretend play. Child pretend play complexity was observed and coded with an adapted version of the 12-Step Play Scale. Maternal offline mentalizing was assessed with the Parental Reflective Functioning Questionnaire, and maternal online mentalizing was assessed by coding the mothers' mental state language during interaction with the child using a modified version of the mind-mindedness coding scheme.<h4>Results</h4>While there was no direct effect of maternal offline reflective functioning on child pretend play, online mental state language mediated the link between offline maternal reflective functioning and child pretend play.<h4>Conclusions</h4>These results provide support for the theoretically assumed link between parental mentalizing and children's capacity for pretend play. Furthermore, our study contributes to the literature on parental mentalization, suggesting that parental mentalizing facilitates child development only if the parent can translate this ability into 'mentalizing in action'.https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0297671&type=printable |
| spellingShingle | Johanne Smith-Nielsen Anne Christine Stuart Katrine Isabella Wendelboe Ida Egmose Camilla Overbye Roos Mette Skovgaard Væver The significance of parental mentalizing for four-year-old children's solitary pretend play. PLoS ONE |
| title | The significance of parental mentalizing for four-year-old children's solitary pretend play. |
| title_full | The significance of parental mentalizing for four-year-old children's solitary pretend play. |
| title_fullStr | The significance of parental mentalizing for four-year-old children's solitary pretend play. |
| title_full_unstemmed | The significance of parental mentalizing for four-year-old children's solitary pretend play. |
| title_short | The significance of parental mentalizing for four-year-old children's solitary pretend play. |
| title_sort | significance of parental mentalizing for four year old children s solitary pretend play |
| url | https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0297671&type=printable |
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