Supporting mums’ mental health strengthens ’protective’ playmate role with children

Children playing with a parent Credit: Marisa Howenstine via Unsplash Helping parents with depression or anxiety could also improve their ability to engage in potentially 'protective' forms of play with their children that can reduce the risk of behavioural problems, new research suggests. If there are two mothers who pretend play with the same frequency, but one has higher anxiety or depression level, the child of that parent will tend to engage in less pretend play Zhen Rao The finding comes from a granular analysis of 3,600 five-second clips, which researchers took from recordings of 60 mother-toddler pairs playing together. Mothers with minimal anxiety were more likely to play 'pretending' games with their children. Similarly, even when compared with the children of mothers with only moderate levels of anxiety or depression, those whose mothers had no such mental health challenges spent around 10% more time engaging in make-believe play. The study focused on pretend play because this helps young children to develop essential social and emotional skills. If those skills are less well-developed, they may experience difficulties as they get older: for example, when trying to make friends or settle in at school. This can, in turn, impact further on behavioural development.