Sex Roles (2017) 77:496–509
DOI 10.1007/s11199-016-0734-7
ORIGINAL ARTICLE
The Roles of Child Gender and Parental Knowledge of Child
Development in Parent-Child Interactive Play
Ljubica Marjanovič-Umek 1 & Urška Fekonja-Peklaj 1
Published online: 21 January 2017
# Springer Science+Business Media New York 2017
Abstract In our study, we aimed to analyse the effect of child
gender on parental and child interactive play behaviour, as
well as to determine relations between parental general knowl-
edge of child development and parental play behaviour in two
developmental periods, namely toddlerhood and early child-
hood. The sample included 99 children (50 toddlers 1–
3 years-old; 49 preschoolers 3–5 years-old) and their parents.
Parent–child interactive play with a standard set of toys was
observed and assessed in the home setting. We found that
parental and child play behaviours were closely related in both
age groups. In addition, child’s gender affected child, but not
parental, play behaviour such that girls more frequently
established the content of play, sustained play frame, and used
more symbolic transformations during play than boys did.
Parents’ general knowledge of child development was associ-
ated with both parental education and parental play behaviour.
The findings are applicable to different professionals working
with children and their parents in the preschool period.
Keywords Child gender . Parent-child play . Symbolic play .
Parental knowledge of child development
Although there are many studies focusing on gender differ-
ences in children’s play behaviour, especially with regard to
play themes and toy preferences, only a few of them compare
girls and boys in various developmental aspects of play. The
aim of our family study was to explore parent-child interactive
play behaviour, looking at gender differences in various
* Urška Fekonja-Peklaj
urska.fekonja@ff.uni-lj.si
1
Department of Psychology, University of Ljubljana,
Ljubljana, Slovenia
aspects of play as well as the relations between parental and
child play behaviour during two developmental periods,
namely toddlerhood (1–3 years-old) and early childhood (3–
5 years-old). In this respect, we were particularly interested in
potential differential experiences to which boys and girls
might be exposed in their home environment with re-
gard to parental play behaviour. In addition, we were
interested in the role that parental knowledge of child
development plays in parental play behaviour during
interactive play with their child.
Gender Differences in Children’s Play
Symbolic play is a child’s ability to use objects, actions or
ideas to represent other objects, actions, or ideas as play. It
includes the use of imagination and role play to transform the
self and objects in play (Bornstein et al. 1996; Isenberg and
Jalongo 2006; McCune-Nicolich 1981). Various authors (e.g.,
Bornstein et al. 1999; Cote and Bornstein 2009; Gosso et al.
2007; Karnik and Tudge 2010; Pellegrini and Smith 1998)
argue that there are reliable gender differences in symbolic
play during the preschool period with girls engaging in sym-
bolic play more frequently and at more sophisticated levels
than boys do. Another type of play, in which consistent gender
differences were found, is rough-and-tumble play. Rough-
and-tumble play is a special type of physical play that has
been defined as a physically vigorous set of behaviours (e.g.,
chase, jump and play, and fighting-wrestling) that is accom-
panied by positive affect from the players towards one another
without an aim to cause pain to the partner (Koustourakis et al.
2015; Pellegrini 1995). Research suggests that boys engage in
more rough-and-tumble play than do girls across different
cultures (DiPietro 1981; Jarvis 2006) and that rough-and-
Sex Roles (2017) 77:496–509
tumble play forms the basis for boys’ socialization (de Castro
et al. 2002; Pellegrini 1993).
One important aspect of play in which gender differences
play an important role is toy preference. According to
Goldstein (1994), both biological and social factors influence
child’s preference for a certain type of toys and play. In their
longitudinal study that included toddlers (aged 13, 22, and
31 months), Rotsztein and Zelazo (2000) investigated the on-
set and development of toddlers’ gender-typed toy preferences
and symbolic play during a free-play session. The findings of
their study suggest that, regarding their measures of symbolic
play (i.e., duration and sophistication of play), only the num-
ber of different toy sets used during play differentiated be-
tween boys and girls. Boys consistently spent more time
playing with male-stereotyped toys at all ages whereas girls
divided their time playing with female- and male-stereotyped
toys more evenly. In this respect, various authors (e.g.,
Campenni 1999; Golombok and Fivush 1994; Langlois and
Downs 1980; Wood et al. 2002) highlight the role of adults in
reinforcement of children’s preferences for gender-typed toys,
which might be influenced by parental gender stereotypes as
well as by children’s own toy preferences. Fathers in particular
were found to be stereotypical in their responses to their
child’s selection of gender-typed toys and were more
likely to play with their child when interacting with
gender-typed than with cross-gender toys (Langlois and
Downs 1980; Wood et al. 2002).
The findings of multiple studies (Fein 1981; Holland 2003;
McLoyd et al. 1984; Smith 2007) also indicate gender differ-
ences in the themes of symbolic play. Preschool girls assume
more domestic, nurturing, and female-typed roles associated
with low physical movement, whereas boys more often en-
gage in male-typed roles and occupational-typed play with
higher activity levels. According to Pellegrini and Smith
(1998), girls’ play tends to revolve around domestic, dramatic
themes whereas the play of boys tends to be more fantastic
and physical, including imaginary fighting and themes involv-
ing superheroes. In addition, boys were found to display more
aggressive play than did girls (Fletcher 2004). Although
Karnik and Tudge (2010) found no gender differences in the
extent to which 3-year-old children engaged in the two
broadest categories of pretend play (i.e., generic pretend play
and the uptaking of adult roles), they established gender dif-
ferences in the extent to which children were involved in cer-
tain subcategories of pretend play (with girls engaging in more
gender-stereotypical play activities). Moreover, their findings
indicated that middle-class, but not working-class, girls pre-
tended to carry out more daily activities (e.g., bathing a doll)
as well as engaged in more social (e.g., pretending to be a
bride) and domestic pretend play (e.g., cooking) than boys
did. Significant gender differences among boys and girls
were also found in the nature of peer play—reflecting a
divergence in levels of physical play, which are
497
typically higher among boys, and in levels of more
intimate play in smaller groups, which are commonly
higher among girls (Mathieson and Banerjee 2011).
One possible reason for gender differences in the frequency
of symbolic play may be the differences between boys and
girls in early language ability. Research suggests that language
and symbolic play are based on the similar symbolic-
conceptual processes that refer to child’s representational abil-
ity (Laakso et al. 1999; Lewis et al. 2000; McCathren et al.
1996; Whitehead 1999). Namely, both words and symbolic
transformations of objects, persons or activities are used in a
symbolic function. Moreover, symbolic play is most frequent-
ly realised through the use of language, which, as a system of
symbols, facilitates thought at the level of representation
(Pellegrini and Galda 1982; Smilansky and Shefatya 1990;
Whitehead 1999). There are many studies suggesting a small
but consistent female advantage in early language develop-
ment, which however seems to disappear during childhood
(Wallentin 2008). Multiple authors (e.g., Bornstein and
Haynes 1998; Bornstein et al. 1996; Eriksson et al. 2012;
Fenson et al. 1994) reported gender differences in early lan-
guage development, suggesting that girls developed language
faster than boys do. For example, girls were found to use more
types of communicative and symbolic gestures, to speak ear-
lier, to acquire the grammar of the language faster, and to
express a larger vocabulary through infanthood, toddlerhood,
and early childhood. According to Göncü et al. (2002) girls
also use their more mature language abilities in pretend play.
Although various differences in play between boys and
girls are documented, some authors (e.g., Göncü et al. 2002;
Smith 2007) argue that the research findings are inconsistent
and depend on the play environment, toys, and the types of
activities measured. In addition, Golombok and Fivush (1994)
emphasize that there are wide individual differences among
boys and girls in their play and that some gender differences
may be situation-specific. In their cross-sectional study in
which they observed outdoor free play of boys and girls 2–
6 years-old, Barbu et al. (2011) found that gender differences
were unstable over time. According to the authors, social and
structured forms of play (e.g., associative play, cooperative
play and social interactions with peers) emerged systematical-
ly earlier in girls than in boys and that preschool boys
displayed more solitary play than preschool girls did, especial-
ly when young. However, when boys caught up and girls
moved on towards more complex play, gender differences in
social play patterns were reversed in favour of boys.
Parental Role in Supporting Child’s Play
In play, parental participation and scaffolding are important
from the viewpoint of encouraging children to engage in sym-
bolic play, to take on different roles, and to pretend and use
498
imaginary objects (Bodrova and Leong 2007; Bredikyte 2011;
Hakkarainen and Bredikyte 2008; Vygotsky 1978). Children
often take the initiative to play, but they also imitate adults’
play behaviour and learn from the play they see (Bornstein
et al. 1996; Nielsen and Christie 2008). Although several au-
thors (e.g., Barker et al. 2014; MacDonald 1993; Pellegrini
and Smith 1998) emphasize the important role of less-
structured free play for child’s self-directive executive func-
tioning, creativity, and social skills, research findings suggest
that parental support and encouragement during shared play
with a child can promote child’s engagement in fantasy, imag-
ination, and pretend play, thus leading him/her into the zone-
of-proximal development (Doyla 2010; Holzman 2009; Smidt
2009). In fact, the findings of multiple studies (Bornstein et al.
1996; Damast et al. 1996; Haight and Miller 1993; Lang
2009) suggest that during play with more competent partners,
such as parents, children are exposed to encouragement, ma-
terials, and opportunities that enable them to play at higher
levels than they would if playing alone.
Parent-child play also contributes to the development of the
child’s social skills as well as provides a child with opportu-
nities for acquiring interactional skills that may generalize to
other contexts such as play with peers (Ladd and Pettit 2008).
Researchers argue (Tamis-LeMonda and Bornstein 1991;
Trawick-Smith and Dziurgot 2011) that the best context for
the child to learn is offered by child-parent play, in which both
the child and parent are mutually sensitive to changes in their
partner’s play behaviour. With a sample of children, aged from
27 to 41 months, Nielsen and Christie (2008) found that chil-
dren engaged in symbolic play to a greater extent after
watching an adult perform symbolic acts with objects than
they did beforehand because they copied the object transfor-
mations that they had observed and also generated their own
novel pretences. The scaffolding role of an adult is particularly
important in infanthood and toddlerhood because early pre-
tend play is largely imitative, following well-established
scripts or storylines. In this period, the adult primarily sup-
ports infant’s/toddler’s play by suggesting and demonstrating
actions. After the age of 3, children take a more initiative role
in pretend play and include more symbolic transformations in
their play (Smith 2007).
According to Frost et al. (2008), family and parenting con-
tribute to gender differences in children’s play. There is evi-
dence that adults play differently with boys and with girls
(Frost et al. 2008). Golombok and Fivush (1994) argue that,
already in infancy and through the preschool years, adults
typically encourage motor activity and more active play with
boys while engaging in more vocalization and face-to face
interactions with girls. According to the authors, these differ-
ent play patterns might also influence the selection of different
types of toys for girls and for boys. In their study, Clearfield
and Nelson (2006) found that although there were no gender
differences in infants’ play behaviour (i.e., in the frequency of
Sex Roles (2017) 77:496–509
initiating an interaction with an adult and the direct respon-
siveness to mother’s verbal behaviour) between the ages of 6–
14 months, significant gender differences were found in
mother’s verbal behaviour and the level of her engagement
toward the child during free play. The authors established
that mothers interacted more with their daughters and made
more interpretations and engaged in more conversation with
them than with sons, whereas mothers of sons made more
comments and attentionals, typified more by instructions
than conversation.
Pomerantz et al. (2004) hypothesise that one reason that
parents may treat girls and boys differently is because they
are reacting to girls’ and boys’ distinct characteristics. They
argue that the characteristics, which children bring to interac-
tions with their parents, may also contribute to variability in
parents’ differential treatment. Similarly, Golombok and
Fivush (1994) argue that parents might treat their children
differently not only because of their stereotypes about females
and males but also because of actual differences between fe-
male and male children. The authors further emphasize that
gender-related behaviour is complexly influenced by many
factors, including biological differences between males and
females, children’s development of conceptualizations about
gender, and parental gender-related beliefs and expectations.
Parental beliefs and parents’ general knowledge of child’s
development were found to play an important role in the way
parents speak to their children and in their selection of activ-
ities during which they engage in verbal interactions with their
children (DeBaryshe 1995; Foy and Mann 2003; Rowe 2008;
Sigel and McGillicuddy-DeLisi 2002; Weigel et al. 2006).
Parents who understand children’s abilities better, structure
their child’s environment so that it suits his/her cognitive abil-
ity to a greater extent than parents who have a lesser knowl-
edge of their children’s abilities (Miller and Davis 1992). In
this respect, Rowe (2008) argues that parents with more
knowledge of child’s development are more Bin tune^
with their child’s language abilities and adjust their
child-directed speech accordingly (e.g., they talk more;
use a more diverse vocabulary and longer utterances in
their child directed speech).
The Present Study
There were three main research questions guiding the present
study. First, based on the findings of many studies on the
importance of play for a child’s overall development, as well
as research findings about the existence of reliable gender
differences in symbolic play during preschool, we aimed to
explore whether a child’s gender affects both parental and
child play behaviour during interactive play with a standard
set of toys. Because research on gender differences in chil-
dren’s play focuses mainly on the frequency of symbolic play,
Sex Roles (2017) 77:496–509
the content of play, and the use of gender-typed toys, our aim
was to analyse possible differential experiences to which boys
and girls might be exposed in their home environment with
regard to parental play behaviour. In particular, we focused on
gender differences in various aspects of parent-child interac-
tive play (e.g., establishing the content, sustaining play, using
symbolic transformations) during two developmental periods,
namely toddlerhood (1–3 years-old) and early childhood (3–
5 years-old). We expected that a child’s gender would play an
important role in parental and child play behaviour during
interactive play within the family setting.
Second, we examined the relations between parental and
child play behaviour within the two age groups of children.
Research suggests that parental participation and scaffolding
of child’s play are positively related to a child’s more complex
play behaviour. For example, during play with more compe-
tent partners (i.e., parents), children are exposed to encourage-
ments that enable them to play at higher levels than they
would if playing alone. In our study, we expected positive
relations between parental and child play behaviour during
their interactive play with a standard set of toys.
Third, based on research findings about the important ef-
fect that parental beliefs and their knowledge of their child’s
development have on parents’ interactions with their child, we
aimed to establish the relations among parental general knowl-
edge of child’s development, parental play behaviour during
interactive play, and parental education. We expected parents
with a higher level of education and parents who frequently
exhibited scaffolding play behaviour when playing with their
children to express a better general knowledge of child’s
development.
Method
Participants
The present sample included 99 families with 1–5 year-old
children (52 girls and 47 boys): 29 (29.5%) 1-year-olds, 21
(21.6%) 2-year-olds, 15 (14.8%) 3-year-olds, 18 (18.2%) 4-
year-olds, and 16 (15.9%) 5-year-olds (M = 37.8 months,
SD = 18.3). All children were Slovenian and spoke Slovene
as their mother tongue. Children were divided into two age
groups: the first age group included 50 toddlers (27 girls and
23 boys), aged from 1 to 3 years (M = 22.7 months, SD = 6.8);
the second age group included 49 preschoolers (25 girls and
24 boys), aged from 3 to 5 years (M = 54.4 months,
SD = 11.2). Families were sampled through preschools and
by using the snowball method. Parents (92% mothers and 8%
fathers participated) varied according to the level of completed
formal education: 9.3% had less than a secondary-school de-
gree, 16.3% had a secondary-school degree, 9.3% had a junior
college degree, 43% had a bachelor’s degree, and 22.1% had a
499
master’s degree or a doctorate (M = 14.0 years of completed
formal education; SD = 1.97). The two age groups of children
did not differ significantly in their parents’ educational level
(F = .45, t = .21, df = 97, p = .51).
Procedure and Measures
Families were sampled through preschools and by using the
snowball method, so that families who have responded to our
request for the participation in the study also provided us with
a contact of another family with a child of a desired age. A
letter was sent to the parents inviting them to participate in the
study. It included a description of the purpose of the study, an
explanation of the entire course of the study, and the notifica-
tion that they could cancel their participation in the study at
any time. Only families for which we received an informed
written consent from the parents were included in our study.
The researchers, graduating psychology students, contacted
every family included in the sample. Before data collection
began, the researchers received training in using materials and
in assessing and evaluating the data collected. All data were
collected during visits to the families’ homes. Parents decided
which one of them would participate in the study, and the
researcher then arranged to visit the home when that parent
was available.
During the visit, a parent completed the Knowledge of
Infant Development Inventory, and the researcher gained in-
formation about the parent’s formal education. The researcher
brought the selected toy set with her, gave it to the child, and
asked the parent to play with the child for at least 30 min just
like she/he usually does. Parents and children played in a room
where the child’s own toys were not present to avoid bringing
in toys that were not part of the set. The researcher videotaped
the parent–child play. If the parent and the child played for less
than 30 min, she stopped taping them when they finished
playing. If they played for more than 30 min, she stopped
taping them after 30 min. Every videotape of the parent–child
interactive play was assessed by two trained observers using
the Scale for Observing Child–Adult Play. The observers were
trained prior to the assessment of the recordings of play. They
were educated on different aspects and characteristics of inter-
active play between an adult and a child as well as on the
content of the items included in the observational scale.
Their training also included the assessment of several pilot
recordings of parent-child interactive play with the standard
sets of toys.
Interactive Play Measures
Parent–child interactive play was assessed using the Scale for
Observing Child–Adult Play (Marjanovič-Umek and
Fekonja-Peklaj 2012). The scale was designed within a
Slovenian family study to evaluate various aspects of parent-
500
child’s play behaviour during interactive play by observation
(Marjanovič-Umek et al. 2012). The scale contains 45 state-
ments. Of these 45 statement, 24 describe parental play be-
haviour and are combined into five categories that consider
different aspects of play: Play content, Play frame, Direct
guidance, Symbolic transformations, and Play maintenance.
The remaining 21 statements describe child’s play behaviour
and are combined into the four categories: Play content, Play
frame, Symbolic transformations and Play maintenance.
Table 1 defines each category of parental and child play be-
haviour, as well as lists the specific statements that compose
each category along with their Kalpha measure (Hayes and
Krippendorff, 2007) of interrater reliability (which was ac-
ceptable for the coding of every statement).
For each statement, the observer used a 6-point assessment
scale ranging from 0 (the behaviour described was never
displayed) to 5 (the behaviour was very frequently displayed)
to assess the frequency of parental play behaviour and child
play behaviour. Five subscores were averaged for different
categories of parental play behaviour, and four subscores were
averaged for different categories of child play behaviour (see
Table 1). A higher score on each of the categories indicates a
more advanced and complex play behaviour, resulting in de-
velopmentally higher levels of play. The Cronbach’s al-
pha reliability coefficient for different categories of pa-
rental and child play are reported in Table 1, and all
reached acceptable levels.
Play Materials
All parent-child dyads within an age group played with the
same toys, which were selected for the purposes of the present
study. Because a child’s representational ability develops rap-
idly in toddlerhood and early childhood, enabling him or her
to include an increasing number of less-structured material in
symbolic play (Bruce 1996; Elder and Pederson, 1978;
Smilansky and Shefatya 1990), we designed three sets of toys
for children of different ages: one for toddlers aged from 1 to
3 years, one for children aged from 3 to 4 years, and one for
children aged from 4 to 5 years. All three toy sets contained
both highly structured toys (replicas) and less-structured ma-
terial, with the two sets intended for the older groups contain-
ing a greater amount of less-structured material.
The set intended for toddlers included a teddy bear; a sex-
indeterminant baby doll; a diaper; two plastic cups, spoons,
and plates; animal figurines (a cow and a horse); a tractor; and
wooden blocks. The set intended for children, aged from 3 to
4 years, included plastic and wooden blocks; three figurines of
a male and a female farmer and a girl; animal figurines (a cat, a
cow, a horse and a sheep); a tractor; a carton box; a plastic
spoon, cup and plate; wooden sticks; coloured paper; and a
baby doll. The third set intended for 4–5 year-olds included
the same toys as the set for 3 to 4-years old children with the
Sex Roles (2017) 77:496–509
addition of six stones and a piece of fabric. Whereas the set
intended for toddlers differed from the two sets intended for
the older children in several toys, the sets intended for the two
older groups differed merely in two types of unstructured play
material, namely the stones and a cloth. Regarding this small
difference between the two sets of toys for children older than
3 years and the small samples of children of separate ages, we
analysed parental and child interactive play within two sepa-
rate age groups, namely the group of toddlers, aged from 1 to
3 years, and the group of preschool children, aged from 3 to
5 years.
Parental Knowledge of Child Development
Parents’ knowledge of their own child’s development was
assessed using the Knowledge of Infant Development
Inventory (KIDI) (MacPhee 2002) which has been used in
many studies and within different cultural contexts (e.g., de
Castro Ribas et al. 2003, in Brazilian parents; Huang et al.
2005 in North American parents; Nobre-Lima et al. 2014 in
Portuguese parents; Rowe, 2008 in North American parents)
for assessing parents’ knowledge of the characteristics of
infant/toddler development (motor, social, language, percep-
tive, and cognitive), effective parenting approaches, and
methods of ensuring the health and safety of infants and tod-
dlers. The inventory contains 58 statements. The first 39 state-
ments refer to the typical behaviour of infants/toddlers at a
specific age and the factors influencing their development;
parents mark whether they agree or disagree with the state-
ment or whether they are not sure. The following 19 state-
ments refer to children’s abilities or skills typical of a specific
age; with each statement, the parents mark whether they agree
with it or whether the ability or skill described is typical of a
younger or older child. The number of correct answers shows
the extent to which parents know typical child development.
The highest possible score on the inventory is 58 points; the
scores of parents in our sample ranged from 5 (9%)–49 (84%)
points (M = 35.7, SD = 8.59). The author of the inventory
reports that the correlation between the mother’s score and
her level of education calculated in various samples of
mothers ranges from .00 to .69.
Results
Because we were interested in the role of gender in parental
and child play behaviour in two different developmental pe-
riods, we analysed parent-child interactive play separately for
toddlers and preschoolers. Table 2 presents the descriptive
statistics for the different categories of parent and child play
behaviour and parental knowledge of child development. For
the majority of variables, the asymmetry and kurtosis coeffi-
cients do not indicate a notable deviation from a normal
Sex Roles (2017) 77:496–509 501

Table 1 Interactive play measures for parents and their child

Categories of Play Behaviour Kalpha

Statements from the Scale for Observing Child-Adult Play

Parent’s play categories

Play content (content established at beginning and carried throughout play; α = .89)
Negotiates play content with a child .77
Suggests play content him/herself .77
Play frame (sustaining and supporting the course of play; α = .90)
Describes child’s play .77
Describes his or her own play activity .79
Direct guidance (direct support provided by parent; α = .89)
Elaborates on the topic a child talks about .88
If the child cannot perform a play act, the parent tells the child how he or she can proceed .77
Encourages the child to persist in symbolic play .82
Establishes triadic joint attention with the child .71
Suggests several possibilities for using a toy .77
Symbolic transformations (object transformations, imaginary situations, use of metalanguage, taking on roles; α = .93)
Uses metalanguage .87
Plays as if the toy is a real person, object, or animal, and illustrates this verbally .83
Transforms the toy by naming the transformation .84
Ascribes a specific feature to the object or its substitute .84
Speaks in the role he or she takes on .96
Adopts the role’s speech register .94
Asks the child to take on the role .72
Creates an imaginary situation .75
Plays without a toy; only uses language or gestures .82
Play maintenance (behaviour that helps maintain and prolong the course of play; α = .91)
Changes his or her own play activity at a child’s initiative .80
When the child stops playing, he or she introduces a strategy for the child to continue playing .78
Repeats actions that a child enjoys .90
Imitates child’s behaviour .65
Gives a child enough time to respond .55
Interrupts or diverts child’s play activity and does not let him fully develop it (the item is scored reverse) .72
Child’s play categories
Play content (content established at beginning and carried throughout play; α = .88)
Negotiates the play content with a parent .91
Keeps up with the play content verbally or non-verbally suggested by a parent .71
Play frame (sustaining and supporting the course of play; α = .89)
Describes his or her play act .90
Observes parent’s play behaviour .83
Directly imitates parent’s symbolic act .83
Imitates parent’s symbolic act with a delay .67
Verbally responds to the parent ascribing features to objects .86
Symbolic transformations (object transformations, imaginary situations, use of Metalanguage, taking on roles; α = .94)
Plays as if the toy is a real person, object, or animal: illustrates this verbally .95
Plays as if the toy is a real person, object, or animal: does not illustrate this verbally .77
Transforms a toy by naming the transformation .94
Creates an imaginary situation .90
Names the role he or she takes on .89
Speaks in the role he or she takes on .94
Adopts the role’s speech register .97
502 Sex Roles (2017) 77:496–509

Table 1 (continued)

Categories of Play Behaviour Kalpha

Statements from the Scale for Observing Child-Adult Play

Asks a parent to take on the role .96

Plays without a toy; only uses language or gestures .88
Uses metalanguage .83
Play maintenance (behaviour that helps maintain and prolong the course of play; α = .88)
Asks a parent what a toy is called, what sounds it makes, and what it does .72
Asks a parent what he or she is doing .92
Suggests the course of the play (independently or with the parent’s encouragement) .76
Resumes playing after the parent encourages him/her to do so .73

distribution (i.e., they do not exceed the values between −2
and +2). A fairly high positive kurtosis was found for KIDI in
both age groups (2.45 for toddlers and 4.62 for preschoolers)
and for child’s symbolic transformations in the toddler group
(3.85) indicating higher frequencies of scores at the extreme
positive ends of the distribution curve.
Age, Gender, and Parent-Child Interactive Play
To examine the effect of child’s gender and age on parent-
child interactive play behaviour, two complete 2 × 2 multivar-
iate analyses of variance (MANOVA) crossing age group
(toddlers and preschoolers) with child gender (boys and girls)
were used. The first MANOVA focused on the four indicators
of child’s play behaviour: play content, play frame, symbolic
transformations, and play maintenance. Both the age,
Hotelling’s F(4,92) = 12.83, p < .001, ηp2 = .36, and gender,
Hotelling’s F(4,92) = 2.58, p = .042, ηp2 = .10, main effects
were significant; however, their interaction was not,
Hotelling’s F(4,92) = 1.21, p = .310, ηp2 = .05. Univariate
tests revealed that the multivariate age main effect was
accounted for by both play content, F(1,95) = 22.34,
p < .001, ηp 2 = .19, and symbolic transformations
F(1,95) = 45.74, p < .001, ηp2 = .32, such that preschoolers
scored higher than toddlers (see Table 2a). The multivariate
gender main effect was accounted for by three of the four play
indicators: play content, play frame, and symbolic transforma-
tions. Across all three indicators, girls scored higher than boys
did (see Table 2a).
The second MANOVA focused on the five indicators of
parental play behaviour: play content, play frame, direct guid-
ance, symbolic transformations, and play maintenance. The
multivariate main effect for child’s age was significant,
Hotelling’s F(5, 91) = 12.75, p < .001, ηp2 = .41, however,
both the main effect of gender, Hotelling’s F(5, 91) = 2.04,
p = .080, ηp 2 = .10, and their interaction, Hotelling’s

Table 2 Gender and age comparisons across parental and child play behaviours

Child’s Age Child’s Gender

Toddlers Preschoolers Girls Boys

Play category M (SD) M (SD) M (SD) M (SD)

(a) Child play behaviours

Play content 5.0 (1.07) a 6.21 (1.52) b 5.82 (1.29) a 5.60 (1.44) b
Play frame 1.8 (.92) a 2.26 (1.02) a 2.22 (.99) a 1.81 (.95) b
Symbolic transformations 1.36 (1.07) a 3.01 (1.41) b 2.44 (1.65) a 1.88 (1.26) b
Play maintenance 1.97 (1.05) a 2.33 (1.16) a 2.08 (1.14) a 2.23 (1.09) a
(b) Parental play behaviours
Play content 4.62 (1.51) a 5.09 (1.67) a 4.94 (1.79) 4.75 (1.37)
Play frame 4.15 (1.69) a 3.33 (1.69) b 3.91 (1.82) 3.55 (1.62)
Direct guidance 4.77 (1.19) a 4.77 (1.70) a 4.86 (1.49) 4.66 (1.44)
Symbolic transformations 2.18 (1.15) a 3.02 (1.69) b 2.97 (1.58) 2.18 (1.29)
Play maintenance 4.93 (1.00) a 4.10 (1.05) b 4.53 (1.19) 4.50 (1.01)

The assessed frequencies of parent and child play behaviour represent the sum of scores of both evaluators, thus possible ratings ranged on a scale from 0
to 10. The multivariate main effect testing for child gender differences in parental play behaviours was not significant. Means with different subscripts
indicate significant age or gender differences, p < .05
Sex Roles (2017) 77:496–509 503

F(5,91) = .68, p = .635, ηp2 = .36, were not. Univariate tests
revealed that the multivariate age main effect was accounted
for by play frame, F(1, 95) = 4.70, p = .033, ηp2 = .05, sym-
bolic transformations, F(1, 95) = 8.03, p = .006, ηp2 = .08, and
play maintenance, F(1, 95) = 15.78, p < .001, ηp2 = .14, such
that parents playing with preschoolers scored higher on sym-
bolic transformations and lower on play frame and play main-
tenance than parents playing with toddlers (see Table 2b).
Thus our speculation that child gender would play an impor-
tant role in parental and child play behaviour was only partly
confirmed. However, we found gender differences in chil-
dren’s play behaviour, but not in parental play behaviour, dur-
ing interactive play.
Relations between Parental and Child Play Behaviours
We calculated the correlations between parent and child play
behaviours for each of the two age groups (see Table 3) to
assess the relations between the five categories of parental
play behaviour and the four categories of child play behaviour.
The correlations obtained on the sample of toddlers show
several significant and moderate-to-high positive correlations
between parental and child play behaviours. Parental direct
guidance was significantly and positively correlated to all cat-
egories of child play, whereas parental use of symbolic trans-
formations was positively correlated to three of the four child
play categories, with the exception of child play maintenance.
Although parental play content and play frame both signifi-
cantly positively correlated with child play frame, parental
play maintenance did not significantly correlate to any of child
play categories. In addition, parental play frame significantly
but negatively correlated to child’s use of symbolic
transformations. The results also showed some significant
moderate-to-high positive correlations among the five catego-
ries of parental play and among the four categories of child
play indicating that parents and toddlers who more frequently
expressed play behaviour within one category of play also
more frequently expressed play behaviours within several
others categories.
In comparison to toddlers, the findings among preschoolers
showed a higher number of significant and moderate-to-high
positive correlations between parental and child play behav-
iours. Parental direct guidance, use of symbolic transforma-
tions, and play maintenance all significantly positively corre-
lated with all four child play categories. Parental play frame
was significantly and positively correlated with the three of
four categories of child play (with the exception being child
play maintenance), whereas parental play content did not sig-
nificantly correlate with child’s use of symbolic transforma-
tions. In addition, significant and positive correlations were
found among all five parental play categories. All four cate-
gories of child play were also significantly and positively cor-
related, with the exception being the correlation between child
use of symbolic transformations and child play maintenance.
Parental Knowledge and Parent-Child Interactive Play
Next, we calculated correlations between parental knowledge
of child development (KIDI) and parental play behaviour for
each of the two age groups (see Table 3). Parental knowledge
of child development did not significantly correlate with any
of parental play categories in the group of toddlers. However,
in the group of preschool children, we found significant and
positive correlations between parental knowledge of child

Table 3 Correlations among study variables for toddlers and preschoolers

Parental play behaviours Child play behaviours Parental

Play category 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 KIDIa Education

1 – Parental play content .57** .50** .54** .56** .60** .49** .21 .56** .24 .33*
2 – Parental play frame .44** .40** .62** .43** .49** .56** .35* .29 .15 .15
3 – Parental direct guidance .14 .11 .56** .55** .58** .53** .43** .51** .32* .45**
4 – Parental symbolic transformations .23 .38** .55** .64** .66** .68** .63** .42** .45** .34*
5 – Parental play maintenance .34* .29* .06 .09 .50** .52** .45** .40** .45** .43*
6 – Child play content -.07 -.03 .59** .47** .02 .73** .61** .48**
7 – Child play frame .38** .37** .54** .62** .19 .55** .65** .47**
8 – Child symbolic transformations -.00 -.29* .50** .49** .02 .51** .39** .24
9 – Child play maintenance .25 .13 .47** .26 .19 .41** .45** .06
KIDIa -.04 -.23 .20 .06 .04 .45**
Parental education .01 .02 .11 .22 .04 .20

Correlations for toddlers are reported below the diagonal; for preschoolers, above
*
p < .05. ** p < .01
a
KIDI is a measure of parental knowledge of general child development
504
development and three categories of parental play: parental
direct guidance, symbolic transformations, and play mainte-
nance. To establish whether more educated parents expressed
a better knowledge of child development than less educated
parents, we calculated correlation coefficients between paren-
tal scores on KIDI and their level of formal education within
the two age groups. The obtained correlations showed that
parental education significantly and positively correlated with
parental knowledge of child development in the group of pre-
school children (r = .45, p = .001), whereas the correlation was
not significant for the group of toddlers (r = .20, p = .162).
In the final step, we carried out a stepwise regression anal-
ysis to examine the relationships among parental education
and five parental play behaviours and parents’ general knowl-
edge of child development. In the first step, parental education
was entered into the model as a predictor of parental KIDI
score as a dependent variable, followed by the five categories
of parental play in the next step. The obtained results showed
that parental education, as expected, was a significant predic-
tor of parental general knowledge of child development; more
educated parents expressed a better general knowledge of
child development (β = .29, p = .004). Among the five paren-
tal play behaviours, parental use of symbolic transformations
(β = .25, p = .049) and sustaining the play frame (β = −.31,
p = .009) proved to be significant predictors of parental gen-
eral knowledge of child development above and beyond par-
ents’ education. The first model (with parental education as a
single predictor) explained 8% of the variance (adjusted
R2 = .08), F(1,94) = 8.83, p = .004), whereas with the second
model (when parental play behaviours were added as predic-
tors) explained an additional 5% of variance in parental gen-
eral knowledge of child development (adjusted R2 = .13),
F(6,89) = 3.41, p = .004.
Discussion
In our study, we aimed to analyse the role of child gender in
parental and child play behaviour during interactive play with
standard toys within the home setting. In addition, we aimed
to explore the relations between parental and child play be-
haviour as well as among parent’s general knowledge of child
development, parental play behaviour during interactive play
with a child, and parental education. The obtained results in-
dicated that child’s age affected both parental and child play
behaviour, whereas child’s gender only affected child play
behaviour. Boys and girls differed in their play behaviour,
with girls more frequently establishing the content of play,
sustaining play frame, and using more symbolic transforma-
tions than boys did. Considering the effect of child’s age,
preschool children more frequently established the play con-
tent and used symbolic transformations comparing to toddlers.
Furthermore, parents playing with toddlers more frequently
Sex Roles (2017) 77:496–509
sustained play frame and maintained play compared to parents
playing with preschool children. On the other hand, parents
involved in interactive play with preschoolers more often used
symbolic transformations during play. We also found that pa-
rental and child play behaviour were related when we consid-
ered different aspects of play both in toddlerhood and in early
childhood. Furthermore, parental general knowledge of child
development was related to both parental education and pa-
rental play behaviour above and beyond parents’ education.
The first aim of our study was to analyse the role of child
gender in parent and child interactive play behaviour during
toddlerhood and early childhood. Multiple studies have
shown that boys and girls differed in their symbolic play, both
in the frequency of play, play themes, and the inclusion of
gender-typed toys (Bornstein et al. 1999; Cote and Bornstein
2009; Holland 2003; Karnik and Tudge 2010; Rotsztein and
Zelazo 2000; Smith 2007). In our study, we analysed the effect
of child gender on different aspects of parent-child interactive
play with standard sets of toys. We found several differences
in girls’ and boys’ play behaviour as girls more frequently
established the content of play, sustained play frame, and used
more symbolic transformations compared to boys. These find-
ings are in line with the findings of several studies about
gender differences in the frequency of symbolic play during
the preschool period, with girls engaging in symbolic play
more frequently and at more sophisticated levels than boys
do (Bornstein et al., 1999; Cote and Bornstein 2009).
One possible reason for these gender differences might be
in girls’ more advanced early language ability (Eriksson et al.
2012; Fenson et al. 1994). Namely, both categories of child
play, play content, play frame, and symbolic transformations
are based heavily on a child’s comprehension and use of lan-
guage, including a child’s verbal responses to a parent’s play
acts, descriptions of his/her own play acts, taking on different
roles, using metalanguage, and naming the symbolic transfor-
mations. According to several authors (Laakso et al. 1999;
Lewis et al. 2000; McCathren et al. 1996), language and sym-
bolic play are closely related and based on similar symbolic-
conceptual processes. On the other hand, our findings indicat-
ed that child gender did not affect parental play behav-
iour. These findings are not in line with those of Cote
and Bornstein (2009) who found that mothers of girls,
aged 20 months, engaged in more symbolic play than
mothers of boys did. The parents included in our sam-
ple did not differ in their interactive play behaviour
when playing with boys or girls.
Our findings further indicated that child’s age affected both
parental and child play. Namely, parents playing with toddlers
more frequently sustained play frame and maintained play
than parents playing with preschool children did. On the other
hand, parents involved in interactive play with preschoolers
more often used symbolic transformations during play. Also,
preschool children more often established the play content and
Sex Roles (2017) 77:496–509
used symbolic transformations compared to toddlers. These
findings seem expected because parents structured and en-
couraged toddlers’ play to a greater extent by sustaining the
play frame and maintaining play, whereas both the parents of
preschool children and the preschoolers themselves used more
symbolic transformations during play as the play becomes
increasingly symbolic throughout the preschool period.
Secondly, we aimed to explore the relations between pa-
rental and child play behaviour within the two age groups of
children, namely toddlers and preschool children. Some stud-
ies (Bornstein et al. 1996; Nielsen and Christie 2008) have
shown that parental participation and scaffolding of a child’s
play were positively related to a child’s more complex play
behaviour. The findings of our study showed that parental and
child play behaviour during interactive play were related when
we considered several aspects of play, both in toddlerhood and
early childhood. In the group of toddlers, parental direct guid-
ance was the category of parental play behaviour that was
positively related to all four categories of child play, indicating
that toddlers whose parents frequently provided direct guid-
ance during interactive play also more often established the
content of the play, sustained play frame, used more symbolic
transformations, and more frequently maintained play. In this
respect, some authors (Damast et al. 1996; Nielsen and
Christie 2008) emphasize the scaffolding role of an adult in
child’s play, particularly in toddlerhood when toddlers’ play is
largely imitative.
Furthermore, we found that parental use of symbolic trans-
formations was one important aspect of parental play behav-
iour related to a child’s play behaviour. Research suggests that
children engage in symbolic play to a greater extent after
watching an adult perform symbolic acts with objects
(Bornstein et al. 1996; Nielsen and Christie 2008). Our find-
ings suggest that toddlers, whose parents performed more
symbolic acts during interactive play, used more symbolic
transformations during play themselves. The only category
of parental play behaviour that was not related to child play
in the group of toddlers was parental maintenance of play. One
possible reason for this finding is that the parents, who more
frequently used the strategies to maintain child’s play (e.g.,
changed their own activity at the child initiative, introduced
a strategy for the child to continue playing), responded in this
way to toddlers who played at a less advanced levels of play
and needed more encouragements from their parents to con-
tinue playing.
In the group of preschool children different aspects of pa-
rental and child play behaviour were related even to a greater
extent compared to the group of toddlers. Namely, preschool
children, aged from 3 to 5 years, whose parents more frequent-
ly provided direct guidance during play, used more symbolic
transformations, more frequently maintained play, and more
often expressed play behaviour in all four categories them-
selves. Although, after the age of three children take a more
505
initiative role in pretend play (Smith 2007), our findings sug-
gest that parents’ role in child’s play stays important during
early childhood as well. Positive correlations between parental
and child play behaviour obtained in our study might imply
that parents, who more frequently expressed a certain play
behaviour during interactive play, encouraged their toddlers
and preschoolers to respond with a certain play behaviour
(e.g., by taking on a certain role, parents might have encour-
aged a child to respond by taking on a role themselves or by
suggesting a play content to a child; parents might have en-
couraged the child to negotiate the play content with the par-
ent). We should however emphasize that the obtained correla-
tions do not imply a causal relationship between parental and
child play behaviour. Namely, parents might have adapted
their behaviour to their child’s level of play so that parents
playing with a child, who expressed higher levels of play,
might have responded by engaging in higher levels of play
themselves (e.g., children who more frequently created imag-
inary situations in their play also encouraged parents to get
involved in the same imaginary situations).
In our study, we also aimed to analyse the role of parental
general knowledge of child development in the way parents
play with their children. It was interesting to note that parental
knowledge was not related to parental play behaviour in the
group of toddlers but was positively related to parental play
behaviour in the group of preschool children. In addition,
parents’ education was related to their general knowledge of
child development in the group of preschool children but not
in the group of toddlers. Parents with a greater knowledge of
child development provided more direct guidance, used more
symbolic transformations, and more frequently maintained
play when playing with children, aged from 3 to 5, than did
parents with a lesser knowledge of child development. Our
findings thus suggest that all parents, regardless of their gen-
eral knowledge of child development, expressed similar play
behaviour when playing with toddlers but not with preschool
children. One of the reasons for this finding might be that
toddler’s play is not as complex as child’s play after the age
of three because toddler’s symbolic acts are primarily isolated.
Parents in our sample might have found it hard to engage with
their toddlers in symbolic play as the frequency of use of
symbolic transformations by parents and toddlers was on av-
erage relatively low.
Our findings might suggest that when child’ play and lan-
guage became more complex and advanced, between 3 and
5 years of age, parents with a better knowledge of child de-
velopment might have adopted better strategies for encourag-
ing their child’s play, particularly symbolic play. According to
Rowe (2008), a high score on the KIDI indicates that parents’
beliefs about the principles related to early experience, social
influences, and individual differences are more in line with
those that have been theorized to benefit children’s develop-
ment. The parents in our sample, who expressed a better
506
knowledge of child development, were also more educated
and observed to have a better knowledge of the appropriate
ways of scaffolding child’s play between 3 and 5 years of age.
We should however notice that the obtained correlations
should not be interpreted as causal and that sensitive interac-
tions with a child may increase parental knowledge of child
development as well. According to our regression analysis,
more educated parents and parents who included more sym-
bolic transformations in their play expressed a better general
knowledge of child development, whereas parents who more
frequently sustained the play frame expressed a lesser knowl-
edge of general child development.
The finding that parental sustaining of play frame was neg-
atively associated, whereas the use of symbolic transforma-
tions was positively associated, with parental knowledge
might be interpreted in a way that the play frame category
refers to parental description of play which is concrete and
was more frequently observed in parents playing with tod-
dlers. The use of symbolic transformations however repre-
sents more complex play behaviour typical for parents playing
with the preschool children. Parents with a better knowledge
of child development were also more educated, which is in
line with the findings of other authors (MacPhee 2002; Rowe
2008). In fact, parental education alone explained 8% of var-
iance in parental general knowledge of child development,
whereas parental play behaviour explained an additional 5%
of variance.
Limitations and Future Research Directions
One of the drawbacks of our study was a relatively highly
educated sample of parents. In future studies, it would be
interesting to further analyse the relations between parental
knowledge of child development and parent’s play behaviour
in samples of lesser educated parents. We also would recom-
mend focusing more on an analysis of a child’s direct re-
sponses to parental behaviour during interactive play, thus
gaining more information about the direct effect that a parent’s
scaffolding has on a child’s play. In this respect, it would also
seem important to study gender differences with a longitudinal
approach, which would provide conclusions about the predic-
tive value and a potential long-term effect of parental play
behaviour on the characteristics of girls’ and boys’ play.
One additional limitation of our study was that although we
focused on the role of child’s gender in various aspects of
parental and child interactive play behaviour, we did not con-
sider the potential effect of gender on the content of play or the
use of toys. Although both genders were presented with the
same standard set of toys, it might have been that boys and
girls or their parents included specific toys from the set in their
play. Because the parents themselves decided which one of
them would participate in our study, our sample included 92%
mothers. It would be interesting to analyse possible
Sex Roles (2017) 77:496–509
differences in play behaviour as well as in parental knowledge
of child development of mothers and fathers but, due to a
small sample of fathers in our study, we were not able to
consider the role of parents’ gender in interactive play with
the child. Although the observations of parent-child play were
carried out in a naturalistic home setting, the presence of the
researcher who recorded the play might have, at least to some
extent, lead to social desirability effects. Due to the presence
of the observer, parents might have played with their child
more than they usually do.
Practice Implications
Although our study was not a longitudinal one and its findings
do not allow us to draw conclusions about the long-term ef-
fects of parental play behaviour on child’s play, we might
hypothesize that parental play behaviour affects child play
throughout toddlerhood and early childhood. Namely, the pos-
itive correlations between parental and children’s play behav-
iour suggest that adults’ involvement in children’s play re-
mains important during the whole preschool period and thus
provides many possibilities for scaffolding child’s play. Our
findings also indicate that, although parents did not differ in
their play behaviour with respect to their child’s gender, girls
and boys differed in several aspects of play, including the use
of symbolic transformations. These findings emphasize the
need for supporting and providing equal opportunities for
girls’ and boys’ involvement in symbolic play and seem im-
portant within different professions (e.g., psychology, pedago-
gy, preschool education), which are involved in the process of
supporting children’s development and learning in the pre-
school period. In several studies, symbolic play was found
to support various aspects of child development, including
language, cognitive, social, and emotional development; the
development of early literacy; and theory of the mind. Thus
the encouragement of symbolic play provides an important
context for supporting child’s development and learning. We
believe that this is especially important within preschool insti-
tutions where professional workers should be appropriately
educated in terms of supporting the symbolic play of girls
and boys. Based on our findings, it seems that one possible
way to equip parents, as well as other adults’ working with
children, with appropriate scaffolding strategies during inter-
active play with a child would be to increase their knowledge
of child development.
Conclusion
In general, we might conclude that parents in our study played
in similar ways with girls and boys. However, girls and boys
differed in several aspects of their play, including establishing
the play content, sustaining the play frame, and using symbol-
ic transformations (e.g., they more frequently played as if the
Sex Roles (2017) 77:496–509
toy was a real person, object or animal; created imaginary
situations; adopted a role and spoke in the role; played without
toys). Our findings also indicate that parents’ and children’s
play behaviour are closely related during the preschool period
and that parental general knowledge of child development
plays an important role in parent’s scaffolding of child’s play.
According to the results of our study, parental knowledge of
child development is associated with both parental education
and parental play behaviour during interactive play with a
child, particularly by sustaining the play frame and by the
use of symbolic transformations.
Compliance with Ethical Standards This research involves human
subjects (a sample of children and their parents) and received ethical
approval prior to being conducted.
Conflict of Interest The authors (Ljubica Marjanovič-Umek and Urška
Fekonja-Peklaj) declare that they have no conflict of interest.
Informed Consent All participants gave informed consent to partici-
pate in the study.
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