Examining Mothers’ Reflective Capacity and Their Approach to Parent–Child Play

PURPOSE: Parent-child joint play is important for child growth, development, and learning (Bentenuto et al., 2016). However, research has not yet addressed whether mothers’ perceptions of engaging in joint play varies depending upon how involved the mother is during the joint-play experience. The aim of this qualitative study was to explore how three mother-child dyads joint play is shaped by mother’s perception and what effect there is on the child’s play behavior.

DESIGN: A case study design approach was utilized with a purposeful selection of three dyads with variant degrees of maternal support during joint play. These cases were drawn from a large sample.

METHODS: Three mothers and their typically developing children were videotaped during a 15-minute play session at their home environment. They completed a demographic questionnaire then invited to play for 15 minutes at a space in their home they usually play in. Next, the mothers engaged in an open-ended and audio-recorded interview about their perception of play. The content comparative analysis approach was used to create codes, categories, and themes for each mother interview and joint play observation. Applying a case-study approach, code maps were created to identify trends between each dyad interview and observation as well as to identify common themes across all three dyads interviews and observations.

RESULTS: This study deepened the researchers’ understanding of the variant degrees of support a mother provides to her child and its possible connection with a mother’s self-reflection capacity. The first case play style was characterized as “solitary and parallel play.” The mother directed her son’s activity engagement, but he appeared to be disinterested in her direction. In the interview, the mother described her play as a child as solitary and that she perceives play to be a solitary activity rather than as an interactive experience. In the second case, the dyadic play style was characterized as “play and bonding,” reciprocal and positive in its nature. The mother frequently praised and encouraged her son, displayed signs of affection and laughed with him. Her behavior seemed to encourage her son to continue playing despite the challenges he encountered. During the interview, she said that their play is a bonding experience for them. The third case play style was characterized, as “we are alike,” although they did not interact much verbally, they played together and showed affection often. During the interview, the mother used very few words and did not elaborate about her experience and perception of joint play, but highlighted how similar they are in terms of play.

CONCLUSION: The three mothers presented different play and interaction styles with their children which aligned with mothers’ reported perceptions of this mother/child play experience. The two main themes across three cases were: (a) maternal supportive behavior during joint play and the effect it had on child’s play behavior; and (b) mother reflective capacity of her own play history and interaction with her parents and the connection she described with how she played with her child. This study’s findings correspond with Slade et al. (2005) who reported that mothers who were able to describe their own childhood experiences were more able to make sense of their child’s behavior and better understand the intentions/feelings underlay child’s behavior.

IMPACT STATEMENT: In order to provide family-centered occupation-based intervention, it is imperative that occupational therapists appreciate the uniqueness of each family experience as well as maternal reflective capacity and supportive behavior. Guided by narrative reasoning occupational therapists can further deepen the provision of family-centered services.

References

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