The relationship between parents and children has evolved over time. If before the upbringing and care of children used to fall to the mothers, now today’s parents spend three times more time with their children, compared to those previous generations.
Various investigations have discussed the benefits of having parents involved in raising children, and now we add one more study to the list, which has found that physical contact games between father and children during the first three years of life improve the control of emotions .
Published in the journal Developmental Review , the study carried out by the faculty of education at the University of Cambridge and the LEGO Foundation aimed to analyze how play with mother and / or father influenced children’s development from birth to all three years .
This new research consisted of the systematic review of 78 studies conducted in Europe and the United States between 1977 and 2017, in which a consistent correlation between parent-child play and children’s emotional abilities had been found.
According to the results of the research, those children whose parents spent time playing with them from an early age showed a greater facility to control their emotions and behavior in the long term.
Although it is beneficial for all children that both parents spend time with them and above all, that they play together, we know that there are differences between the way each one plays with their children.
For example, the study found that parents are more prone to physical contact play , such as tickling, chasing, or carrying their children on their backs, which according to this new analysis helps children learn to better control their emotions .
In conclusion, the researchers found three key discoveries during this review:
- The first: that parents spend a significant proportion of their time with their children in playful interactions, often in the form of physical games .
- The second: on balance, the evidence suggests that the frequency of play between father and children increases from infancy to preschool age , and then decreases towards the arrival of middle childhood.
- The third: studies that analyzed the relationship between parent-child play suggest that parents’ play in the first years of life contributes positively to children’s social, emotional and cognitive development .
In conclusion, it is important that children spend enough time with both parents, but the physical play they have with dad is not only fun for them, but also helps them to have a better emotional and social development , which will be very useful for them. all his life.
Photo | Pexels
Via | The Guardian
In Babies and more | Children learn important life skills by playing physical contact games with their parents
