Abstract
In the push for earlier academic skills, play has often been limited or even excluded from preschools and elementary schools. Analysis of data from almost 1,700 Australian children, collected when they were ages 3 and 7 years, revealed that those with better peer play ability at age 3 consistently showed fewer signs of poor mental health four years later. They tended to have lower hyperactivity, parents and teachers reported fewer conduct and emotional problems, and the children were less likely to get into fights or disagreements with other children. This connection generally held true even when the researchers focused on children who were particularly at risk of mental health problems. It also applied when they considered other risk factors for mental health—such as poverty levels, or cases in which the mother had experienced serious psychological distress during or immediately after pregnancy. This would suggest that providing supported play opportunities to peers for young children vulnerable to mental health issues could be a significant benefit to their long-term mental health.
The link between peer play and mental health probably exists because playing with others supports the development of emotional self-control and socio-cognitive skills, such as the ability to understand and respond to other people’s feelings. These are fundamental to building stable, reciprocal friendships. Even if children are at risk of poor mental health, those friendship networks will help them deal with situations. The quality of peer play is more important than the quantity. Games with peers that encourage children to collaborate or activities that promote sharing will be more beneficial. For children, more social connections also create a virtuous cycle, as they usually lead to more opportunities for peer play.
Using a record provided by parents, researchers documented how well the children played in four different types of peer play at age 3: simple games; imaginative pretend play; goal-directed activities (such as building a tower from blocks); and collaborative games like hide-and-seek. These four peer play indicators were used to create a measure of “peer play ability”—the underlying ability of a child to engage with peers in a playful way. The researchers calculated the strength of the relationship between that measure and reported symptoms of possible mental health problems—hyperactivity and conduct, emotional, and peer problems—at age 7. The researchers also analyzed two sub-groups of children within the overall cohort: children with high “reactivity” (children who were very easily upset and difficult to soothe in infancy) and those with low “persistence” (children who struggled to persevere when encountering a challenging task). Both these traits are linked to poor mental health outcomes.
Children with a higher peer play ability score at age 3 consistently showed fewer signs of mental health difficulties at age 7. For every unit increase in peer play ability at age 3, children’s measured score for hyperactivity problems at age 7 fell by 8.4%, conduct problems by 8%, emotional problems by 9.8% and peer problems by 14%. This applied regardless of potential confounding factors such as poverty levels and maternal distress, and whether or not they had plentiful opportunities to play with siblings and parents. The effect was evident even among the at-risk groups. Those children in the low persistence category who were better at playing with peers at age 3 consistently had lower hyperactivity, and fewer emotional and peer problems, at age 7. The researchers suggest that may be because peer play often forces children to problem-solve and confront unexpected challenges, and therefore directly addresses low persistence. Although the benefits of peer play were weaker for the high reactivity sub-group (possibly because such children are often anxious and withdrawn, and less inclined to play with others), better peer play at age 3 was also linked to lower hyperactivity at age 7.
The researchers suggest that assessing children’s access to peer play at an early age could be used to screen for those potentially at risk of future mental health problems. They also argue that giving the families of at-risk children access to environments that promote high-quality peer play, such as playgroups or small-group care with professional child minders, could be an easily deliverable and low-cost way to reduce the chances of mental health problems later.