Adults’ influence on pretend play of young children

The article analyzes modern approaches to determining the adult’s role in the development of child play activity and discusses the data of empirical studies concerning the impact of socio-cultural context on parent-child play. The article regards the direct and indirect influences of parents on the pretend play of their children, discloses the sources of individual and cross-cultural differences in the quantity and quality of parent-child pretend play, specifies gender differences in mothers’ and fathers’ play behavior. The article’s main focus is pretend play, providing the efficiency and timeliness of cognitive, emotional and social developments of children in early age.

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