Parental playfulness as a mediator of the association between parents’ emotional difficulties and children’s psychosocial adjustment

ABSTRACTThis study examined parental playfulness as a mediator of the association between mothers' emotional difficulties (anxiety, depression) and their children's psychosocial adjustment (externalizing, internalizing, and prosocial behaviours). We also examined the associations between parental playfulness and mothers' supportive / unsupportive reactions to their child's negative emotions. Participants were 197 mothers of children aged 3–8 years, who completed online questionnaires. Mothers' higher levels of emotional difficulties were associated with lower levels of parental playfulness, and these were associated with children's higher levels of externalizing and internalizing symptoms, and lower levels of prosocial behaviours. Parental playfulness mediated the relationship between mothers' emotional difficulties and children's externalizing symptoms. It was also positively related with mothers' supportive reactions to children's negative emotions and negatively related with unsupportive reactions. These findings underscore the importance of parental playfulness to children's emotional adjustment, particularly to externalizing symptoms, and may provide a basis for new parenting interventions.KEYWORDS: Parental playfulnessexternalizing symptomsinternalizing symptomsprosocial behavioursmaternal emotional difficulties Data availabilityData supporting the results presented in this paper can be found by approaching the corresponding author.Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Additional informationNotes on contributorsM. ShorerDr. Maayan Shorer is a clinical psychologist and a senior lecturer at the clinical psychology department of Ruppin Academic Center, Israel. She is also the head of the research programme at the PTSD and Selective Mutism unit of Schneider Children’s Medical Center of Israel.N. ZilkerNitzan Zilker is a graduate student at the clinical psychology department of Ruppin Academic Center.A. SalomonAmit Salomon is a graduate student at the clinical psychology department of Ruppin Academic Center.N. SpiegelmanNoy Spiegelman is agraduate student at the clinical psychology department of Ruppin Academic Center.