Parent-child physical and pretense play: Links to children's social competence

Connections were examined between parent-child pretense and physical play a nd children's (median age = 5 years) social competence. Children's emotion knowledge and self-efficacy were assessed as possible mediators linking par ent-child play behavior and children's social competence. The pattern of as sociations observed suggest that mutually responsive parent-child interacti on during both pretense and physical play is associated with children's soc ial competence. In addition, parent-child joint pretense play is linked to children's social competence. Children's emotion knowledge was positively a ssociated with children's social competence, whereas children's self-effica cy was negatively associated with social competence. Tests for mediation re vealed that parent-child mutual compliance during play accounted for unique variance in children's peer competence, whereas children's emotion knowled ge did not account for a significant portion of the variance.