Pretend play of young children in the Malaysian context

ABSTRACT

Pretend play is one of the most beneficial and complex forms of play that promotes a myriad of children’s development. Children’s engagement in pretend play can be influenced by their genders, age, material or toys available, and adults’ support. Pretend play has been long studied globally, however, there is still a dearth of available information about it in the Malaysian context. This study explored 85 young children’s engagement in pretend play at home from the perspectives of parents, the differences in engagement based on children’s age and gender; and the perceived benefits of pretend play for young children. Children mostly engage in pretend play at home alone, with siblings and their parents. Children as young as 2 years old engaged in from the simplest to the complex form of pretend play. However, no statistical differences were found in pretend play engagement across age and gender groups. Most parents perceive that pretend play is beneficial for children’s development especially creativity, imagination, social and communication skills. Results are from a single source and are to be interpreted with caution which can be improved with multiple sources of data collected in future research.

KEYWORDS:

• Pretend play
• Young children
• Malaysia
• Children’s development
• Parents’ perspectives

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to acknowledge the participants and colleagues involved in the validation process of the questionnaires.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Child Development Research Centre (NCDRC) [grant number 2020-0023-107-04].