In their literature review on war play and aggression, Malloy and McMurray-Schwarz (2004) talk about two theories that generally dominate the field. When it comes to the impact of war play on children’s behavior, opinions are divided. This seems to suggest that exposure and accessibility towards examples of fantasy combat situations encourage children to adopt these behaviors in their play. Interestingly, active mediation did not decrease war play and, on the contrary, even increased it for girls. Active mediation means that the parent tries to help the child understand the content of what he or she is watching, for instance by discussing which behaviors are desirable and what should be learned from the fictional story of the superheroes. The same authors also investigated how parents’ active mediation influences the effect of superhero programs. (2014) found that viewing superhero programs lead to more gunplay for both boys and girls, although boys were more likely to watch such programs in the first place. ![]() In line with these observations, Coyne et al. This might be because of the kind of choices parents make when buying presents, or because of the different media programmes that boys and girls watch. It has been observed that boys engage in more war play than girls (Costabile et al., 1992). Furthermore, parental attitudes, television programmes, and the play choices of peers and siblings seem to be influencing children’s play type selection. However, when it comes to school settings, there was a consensus that war-related toys should not be allowed, as they do not match with the values that they would like their children to adopt. (1992) found varying opinions about war play at home: not approving it and not buying toy guns, not approving but not discouraging it, being unsure or believing it is a natural behavior and even joining the play. Through a survey of Western European parents’ attitudes, Costabile et al. In other words, are there reasons to discourage this type of play?īefore looking at the behavioral consequences of war play, it is worth mentioning that both parents’ attitudes towards such play and media exposure are involved in the extent to which children practice it. The question that arises is whether there are negative effects of war play on the behavior of children which potentially offset the benefits that pretend play has in general. War play is a type of pretend play, but its content is about conflict and violence. Pretend play in particular was shown to be valuable for supporting divergent thinking, school achievement (Wallance & Russ, 2015), and cognitive and emotional regulation (Slot, Mulder, Verhagen & Leseman, 2015). Playful activities hide deeper meanings and shape the development of important capacities like problem-solving, decision-making, language, creativity, or social skills (Burriss & Tsao, 2002). ![]() ![]() Even though it may seem superficial, play is undeniably essential for development.
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