Parents' Play Beliefs and the Relationship to Children's Social Competence

The purpose of the study was to examine parents' play beliefs and see whether their perceptions of play impact children's social competence. A total number of 142 Taiwanese parents with different social class backgrounds participated in the survey. Results revealed that most Taiwanese parents highly agreed that play contributes to children's development, and they provided supportive behaviors in play. Parents' play beliefs demonstrated a moderate positive relationship with both parent and teacher ratings of children's social competence. When adjusted for the three parental background variables that are related to children's social competence, the relationship between parents' play believes and children's social competence still existed but the level of correlation decreased slightly.