Playful perceptions: the role of and barriers to play for parents of young children in diverse global contexts

ABSTRACT While the importance of play for young children’s healthy brain development is widely recognized, the literature on the role and perceptions of play among parents of young children is largely grounded in industrialized and well-resourced contexts. As such, there remains an important need to understand the role, perception, and value of play among families in more fragile contexts and geographies, including humanitarian settings. In an effort to address this knowledge gap, this study presents findings on the role and perception of play from 825 parents and caregivers of children ages 3–8 years old from a diverse range of low-resource and humanitarian contexts. The findings here demonstrate that play has a central role in families’ lives and parents under the link between play and children’s holistic development, but that there are both individual and structural issues that limit opportunities for play and that present significant challenges to play.