Untangling the mysteries of pretend play in parent-child interactions
PhD student Catherine Sheehan is researching the role of pretend play in children’s emotional development.
Catherine Sheehan’s PhD research explores pretend play and emotional development in children who have been referred by their schoolteachers for behaviour and socio-emotional problems.
“People often underestimate the complexity of pretend play,” she says. “Children just look like they’re having fun when they’re having a tea party with teddies, but so many complex cognitive and social skills are also at play! My research is all about whether pretend play helps children to develop emotional skills.”
Catherine is part of the Neurodevelopment Assessment Unit in the Centre for Human Developmental Science at the School of Psychology.
Her interest in her PhD research area comes from her time both as a teacher and as a parent.
“My youngest child turned three just as I started my PhD. The period between 3 and 5 years is considered to be the ‘heyday’ of pretend play, so she’s come along on my PhD journey with me from day one! It’s lovely,” she says.
“I have such a passion for my work. I’m in a really privileged position to be researching something I believe to be so fundamentally important to child development and then to come home each day and witness this phenomenon in action. My PhD is just the most beautiful blend of my personal experiences and my academic interests.”
Pretend play has intrigued researchers for a long time, with psychologists, neuroscientists, educators, and anthropologists among those trying to answer the question: why do children pretend?
Existing work has implicated pretend play in the development of many domains, including language abilities, executive functions, social skills, and emotion regulation. However, in 2013, a seminal review paper by Angeline Lillard and colleagues demonstrated that pretend play’s role in development remains ambiguous. A decade later, we are still searching for answers.
Catherine’s research builds upon work investigating pretend play’s role in emotional development. “We know that pretend play is a really fascinating and important part of most of our childhoods, so we think it’s likely to have a key role in development; we’re just not sure exactly what or how,” she says. “We think children may use pretend play to play out emotionally challenging situations and to help them cope with difficulties. One idea that I’m looking at is whether pretend play is involved in how children regulate their emotions.”
Catherine’s undergraduate degree was a Human Sciences BA at Oxford. As the first person in her family to go to university, she had no idea what to expect and had never considered a future career in academia. She was drawn to the multidisciplinary approach offered by the undergrad course: “One moment I was taking classes in genetics, evolution, and physiology, and the next I was learning about anthropology, demography, and statistics!”
But it was the module in developmental psychology that interested her the most, and that interest was rekindled when she became a mother. “My children definitely inspired me to go back to Psychology. Watching them grow and change in a predicted fashion gave me a new curiosity for some of the theories of development I’d heard about in my undergrad years.”
“A lot of what we already know about pretend play has traditionally come from community samples of neurotypical preschool children, usually playing with siblings or friends.”
Catherine’s work is extending this by focusing on children in early to middle childhood – specifically those who are engaging in pretence with a parent. Her area of specialism is children who’ve been referred by schoolteachers for behavioural, cognitive, or emotional problems to the School of Psychology’s Neurodevelopment Assessment Unit. By focusing on children who are experiencing difficulties, she hopes to provide new insights on pretend play and its links to emotional development.
“The children that come to see us at the NDAU are generally referred for conduct, emotional, or peer problems,” Catherine says. “They are a kind of ‘forgotten band of children’ who do not have a diagnosis for a neurodevelopmental or mental health condition, yet are still struggling with their behaviours or emotions in the classroom.”
Catherine’s research was inspired by her own experiences with her career in the charity and education sectors, and the time she took out to have her four children.
“I was able to watch as they reached their milestones, and each one engaged in this wonderful form of play. I loved watching them chat to their toys, or set extra places for them at our dinner table. It also reminded me of how my sister and I would spend hours playing schools and hospitals with our dolls in the middle of the landing! I realise now just how important this is for our development.
“Children become so engrossed in their pretend that nothing else seems to matter to them in that moment. It’s total mindfulness for children. So, when this PhD came up, I knew I had to go for it.”
“Catherine’s research on pretend play between children and their parents and carers addresses important questions about the developing complexity of children’s social worlds. Catherine’s work takes advantage of our exceptional facilities in the Cardiff University Centre for Human Developmental Science, and forms part of an innovative and groundbreaking research programme on child development here in the School of Psychology.”
— Professor Katherine Shelton, Head of the School of Psychology
Catherine’s research project focuses on one of the tasks that children complete during their time at the NDAU.
They are asked to play freely with a PlayMobil zoo for five minutes. “It’s a great task – children love it when the parent rejoins them in the testing room, and they’re given time to play together.
“It’s both fascinating and lovely to watch. There is such a difference in how different parents and children engage with the same task. Some parents do all the voices and really get in the zone, and others will focus on building the playset: ‘look, let’s put the penguins over here, let’s put the giraffes in there’.”
Catherine is providing the first detailed characterisation of parent-child pretend play in early to middle childhood: between the ages of four and eight. “I’m looking at specific pretend play behaviours. So, for example, what do children do when they play pretend? What do parents do, and do they influence each other? Is there lots of enacting and negotiating going on, or are they focusing on how to organise their play?”
Catherine’s research also looks into the themes of pretend play – for example, “Is it quite aggressive play, or is it nurturing and caring? Is it positive?
“So for me, it’s not just ‘How are they playing?’, it’s also ‘What are they playing about?’. Importantly, I’m also looking at how their play may relate to the problems they’re already experiencing.”
Catherine plans to research whether these behaviours and themes are associated with how children regulate their emotions. “There’s a theory that children use pretend play to regulate their emotions,” she says, “such as to play out emotionally challenging situations, or use it as a coping strategy.
“My sample is unique because I’m studying children who have been referred for emotional and behaviour problems, so it will be particularly interesting to see how emotion regulation looks among these children, and how their pretend play may be intertwined with this.”
The Neurodevelopment Assessment Unit
The NDAU assesses and supports children who are experiencing emotional, cognitive, and behavioural problems.
Primary school teachers refer their pupils to the Neurodevelopment Assessment Unit (NDAU) in order to identify a child’s support needs.
Teachers refer children aged 4 to 7 who do not have a diagnosis of a neurodevelopmental or mental health condition, but who are still struggling in the classroom.
The Neurodevelopment Assessment Unit do not diagnose neurodevelopmental or mental health conditions. Instead, they take a trans-diagnostic approach that focuses on assessing symptoms and identifying support strategies.
During two sessions at the NDAU, children complete a series of tasks to assess different domains of skills and abilities. The tasks focus on the children’s attention, behaviour, emotion, communication, social interaction, memory, and self-regulation. The results of each individual child’s assessments are fed back to the school, with advice from an educational psychologist on how to support them in the classroom.
The NDAU team has used this wide range of data to investigate specific domains of children’s functioning. The team includes researchers, a clinical psychologist, and an educational psychologist.
Research at the Centre for Human Developmental Science
The Centre brings together psychology, neuroscience, education, health, and social care in an interdisciplinary approach to the study of human development.
Catherine is self-funding her research, and her past career and time as a stay-at-home parent have made their mark on her PhD in more ways than one.
“It’s hard being a mature student,” she says. “A lot of my peers are half my age. But I do feel that I bring a completely different perspective to the PhD.
“You hear all about impostor syndrome, and it happens to everyone, regardless of age and experience. Every PhD student starts off with it! But coming back in after twenty years out of academia was hard.
“The Doctoral Academy here at the University have been brilliant. They have such great opportunities for PhD students to get involved in, and to shine a light on our research.”
The Doctoral Academy supports the University’s postgraduate research students with support, training, and community events.
Catherine won the Doctoral Academy’s Images of Research Competition 2024 with her submission showing her daughter demonstrating pretend play. In her own words:
Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we knew what children were thinking, to be afforded a ‘window into their mind’?
As humans, we each hold internal representations of our world, formed and adapted as we interact with our environment and social relationships. Our representations help us understand our world and guide our behaviour.
My research investigates the rich and diverse themes expressed in social pretend play as a means of accessing children’s mental representations, and hopefully shedding light on children’s behaviours.
While the pensive gaze of the child on the left offers few clues to her thoughts, it is through her pretend play that we may be permitted a view through the window. Feeding her pink rabbit and setting up a tea party for imaginary friends, the little girl’s play is imbued with nurturing themes, offering insights into the representations she may hold, shaping her behaviour and life outcomes.
Supporting our postgraduate researchers
PhD students at Cardiff University can join the Doctoral Academy: a supportive community that provides interdisciplinary events, activities, and training for postgraduate researchers.
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