Parents' attitudes and the involvement of kindergarten and preschool teachers in child play with the aim of fostering social-emotional development

Dječja igra jedna je od najvažnijih aktivnosti djece predškolskog uzrasta. Ukoliko se osmisli u skladu sa zakonitostima djetetovog razvoja, može predstavljati važno sredstvo poticanja socioemocionalnog razvoja djeteta. Najvažniji subjekti u poticanju socioemocionalnog razvoja djeteta putem igre su djetetovi roditelji i odgojitelji. Stoga je cilj ovog rada bio utvrditi stavove roditelja prema važnosti igre i važnosti zajedničke igre roditelja i djeteta sa svrhom poticanja socioemocionalnog razvoja. Jedan od ciljeva bio je i istražiti razinu uključenosti roditelja i odgojiteljica u dječjoj igri. U radu je korištena metoda anketnog upitnika na uzorku od 63 odgojiteljice i 155 roditelja djece čija djeca pohađaju vrtiće. Rezultati istraživanja pokazali su da roditelji u prosjeku izražavaju pozitivne stavove prema važnosti dječje igre i zajedničke igre roditelja i djeteta sa svrhom poticanja socioemocionalnog razvoja, ali izražavaju nesigurnost oko važnosti razvoja emotivne regulacije kroz igru, važnosti socioemocionalnog razvoja u odnosu na kognitivni i vlastite uloge u poticanje socioemocionalnog razvoja svog djeteta kroz igru. Roditelji se u prosjeku s djecom igraju nekoliko puta mjesečno i velik dio njih nije motiviran za razgovor s odgojiteljicama o temama koje se odnose na dječju igru. Rezultati su, također, pokazali da su odgojiteljice u velikoj mjeri uključene u igru s djecom, ali velik dio njih učestalo određuje uloge i načine na koje će djeca koristiti materijale u igri.Child's play is one of the preschool children’s most important activities. If it is developed according to the principles of child development, it can represent an important means of the child's social-emotional development. The main subjects in fostering child's social-emotional development by means of child's play are parents and kindergarten and preschool teachers. Thus, the aim of this paper was to determine parents’ attitudes towards the importance of child's play and the importance of parents’ and child’s mutual play with the objective of fostering social-emotional development. Also, one of the aims was to investigate the level of parents’ involvement and kindergarten and preschool teachers’ role in child’s play. In this paper, a questionnaire method was used on the sample of 63 kindergarten and preschool teachers and 55 parents whose children attend kindergartens. The results of this research have shown that parents on average express positive attitudes towards the importance of child's play and parents’ and child’s mutual play with the objective of fostering social-emotional development, but are insecure about the importance of development of emotional regulation through play, the importance of social-emotional development in relation to cognitive development, and their own role in fostering social-emotional development through play. On average, parents play with their children once a month, and many of them are not motivated to discuss the subject of child’s play with educators. The results have also shown that the kindergarten and preschool teachers were predominantly included in child play, but a large number of them frequently appoints the roles and ways in which children should use the play material