P

PARALLEL PLAY

Parallel play (or parallel activity) is a term that was in-
troduced by Mildred Parten in 1932 to refer to a de-
velopmental stage of social activity in which children
play with toys like those the children around them are
using but are absorbed in their own activity and usual-
ly play beside rather than with one another. Children
in this stage may comment on what they are doing or
imitate what another child does, but they rarely coop-
erate in a task or engage in dramatic play or formal
games with others. This stage occurs after solitary and
onlooker play and before associated and cooperative
play when children engage in more complex social in-
teractions. Preschool children of all ages engage in
parallel play, particularly when using sand, water,
blocks, and art materials; this type of play appears to
serve as a bridge to more complex cooperative activi-
ties.

See also: PLAY; SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT

Bibliography
Bakeman, R., and J. R. Brownlee. ‘‘The Strategic Use of Parallel
Play: A Sequential Analysis.’’ Child Development 51 (1980):873–
878.
Parten, Mildred B. ‘‘Social Participation among Preschool Chil-
dren.’’ Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology 27 (1932):243–
269.
Rubin, K. H., William Bukowski, and J. G. Parker. ‘‘Peer Interac-
tions, Relationships, and Groups.’’ In William Damon and
Nancy Eisenberg eds., Handbook of Child Psychology, Vol. 3: So-
cial, Emotional, and Personality Development. New York: John
Wiley, 1998.
Roberta R. Collard

PARENT-CHILD RELATIONSHIPS

In two significant articles on parenting, W. Andrew

Collins and his colleagues, writing in American Psychol-

ogist, and Eleanor Maccoby, writing in Annual Review

of Psychology, both noted that an enormous body of lit-

erature supports the important role of parents in

shaping the development of children. Collins and his

colleagues and Maccoby were responding in part to

the contention of Judith Harris, author of The Nurture

Assumption, that parental influence on child develop-

ment may not be as great as the influence of genetic

predispositions and the influence of peers. Maccoby

persuasively argued that such a contention is out of

date in view of genetic studies suggesting that experi-

ences children have with parents and others can mod-

ify genetic influence and of the substantial body of

literature showing the importance of parent-child re-

lationships for a child’s development. This large body

of literature suggests that it is the quality of the par-

ent-child relationship that is particularly important in

understanding the course of the child’s development;

and that the parent-child relationship is co-

constructed by the parent and the child, not some-

thing that comes from the parent alone. In this

article, consideration is given to what aspects of par-

ent-child relationships are associated with the devel-

opment of competence and well-being in children

and how the parent-child relationship changes over

time and with development. Also considered are the

factors that contribute to these qualities of parent-

child relationships.

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