Playtime in the War-related context
A qualitative study on the fathers’ perception of playtime during the war andresettlement-phase. Sharad Ramnath
Abstract
This qualitative study attempted to shed more light on the role of playtime between refugee fathers and children during the war and in the resettlement-phase. By researching the fathers’ perception on which war-related stressors impacted playtime between refugee fathers and their children, we tried to showcase which stressor seemed to have caused a change in playtime from the war-phase to the resettlement-phase. With the help of a thematic analysis, we analyzed seven interviews with refugee fathers. These interviews were focused on the playtime between refugee fathers and their children during the war and in the resettlement-phase. We found that playtime between fathers and their children is influenced by three main stressors; public violence, the lack of basic needs and role strain. The impact of public
violence during the war increased the time fathers spend with their children. The impact of the lack of basic needs decreased playtime between fathers and children during the war, whereas the presence of basic needs in the resettlement-phase seemed to cause an increase in playtime. The impact of role strain seemed to be high and caused a decrease in playtime during the war. However, the feelings of role strain seemed to decrease in the resettlement-phase and caused an increase in playtime between fathers and children. We conclude that according to the fathers’ perception, playtime with their children seemed to be higher in the resettlement-phase in comparison to the war-phase.
Playtime in the War-related Context
Playtime between parents and children might be necessary for the development of children in the war-related context (Bryant et al, 2018; Ager et al., 2011). Fathers engaging in play might stimulate their children into regulating their emotions, thus children learning to soothe
themselves in stressful situations (Bornstein & Tamis-Lemonda, 2006). The war-related context consists of different phases, in this study the phase of the war and the phase of the resettlement will be further researched. The amount of playtime between fathers and children during the war and in the resettlement-phase can differ as a result of the variation in war-related stressors (Heptinstall, Sethna, & Taylor, 2004). It is unfortunate to behold that the role of the father is unrepresented in humanitarian refugee research. A mere five percent of the humanitarian refugee studies are focused on fathers and boys (Affleck, Selvadurai, & Sikora, 2018; Bond, 2019). Understanding how fathers perceived the change in playtime with their children, during the war in comparison to the resettlement-phase, might add to the scientific literature on how war-related stressors impact the amount of playtime. If playtime between fathers and children indeed decreases in the timeframe from high during the war to low in the resettlement-phase, as a response to war-related stressors, we need to focus on developing interventions to focus more on the impact of war-related stressors on fathers.
War-related stressors affect the family processes within ecological systems; (a) microsystem, (b) mesosystem, (c) exosystem, and (d) macrosystem (Bronfenbrenner, 1979). These systems are imbedded within the war-phase and the resettlement-phase (Williams, 2010). The war-phase in this study is defined as the flight and migration fathers experienced in Syria. Fathers might experience stress during the war from events like; violent death of family members, (temporary) separation from their children and partners and threats to their lives (Heptinstall et al., 2004). These experiences might increase the chance of fathers feeling a psychological pressure, traumatization or depression. When looking at the microsystem,
playtime between fathers and children might be affected by war-related stressors (Thabet, Ibraheem, Shivram, Winter, & Vostanis, 2009). During the war, fathers are less likely to undertake playful activities with their children, due to the impact of war-related stressors (Ee, Sleijpen, Kleber, & Jongmans, 2013). Fathers might be less involved in child-rearing
activities, play activities in specific, and report that their own issues had a negative impact on the quality of their relationship with their children.
The resettlement-phase refers to the life of the fathers and their children in the Netherlands. The amount of time that fathers spend on playing with their children might be different during the war in comparison to the resettlement-phase. The stressors that fathers and their children experience in the resettlement-phase could encompass things such as housing problems, financial dissatisfaction or language barriers in the Netherlands (Heptinstall et al., 2004). Fathers in the resettlement-phase are affected by war-related stressors. It seems that unemployment or working in a lower segment of society in
comparison to their jobs before the war, had an influence on fathers (Este & Tachble, 2009). In addition, language barriers might also have an influence on the mental health of refugee fathers in the resettlement-phase (Söndergaard & Theorell, 2004).
However, fathers still seem to be positively engaged with their children while facing the struggles of acculturation or language acquisition (Shimon, Este, & Clark, 2003). Fathers describe their playtime with children as important and practice this in a number of playful activities (David & Admasu, 2009). It seems that the amount of playtime is contingent on the amount of hours refugee parents work in the resettlement-phase. The more refugee parents work, the less playtime there seems to be with their children.
Play is considered an important aspect in existing war-related interventions (Betancourt, Meyers-Ohki, Charrow, & Tol, 2013; Smith & Gosso, 2010). Play might be
interventions used in the North of Uganda, has been researched (Ager et al., 2011). The interventions incorporated elements such as free play, play therapy, drama and arts to treat children who have been traumatized by the regional conflicts. This research involved parents in their interventions and in the treatment sessions with their children. The interventions were found likely to be effective in stimulating the well-being and in strengthening the resilience of the children.
Fathers might have a unique approach when playing with their children and might positively stimulate their development (Lindsey, Cremeens, & Caldera, 2010). Fathers tend to make more use of open-ended questions and a disciplined interaction style that stimulate the exploring behavior of children (Lindsey et al., 2010). Fathers also contribute to physically stimulating and challenging children during playtime (Ancell, Bruns, & Chitiyo, 2018). This challenging parenting attitude of fathers might be explanatory in reducing the social
behavioral inhibition of children (Majdandžić, Möller, De Vente, Bögels, & Van den Boom, 2014). This finding could be helpful in a war-related setting since social anxiety is one of the mental health problems to be found among war-affected children (Thabet et al., 2009) The amount of playtime fathers spent with their children might be helpful in creating a buffer against the mental health adversity in children (Majdandžić et al., 2014; Bornstein & Tamis-Lemonda, 2006). Children might also learn certain self-soothing strategies through playing with their fathers, especially when exposed to extreme adversity such as war.
The present study
This qualitative research will shed light on the perception fathers have on the war-related stressors and its perceived effect on playtime with their children. To our knowledge, there is no previous research that lies its focus on the amount of playtime between fathers and their children in the war-context. With the six-step thematic analysis model, the interviews with refugee fathers, with regards to playtime with their children, during the war and
resettlement-phase, were being analyzed (Clarke & Braun, 2006). The aim of this study is to get an understanding of how war-related stressors during the war and in the resettlement-phase influenced the change of playtime between fathers and their children, according to the perception of fathers. Hence the research question: How does the amount of playtime between fathers and their children change according to the perceptions of the fathers between the war-phase and the resettlement-war-phase.
Since the experiences that fathers have of stressors during the war and in resettlement-phase differ, it is expected that the perception fathers have regarding the amount of playtime, will also differ during the war and in the resettlement-phase (Heptinstall et al., 2004). With the first hypothesis we expect that this difference is caused by the difference in exposure of highly dangerous situations. Therefore, we expect that playtime during the war will be lower due to exposure of highly dangerous settings and fathers having less time to play with their children. Playtime is expected to be higher in the resettlement-phase due the absence of highly dangerous situations. With the second hypothesis we expect that fathers and children, when being displaced from their homes, might cause a difference in playtime between the war and the resettlement-phase (Farhood, Zurayk, Chaya, Saadeh, Meshefedjian, & Sidani, 1993). It is expected that being displaced from home causes a decrease in playtime and we expect more playtime when fathers and children are settled in the Netherlands
Method Sample
The sample consisted of seven refugee fathers that were married and had children. The participants were refugees from Syria that were granted asylum in the Netherlands. The ages of the participants ranged between 30 and 50 years, with a mean age of 41 years (SD = 7.2). The interviews were conducted between the time period of July 2017 and May 2018.
Recruitment. Firstly, the participants were recruited through Dutch language schools. The recruiters specifically recruited refugee parents with children. Children with refugee parents would also be fit for recruitment in this research. Secondly, social support
organizations aiding refugee families were also contacted to help in recruiting participants. The inclusion criteria were; (1) the requirement of parents and children experiencing the war together; (2) families had to be of Syrian nationality; (3) children from refugee parents had to be under the age of 12 years. Families that were separated for a long time, thus not
co-experiencing the war, were excluded from the research. The participants were asked informed consent and were able to withdraw their participation from the research at any given moment.
Procedure. The participants participated in two interviews; both of the interviews were about five days to forty-five days apart from each other. The first interview was focused on how playtime between fathers and children was before the war. Questions and topics regarding the pre-war setting were asked and discussed. The aim of the first interview was to stimulate the memories of the participants and collect statements. After the first interview the recordings were listened to, and certain statements were extracted by the researchers. The second interview focused playtime between fathers and children during the war and in the resettlement-phase. The statements from participants that were extracted from the first interview, were now being contrasted. The participants were asked for comments on the statements. The interviewer instructed the participants to draw a timeline and the participants
talked about the experiences during the war and resettlement-phase. After the second interview, transcripts were written, and statements were put into the different phases. Therefore, the comparison between playtime during the war and in the resettlement-phase could be easily made. The interviews were held in the native language of the participants, tape recorded and eventually translated from Arabic to English. Afterwards, the validity of the translated versions was checked by the researchers of this study. Random segments of interviews were chosen, to be reviewed.
Data Analysis Plan
Data were analyzed through a thematic data analysis procedure. The thematic data analysis is the process of identifying patterns or themes within the qualitative data (Braun & Clarke, 2006). The thematic analysis followed the six-step thematic analysis procedure of Braun and Clarke (2006). The aim was to identify patterns of playtime between fathers and children during the war and in the resettlement-phase. Since the research question involves the perception of fathers, all data involving the mothers were not coded.
The data was analyzed through a deductive thematic analysis with the help of the software program Atlas.ti (ATLAS.ti Scientific Software Development GmbH, 2012; Frith & Gleeson, 2004). There were two themes set in advance: (1) the war-phase or the resettlement-phase in which participants lived in; (2) the father-child interaction to capture the play
behavior. Although the two themes were set in advance, we were open to creating more main and subthemes that could be formed based on the data. The matrices that were generated, helped in comparing the fathers’ perception of playtime with their children during the war and in the resettlement-phase.
Steps of Analysis. The first step of the six-step thematic analysis procedure was to read and re-read the transcript so that the author gained familiarity with the data (Braun &
Clarke, 2006). The surrounding text of the extracts was also read to prevent the loss of context (Bryman, 2001).
When familiarized with the data, the second step was to generate the initial codes from statements with the aid software program (ATLAS.ti Scientific Software Development
GmbH, 2012; Braun & Clarke, 2006). The initial codes were generated by identifying similar statements within and between the transcripts, using the theory-driven top-down approach. The theory-top-down approach created the main themes; phase father-child interaction (Braun & Clarke, 2006).
In the third step the list of initial codes was reviewed, and the codes were organized into broader level of themes. For example, statements regarding the lack of basic needs was found many times in the interviews and were categorized as the subtheme ‘basic needs’ under the main theme ‘war-phase’. After this act, individual codebooks of the participants were put into one general codebook, distinguishing the main and the subthemes. For example, one of the broader themes, ‘public violence’, was split into two subthemes; ‘public violence on humans’ and ‘public violence in general’.
With step four, the details of the main and subthemes were further reviewed and refined. The themes had to be supported by enough data and coherent with the entire data set (Braun & Clarke, 2006). Furthermore, the theme also had to be relevant for the research question. One of the themes that was not supported by enough data was ‘fear within children’ and therefore, discarded from the codebook.
Step five was conducted to further refine the themes by looking back at the data extracts of each theme and place them within a narrative. Putting the themes in narrative created a structure and supported the themes with only credible codes. Software was used to look up certain quotations linked to the codes, and to produce the matrices in order draw comparisons between the perception of playtime in the war-context and in the
resettlement-phase (ATLAS.ti Scientific Software Development GmbH, 2012). The aim was not to
paraphrase the data of the comparison, but to have identified how it is relevant to playtime by exposing the broader overall story (Braun & Clarke, 2006). The last step of thematic data analysis procedure was producing the report.
Results
The results of the thematic analysis show three main themes that seemed to be significant in the fathers’ perception of playtime during the war and in the resettlement-phase. These themes are public violence, basic needs and role strain.
Public Violence
The first theme that emerged from the thematic analysis is the public violence during the war in Syria. The fathers in this sample were exposed to an excessive amount of public violence during the war in Syria. Public violence resulted in fathers feeling an enormous amount of physiological pressure and having very little feelings of safety. Examples of public violence given in the interviews were torture of humans, bombings, shootings on humans, exposure to dead bodies and human massacres.
Fathers feared for the safety of their children as well as their own safety. For some fathers this fear was unbearable, resulting in them showing extra tenderness. In addition, fathers wanted to spend as much time with their children as they could during the war. As one father stated:
I wanted to spend as much time with them, as possible (Tamer).
Other fathers pampered their child during the war and when fleeing from the public violence. Fathers explained their increase in pampering by realizing that their children were going through hard times during the war. They pampered their children by showing extra tenderness but also putting less attention on disciplining their children. As one father mentioned during the interviews:
Meaning that there were things I didn’t allow, for example, or I used to punish them. Instead, I stopped and pretended not to notice and not give weight to the matter. I used to feel that these poor children are being treated unjustly (Yosri.)
On the other hand, for the minority of fathers the effect of public violence made fathers feel more fear than tenderness towards their children. Those fathers were more focused on bringing their families to safety. As one father reported:
I had to let it go because I wasn’t doing enough for her. I know, she was a lot to me. There was nothing in my hands. The stage of fear was bigger than the stage of tenderness at that time (Ahmed).
The impact of public violence on playtime between fathers and children resulted in fathers spending more time with their children. However, the impact of public violence on playtime did not resulted in more playtime between fathers and children.
In the resettlement-phase, there were no reports of the impact of public violence on playtime in the Netherlands. Therefore, it was interesting to look more into the lack of public violence on playtime between fathers and children in the resettlement-phase. There were no findings on how the lack of public violence interfered with playtime between fathers and children, but playtime did decrease in comparison to the amount of playtime during the war, where public violence had a daily occurrence.
Basic Needs
The lack of basic needs seemed to be a significant stressor for several fathers during the war. During the war, families struggled with the provision of basic needs such as water, electricity, gas, food and clothes. The lack of basic needs greatly influenced the living
conditions of the fathers and their families. For example, the fathers explained that they found it hard that the basic needs were not automatically available. Therefore, the fathers had to plan and organize the provision of basic needs, as one father reported:
In the morning and the evening, we fill about 50 liters that we have to carry and get to the fifth floor. My daughter suffered from hernia... (Mahmoud).
Having no access to electricity or gas, the usage of air-conditioners and heaters was not possible. This made the living conditions for the fathers and their families very harsh during the hot summers and the cold winters.
According to the fathers, the lack of basic needs had an influence on the play behavior towards their children and on the interaction with them. The fathers explained that besides not having time to engage in play, they also did not feel like playing due to the bad living
conditions. As one father mentioned:
Even answering the boy’s questions became a burden. You’re not in an atmosphere where you can sit and talk to the boy, answer him and tell him stories (Tamer). When comparing the impact of the lack of basic needs during the war with the resettlement-phase, there were no specific findings on playtime. Also, the impact of
availability of basic needs does not seem to have affected the playtime between fathers and their children. Although fathers did not directly link the availability of basic needs to their play time, they still report playing less in the resettlement-phase than during the war. Role strain
Fathers described role strain as a psychological pressure that decreased their feelings of fatherhood towards their children. In this study, two mechanisms were associated to the feelings of role strain that fathers experienced: (1) co-housing; (2) financial stressors. Each mechanismand the feelings of role strain will be further reported.
Co-housing. As a result of bombings and shootings, families were forced out of their homes and fled to a place where their safety could be ensured. Having reduced access to financial income while being displaced from their homes, caused many families to temporary live together with their family members, also known as co-housing. Co-housing made the fathers feel a psychological pressure. Fathers missed their independence as a family when living together with multiple families in one house. Missing their independence as a family
caused some fathers to feel role strain besides the psychological pressure. As a result of the role strain and psychological pressure, fathers did not feel like playing with their children. As one father explained:
When for example I was asked something, even in simple things such as playing or something, my reaction could be hard, saying for example "I am busy, later", so of course it influenced the children (Marwan).
The fathers that moved in with their parents did not only carry responsibility of their own families, but also the responsibility of caring for their parents. The parents of these fathers were not mobile enough to flee to a safer situation. Therefore, these fathers chose not to flee and leave their role as ‘son’ behind. On the other hand, these fathers were also not able to fulfill their role as father in bringing their own family to safety. This madethese fathers feel a high amount of fear that caused them to feel role strain. As one father mentioned:
I honestly tried to leave but I couldn’t, so I decided not to. I thought “my parents are with me here, where will I leave them,” get it? My mother was sick and I had to stay. But the fear was very real (Yosri).
Therefore, co-housing caused feelings of role strain led to decreased playtime between fathers and children during the war.
In the resettlement-phase, fathers mentioned the effect of the absence of co-housing in the Netherlands. First of all, fathers explained that there were no interferences from other families in their parenting practices. They mention the process of reclaiming their role as a father and how this made them feel less role strain in comparison to feelings of role strain during the war. As one father explained:
But ofcourse there was a huge difference because there were no more external
No specific findings were found on the impact that the absence of co-housing had on the playtime between fathers and children. However, fathers do mentioned feeling ensured in their role as father.
Financial stressors. Fathers reported on how financial stressors caused them to feel role strain during the war in Syria. Fathers were financially not capable to meet the demands of their children or organize living standards that were present before the war, this made the fathers feel very upset. Fathers buying candy for their children, going to amusements parks or buying new clothes was not realizable for the fathers during the war. Fathers felt the
psychological pressure from not meeting the demands of their children. This psychological pressure seemed to prevent fathers from playing with their children.
A feeling that cannot be described, it cannot even be described, but a huge psychological pressure (Marwan).
Fathers were not financially capable of buying new clothes for their children. As a
consequence, their children were wearing used or damaged clothes. Fathers reported their feelings on this matter, saying that not being able to supply new clothes puts a huge psychological pressure on them. As one father explained the impact of this psychological pressure on his role as a father:
In the first place, the country and war, this on its own is something hard for us, there was an influence on the children, aside from the influence of not being able to afford their desires, which puts a psychological pressure on you, or when you see your child wearing a torn pants and you are not able to get them another one, this already creates a pressure on you (Marwan).
Fathers mentioned that their financial situation in the resettlement-phase was not better in comparison to their life before the war in Syria. Fathers still feel like they cannot meet the
demands of their children in the same way they did before the war. This made the fathers feel upset, as one father mentioned:
This hard financial situation did not upset me because I am not getting something for myself, but it made me upset because I was not able to afford the demands of my children (Marwan).
However, fathers do report that their life in the resettlement-phase is financially better in comparison to their lives during the war in Syria. Fathers especially report a decrease in the psychological pressure since living in the Netherlands, where their safety, as well as their family’s safety, is more ensured. They also mention the activities they undertook with their children in the resettlement-phase and how they provided their children with roller-skates or bicycles. Not only did the fathers provide their children with these toys, they were also involved when the children used them. As one father said:
I then bought them a bicycle and taught them how to ride it (Tamer).
Fathers felt more family independency and were more involved in playful activities with their children in the resettlement-phase. The feelings of role strain were less in the resettlement-phase in comparison to the war-phase. In addition, the decrease of role strain according to the fathers’ perception, caused an increase of playtime between fathers and children in the resettlement-phase.
Discussion
This study aimed to get an understanding of which war-related stressors, according to the fathers’ perceptions, might be significant in the change of the amount of playtime with their children during the war and in the resettlement-phase. The goal was to understand the effect that war-related stressors had on the playtime between fathers and children, according to the perceptions of the fathers.
The results show three main themes that characterize the change in the fathers’ perception of playtime during the war and in the resettlement-phase. Firstly, the public violence resulted in fathers having anexcessive amount of fear and they spend more time with their children during the war. Secondly, the lack of basic needs added psychological pressure on the fathers and made the living conditions feel unbearable. It actually decreased playtime with their children since survival had more priority. Fathers reported less playtime in the resettlement-phase in comparison during the war in Syria. Thirdly, fathers being displaced from their homes and the impact of the financial stressors, caused fathers to feel role strain during the war which resulted in a decrease in playtime. However, the feelings of role strain were less in the resettlement-phase and therefore playtime did increase.
During the war, fear was a common difficulty that influenced how fathers felt. According to the fathers’ perception, fathers showed more tenderness towards their children and urged to spend as much time with them as they could. This finding might be in contrast with another study on fatherhood during the war (Ee, Jongmans, Aa, & Kleber, 2017). In the study conducted by Ee, Jongmans, Aa, and Kleber (2017), it has been stated that fathers might invest more energy in the interaction with their children, but they don’t necessarily end up spending more time with their children. However, since an absolute measure of the amount of time fathers spend with their children was not a part of the data collection, but rather the
perception of it, we cannot state that our findings are in contrast with the findings of Ee et al. (2017).
The results of this research add new information on the psychological pressure that fathers felt due to the impact of lack in basic needs during the war. This pressure prevented fathers from playing with their children during the war. Fathers explicitly state that they did not have the time or the urge to play with their children. Fathers explained that survival had a higher priority. The psychosocial pressure fathers coped with seems to be coherent with the findings reported in other studies (Beogo, Darboe, Oluwafunmilade, & Mendez, 2018; Rasmussen et al., 2010). An interesting conclusion in one study on war-related stressors of Malian war families showed, that even when safety of families is secured, the level of psychological pressure from the lack of basic needs is still high (Beogo et al., 2018). These findings support our findings on the importance of access to basic needs and how it decreased playtime between fathers and children due to the psychological pressure that fathers felt.
Another main findingin this study is that fathers were less able to play with their children because of psychological pressure they felt from role strain. The feelings of role strain seemed to be induced by fathers being displaced from their homes and the pressure of the financial stressors during the war. Earlier research on families being displaced from their homes revealed that there seemed to be fewer financial resources and less supply of basic needs when multiple families lived together (Farhood, 1999; Farhood et al., 1993). It seems that the impact from being displaced from their homes and the financial stressors intertwined with each other. The current research supports this finding since being displaced from their homes and the financial stressors both caused a decrease in playtime with their children during the war.
independence as a family and reported less role strain. Secondly, fathers provide their children with roller skates and bicycles and involved in teaching them how to make use of it. These findings imply that fathers are more able to meet the demands of their children. Therefore, fathers felt less role strain from financial stressors in the Netherlands.
Finally, although the comparison of playtime between the war-phase and the resettlement-phase showed mixed findings, the dominant narrative of this study lies on the finding that the amount of playtime is higher in the resettlement-phase in comparison to life during the war. Worth mentioning, some fathers reported a decrease of playtime in the resettlement-phase due to non-war-related stressors.
The first hypothesis expected fathers playing less during the war in comparison to the resettlement-phase, due to highly dangerous living conditions that were present during the war. This hypothesis was partially supported by the results. Fathers did report spending less play time during the war, due to public violence, but it does not show less playtime in the resettlement-phase. In addition, the second hypothesis expected fathers not being able to play due to unstable living conditions like being displaced from their homes. This hypothesis is supported by the results in this study since there seemed to be less playtime due to the impact of being displaced from their homes. When fathers and their children were settled down in the Netherlands, the amount of playtime increased.
One finding in this study involved the role strain fathers felt when experiencing the displacement from their homes. However, the feeling of role strain can be explained by the fact that many fathers experienced a disrupt in their family life (Williams, 2011). The family life before the war has been structured by gender roles where the role of the father is more likely to be the head of the family. Being the head of the family often means that fathers are the ones that work and generate a financial income to supply the needs of their families. The pressure of war-related stressors might cause fathers to be less effective in fulfilling the needs
of their families due to experiencing loss of work. Just like the fathers in this study, they experienced loss of work that prevented them from financially supporting their families, thus feeling compromised in their role. This type role strain might cause a decrease in playtime. Therefore, the impact of role strain on playtime might be an important factor for refugee fathers that have experienced the war.
Strengths & Limitations
This study came with several limitations. Firstly, the occurrence of data saturation seemed to be the first limitation of this study. Data saturation means the lack of finding new data on the research question that is being studied (Saunders et al., 2018). One of the causes for data saturation in this study seemed to be the topic list of the interviews that were used. The interviews were focused on the general life of refugee families in the time frame of before, during and after the war. Therefore, playtime between fathers and children was a small part of the interview.
Secondly, because playtime between fathers and children was a small part of the interview, the questions that were being asked might not have captured the full story on the topics that stood central in this study, like the impact of war-related stressors on playtime between fathers and children. Therefore, the data might not have been well-rounded regarding the topics of playtime between fathers and their children.
Thirdly, the last limitation concerns the recall-bias of participants. Re-call bias is the occurrence of participants forgetting certain events or experiences that might have been relevant to the research question (Coughlin, 1990). At the time of data collection, the war happened seven years earlier than the year of the interviews being conducted for this research. This time gap might have caused fathers to forget significant information regarding playtime with their children during the war and also in the resettlement-phase. Therefore, the
comparison between playtime during the war and the resettlement-phase might have been les well-rounded.
One of the strengths of this study concerns the method of interviewing the participants twice. Interviewing the participants twice allowed the interviewee to spend more time with the participants. Spending more time with the participants might have stimulated the
participants in opening up more to the interviewees. Therefore, the stories the participants told might have been more well-rounded in displaying the complexity of the impact of war-related stressors on playtime. This has been helpful in making the comparison of playtime during the war and playtime in the resettlement-phase.
Secondly, by doing a qualitative study on playtime between fathers and children, we attempted to explain why there was change in playtime from the war to the resettlement-phase. Instead of emphasizing on the outcomes of playtime, the focus lies on why playtime decreased or increased and which war-related stressors responsible for this process. We have achieved this by detangling each impact of the most significant stressors on playtime between fathers and their children. By doing this, this research showcases that the impact on playtime might differ for each stressor and how it influenced playtime differently during the war and in the resettlement-phase.
Finally, the last strength of the study is the use of a thematic analysis which created results that might have more predictive value. Because the sample of this study had similar socializations with the general population in the Netherlands, and these details were captured by the analysis, the findings could be easily generalized to a similar group.
Implications for research and practitioners
Results of this study clearly demonstrate that refugee fathers are conscious of their fatherhood in the different phases of war. It also shows that the fathers are willing to express what kind of impact the war had on the relationship with their child. Some fathers might feel
obstructed from talking about their war-related experiences within the domestic context, since it might not be a stature of masculinity (Affleck, Thamotharampillai, Jeyakumar, & Whitley, 2018). The fact that fathers were willing to tell about their domestic experiences, regardless of their status of masculinity, should be considered as sacrosanct.
With the lack of research that focusses on refugee fathers playing with their children, it is essential to create more general awareness of this specific target group (Affleck et al., 2018; Bond, 2019). What we have primarily seen from the results of this study, is the impact that the war-related stressors have on the well-being of fathers. Instead of focusing on the dynamics of playtime between fathers and children, further research should focus on reducing the impact of war-related and resettlement-stressors on the well-being of refugee fathers. Apparently, the impact of the war-related stressors matters, it does not only matter for the well-being of the fathers, but it also seems to matter for the playtime with their children. Since playtime between fathers and children might be beneficial for the development of children, it might be necessary to study the well-being of refugee fathers in order to ensure the positive effect of playtime (Lindsey et al., 2010). Especially since playtime might be even more important for children whose development is already exposed to war-related stressors (Bryant et al., 2018)
Replication of this study might be done with a semi-structured interview that is focused more on the topics of playtime between refugee fathers and children. This semi-structured interview should be focused on all stages of war to capture more in depth results. When doing this, the validity of results might increase. Like the findings of this study suggest, it is not only stressors like trauma or PTSD that affect the well-being of fathers. There are also mechanisms like role strain that have an influence on how fathers interact with their children (Williams, 2011). When creating more theoretical frameworks on mechanisms like role strain
This might be helpful in creating interventions that reduce the impact of war-related stressors on the well-being of fathers.
Playtime between refugee fathers and their children should be considered as
irrevocable in the parenting practices. After all, the great man is ‘he’ who does not lose his child’s heart.
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