Parental perceptions of risky play and preschooler's motor creativity: mastery motivation as mediator and gender as moderator.

Introduction: Risky play, characterized by activities involving uncertainty, excitement, and moderate physical risk, is essential for children's cognitive, emotional, and motor development. However, the precise pathways through which it impacts motor creativity, along with the underlying psychological mechanisms, remain insufficiently explored. This study investigates the direct relationship between parental perceptions of risky play and preschoolers' motor creativity, examining the mediating role of mastery motivation and the moderating effect of gender. Methods: Data were collected from 367 typically developing preschoolers (aged 48-72 months) across public preschools in Türkiye. The proposed moderated mediation framework was evaluated using path analysis within Structural Equation Modeling (SEM). Results: Structural analysis demonstrates that children engaging in higher levels of risky play exhibit significantly greater motor creativity, confirming that physically and cognitively stimulating environments promote adaptive movement patterns and creative problem-solving. Furthermore, mastery motivation functions as a significant mediator, indicating that the sense of challenge and persistence inherent in risky play enhances children's intrinsic drive to explore and refine motor skills, thereby boosting creative expression. Significant gender moderation was also observed, with boys displaying stronger associations between risky play, mastery motivation, and motor creativity compared to girls. Discussion: The study underscores that risky play actively fosters early childhood motor creativity and embodied problem-solving. Crucially, the findings highlight that parental perceptions serve as vital environmental gatekeepers, shaping play contexts that can either constrain or dynamically support child autonomy, robust exploration, and safe risk-taking.