To answer the question central to this special issue, we engaged in part autoethnography and part self-ethnography over a one-month period. During this time, we positioned ourselves as researchers of play and learning, academic parents, and parent-researchers to individually (a) reflect upon the significance of play, (b) document the theoretical and empirical perspectives on play from which we draw inspiration, (c) describe how we choose games for our children, and (d) record instances of game play with our sons using some of our favorite games. We believe that by reflecting on our own stance as parent-researchers and by teaming up with our 5-year-old sons, we provide unique yet complementary perspectives on two forms of play partnerships . First, the intergenerationality of our play partnerships led us to use our sons’ interests as a starting point to select games. Simultaneously, being the adults and the academic-parents in the relationship allowed us to assume many roles (e.g. a model/collaborator, guide/coach, co-learners; Siyahhan & Glee, 2017). Second, we expanded our sons’ play experiences and further honed their interests, skills, and/or knowledge through opportunities that went beyond the game. We refer to this as the creation of transmediational play partnerships (Siegel, 1995). We conclude this paper with thoughts that will resonate with parents or caregivers seeking to understand what makes a game helpful, harmful, appropriate, challenging or intimidating for a child (Green & Cohen, 2019).
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