What creates children’s well-being? A systematic literature review about the connections of play and well-being

In early childhood education, children's well-being is a crucial value and goal, alongside their development, learning, and enjoyment. Evidence shows that children's play and teachers' playfulness significantly impact children's well-being. However, the specific factors contributing to well-being and their interrelations remain unclear. Our aim is to identify the elements of play and playfulness that constitute young children's well-being in pedagogical contexts. Well-being is holistically defined as a state of comfort, health, pleasantness, satisfaction, or happiness, enhancing children's lives. It promotes a good life, growth, development, happiness, and life satisfaction (Unicef, 2007).We conducted a systematic literature review using the PRISMA approach (Page et al., 2021), screening databases such as ProQuest, Ebsco, Scopus, OULA FINNA e-articles, and Google Scholar. The search strings included: playfulness AND (stress OR "well-being" OR wellbeing) AND measur* AND (kindergarten OR "early childhood education"). Initially, 688 records were identified, which were reviewed based on inclusion and exclusion criteria, resulting in 85 selected articles. After full-text review, 26 articles were chosen for detailed analysis.Using grounded theory (GT) approach (Morgan, 2020; Okoli, 2022; Strauss & Corbin, 2014), we conducted coding and analysis. Open coding generated concepts related to well-being, while axial coding clustered these concepts and identified meaningful correlations. Findings suggest that well-being is the core concept, closely linked with pedagogy, quality of play, and environment. Physical play activity (PPA), socio-emotional experiences, engagement, agency, and inclusion also influence on well-being. These findings have significant implications for ECE teacher training and teacher education program design.