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This paper presents a transformative approach to understanding and working with the problems of early childhood. The approach takes as its starting point the recognition that the most enduring outcomes in clinical work involve a shift not only in the behaviour of the child but also a change in the parents' perspective of themselves and their personal history. Parents are perceived as ‘growing into their own childhood’ at the critical point that they become parents. The paper describes through clinical examples how the common problems of early childhood such as sleeping, feeding, toileting and behavioural problems can be conceptualized as zonal, geographic and task confusions that throw light on the interactive nature of the relationship between young children and their parents. The paper, written by a child psychotherapist working in Australia, goes on to reflect on the implications of separation, loss and trauma from the perspective of a country founded by indigenous Aborigines and migrants from many cultures [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]