Exploring Children's Expressions of Attachment in Nursery

Whilst there is broad consensus that the emotional responsiveness and sensitivity of staff are of high importance in interactions with babies and young children in nursery, there is not consensus about how far interactions should be organised to facilitate attachments with particular staff. This paper brings the "child's voice" into this debate by introducing a method of observation that is particularly suited to the observation of children's emotional responses. Data from observations of two children, aged 12 and 16 months, attending two different nurseries are presented to illustrate the observation method. The paper concludes that this data can be interpreted to show the significance to each of these children of attachment relationships with adults but also the power of group relations in supporting children's emotional well being. (Contains 1 table.)