Mentalizing Care: Adult Attachment and Structural Factors as Predictors of Representational Mind-Mindedness in Early Child-Care Professionals.

Abstract

Out-of-home childcare is increasingly essential in many children's lives, significantly impacting their wellbeing and development. Central to high-quality care is the concept of caregiver mind-mindedness (MM), the ability to recognize a child as a unique psychological individual with thoughts, feelings, intentions etc., as this capacity is linked with more optimal responsiveness to children's needs. Despite its importance, the factors influencing MM in professional caregivers remain under-researched. We examined the association between structural factors, self-reported adult attachment, and caregiver representational MM assessed in an interview. The sample consisted of 128 childcare professionals from 30 Danish early childcare centers (children aged 0-2.9 years), participating in a randomized controlled trial. Overall, our results showed that longer employment in the current position was associated with higher levels of representational MM, i.e., increased tendency to describe children in terms of their mental states as opposed to more behavioral or external features. In contrast, more years of experience working in childcare as well as attachment-related avoidance were associated with lower levels of representational MM. These results indicate that personal characteristics, like adult attachment, may be a relevant focus for early education and care research and training.