Representations of the child's social behavior and attachment to the kindergarten teacher in their drawing

Abstract

In the theoretical part of this paper, the author gives answers to the question of whether a real attachment relationship can exist between a child and a non‐maternal caretaker. She introduces diagnostic meaning of children's drawings. The purpose of the study was to investigate how children's social behavior and their attachment to the kindergarten teachers (secure, anxious) are represented in their drawings entitled ‘Myself in the kindergarten’. Ninety‐five children (50.5% boys), ranging from 3 to 6 years of age, and their kindergarten teachers participated in the study. Teachers completed the questionnaire about children's social behavior—SV‐O and types of attachment were determined on the basis of the evaluations the teachers gave on the revised version of the Attachment Q‐set and the evaluation scale of the child's behavior toward pre‐school teacher, the CBPT. The children received instructions to draw themselves in the kindergarten, their kindergarten teacher, a coeval, and a toy. As the drawing task was complete, the teachers carried out a structured interview with the child about his/her drawing. Differences in drawing signs were found to reflect children's social behavior and the quality of their relationship toward the kindergarten teacher. This paper also presents the limitations of the research, which should be considered in the interpretation of the obtained results.