Separation Response and Nursery School Adaptation

Abstract

Separation and adaptation to nursery school was studied in 20 3-year-old children. The results of this study suggest that nursery school children's separation difficulties must be viewed in terms of when they occur and how they are expressed. Observation of the simple occurrence or nonoccurrence of separation distress at initial nursery school entry does not do justice to the complexity of this phenomenon. We suggest that some problematic separation responses occur at points other than actual leave-taking from the parent, and thus may be overlooked by observations focused solely on the separation event itself.