ABSTRACT
Three distinct approaches to the study of the toddler are possible; these concern the physical, the intellectual, and the emotional development respectively. The child has “been through” a lot in the toddler years, and intellectual attainment as well as physical skills has to become to some extent hung up as a result of the various defences set up against anxiety, depression, and violent feelings, and defences against violent fluctuations of feeling. A mother is temporarily an expert in child-feelings. People say she becomes a vegetable, but really she becomes interested in a narrowed world and so is able to believe in the intensity of the children’s feelings. Nursery schools are needed acutely by the modern dwellers in flats that are most valued room is the tiled bathroom; these dare not allow their children to be natural and so to gradually develop their own personal attitude towards the moralities.
