ABSTRACT
This chapter describes how a group of nursery school children lived through and coped with the experience of separating from school, teachers, and each other at the end of the year. It shows how, if teachers are sensitive and able to stand by and provide a containing environment and relationships, children may find additional resources in their reciprocal relationship. Through becoming a group, they can discover support to help them face separations and transitions. This appears particularly important in those contexts where nursery-school classes are large and the ratio of children to teachers is far from ideal. The teacher’s ability to guarantee a free and secure atmosphere, where the links between children can develop, can encourage the mobilization of new sources of support. Children’s group relationships actually enable emotional states to be shared and, through free play, provide opportunities for expression and symbolic containment.
