The article examines the assimilation process undergone by a two-year-old girl with a migration background to mdicate that for infants and small children the transition from the family to daycare is a complex and distressing challenge. A great deal of empathy is required from parents and staff, but this empathy is highly precarious. The author shows that the relative success or failure in providing empathie care for the child is associated with the actualization of stressful separation experiences that the parents have never come to terms with and the defense mechanisms bound up with those experiences. In the migration context, this dynamic may take on es-pecial significance as migration itself will necessarily evoke experiences of separ-ation and loss. The author also points out that a lack of self-reflection on the part of the carers and a failure to engage with unpleasant feelings will militate against the triangulation between child, parents, and care staff that is necessary in coping with separation.

Coping with separation in the crèche Other-than-mother primary care as a separation task Migration early prevention

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