A Complimentary Series of 5 Films

by

James Robertson

In order to study responses to the separation from mother when this is not complicated by other disturbing experiences (such as sudden transfer from home, illness and pain, cot confinement, multiple caretakers), and when emotional needs are met, James & Joyce Robertson took into their home a series of four young children of previous good experience who were in need of foster care while mother was in hospital to have a second child. How the children coped with separation from the mother when given good substitute care in a setting with which they had been made familiar was observed and filmed. The children's ages ranged from 17 months to two years five months, and lengths of stay from ten to 27 days.

                                                           John, aged 17 months, for 9 days in a residential nursery
For two days John tries to attach himself to a nurse, but because they are not assigned to individual children no nurse attends to John long enough to understand him and answer his needs. He is not mothered or protected from attacks by the other children. Food and routines are strange, and the father's visits can do little to ease the situation. John becomes increasingly distressed, and eventually sinks into hopeless apathy. At reunion he rejects his mother.

                                                                 Jane, aged 17 months, in foster care for 10 days
When her mother goes into the hospital Jane readily accepts Joyce Robertson as substitute (foster) mother. Foods and routines are kept familiar as at home, her father visits daily, and the foster mother is fully available to meet Jane's needs. She is therefore not overwhelmed as John was, but is held in a state of 'manageable anxiety'. At reunion Jane returns to her mother with warmth and good expectations. But she is reluctant to give up the foster mother to whom she has become attached (see also Lucy below).

Difficulties which can result from a young child's attachment to a temporary substitute mother is the main theme in: Lucy, aged 21 months, in foster care for 19 days

Like Jane, Lucy is too young and immature to carry a clear memory of the absent mother and readily accepts the foster mother's care. There are episodes of anxiety and resistive behaviour, but she too 'manages' well within the supportive relationship. At reunion she returns eagerly to her mother. But there is a problem. During the 19 days Lucy has become attached to her foster mother. The film shows dramatically the conflict of feeling during subsequent weeks, and how mother and foster mother co-operate in helping Lucy work it through.

There are other considerations when the child is mature enough to remember the mother throughout the separation: Thomas, aged 2 years 4 months, in foster care for 10 days

Being older and more mature than Jane and Lucy, Thomas can keep his absent mother in mind and talk and talk about her.This, and the daily visits of his father, help him understand the situation as the younger ones could not do. Although in need of mothering care, Thomas cannot always accept this intimacy because the affectionate feelings it arouses conflict with loyalty to his mother. So at times he attacks the foster mother when she gives the attention he seeks. At reunion, unlike the two younger children, Thomas has no problem about leaving the foster mother.

In another child the same age as Thomas, a longer separation brings additional problems:                                                             Kate, aged 2 years 5 months, in foster care for 27 days

Like Thomas, Kate can hold onto the memory of her mother. She uses a family of dolls to recall life at home and to anticipate reunion with her parents, but as the separation becomes extended disillusion begins to set in. she is increasingly cool towards the visiting father, expressing anger towards her absent mother and begins to make a niche for herself in the foster family.

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