Attachment of the child to his mother

This diploma explores child-mother attachment. The theoretical part of my diploma focuses on attachment theory. I refer to psychoanalyst John Bowlby, who was the first to write about attachment and to the findings of his colleague Mary Ainsworth. Since symbiosis is of key importance for transition to secure attachment, I have touched upon its meaning as well as on the meaning of breastfeeding, which is crucial for symbiosis. I continue by discussing disorganized child-mother attachment. Kindergarten being an almost crucial complement to family upbringing today, I also discuss the influence of early care and education on child development. I mention the distress that parents experience when their child enters kindergarten. I also describe children's attachment to the person who, apart from their parents, is usually the most important figure in their lives, namely the kindergarten teacher. The empirical part of my diploma is based on findings from a research that was carried out on a sample of 44 mothers of pre-school children in a Ljubljana kindergarten. I was interested in which fears mothers face when their children enter kindergarten, and whether there are any differences in this respect between breastfeeding mothers and mothers who do not breastfeed their children upon their entering kindergarten. While analyzing the data, I reached the conclusion that a majority of mothers consider different care options already before their child is born. Most mothers do not experience any feelings of guilt in connection with giving their child into care since they believe that they have chosen quality care. Nevertheless, many of them experience distress when their child enters kindergarten. The hypothesis that breastfeeding mothers experience greater distress than those who do not breastfeed at the time was rejected. I reached the conclusion that both groups of mothers face the same fears