Abstract:

The period of early childhood and experience in the relationship with a parent or another close person who takes care of the child during the first years of life has a key role in the development of the individual. According to the attachment theory, the quality of care in early childhood is the basis for the formation of attachment behaviour. Attachment is characterized by specific child behaviour, such as seeking closeness to an attachment figure when upset or afraid of something. The concept of attachment was initially applied to describe the emotional bond between a newborn and his/her mother, but over the years of research, it has expanded to include the understanding of individual behaviour throughout the lifespan. Accordingly, the development of attachment must inevitably be observed in the context of relationships with others: parents, siblings, extended family members, friends, neighbours, early childhood educators, primary school teachers, and coaches. In addition, the educational context is very challenging when it comes to the development of attachment, especially in the transition periods, and also the discovery and creation of new relationships with others in the educational context. Therefore, the focus of this work is on the analysis of the development of attachment behavioural patterns in children of early and preschool age, the development of their relationships with early childhood educators, and the possibility of predicting the quality of these relationships based on the developed attachment behavioural patterns of children. In view of this, in five randomly selected kindergartens in the city of Rijeka Croatia, 17 educators agreed to cooperate with the aim of evaluating the attachment behaviour of children from their educational groups and also evaluating their relationship with them. Pianta's Student-teacher relationship scale was used to assess the relationship with children, and an adapted subscale from Golding's Observation Checklist was used to assess the Attachment behaviours of children. Within the student-teacher relationship’s exploration, two aspects were measured: closeness and conflict between early childhood educators and children. In addition, within the children’s attachment behaviour four aspects were measured: children’s separation from caregivers, their behaviours with familiar adults, their behaviours with unfamiliar adults and their behaviours when experiencing minor hurts. Overall, 226 children (118 boys, 108 girls) of average age M=5.2 (SD=1.03) were evaluated by their early childhood educators, with previously acquired permits in cooperation with kindergartens’ management. Same as in previous studies, closeness was evaluated higher than conflict, and all types of attachment behaviours were rated as moderate. This was also expected since lower and higher levels in attachment behaviours evaluation lead to certain types of unsecured and non-adequate attachment behavioural patterns. Finally, correlation and regression analyses revealed that difficulty of work and the dependent type of interaction with familiar adults present significant predictors of closeness and conflict in the relationship between early childhood educators and children. The results were discussed in the frame of providing institutional support for children’s attachment development and at the same time enhancing the early childhood educators’ competencies in developing a positive relationship with children.

Keywords:

Attachment, children, early childhood educators, student-teacher relationship.