Being Present for Your Nursery Age Child

Jeanne Magagna was Head of Psychotherapy Services at Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children for twenty-two years. She also worked for ten years at Ellern Mede Centre for Eating Disorders in London. She received professional qualifications as a child, adult and family psychotherapist and a doctorate from the Tavistock Clinic. Formerly, Jeanne was the vice-president and joint coordinator of training for the Centro Studi Martha Harris Tavistock model trainings in Florence and Venice. She edited 'Universals of Psychoanalysis' and jointly edited 'Psychotherapy with Families and Intimate Transformations: Babies with their Families' (Karnac Books, 2004). Her special interest is applying the understandings of infant observation to work with children suffering from communication difficulties and anorexia nervosa.

'This book will be of enormous interest to those parents, grandparents, and professionals who seek to understand more of the minds of babies and small children and how they experience life and relationships. It attests to the significance of a particular kind of observation, of taking notice of children and their experiences in a setting created by Patrizia Pasquini, supported by Jeanne Magagna, from London. Pasquini has created an inspired project, Tempo Lineare, where professionals and parents work together in the best interests of the child. Pasquini has based it on an understanding of a particular, non-intrusive way of observing children, which, in group discussion, enables parents and professional staff together to discuss their thoughts and ideas. This book provides a source of inspiration for parents, and for anyone who works with small children, seeking to understand more about creative work with parents and colleagues in the best interests of the children.'- Trudy Klauber, Consultant Child Psychotherapist, Tavistock Clinic'This book beautifully captures the remarkable achievements as well as the atmosphere of Tempo Lineare, the innovative preventive mental health programme developed for babies and young children in nursery and their parents in Rome. Like the collaborative programme itself, the book gathers together contributions from child psychotherapists, teachers, and parents. Each chapter vividly brings alive the thoughtful and creative approaches put in place to foster and support parents' capacities to be present to their child's and their own emotional experiences. Underscoring the Tavistock method of psychoanalytic observation at the heart of each level of the programme, Jeanne Magagna and Patrizia Pasquini lucidly lay out its applications in all that takes place there. The book weaves psychoanalytic theory, observational data, and personal reflections into a cohesive whole. It also puts the reader in touch with the deeply meaningful world of play, drawing, and story-telling and their essential place in the development of imaginative capacities. On every page, this book inspires and enriches our understanding. It is essential reading for a broad spectrum of disciplines interested in very young children's social, cognitive, and emotional development.'- Deborah Blessing, board member, Jubilee Jumpstart Child Care Center; Core Faculty, Infant and Young Child Observation Program, Washington School of Psychiatry, USAThe contributions in this book are just a sample of the work done by both parents and practitioners involved in the Tempo Lineare programme, including direct testimonies from parents relating what they have gone through since the birth of their babies. It is rare to read something of this sort written directly by the protagonists, without the filter of an expert, and they illuminate the difficulties, problems, and dramas of ecoming a parent. From the stories of these mothers and fathers, the importance of having a place - both mental and physical - to share not only one's fears and anguish, but also one's joy and successes with other people in the same situation, emerges clearly. It helps parents to realise that what they are experiencing, although painful and frustrating, is not unique; that others are dealing with similar difficulties, and this gives a powerful incentive in trying to overcome what appears to be a huge problem. With original richness and depth, this book shows exactly what Tempo Lineare tries to do.'- Giusseppe Parigi, President of the Tempo Lineare Parents' Association

• Introduction , On Learning To Observe , The Tempo Lineare project , Listening to, and sharing, the experience of growth , Nursery as therapist: understanding the “present moment” of the child , Weaving bonds: Tempo Lineare, a school for life , How The Young Mind Is Built , Emotional and cognitive development: from chaotic experiences to experiences made “thinkable” , Becoming a parent of an adopted child , Primitive protections used by fostered and adopted children , An adopted child developing within a nursery group , Feeling good, feeling bad; being good and being bad , The observation of children with eating difficulties , Compassionately Comprehending Children Playing , A way of looking at a child that contains and creates meaning , A special time for playing and thinking together , Developing altruistic skills in Tempo Lineare: ‘The Island of Puppies” , Creating space in the family for imagination and creativity , Living in a group: children learning to know themselves and others , From One Tale Another Tale is Born , The children’s fairy tales , From tales to life and from life to tales , “The Queen of the Caramels” , The Couple, The Family, The Group, and Society , Some good reasons to support public services devoted to children , The couple’s cradle for the inner child , “The paternal role” in relation to siblings’ love, gratitude, greed, and revenge , Men in the nursery: a discussion–play group with fathers and their infants and toddlers , Welcoming and listening while working with children, parents, and nursery staff , Parents Creating and Collaborating , The parents speaking