The importance of infant and toddler mental health for early learning
This paper will start by defining infant and toddler mental health in terms of the young child’s developing capacity to regulate their emotional states. The paper will go on to describe the way in which the early interaction between the parent and young child contributes to this developing ability for emotion regulation, as a result of the child’s attachment system. The paper will describe ‘secure attachment’ in terms of the child’s developing ability to be comforted by the parent, and to use the parent as a ‘safe base’ from which to begin to explore the world, and will also describe ‘insecure’ and ‘disorganised’ patterns of attachment. The paper will conclude by examining recent research about the impact of these different types of attachment on a range of aspects of the child’s early learning.
