Series Editor's Preface -- Introduction -- Developmental issues -- The transition from home to nursery school -- The story of child development: a psychoanalytic account -- Oedipal anxieties, the birth of a second baby, and the role of the observer -- The Young Child Observation seminar: new steps in developing the observer role -- Observing in the home -- An observation of a young Asian child with feeding difficulties, conceived via assisted reproductive technology -- Laurie and his cars: a 3-year-old begins to separate -- The day Captain Antonio's balloon burst -- The observed child, the observing child: the complexity of a child's response to the stillbirth of a sibling -- Observing in a nursery -- The work of playing: a male observer gets to know a little boy whose father is absent -- Seeing beneath the surface: an observer's encounter with a child's struggle to find herself at nursery -- Thoughts on transitions between cultures: Jonathon moves from home to school and from class to class -- "The house is a boat": a group of children face separation -- Applications -- Sewing on a shadow: acquiring dimensionality in a participant observation -- A participant observation with a boy suffering from a chronic illness -- Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends: familiar faces in an uncertain world -- Research -- Now we are two, going on three: triadic thinking and its link with development in the context of Young Child Observations -- Young Child Observation used as a research tool: investigating toddlers' development in day care nurseries -- Young children's relationships with staff and peers in nursery: observations of two girls aged 29 months and 25 months -- Epilogue