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Sadara entered the Nursery at 3 years 6 months, having visited with her mother for one morning each week the previous term. During those visits we had particularly noticed Sadara's mother's extremely restless and nervous behaviour which manifested in non-stop talking, repeated fussing over Sadara, and frequent attempts to encourage Sadara to ‘show off’ to the Nursery staff. When we were able to help Sadara's mother to settle quietly, Sadara could play quite clamly and enjoy the activities offered; but much of the time the presence of this mother-daughter ‘couple’ created a restless atmosphere that was disturbing to everyone.
Sadara was an overweight and rather unattractive child physically. Her mother told us during their initial visits that Sadara had been put on a diet by the family doctor, and although she expressed concern that we should not give Sadara fattening foods in the Nursery, we observed inconsistencies in the parents' handling of the diet. Once Sadara arrived with a baby's bottle filled with milk and chocolate syrup; on another occasion Sadara came clutching a chocolate bar, given to her by her father when she had cried on his departure for work that day.
Sadara had been born by Caesarian section and was kept in the special care unit of the hospital for two weeks because she had weighed 41b 7oz at birth. This situation had caused great anxiety for Sadara's parents and paternal grandparents who were visiting and sharing the single room in which the family lived. The ‘proper’ feeding of Sadara became an important focus of the mother's care of her. However, the mother's extreme anxiety and nervousness prevented her from assessing her daughter's nutritional needs appropriately, so that by the age of 3 years 6 months Sadara was nearly a stone overweight.
On entering the Nursery Sadara played contentedly on her own at first, especially enjoying small manipulative activities. She was skilled at puzzles, enjoyed painting, listened to stories and participated in s