The assessment of the very young child's difficulties should depend, first, upon the investigation of the child's development; second, upon the evaluation of his relationship with his love objects; and third, upon the type of conflict: whether there is still a conflict between the child and his environment, or whether this conflict is already between the drive and the defence, or between two conflicting drives, in which the conflict is internalized and can no longer be influenced by changes in the environment. Four cases of intensive child observation in nursery school are described to illustrate these facts. It is emphasized that the external conflict is for the most part complicated by the part the objects play in it, and that the work of the nursery school in influencing the parents is an ardous but very worthwhile one. Clearly in those cases in which the conflict is already internalized, a change in the object will no longer be sufficient to resolve the problem.