THE PROCESSES OF WELCOMING VERY YOUNG CHILDREN AND PARENTS: AN INTEGRATIVE LITERATURE REVIEW

Abstract

This integrative literature review aims to understand the process of welcoming very young children and parents into the collective environment. For the selection of articles, the following descriptors were used: adaptation, very young child, daycare, and parents in Portuguese, English and Spanish, with the combination of the Boolean operator AND and OR. The articles were collected in the following databases: Capes, Web of Science, and EBSCO journals, considering the period from 2014 to 2022. The number of articles selected for full reading was 21 publications, which led to the discussion of five categories: adaptation and reception of babies from maternal separation; foster care as a right of the child and the family; collaboration between teachers and the family; acceptance of parental social and cultural identities; and parental individuation as a process of conscious acceptance. The results demonstrate that the adaptation of babies as a parental process lived in trust generates greater security in maternal separation from the child. Foster care, as a right of the child and the family, should be more respectful of social and cultural identities. The collaboration between school and family in the foster care process provides parental individuation of less suffering. Shared care and education practices strengthen the child's development and the self-knowledge of mothers and fathers.