Enduring lessons of Donald Winnicott’s toy story

The piece about the importance of the transitional object (Bear necessities, G2, 12 December) brought to mind another of Donald Winnicott’s coinages: the “good enough” parent. According to Winnicott, parenting does not need to be perfect; it only needs to be good enough. As a single parent in my early 20s, I found this concept a huge comfort when I was introduced to it, during my teacher training in the 1970s.

Later, when I was an advisory teacher, working in a team that supported newly qualified teachers throughout their first year of teaching (those were the days), I adapted Winnicott’s concept to reassure these new teachers – some of them in very challenging inner-London schools – that they too didn’t need to be perfect, they only needed to be good enough. I like to think they found it reassuring. Thank you for the interesting and touching article.
Fiona Collins
Corwen, Denbighshire

• I enjoyed Moya Sarner’s excellent article. As Donald Winnicott revealed, loved toys can help children cope with separation and loss, as well as promote mental growth and development by surviving their hatred at times when they also need comfort and warmth.

By having a reality of its own, the toy helps the child learn to cope with the experience of an abandoned possession. At root, the object is used as a defence against depressive anxiety around separation from the mother, and, by the not-me experience, the child can accept similarity and difference through the use of symbols.

As children gain confidence in forming new attachments through creative play with others, they learn to share their toys. They begin to socialise and be more inclusive, and so embrace the challenge of change in life, rather than become fearful of it because of early traumas.
Ya’ir Klein
Retired clinical psychologist and adult psychotherapist, London

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