Within the European community, demographic changes have been occurring that have particularly affected children. These major transitions, which have direct implications for early childhood care and education, include: (1) increases in life expectancy and reductions in birth rates; (2) a strong overall movement toward individualization of personal life plans; (3) increases in single-parent families; (4) changes in women's views and more mothers in the work force; (5) changes in parenting styles away from stressing conformity and convention and toward promoting competitive individualism, autonomy, and critical thinking; and (6) shifts in parent-child relationships toward a "partnership" style, where quality of relationship is central. These changes are compounded by the presence of greater geographic mobility and broader cultural diversity than ever before. Discontinuity in family development, pluralism in life styles and new and earlier transitions are the hallmark of the present day. Transition research is acutely needed, as little information is available on how children are to bridge the transitions in family development and what kinds of competence can be fostered. Almost no published work exists on intervention programs to help preschoolers with the difficulties of transitions. Transitions in educational processes can be defined analogously to family developmental processes. Contains 28 references. (ET)