Final answer:
To mitigate the risk of maladjustment in a child raised by a single mother, a Pediatric Nurse Practitioner could recommend strategies focused on socialization and emotional support, such as daycare, counseling, a pet for companionship, or extracurricular activities.
Step-by-step explanation:
To address a single mother's concern about her infant potentially becoming maladjusted due to growing up in a single-parent household, the Pediatric Nurse Practitioner (PNP) might suggest a variety of strategies. One approach is to foster early social contact, which has been shown to be crucial for a child's social and emotional development. The necessity for early social contact was highlighted by the research of Harlow and Harlow, which indicated that social comfort and companionship are highly valuable for young primates, a finding that is often extrapolated to human children.
Given that children who live with both parents tend to have more financial and educational advantages, and that a strong parent-child relationship can greatly improve adjustment post-divorce, it's essential for a single parent to provide a rich social environment for the child. This might include placing the child in daycare for socialization, seeking counseling for both the mother and the child to build resilience and address any emotional challenges, introducing a pet for companionship, which could provide a sense of comfort and responsibility, or enrolling the child in extracurricular activities to develop skills and friendships.