From the authors

Dear parents!

In bringing this book to your attention, we would like to make a few preliminary remarks.

First, should parents be psychologists, does the family need psychological knowledge? Yes, they do, and very much. And the knowledge is not so much what needs to be taught and who needs to be educated. Everyone knows this. Parents need knowledge of methods, techniques of upbringing, psychology of influencing the child. However, not only the knowledge of how to communicate in the family, but also how to behave when it is difficult, when you made a mistake, when you were in a hurry and were wrong...

Secondly, we tried to ensure that the conversation with parents about the psychology of parenting was honest. We did not want to create the illusion that psychology knows everything that there are no secrets for psychology in the upbringing and development of children.

Of course, psychological science knows a lot about the laws of a child's education, about the characteristic age features of his development. In recent years, scientific ideas about relationships in the family, about the patterns of communication between children and parents have been significantly enriched. But the mystery that has not yet been solved is the complex, contradictory, sometimes painful, but always creative, always creative process of educating the human personality, the mystery of the elevation of mind and character.

In the face of this ignorance of upbringing, both parents and the science of psychology are in many ways equal. Therefore, we would like the readers of this book not to passively accept psychological advice, not to crave ready-made recipes for all occasions, but to be active, creative like-minded people, allies in the search, spiritual brothers.

Some of the questions in the book are presented in a somewhat academic way, i.e., they contain, rather, an answer to the question of what education is. And other sections are more able to give an answer to the question of how to educate, how to do what is necessary, what you think is right. And this is natural, it reflects the objectively existing unevenness of scientific psychological knowledge about upbringing.

Thirdly, we involved a large number of authors in the creation of the book, each of whom is a high-class specialist in his chosen field of psychology, each wrote about what he knows well, and knows not only in theory, but also in practice, working with living people.

And the last thing. All chapters are devoted to various stages in the formation of the family, marital and parental relations, stages of development and upbringing of children. For the benefit of the cause, we decided to focus on the so-called critical periods, the periods of transition from stage to stage, i.e., on what is really objectively difficult, on how to build one's relationship with the child at each of these stages.

Therefore, each chapter consists of two sections. The first section is a story about the most important psychological features of each period in the life of the family. And the second is a psychological consultation, answers to the most typical questions and difficulties of parents that are often encountered in psychological practice.

There is no conclusion in the book. Instead, there is a separate chapter that answers the question of why parents need knowledge of psychology.

So, dear like-minded people, we wish you joyful and creative work on the study of the psychology of education. If you understand and, most importantly, more interesting the spiritual world of your child, if you want to get to know yourself better, if you learn to listen, sympathize, understand and observe, i.e. feel like psychologists, we will consider the task completed.

What mother, what father does not want their children to be happy in life, to fulfill their dreams, to enjoy the respect and love of others! And each of them, relying on their understanding, life experience, as well as on the knowledge gained from the books they have read, watched TV programs, performances, films, which deal with the modeling of characters, the formation of the child's personality, try not to repeat other people's mistakes and bring up their own children as best as possible.