The distance that has become predominant in the relationship with the child in the family directly depends on the place occupied by the activity of education in the entire complex, ambiguous, and sometimes internally contradictory system of various motives for the behavior of an adult. Therefore, it is worth realizing what place in your own motivational system will be occupied by the activity of raising your future child.

Let us consider some typical examples of the "insertion" of the activity of education into various life motives of a person. Let us try to analyze what influence this or that form of combination of motives has on the implementation of educational activities.

Upbringing and the need for emotional contact. Man as a social creature has a peculiar form of orientation — orientation towards the psychic image of another person. The need for "guidelines" in the emotional mood of other people is called the need for emotional contact. And we are talking about the existence of two-way contact, in which a person feels that he himself is an object of interest, that others are in tune with his own feelings. Every healthy person needs such a consonant emotional contact, regardless of age, education, and value orientations.

It may happen that the goal of raising a child is "inserted" precisely to satisfy the need for emotional contact. The child becomes the center of the need, the only object of its satisfaction. There are many examples here. These are parents who, for one reason or another, experience difficulties in contacts with other people, and single mothers, and grandmothers who have devoted all their time to their grandchildren. Most often, big problems arise with such upbringing. Parents unconsciously fight to preserve the object of their need, preventing the child's emotions and attachments from going beyond the family circle.

Education and the need for the meaning of life. Big problems arise in communication with a child if upbringing has become the only activity that realizes the need for the meaning of life. The need for the meaning of life, analyzed by the Polish psychologist K. Obuchowski, characterizes the behavior of an adult. Without satisfying this need, a person cannot function normally, cannot mobilize all his abilities to the maximum extent. The satisfaction of such a need is associated with the substantiation of the meaning of one's existence, with a clear, practically acceptable and deserving of the approval of the person himself direction of his actions. Does this mean that a person is always aware of the general meaning of his actions, his life? Obviously not, but everyone strives to find meaning in their lives if necessary.

The satisfaction of the need for the meaning of life can be care for the child. A mother, father or grandmother may believe that the meaning of their existence is to take care of the physical condition and upbringing of the child. They may not always realize it, believing that the purpose of their life is different, but they feel happy only when they are needed. If a child grows up and leaves them, they often begin to understand that "life has lost all meaning." A striking example of this is the mother, who does not want to lose the position of "guardian", who washes a fifteen-year-old boy with her own hands, ties his shoelaces, because "he always does it badly", does school tasks for him, "so that the child does not get overtired". As a result, she receives the required sense of her need, and pursues every manifestation of her son's independence with amazing persistence. The harm of such self-sacrifice for the child is obvious.

Education and the need for achievement. For some parents, the upbringing of a child is motivated by the so-called motivation of achievement. The goal of education is to achieve what parents failed to achieve because of the lack of necessary conditions or because they themselves were not sufficiently capable and persistent. The father wanted to become a doctor, but he did not succeed, let the child fulfill his father's dream. His mother dreamed of playing the piano, but there were no conditions for this, and now the child needs to study music intensively.

Such parental behavior unconsciously acquires elements of egoism for the parents themselves: "We want to form the child in our own image, because he is the continuer of our life..."

The child is deprived of the necessary independence, the perception of his inherent inclinations and formed personal qualities is distorted. Usually, the capabilities, interests, and abilities of the child, which are different from those associated with programmed goals, are not taken into account. The child is faced with a choice. He can squeeze himself into the framework of parental ideals that are alien to him only in order to ensure for himself the love and satisfaction of his parents. In this case, he will follow the wrong path that does not correspond to his personality and abilities, which often ends in a complete fiasco. But the child can also rebel against demands that are alien to him, thereby causing the parents to be disappointed because of unfulfilled hopes, and as a result, deep conflicts arise in the relationship between the child and the parents.

Education as the implementation of a certain system. The organization of education in the family according to a certain system can be considered a variant of realizing the need for achievement.

There are families where the goals of upbringing seem to be moved away from the child himself and are directed not so much to the child as to the implementation of the system of upbringing recognized by the parents. These are usually very competent, erudite parents who devote a lot of time and care to their children. Having become acquainted with any educational system and, for various reasons, trusting it, parents pedantically and purposefully proceed to its tireless implementation.

It is even possible to trace the history of the formation of such educational goals, which often arise as a tribute to a certain fashion for education. Some parents follow the ideas of the educational provisions of the Nikitin family, advocating the need for early intellectual education, or the call: "Swim before walking"; In other families, there is an atmosphere of complete forgiveness and permissiveness, which, in the opinion of parents, implements the Spokian model of upbringing.

Undoubtedly, each of these educational systems has its own valuable findings, a lot of useful and important things. Here we are only talking about the fact that some parents follow certain ideas and methods of education too obediently, without sufficient criticism, forgetting that it is not a child for upbringing, but upbringing for the child. It is interesting that parents who follow the type of "implementation of the system" are internally similar, they are united by one common feature – relative inattention to the individuality of the mental world of their child. It is characteristic that in essays on the topic "Portrait of my child" such parents imperceptibly do not so much describe the character, tastes, habits of their children, as they describe in detail how they raise the child.

Education as the formation of certain qualities. The problems of independence are also exacerbated in cases where upbringing is subordinated to the motive of forming a certain quality desirable for parents.