A person who knows how to ask himself these questions, who is constantly looking for answers to them, can be a good educator, if only because he will be able to look at his child just as intently and attentively, to get to know his developing spiritual world, to set tasks for him to evaluate himself and others.

A harmonious person is able to be a truly loving person. The elder, who takes responsibility for the younger. The elder understands that he knows and can do more, but he firmly knows that the child is not something special, qualitatively different from himself and belonging to another world, he sees similarities rather than differences. A wise and loving educator tries to improve the younger one, tries to make him better than he is now, but not as he, the elder, is, but as he is, and in those unique opportunities in which the younger one can develop. And then it really becomes clear that for a harmoniously developed person, for a person with a creative spiritual world, there is nothing more natural than education. Just as he works on himself, helping self-disclosure, in the same way he helps the self-improvement and self-disclosure of his child.

Creative education also corresponds to a creative person, a harmonious person becomes a harmonious parent, and then the wise words of J. Korczak are easily and naturally embodied in his communication with the child: "An educator who does not fetter, but frees, does not break, but forms, does not suppress, but elevates, does not dictate, but teaches, does not demand, but asks, experiences many inspired moments with the child."

Chapter 2. Man is born

When evaluating any human activity, one usually proceeds from a certain optimum, ideal, norm. In educational activity, apparently, such an absolute norm does not exist. Indeed, is it possible to think that over the long years of raising a child, parents have never made a single mistake, absolutely accurately and correctly fulfilled all the requirements that are imposed on ensuring the growth and development of a child? Of course not. After all, we learn to be parents, just as we learn to be husbands and wives, as we learn the secrets of mastery and professionalism in any business.

Who can tell what the baby thinks? Who can trace those strands of the web, Along which the little man finds the way — In tears, blind and lonely — From the shores of the mysterious world To our world, to the earth, to the light of day? Unknown author. Cit. according to V. Drumman. 1910

These poetic lines formulate the main tasks that psychologists who study childhood see before them. Moms and dads ask themselves the same questions, peering into their baby: who is he? How will he grow up?

Every parent wants to understand how the child's psyche is formed, to reveal the causal relationship between different manifestations of his behavior and on the basis of this understanding to correctly build his behavior, to raise the child correctly.

A baby was born, and with his appearance, parents begin a very special, new life.

Raising a child in the first year of life is a joyful and enjoyable activity. Every day parents notice something new in the behavior of their baby, the bond between the child and the mother grows stronger day by day, a great miracle is created - mother's love and the love of the baby for his parents. Yes, love does not exist by itself, it is created, formed. Love can and should be learned, because only someone who knows how to love people can teach his child love.

So, how to raise your child in the first year of life? How to create, to cultivate parental love in yourself? How to avoid typical parenting mistakes?

You will get answers to all these and many other questions in this chapter. You will learn what psychological changes occur in the family when spouses become parents, what is difficult and joyful about this period, what are the main psychological patterns of development of children in the first year of life and how parents can contribute to the process of growth and development of the baby.

Like the rest of the book, this chapter examines the mental development of the child in the context of his active activity and in constant interaction with an adult.

Psychology for parents is the psychology of family interaction, the psychology of relationships, which is why this chapter pays so much attention to everything that parents can do when building their contact with the youngest children, and what should not be done.