From the author: If you ask our children what parents are for, we will hear the sweetest answers. Children know why at this stage they need dad and mom. But with adults things are completely different. Have you ever thought about your role as a parent, and why you play it? Let's talk.... What are parents for? - I asked my six-year-old daughter, and I thought about it myself.... Her answers were simple and naive, what would they cook to eat, what would they buy goodies, etc. But in life, everything is not so simple. Many parents consider themselves a kind of “overlord” "child's life. They determine what the child has, what the child should learn, what to listen to, what and whom to love, what profession to choose, etc. At the same time, a child from such parents receives not only complete independence and lack of his own opinion, but also the obligation to feel eternal gratitude to his parents , and bear their debt, which they are unable to repay, throughout their lives! I’m now talking about the phrases: if it weren’t for your mother, you would have worked as a waiter, if you hadn’t been sick so much as a child, your mother would have made a fortune, or quit once again for a husband, etc. The phrases and situations are different, the result is the same - a failed adult! And these races of parents, which of their children has a better education, who writes, reads, draws better, knows more languages... And these children, many not with ideal adaptation processes, and immature psyches, are sent to gymnasiums, lyceums... then they get sick... first psychosomatics... then neurology... then nervous breakdowns and (God forbid) suicides. Don’t think, I am not against quality education, but I believe that a somatically weakened but intelligent child, or a child with family problems, should not be loaded beyond his norm. The load should be feasible not only intellectually and physically, but also psychologically. So... what are parents for? Working with children “normally” and with pathology, I must say one thing that the goal of every parent is to teach the child to live without parents, i.e. on one's own. With his own worldview, with his own tastes, with his own weaknesses and with his own destiny. The main goal is to release the chick from the nest, ready for the outside world with its charms and difficulties. Well, and of course, another function of a parent is to give love to his child, throughout life. So that no matter what, everyone knows that they have their own place of strength and love - this is the parental home. Love your children, that’s all they need from you, and they can handle the rest themselves when the time comes. How about you? do you think?