This article presents my author’s methodology and a description of the dialogue with parents who contact me about correcting their child’s problem behavior. When talking with parents who apply, I explain everything in simple language and provide easy-to-understand comparisons. During the discussion, parents’ imaginative thinking is activated, which in itself helps them feel the depth of the conveyed meanings. The parent is invited to read and comprehend the text described below. And at the end of the text, answer the three questions proposed. For 10 years I have been using this tool “Image of the Family System” in my practice. He perfectly motivates parents to continue working together with a psychologist. ATTENTION!!! Copyright to the methodology is protected by intellectual property law. Author of the method: Roman Anatolyevich Gritsenko. When applying the methodology, image and description, please respect copyright. The metaphor of a chain is like a family system. “System” is interconnected elements (links). One link is dad. The other link is the mother. The third link is the son. The fourth link is the daughter, etc. At some point, in the family system, one link began to act up. That is, the behavior of the older/younger child (teenager) began to cause inconvenience to the functioning of the entire chain. What do parents do in this case? They “unhook” this separate link from other links and take you to an appointment with a psychologist. “Help me clean the link! But something has become dirty, dirty,” the parents ask the psychologist. And the psychologist gets to work with this individual link. He takes his “sponge” (exercises for working with children/teenagers) and carries out “cleaning” work with the child. After a week or a month, the link begins to shine when clean. It’s so beautiful and bright that parents are delighted. Parents notice that the child’s problematic behavior in the family is no longer so pronounced. Satisfied parents say goodbye to the psychologist and return this brilliant link back to the chain, to its original place. Outwardly, it may look like this: all the links in the chain are dull and only one of them is shiny. After all, the psychologist did not work with other links - he did not polish, did not shine. And now, we will take and take this entire chain with a shiny link into weather conditions - a blizzard, frost, snow (on the left in the picture) or a hurricane, a whirlwind, mud, rain ( on the right in the picture). And leave the chain in such conditions for 10 minutes. What will happen to the shiny link during this time? It will fade and become exactly the same as all the other links. The problem behavior of a teenage child will return again. And a week later, his parents will again bring him to the same psychologist, gently hinting that the psychologist did a poor job and must complete his work efficiently. CONCLUSION 1. When a psychologist works only with a child, on his problem behavior, the specialist is able to achieve only temporary, unstable results. Soon the child’s problematic behavior will return again. Why will it return again? Every family chain has “key” and “minor” links. The key links are the links that shape the atmosphere (weather conditions) in the family - PARENTS. And the secondary ones are the links that adapt to these weather conditions - CHILDREN. Someone in the family has excellent weather conditions - “the sun is shining and the grass is green” - warm, cozy, calm. Most likely, in such a family, respect, support, mutual assistance, understanding, and trust reign between spouses (first of all). This is also passed on to children. And someone in the family has the opposite weather. Here, between spouses - mistrust, anger, aggression, reproaches, humiliation, beatings, betrayals, claims, etc. Here reign - blizzard, cold, hurricane, danger, dampness, rain... Their children absorb this. When in a family “the sun is shining and the grass is green”, everyone is comfortable and well - parents will not have the desire to take their child to a psychologist, to improve his behavior. In such a familyIn the atmosphere, everything is fine with the child’s behavior. Parents bring their child to a psychologist only in cases where the atmosphere in the family is not comfortable, not cozy, not safe. Any weather conditions in which a child lives have an impact on his psyche and behavior. CONCLUSION 2. Any child’s behavior is a direct reaction to the atmosphere in which he is placed. Often, a child’s problem behavior is a reaction to stress (often chronic). That is, problematic behavior for a child can be “psychological relief.” But parents try to prohibit it, thereby increasing the accumulation of stress in the child. For comparison... If you take a rubber balloon and blow into it endlessly, sooner or later it will burst (explode). In the same way, in families with uncomfortable weather conditions, children “burst.” When children “burst”, they “go away”! They leave home, go to unfavorable companies, go online, use psychoactive substances, go into psychosomatic and psychiatric disorders, go into suicide attempts with obvious consequences. But the most important thing is that parents often do not notice their contribution to this “ care". Whatever method of care the child chooses, from whom does he leave first? From the most important and significant people in your life - PARENTS. When choosing a method of leaving, the child, first of all psychologically and then physically, “breaks” ties and leaves his parents. What is initially expressed in his problematic behavior is that he tries in every possible way to distance himself from his parents. CONCLUSION 3. While parents are raising their child, until the moment of maturation (up to 17 years inclusive), they make the main contribution to the formation of his psyche, character, habits, life and human values ​​and behavior. It is the parents who, by their attitude towards the child, their perception, methods and styles of education, form in him both problematic and non-problematic behavior. Based on the above, when a child (teenager) has behavior problems, the main task of the parents is not to prohibit such behavior, but to LEARN TO READ it in order to respond in a timely and correct manner, preventing the child from “leaving.” When parents cannot cope with the problematic behavior of their child and call for help from a psychologist, persuading him to work with the child, perhaps he achieves noticeable results. But how long will these results last? After all, from the psychologist’s office the child returns to the family again - to those, perhaps, hated weather conditions that caused problematic behavior in him. So what if a psychologist worked with a child? After all, the atmosphere in the family has not changed. The weather conditions for the child remained the same, because those who formed them did not take part in working with the psychologist. Parents remained with the same thinking and the same parenting styles in relation to the child. And he is again exposed to the same risk factors. CONCLUSION 4. Any results in the behavior of a child/teenager/school student that a psychologist achieves in counseling without the involvement of parents will soon be nullified under the influence of destructive weather conditions in the family from which this child was brought. Only the key links in the family system - parents - can change the atmosphere in the family for the better. Changes in a child’s behavior, both for the worse and for the better, occur in the form of a chain reaction. The thinking of the parents changes -> the behavior of the parents changes -> the atmosphere in the family changes -> the child’s reaction to the atmosphere in the family changes -> the child’s behavior changes. ---------------------------- Having read this description to the end, you are now able to comprehend the future results of the psychologist’s work and answer three questions: 1. What do you think will be the most likely results if a psychologist works with a child (with a secondary link in the family system) without the participation of parents? 2. What results do you think will be most likely if a psychologist works directly with a parent (with a key link in the family system)? 3..