From the author: Raising children is difficult if you lack knowledge and experience. You can get this knowledge and experience from specialists. This is normal, not embarrassing! Raising children is easy and interesting if you grow up with them, and not for them, so that they don’t later say: “I’m bored with life.” Mom’s alarm call: “Sign up my 14-year-old child for a consultation, urgently!” “What is your request?” I clarify. “He answers all my questions with only one thing: I’m bored with life!” - my mother answers sadly and anxiously. I hear similar requests from parents of different social status, alas, quite often. I talk with my mother when we meet. This is a mandatory condition, since the mother’s “view” of a given situation and the teenager’s “view” may be different. Unfortunately, I often find that parents refuse consultations and personal sessions. This is understandable and explainable. There is a fear that they will judge you and give you a grade, like in school. You can’t be guilty of something you haven’t learned, something you’re doing for the first time. If it doesn't work, ask for help. This is fine. This is what we do in everyday life. Before preparing a dish according to a new recipe, be sure to clarify everything, find out all the details, and then do it. Very delicately and gently, together with the parents, we understand the reasons for this situation. This quickly and qualitatively changes the relationship between children and parents. How do parents try to cope with this problem on their own? Example one: “We celebrated her birthday in America with the whole family, and when we returned, she again kept saying, “I’m bored,” says a mother about her eldest daughter, 14 years old. “Tell me about yourself,” I ask the girl when we stayed. alone. “I have nothing to tell about myself!” Everything is not interesting to me!” the girl sighs with such sorrow in her eyes that the discrepancy between the image and the spoken words reveals the absurdity of this situation. A sweet and young girl speaks in the words of a tired person who has known everything and everyone in this world. Youth speaks in the words of Old Age. It’s sad that such “old” teenagers are among us. Next example: “We are taking our daughter to her grandmother for the weekend. She is there taking a break from school, doing nothing, hanging out with friends, hanging out on the Internet. Everything is as he wants. And when we return home, the same thing begins: “I’m bored.” Why are you bored? - I ask. “I don’t know!” - the girl answers. What do you want? - I continue to ask questions. “I don’t know!” - she answers. “Why are you here?” - I want to clarify for her and myself the purpose of our meeting. “I don’t know!” - she repeats the same phrase. I believe her! I believe all the teenagers whom their parents bring for consultation. They don’t know why they live, breathe, eat, sleep, why they go to school, to a section, to a music school, to a sports section. Usually they, and their parents, answer: “That’s how it is, How else? That’s it, that’s how it should be!” Who needs it? What do you need? Why is it necessary? Where are the answers to all these questions? We begin to find them together. This is the first step towards an interesting and exciting, and most importantly, productive life! I will offer you a metaphor. There are several people in the boat. They swim and swim and never reach the solid shore. An understanding has come that something needs to be changed, rowing somehow differently or changing direction. We agreed with this. The wisest one, the eldest in age, took advantage of his experience and took responsibility for how to row. Everyone agreed. Everyone began to row in a new way, but our sage continues to row in the old way, it’s more familiar to him. Question: “Will the boat sail to a solid shore, and if it does sail, will it take more or less time? What emotions will be born in other participants towards our Sage?” Who do you think this metaphor is about? Who is in the boat? Parents and children. In what case will the boat quickly and successfully sail to the solid shore? When everyone hears and understands the other. Everyone needs change your “rowing” style, both for parents and children. Therapeutic work with a teenager begins and goes well, but the teenager returns home, to the usual environment/boat, where mom and dad “row” in the old way. And he.