When a child appears in a family, everyone around is happy. Even the thought of thinking bad things about your child, getting angry at him, leads to horror and disbelief. Everyone is trying to please the baby: to help, protect, caress, calm. But time passes and a series of discontent begins: for some reason he walks poorly, but his peers are already running; His sleep is not so sound, he is somewhat capricious, and does not ask to go to the potty…. First, this is expressed to our closest acquaintances, without being embarrassed by the presence of the “culprit” of our grief. A little more time passes, and we observe (we hear, we say it ourselves): “Why are you messing around for so long, we’re late! Stop crying!!! Everyone is looking at us!!! Who do you look like?! A pig on a farm is cleaner!!!” What is the child experiencing at this moment? Is he not what his parents dreamed of? Doesn't he deserve to be loved by you? Stop. We were going to be good parents, weren't we? How can one even express dissatisfaction and be angry with someone whom we only recently admired and were touched by? What happened to us? From work experience, I know that such thoughts visited at least once even the most exemplary and exemplary parents, not to mention ordinary ones. Why does this happen and how can we regain that unconditional love that we felt for our baby when he (she) was just born? To say that the norms created by society are to blame for everything is only a half answer. Yes, they add a certain element to our expectations of a child at different stages of his development. When a person is still tiny, there are few or no complaints against him, and then we boldly rejoice at what he really is. But the further along the stages of growing up and entering society, there will immediately be a thousand criteria that he, for some reason, must meet. And behind them we gradually stop seeing the real child. Now imagine how your child feels when he hears all these demands addressed to him. And from whom? From those who for him are the main people in his life, from whom he expects care and protection. The situation can be further complicated by the fact that in the same family, from different adults, the same child can receive different messages about what he should be like. Of course, it is not surprising that children try to free themselves from such attention and care through “inappropriate” behavior. This is their way of showing us, adults, that next to them is a living child, a person with his own set of external and internal qualities, a personality who will ALWAYS not correspond to something. What should parents do, after all, completely abandon the presentation of social or family norms it is forbidden? And how can you start seeing your child again, not through the prism of your own and society’s demands, but in reality? The answer, oddly enough, is simple: you need to remember that the main parental functions are care and protection. When you make some requirement (norm) for your child, do you protect and care for him, or do you care about what others will think of you personally as a parent? An honest answer to this question will give you the opportunity to give up many demands on your child and thereby return to the roots of the unconditional love that you experienced for your baby in early childhood. And a diligent and attentive attitude to your own “clues” manifested in dissatisfaction with your child (preferably under the guidance of an experienced specialist) will help you feel happier in any life situations, including parenthood. And here it would be appropriate to remember the popular expression “don’t raise children, educate yourself, and the children will grow up to be like you.” Wisdom to you in communicating with loved ones!