From the author: This short text, an appeal to parents, was written by me for the website of the Russian Children's Fund. You may also be interested in looking into it and finding new, useful knowledge - about yourself and about your child. Hello, dear parents! I am glad to welcome you to the wonderful time of summer holidays, which gives our children the opportunity to take a break from studying school subjects and doing homework. Communication with friends and family, trips to the sea or the countryside, walks, games - you can’t list everything that makes summer a favorite and bright time that children look forward to all year. For us, adults, it is a great joy to see them happy, tanned, smiling, to spend more time with them, to talk and get to know them better, to watch how they grow and change. And now, I invite you to look at your children in a very special way, perhaps the way we decide (or are already forced) to do this when we unexpectedly notice that in front of us are grown-up, adult people who were just “yesterday.” “were very small, they were children. This special look is similar to the way we look at people we have yet to meet. This is how we communicate with friends, acquaintances, and colleagues. We approach them with interest and respect. We recognize that they may not be like us, have their own point of view on what is happening around us, and we value the new experience that we gain in communicating with them. When talking, we are delicate, tolerant, accepting their individuality and uniqueness. Such interaction enriches both parties, provides the right to be themselves, to be with others, to be together. This is not the case with those we call children. It seems to us that we know everything about them: how they were born, what they were sick with, we know the games that they loved to play in early childhood and which they prefer now. We know their tastes, hobbies, preferences; we can guess what they are thinking about and how they will behave in a given situation. We are always close to the children, and there is an impression that the parent knows the child even better than the child knows himself. But do we know our children? Do we know children's thoughts, smiles and tears, experiences, fantasies, dreams? Do we understand their sadness, bad mood, fears, worries? I will question the affirmative answer, adding that we only assume what our child is like, but we find ourselves unable to comprehend the full depth and richness of the inner world that lies in each of the children. The illusion of getting to know one’s own children often does not leave room for the child’s fuller development, drawing out his individual traits, and reduces the opportunity to be different, different, different from others. Parental knowledge becomes a rule that cannot be broken, a cage that protects the child but limits growth. All desires, behavior and actions must correspond to the expected and usual; any change or deviation from what the adult knows about the child is perceived by him as a threat to the stability and calm that reigns in the world constructed by the parental figure. From early childhood, feeding by the hour and putting him to bed are the first training sessions that teach the baby to do something without desire or need, at insistence. Each new parental requirement or prohibition, day after day, envelops the child in layers, from under which the uniqueness, singularity, and otherness of the developing personality emerges less and less. The parent's view of the child does not tolerate uncertainty. It happens that we not only want to know our children, we oblige them to be understandable, predictable, and convenient for us. We do not tolerate when any manifestation of a childish character or mood interferes with our plans, when opinions do not coincide, when desires diverge. In the very first years, we so easily get used to controlling children, taking advantage of their helplessness and dependence, that over time, instead of freeing them, letting them go, giving them more space for.