From the author: The article was written for the magazine "Anthropos Report" (Munich) and the website "Self-Knowledge", 2012. For the last ten years, within the framework of the joint activities of the Kaliningrad and German unions "Anthropos - for the sake of the children of this world" ( "anthropos" from Greek means "man"), a permanent training group was formed under the leadership of Hans-Wolff Graf. My partner Yuri Deshkovich and I are professional psychologists. The rest of the participants use the knowledge they gain in various professions, which, of course, also involve interaction with other people. Awareness and acceptance of oneself, understanding of relationships also help in communicating with loved ones, in raising children. It so happened that my friends and partners mostly have sons, teenagers. They inspired us with their curiosity (“What kind of trainings are these?”, “What are you doing?”, “What kind of thinking models?”) to the idea of ​​talking more with them about them, about ourselves, about Life in the general circle of “adults.” -children": not only each with their child at home, but together, on equal terms, as friends, that for them - the older they get, the more - it is necessary and important to feel from us adults. Not moms and dads, breadwinners, drinkers, controllers, but friends. The boys themselves suggest to us the topics of joint conversations. For example, at one of the last meetings, which have become regular over the past six months (the guys themselves like to call our meeting-conversations seminars, for them it sounds more “adult”), they talked about laziness and computer addiction. It is interesting that they very quickly - faster than adults, without reading any books on psychology - clearly named several typical reasons for laziness: Fears of not being able to cope, fear of a task that is too difficult at first glance and complex; Inability to plan, manage your time, lack of discipline; Lack of interest, motive - your own, not mom and dad’s, but your own; Lack of results, success even in an interesting business - when something doesn’t work out quickly, as children often want, and they give up; Reluctance to do routine, monotonous work, especially when “need” and “should”; Just fatigue, when you need to rest a little. And they themselves also figured out the phenomenon of computer addiction very quickly: Virtual victories are more easily achievable; In life there are few other - more natural - interests and activities; On the networks you feel themselves “more confident” in communication. Using examples, the guys looked at the reasons for their laziness, came up with solutions together and promised to tell at the next meeting about who achieved what success, what they developed, trained. For children, as for adults, community is very important. We humans are “herd creatures”; a feeling of connectedness, trust, natural competition, and the opportunity to compete is important to us. We all want to be taken seriously, with respect and interest in our thoughts and feelings. And that’s why we try to ensure that the guys see and feel exactly this kind of attitude towards themselves: for them this is both a gift and an opportunity to feel important, significant, but at the same time it obliges them - after all, this attitude must be consistent. Such communication with children on an equal basis is a challenge and internal growth for us, parents. Moving away from the usual roles of caring moms and dads, spreading their wings over their children, worrying and controlling, is not easy for many of us: constantly remembering that we are the most important models for our children, striving to live up to this also requires effort and patience, consistency and discipline, personal development and maturity. But this is so important for our growing “birds”. It’s interesting to watch how boys grow up, begin to think about the future, dream, get used to planning, try to help each other with advice when someone shares their problems, motivate each other, learn to listen and express theirs more clearly and freely..