Approaching adolescence. By the beginning of school, a child usually masters well the content of male and female roles in the family and gradually begins to understand gender differences. Children understand perfectly well that gender is associated not only with external signs. The phrases “Boys are stronger than girls”, “girls are beautiful and neat”, “boys should protect girls” are already fully formed ideas by this age. Psychological preparation for physiological changes At primary school age, parents are faced with the task of preparing their child for puberty, telling him about the changes that await him in body structure, physiology and behavior. Currently, there is an opinion that children can get such information at school or from open sources and it is not necessary to tell them about the process of puberty. In a sense, this is true, with some reservations: the point is not only that having learned about the peculiarities of adolescence from the Internet or from more enlightened friends, a child may develop a negative attitude towards the changes that await him, but also that a heart-to-heart conversation between parents and children can be much more necessary than possession of scientific knowledge in the field of anatomy and physiology (the absence of which is sometimes cited by parents who assume that children will learn about everything without them). It is the parents who can help the child begin to have a positive attitude, without fear or prejudice, towards his process of becoming a girl or boy, to form an attitude towards menstruation or wet dreams as natural processes, not colored by guilt or disgust. Changing relationships between boys and girls Prepuberty is a time of first love and friendship between boys and girls, very different from the games that preschoolers of different sexes played together. Now adults can hear: “My friend likes a boy from a parallel class,” children tell their parents less often about their own hobbies. Should we be afraid of such friendship? If fathers and mothers remember themselves at this age, then their memories will come back to the girls whose pigtails they pulled, the boys who carried the briefcase to the house, sighs and furtive glances. Modern children have not gone very far, except that they still like VKontakte and post their photos. Falling in love at this age is completely normal and part of your child's development. Let your children know that you are on their side, that you understand and support their timid steps towards meeting the opposite sex. Parents in single-parent families Children growing up in single-parent families may find it more difficult to learn the family and social roles of men and women. For such children, the situation when one parent copes with all the challenges of life - in our country this is most often the mother - is familiar and understandable. In the unconscious world of such a child, a mother is a mother and a father at the same time, so a variety of distortions may arise in their ideas, for example, that being a woman is more difficult or more interesting, that women are stronger, or, on the contrary, they cannot cope with anything. Some children quite seriously tried to convince me that men are not needed at all or that a woman should take care of the family, protect it, and provide financially. It is important to lead such children to the confidence that male and female roles are equally important, but at the same time different, otherwise their attitudes may interfere with building relationships in later life. Whether to tell children about homosexual relationships... and if so, at what age is a question that parents must answer for themselves. The religious and cultural traditions of each specific family are of great importance. Traditional religions are quite clear about the phenomenon of homosexuality. In Russia, the law establishes liability for propaganda..