The paper presents P.Ya. Galperin’s ideas of the psychological content of interiorization. P.Ya. Galperin considered the psyche as subject’s orienting activity and defined its functional role in the subject’s human activity. The internal orienting activity retains structural similarity with practical activities. The internal plan of activity is deemed as a «reserve field» that is necessary for testing actions in certain situations and disclosing the conditions for implementing them. The mental image arises as a component of activity, represents the features of objects being necessary for orientation and construction of actions. P.Ya. Galperin distinguishes features of two types of situations: where the psyche is not the primary matter and where the psyche is the primary matter. The principal ideas of the gradual development of mental actions theory and the method of directed development of mental processes as a re-creation of the logic of mental phenomena that reveal the psychological content of interiorization are discussed. The author justifies the concept of «subject logic of developed actions» that objectively dictates the logic of organizing not only cognitive, but also mental processes.

In recent years, children’s school stress and school phobia are rather frequent motives for parents to refer for psychological aid. A child being unable to cope with the annually growing demands to intellectual potential, his/her parents adopt a wait-and-see attitude – the child will grow up and the problems will resolve themselves. Another reason for the parental attitude dysfunction is lack of generally accepted priorities of a child developmental age. On the one hand, this occurs due to countless aspects of psychological preparedness of a child for school: the ability to ride a bicycle, to know geometric shapes, to read, to write, to count, to draw, to develop gross and fine motor skills, to listen to and follow instructions, to memorize, to be attentive and diligent, careful and independent, to socialize with peers, etc. On the other hand, amongst the guidelines for educational programs there are mutually exclusive key characteristics of the primary school age. Moreover, the dominant role in mental development of a child in the early school years is given to a school teacher. The most significant phenomena of the primary school age (theoretical thinking, introspection, etc.) are connected with mastering learning activities.

The basis of our study is the hypothesis that mental ages of a child and stages of development of an age-related psychological neoformation are the regulators of the parental position.

We have covered the underpinnings for distinguishing groups of children of three mental ages – the children that have attained the crisis of the seven’s year («crisis»), post-crisis and stable ones. Based on a subsequent test for the children, we have drawn certain conclusions on the effectiveness of the proposed strategy for the parental competence development.

The research carried out has revealed that criteria for a child’s mental age can be considered as a basis for the formation of a competent adult selection of parent-child interaction strategies.

An analysis of the cultural and historical theory of L. Vygotsky is considered. It is shown that in its essence this theory belongs to non-classical psychology. The main ideas concerning the development of the human individual in education put forward by scientists in the framework of this theory are considered.