Abstract

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.