Parenthood is a process of promoting the child’s progressive development and achieving personal autonomy. Social, family and psychological factors of formation of parental attitudes of the person at the stage of entering adulthood are considered. The mechanisms of the parental family influence on parental attitudes are analyzed. Parenting and children raising are recognized by modern young students as a significant family value with priority of professional and social activity. The revealed gender differences prove a higher assessment of the importance of parenthood and the upbringing of children among males rather than females, who have strongly prioritize their professional careers as compared to parenthood. Young women’s expectations of difficulties in the future of family life are related to child birth and upbringing. The experience of emotional relations in one’s own parent family is proved to determine the importance of parenting for young adults. Positive expectations of student youth regarding future family life and a certain underestimation of the difficulties of the transitional periods of the family life cycle are revealed. The greatest difficulties are predicted by students in connection with the period of child expectation and the first year of child life. The beginning of parental function realization, child raising, economic and household functioning of the family and mutual adaptation of the spouses are listed as the most difficulties in family life cycle. Family factors that determine expectations about difficulties and subjective satisfaction with family life include gender, experience of romantic partnership, full or incomplete family in origin, chronological age.

Nowadays in vitro fertilization procedure is widespread. Due to improvements in medical technology parenting has become possible for couples who were doomed to childlessness. Practical request for psychological support couples who have decided to take part in the IVF program has been raised. Shaping the internal position of the IVF parent takes place in special psychological conditions. The IVF procedure is preceded by a period of infertility, the procedure is often the last chance to have a baby alone. Participation in the IVF program involves regular contact with doctors, medical personnel access to the intimate sphere of life couples. The paper analyzes the attitude of women participating in the IVF pregnancy program, the unborn baby and parenting - the elements constituting the parent position. The study which was attended by 224 pregnant women, 62 participants of IVF program and 162 women with physiological pregnancy was carried out on the basis of Kulakov Scientific Centre for Obstetrics, Gynecology and Perinatology. When analyzing the data obtained we were able to identify features of the internal position of women who became pregnant using IVF. In comparison with a group of women with physiological pregnancy, the IVF program participants tend to romanticize the role of parent and child. IVF program participants demonstrate unwillingness to take on the role of parent. The main motivation of mothers in the IVF group concentrated on the very fact of pregnancy and childbirth, proper parenting, while care and support for children is not appealing to women who became pregnant using IVF.

Important conditions for becoming a parent are the experience of motherhood and the time of pregnancy expectation.

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.