Freud “the Father of psychoanalysis” stressed how important love and work is for our mental health and so did Ericson. So the n ew couples follow love when they have weighed some labor and economic factors and then go ahead so as to create a family. We have dreams and expectations for the family, for the perfect upbringing of our children and our relation and we find ourselves in an unknown country where nothing corresponds to reality as we have imagined it. We have a lot of responsibilities. The needs of couples get lost within the needs of children and children’s needs are not covered, no matter how hard parents try. Our financial needs require more hours of work in that way parents time and strength is minimized to support the biological but mainly the emotional needs of children.

Education and knowledge of how I will be with my (mate) partner, as well as how I will be as a parent is non-existent. Nobody is training in advance so as to know how to become a parent (while telephone operators have been training for months in order to be able to change plugs). Thus, when we feel that we are not able to fulfill our first expectations and dreams, we start having negative feelings for ourselves and this can be transmitted directly to our children. Children carry this way their academic performance is affected and the cycle is completed. We believed that would live another kind of life and we have to live in another reality. If something (makes) obliges us (to) admit this difference then sadness and sorrow are added in our daily stress. Then a new cycle is added and thus in turn is added on children etc.
Moreover women who usually adjust more to other people as well as in the care of the house, very often feel deeply disappointed and deprived of their lives family life then “does not move forward” and life seem is meaningless and empty. The gap can make us give more at work without realizing how much our personal life is suffering – if it is not already non – existent. We put aside our feelings and in that way communication between the couple gets lost and so does between parents and children. Those who do not daydream and realize the seriousness of the situation and do not expect that “something better will happen tomorrow” (as they do not have the magical way of thinking of a 5 year old child) take action so as to make changes.

They ask for help by experts or by the wider environment of their families. They decide to reduce working hours, change shifts-one of them goes to work in the morning while the other goes to work in the afternoon or even one of the quits jobs until their children get older (grow up). Parents try everything as they feel worried, anxious or even guilty for their children. However, it is unlikely that they would be relieved, despite all their efforts.
During the 27 years of my experience working as an educator, a family therapist (councellor) and a specialist in self-esteem, I feel sorry for all parents who have to work hard on the daily living conditions. Bringing up and educating children although should have been a natural, spontaneous and enjoyable experience most of the times turn into “stormy” weather if we talk about it in a humorous way.
It is requested by parents to keep doing more and more things. To become more flexible, more imaginative, more conscious, happier and more inventive.
They even have to do more: with their children for a walk, buy for them creative toys, play happily with them so as to increase their intelligence, to bake homemade appetizers / cake and to surprise them. Parents should become proper role-models for their child and even become super parents and mainly a super mother.

No one can survive with such standards. Nobody can give so much and do so much and keep laughing at the same time.
Thus parents get involved in a necessary guilt. They in a way that has nothing to do with their feelings. In this way they alienated from their real emotions and they teach their children to act in the same way.
In the Center of Emotional Research and Self-Esteem we investigate all these ideas and emotions. We stop the streets of “self-punishments” and we try to don’t stick on guilty thoughts. We try to find operational and relieving ways in our lives so as help each parent be him/herself, because this is the most precious gift we can give to our children.
During our individual and family meetings we change the mood not the ideas to both parents and children.
Parents are humans as well and not heroes as the media, the special schools and many experts require.
A parent should respect its own limits. It is important for parents to accept the reality of their feelings every single moment of their lives.

The best thing is to be to be authentic and impulsive with our children. The only thing that we have to do is to realize and get to know better our feelings so as not to transmit dual messages to children.

Parents should learn to be true with themselves and to respect one another to accept their strengths and weaknesses and weaknesses and to evaluate the situation with objectivity, to take care of their inter relationship daily and then of a sudden the problems with their children are resolved and then all together go on in a sense of life relieved
Children stop making challenges because their parents’ self-esteem is strengthen and they do not give up easily on their own image nor are influenced by the views and comments of the other people
The only way to give love to a child is by letting him/her to use its own power so as to move on. We should separate our hopes and dreams from those of our children and allow them of express themselves as their think. We should even allow the negative environment and the negative speech to be expressed and exist. These all are a miracle.

What reduces the self-esteem of children

1. Ignoring their feelings “you shouldn’t be sad about this”
2. By making critical comments or even humiliating them “You never were good at maths. You are as stubborn as your father”
3. By forcing them to take up activities which they don’t feel like doing. For example, to insist that a child should learn piano even though he/she doesn’t have  inclination for music.
4. By comparing him/her negatively with other people “Your sister’s handwriting is better than yours”, “When I was in your age…”
5. To give him/her the impression that his opinion does not count. In particular to matters that concern him/her. For example, discussions on holidays or extra lessons etc., which take place in front of him/her
6. By not giving a reasonable explanation “Because I say so”, “Wait until you get older”
7. By overprotecting them, especially when we give them the impression that they need our protection because they are not able all by themselves
8.   By punishing them excessively
9. By not imposing clear limits and rules and then punishing them for doing something they did without knowing that it was wrong.
10. By doing inconsistent to our behavior towards them.