{"id":20480,"date":"2023-11-08T09:06:27","date_gmt":"2023-11-08T08:06:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kennethsorensen.dk\/?p=20480"},"modified":"2026-05-18T19:03:44","modified_gmt":"2026-05-18T18:03:44","slug":"parents-and-children-and-fifteen-questions-for-parents","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kennethsorensen.dk\/en\/parents-and-children-and-fifteen-questions-for-parents\/","title":{"rendered":"Parents and Children and Fifteen Questions for Parents"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A child needs to be understood before they can be guided. Assagioli’s fifteen questions for parents and his framework for psycho-spiritual child development.<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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By Roberto Assagioli<\/strong>
Assagioli Archive in Florence, Docs. #23425 and #23427
Original title: Genitori E Figli<\/em>
Translated and edited with notes by Jan Kuniholm [i]<\/span><\/span><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Editorial Note<\/strong>
The abstract and contextual subtitle in this online edition have been added by the editor, Kenneth S\u00f8rensen, to support readability, navigation, and archival consistency. The original wording has not been altered.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Abstract<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

In this essay, Roberto Assagioli examines the psycho-spiritual dimensions of the parent-child relationship, offering a framework that draws on knowledge of psychological types, developmental stages, and what he calls the ‘soul age’ of the child. He traces the evolution from early childhood through adolescence, where the child’s growing demand for independence requires parents to make a parallel shift: from authority to friendship, from direct guidance to indirect influence. The second part of the essay presents fifteen searching questions for parents, inviting them to examine their own possessiveness, projections, and unconscious attitudes toward their children. Assagioli closes with characteristic warmth: a thirty-minute analysis of these questions, he promises, can bring a parent good for a lifetime.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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One of the most important and most arduous problems in inter-individual psychosynthesis concerns the right psycho-spiritual relationships between parents and children.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The problem is complex and difficult for several reasons. In fact it involves:<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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  1. Knowledge of the psychological types, <\/span><\/span>[i]<\/span><\/span><\/a>  the spiritual and personal Rays, <\/span><\/span>[ii]<\/span><\/span><\/a>  and the astrological signs of each of the parents and the child (to simplify we take here the case of only one child). Then there is the problem of how to  <\/span><\/span>harmonize <\/span><\/span><\/em> them.<\/span><\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n
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    • Knowledge of the developmental stages through which each person passes from early childhood to adulthood; the particular characteristics and problems of each stage, and of the crises of transition between one stage and another. On the basis of this knowledge it is necessary to derive the standards for right parental behavior in each of these stages of the child. These stages can be delimited as follows:<\/span><\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n
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      • From birth to 2 years.<\/span><\/span><\/li>\n\n\n\n
      • From age 2 to 8 years.<\/span><\/span><\/li>\n\n\n\n
      • From age 8 to 13 years.<\/span><\/span><\/li>\n\n\n\n
      • From age 14 to 20 years.<\/span><\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n
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        • Knowledge of the “soul age” of the child or young person. Depending on that “age,” he or she should be treated differently.<\/span><\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n
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          • Particular conditions of health and environment.<\/span><\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n
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            • The exceptional period that humanity as a whole is now going through; a period of transition between two Ages, in which the old forms, attitudes and methods that may have been good in the past no longer “work,” while the new ones are not yet well known and formed. Children are especially difficult to deal with during this period.<\/span><\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n