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Becoming a parent in one sense happens overnight, but in another it is a role which one has to grow into through experience and through making many mistakes. Our childhood experience with our own parents provides the basic reservoir from which we draw unconsciously; our own children can also be of the greatest help in letting us know when we are helping them to thrive. But children differ enormously in this respect, in their capacity to love and to enjoy life and to appreciate the parents who gave them life.
Because of his individual quality, we have to be prepared to learn with every new child how to understand him, and to interpret his needs aright. This is one of the great pleasures in bringing up children and in working with children; to enjoy it we must, however busy we may be, allow a little time, a little space, to be attentive to and to communicate with the individual child.
A closer look at the way in which any child grows up within his family makes one realise that none does this without conflicts with parents, and brothers and sisters, but that these struggles with the outer world can help him to face the conflicts