Childhood is not just a product of human development but also a product of development of society’s educational and spiritual culture. This paper aims to disclose how nowadays the family helps the child to develop adaptation instruments which would facilitate his/her adaptation to the society – in a micro-macro environment, to show what helps the child to become a member of a social group and the society, what adaptation problems arise during the childhood. Problems of school adaptation of the first-formers have not been properly assessed and analysed so far, though they foresee the future. No proper attention has been paid to the development of the harmonious personality during the pre-school period and to the correction of their adaptation during the first-school year. The paper deals with the child’s experiences of the pre-school period as a factor influencing school adaptation in the first form. Variety and quality of children’s experiences are directly related and most of all depend on the family of the spiritual institution, so its impact is the strongest in terms of the development of the child’s personality.

More in-depth analysis of cooperation between family and pre-school education institutions when promoting positive parenting both among educators and parents revealed a number of problematic aspects. It has been noticed that both parents and educators lack knowledge on positive methods of children education that would help noticing problems in children education, finding solutions to problem situations, and responding to a number of issues related to child and family welfare. If parents and educators were provided the required knowledge as early as possible when the most receptive periods in child’s life are not over, this would allow applying the required knowledge on time so that children will not experience heavy problems related to children education errors made. A survey of 34 educators and 53 parents (48 mothers and 5 fathers) whose children attend pre-school education institutions was performed. The survey was aimed at exploring child behavior noticed and attention paid to children by educators and parents of children that are in their pre-school age as well ashow the concepts of a “good child” are perceived by educators and parents of children that are in their pre-school age. It has been established that prior the series of lectures-discussions called “Positive methods of children education”, the majority of educators and parents thought they noticed positive child behavior, and after the series of lectures-discussions, they started to critically evaluate their behavior with children, and demonstrated changes in perception of the concept of “good child”. The series of lectures-discussions “Positive methods of children education” is an efficient tool for parents and educators striving to create harmonious education environment for children.

The paper presents young people’s attitudes towards their readiness for parenthood and motherhood. The respondents’ answers were obtained via employing the method of focus groups. The survey used 2 focus groups before the course on positive parenthood was delivered to the target groups and 2 survey groups after the delivery of the course. The author of the article discusses the concepts of motherhood and parenthood. Further to it, the results of the survey on the young people’s readiness for parenthood and motherhood are presented. The two target groups become to be the students of Lithuanian University of Educational Sciences who have chosen the subject on “Positive Parenthood” as an optional general subject. The data obtained revealed the effectiveness of the course on changing young people’s attitudes towards the concepts of “a good mother” and “a good father”, their expectations towards a partner and a child, their ability to analyse themselves critically in the context of family relations.

The article presents the analysis of scientific literature and insights of researchers into the topic of positive parenthood perception of parents raising pre-school children. The topic of positive parenthood is widely discussed in scientific literature of foreign countries (Coste, 2009; Sanders, 2010; Durran, 2010; Faber and Mazlish, 2012; Dreikurs and Solts, 2012; and others). The presented research was conducted in the nursery school ‘O’ (hereinafter n/s X) in Vilnius City on 17 February – 10 March 2016. It involved 110 parents raising children of pre-school age, who completed a questionnaire survey. For their research, the researchers selected an institution that they had cooperated with for five years implementing teacher and parent education in the context of positive parenthood. The analysis of research findings revealed the perception of ‘positive parenthood’ of parents raising pre-school children. Summarising the research findings, principled provisions of the research participants towards children were highlighted that were manifested through parents’ perception of own children. The greater part of the research participants referred to their child as a difficult child (20 %), an obedient child (19 %) and a happy child (17 %). Moreover, a statistically reliable result was determined between the way parents described their children and the tolerated behaviour of children. The research data revealed that the majority of parents gained their knowledge and experience about children education from the experience of their own parents and searched for information independently, and only a small part of parents addressed specialists (psychologists, social pedagogues and others).