Believe it or not, we undergo baptism by fire at a fairly early age. At the age of two and a half, we are already prone to deceive others – but our first major successes are only experienced at the age of 4-5, when our manipulation skills start to improve significantly. The development continues to progress, and sooner or later the issue of parental role models becomes unavoidable. The bad news is that, even if we are the most firmly behaved parents, our children will still notice the inevitable adverse situations that occur in our daily lives and will incorporate them into their behaviour. Michael Lewis, an American developmental psychologist, cites several such examples in his study: we are probably all familiar with the childhood situation when our parents asked us to be more happy with a gift from a relative, even if we were looking for something completely different. Another common example is when, as a child, we hear our parents say how much they don’t want to talk to anyone at the moment, but when an old acquaintance does speak to them, they put on their best smile and strike up a conversation with a “how nice to see you!”
