Abstract:

The article considers the study of native and foreign authors on the issue of role interaction of family members. Taking into account the existing works in the field of family psychology, the authors have developed the definitions of parent and child functional roles, compensating the lack of theoretical knowledge in this field of knowledge. Based on the created concept of role structure of child-parent interaction, psychodiagnostic techniques "Social family roles " and " Social roles of a child " were constructed and tested. The article presents the results of a study on the definition of the relation of young girls for their future parental roles and the roles of their unborn child as a constituent part of a reflexive cognitive content of psychological readiness for parenthood. The analysis of the data revealed the characteristic features of the structure images of girls’ future parental roles and their ideas about the roles of their unborn child. The authors have developed an instrument for measuring the role structure of parent-child relationships, that can be recommended for professionals involved in family issues and preparing young people for family life and parenthood.

Keywords: family structure, family role, marital role, the role of the child, parental functional roles, future parental role; an image; readiness for parenthood