Diduk I. Relations between Children in the Family as a Factor of their Psychological Development.

The dissertation focuses on psychological peculiarities of psychological development of the individuality in the context of sibling interaction. The essence of interaction lies in the aspiration to find amotional support,, psychological security, approval in each other, to feel their own importance, value and competence. The child's need for activity and exploration of the world around is also satisfied. An important product of sibling interaction is accumulation of the child's own experience, perfection of his/her self-image and knowledge about his/her abilities and their boundaries. The comparison of the child's attitude and position with the sibling's ones leads to enlarging of his/her self-image, raising of its objectivity and individual specificity. Positive self-image correlates with harmonious sibling interaction in the family. There have been singled out 5 types of sibling interaction (according to the criterion of personal attitude in communication): competition, adaptation, compromise, ignori ng and cooperation. The most usual ones are compromise and adaptation. It has been stated that the system of sibling interaction is closely related to the level of reaching psychological maturity by a 7-year-old child, which is so important for his adaptation at school.