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The children of parents suffering from mental illness are faced with the toxicity of the parental pathology and are all the more vulnerable in so far as they manage to roughly come to an understanding of the situation. They simply endure. Health workers have a responsibility to afford help and protection for children in such cases. They can explain pathological disturbances and their effects on parenthood to them with consent and participation from the sick parent. This approach, that requires a great deal of preparation, prudence and continuity, may pave the way for the child to suffer less from the parental pathology and be active in constructing a sufficiently favourable environment.