The topic of “a child in an orphanage” is very difficult and requires the most serious attention. The problem is often not fully understood by society. Meanwhile, there are more and more residents of orphanages in our country every year. Statistics say that the number of street children in Russia now reaches two million. And the number of residents of orphanages is increasing by approximately 170,000 people per year.

Only in the last decade there have been three times more such institutions than before. They are inhabited not only by actual orphans, but also by little disabled people abandoned by their parents, taken away from alcoholics, drug addicts and convicts. There are special closed institutions for those born with congenital defects, or such a form as an orphanage for mentally retarded children. Living conditions and conditions there are not advertised, and society prefers to turn a blind eye to this.

How do children live in orphanages?

What happens in such a confined space, according to eyewitnesses, bears little resemblance to normal human conditions. Organizations, sponsors and simply caring people are trying to do everything in their power to help such children. They raise money, finance trips, organize charity concerts, and purchase furniture and household appliances for orphanages. But all these undoubtedly good deeds are aimed at improving the external conditions of existence of orphans.

Meanwhile, the problem of children in orphanages is much more serious, deeper, and it lies in the fact that by creating human conditions for such pupils, feeding, heating and washing, we will not solve the main problems - the lack of love and personal individual communication with the mother and others family, close people.

Public education - guarantees and problems

It is impossible to solve this problem with money alone. As you know, children left without parents in our country fall under the care of the state. In Russia, the form of education for orphans mainly exists in the form of state-owned large orphanages, each of which is designed for a number of residents from 100 to 200. The advantage of the state welfare system lies mainly in social guarantees - receiving their own housing upon reaching adulthood, free second education and so on. This is a definite plus. But if we talk about the matter of education, then, by and large, the state cannot do it.

Relentless statistics show that no more than a tenth of orphanage graduates, upon becoming adults, find a worthy place in society and lead a normal life. Almost half (about 40%) become alcoholics and drug addicts, the same number commit crimes, and about 10% of graduates attempt suicide. Why such terrible statistics? It seems that the whole point is in serious flaws in the system of state education for orphans.

Orphanage - age of children and transition along the chain

This system is built on the principle of a conveyor. If a child is left without parents, he is destined to travel along the chain, moving successively to a number of institutions. Until the age of three or four, little orphans are kept in orphanages, then they are sent to an orphanage, and upon reaching the age of seven, the pupil’s place of permanent residence becomes a boarding school. Such an institution differs from an orphanage in having its own educational institution.

Within the latter, there is also often a division into junior school and senior school. Both have their own teachers and educators and are located in different buildings. As a result, over the course of their lives, orphanage children change teams, teachers, and peer groups at least three or four times. They get used to the fact that the adults around them are a temporary phenomenon, and soon there will be others.

According to staffing standards, there is only one teacher per 10 children, and in the summer - one person per 15 children. A child in an orphanage, of course, does not receive any real supervision or real attention.

About everyday life

Another problem and characteristic feature is the closed world of orphans. How do children live in orphanages? And they study and communicate, immersed around the clock in the environment of the same disadvantaged people. In the summer, the team is usually sent on vacation, where the children will have contact with people like themselves, representatives of other government institutions. As a result, the child does not see peers from normal, prosperous families and has no idea how to communicate in the real world.

Children from an orphanage are not accustomed to work from an early age, as happens in normal families. There is no one to teach them and explain the need to take care of themselves and their loved ones; as a result, they cannot and do not want to work. They know that the state is obliged to ensure that the wards are clothed and fed. There is no need for your own maintenance. Moreover, any work (for example, helping in the kitchen) is prohibited, regulated by hygiene and safety standards.

The lack of basic household skills (cooking food, tidying up the room, sewing up clothes) gives rise to real dependency. And it’s not even a matter of banal laziness. This vicious practice has a detrimental effect on the formation of personality and the ability to solve problems independently.

About independence

Limited, extremely regulated communication with adults in a group setting does not in any way stimulate the development of a child in an orphanage in terms of independence. The presence of a mandatory, firm daily routine and control by adults cuts off any need for self-discipline and planning by the child of his own actions. From infancy, orphanage children get used to only following other people's instructions.

As a result, graduates of state institutions are in no way adapted to life. Having received housing, they do not know how to live alone or take care of themselves at home. These children do not have the skills to buy groceries, cook food, or spend money wisely. A normal family life for them is a sealed secret. Such graduates have absolutely no understanding of people, and as a result, very, very often end up in criminal structures or simply become drunkards.

Sad result

Even in outwardly prosperous orphanages, where discipline is maintained, there are no flagrant cases of abuse; there is no one to instill in children and give them at least basic concepts about life in society. This situation, unfortunately, is generated by the very system of centralized state education of orphans.

Pedagogical tasks in orphanages most often come down to the absence of emergency situations and wide publicity. High school orphans are explained the rights of a child in an orphanage and upon leaving it (housing, benefits, free education). But this process only leads to the fact that they forget about all responsibilities and remember only that everyone owes them everything - starting from the state and ending with their immediate environment.

Many children from the orphanage, who grew up without a spiritual and moral core, are prone to selfishness and degradation. It is almost impossible for them to become full-fledged members of society.

There is an alternative...

The conclusions are sad: a large state orphanage as a form of education for orphans has completely proven its ineffectiveness. But what can you offer in return? Among experts it is believed that only adoption can be optimal for such children. Because only a family can provide what a child in an orphanage is deprived of in a government environment.

Those who know first-hand about life in foster families are firmly convinced of the need for government assistance to people who decide to take on the feat of raising someone else’s orphan child. Such parents need the support of the state, society and church, since adoptive parents with their difficult responsibilities always have a lot of problems and difficult questions.

There are foster families that can replace an orphanage. At the same time, the state pays the parents a salary, and there is no secret about adoption - the orphan knows who he is and where he comes from. Otherwise, such a pupil is a full member of the family.

Another option

Another form of organizing the life of orphans is a family orphanage. Non-state institutions of this type often follow this path. Living quarters there can be divided into separate apartments, “families” consist of 6-8 children, the mother, officially appointed to this position, and her assistant. The children are all together and take turns busy shopping for groceries, cooking and all the necessary household chores. A child in an orphanage of this type feels like a member of a large, friendly family.

Also interesting is the experience of SOS children's villages, the design of which is based on the educational model of a teacher from Austria. There are three similar villages in our country. Their goal is also to bring the living conditions of pupils as close as possible to family conditions.

In addition, there are small orphanages. They are structured in the image and likeness of an ordinary government institution, but the number of children there is much smaller - sometimes no more than 20 or 30 people. On such a scale it is much easier to make the environment feel homely than in a huge boarding school. A child in an orphanage of this type attends a regular school and communicates with peers from normal families.

Will the Orthodox Church save it?

Many educators and public figures believe that representatives of the church should be involved in working in state children's institutions, because every person needs food for the soul, the presence of moral ideals and the formation of moral principles. Orphans deprived of parental warmth need this doubly.

That is why Orthodox orphanages could turn out to be an island of salvation for such children in the modern world of lack of spirituality and lack of any guidelines. Such an educational institution created at a church also has another important advantage - the church community is in some way able to replace the absent family of an orphanage. In the parish, students make friends and strengthen spiritual and social ties.

Not so simple

Why is it that such a form as the Orthodox orphanage has not yet become widespread? The problem is the presence of many difficulties of a very different nature - legal, material, shortage of teaching staff. Financial problems - primarily due to the lack of necessary premises. Even the most modest shelter will require a separate building or part of it.

Philanthropists are also not very willing to allocate funds to finance such projects. But even if sponsors are found, the bureaucratic difficulties in registering such shelters are almost insurmountable. Numerous commissions, on whose decisions the receipt of permission depends, find fault with the slightest deviations from existing formal instructions, despite the fact that the majority of large orphanages funded by the state exist against the backdrop of a great many serious violations, including legal ones.

It turns out that a church orphanage is possible only in conditions of illegal existence. The state does not provide any legal acts capable of regulating the education of orphans by the church, and, accordingly, it does not allocate money for this. Without centralized funding (only from sponsors), it is difficult for an orphanage to exist - almost impossible.

About the money issue

In our country, only state institutions are financed, in which, according to the Education Law, education must be secular. That is, the construction of churches is prohibited, teaching children the faith is not allowed.

How cost effective are orphanages? Keeping children in a state institution costs a pretty penny. Not a single family spends the amount allocated for children’s education in an orphanage. It is about 60,000 rubles. annually. Practice shows that this money is not spent very effectively. In the same foster family, where this figure is three times less, children receive everything they need and, moreover, the much-needed care and guardianship of their foster parents.

About the moral and ethical side of the matter

Another serious problem of orphanages is the lack of qualified and responsible teachers. Such work requires the expenditure of a huge amount of mental and physical strength. It literally involves selfless service, because teachers’ salaries are simply ridiculous.

Often, by and large, random people go to work in orphanages. They have neither love for their charges nor the reserve of patience that is so necessary when working with disadvantaged orphans. The impunity of educators in a closed orphanage system leads to the temptation to command uncontrollably, reveling in their own power. Sometimes it comes to extreme cases, which, from time to time, end up in print and the media.

A very complex issue about corporal punishment, which is officially prohibited, but its existence and, moreover, the widespread practice of its use in fact is no secret to anyone. However, this problem is not typical only for orphanages - it is a headache for the entire modern educational system.

And placing a child in an orphanage has been described many times and is well known to adoptive parents and those involved in placing children in families. Much less has been written about the feelings of children who are taken away from their families, but it is precisely this experience that then affects the entire life of the child from the orphanage.

The decision to remove a child from the family is made by guardianship authorities and the police in cases where, firstly, social troubles in the family are chronic, and, secondly, there is an immediate threat to the life and health of the child. At the same time, no one discusses what is happening with the child himself. That is, the child is, as it were, an “object”.

It is obvious that the motive for the actions of representatives of the guardianship authorities is to protect the child and his rights. What happens from the child's point of view? The child had his own life, in which, perhaps, he did not like much, but, nevertheless, it was his familiar, “own” world. If the parents were not extremely cruel to the child and he did not run away from home on his own, then this means that selection occurs against the child's will.

From the child’s point of view: “guilty and punished”

Try to imagine the following situation: you are a child, living with your mother, grandmother, brother and sister in your apartment. You don’t always have enough food or toys, but you are used to sleeping with your brother and sister on the same couch. Some people periodically come to your mother and grandmother, with whom they make noise and drink in the kitchen, your mother often changes her mood, depending on this, she can hug you or suddenly scream and even beat you. She often smells of alcohol, you know this smell, but for you it is inextricably linked with your mother. In the yards adjacent to yours, you know all the nooks and crannies and all the interesting places to play; among the yard kids you have friends and enemies. Grandma says that in the fall you will go to school, and there will be free meals, because you have large family family.

One day, two women come to your house, one of them, my mother says that she is from the police. They talk to their mother in the kitchen in a raised voice, the mother begins to swear and says: “These are my children. This is no one's business! None of your business! I live as I want! It would be better to catch the criminals, why bother us!” etc. Then she and her grandmother discuss that mom should get a job, but there is nothing suitable for her.

During the week there are no drunken companies in the house, the grandmother cleaned the rooms. But after a while, everything becomes the same again: mom doesn’t work, different people come home, with whom she drinks again. Then one day you hear a conversation between your mother and grandmother that some kind of summons has arrived. Mom cries at first, and in the evening she and grandma get very drunk. In the morning, mom says: “We overslept, but I don’t care!”

The next day in the morning the doorbell rings. A half-asleep mother swears on the threshold and tries not to let anyone come into the apartment, and your grandmother tells you to get ready, that you are going to a sanatorium. For some reason, the grandmother is crying, and a scandal breaks out in the corridor, the mother is being held because she is trying to fight, swearing, shouting something about the government, “bastards from the police,” etc.

You don’t understand what is happening, but such situations have never happened in your life, and you feel that something serious is happening. You and your brother and sister are taken out of the apartment by people you don’t know (there are three of them). They tell you not to be afraid, that you will go to a sanatorium, that you will be fine there: you will be fed, you will have new clothes and books. They put you in a car and you go somewhere.

Then the car stops near some building, they take your sister away and say that she will stay here, since small children under 3 years old live here. You don’t understand this, but the car moves on. The car drives for a long time, leaves the city and stops near some fence. The gate opens and the car drives inside. You see that you are in a fenced area; you and your older brother are being taken out of the car. You enter the building.

The people who brought you tell the adults who meet you in the lobby your first and last names, sign some papers, tell you not to be afraid, and leave somewhere. The new adults take you somewhere, in a room with tiled walls and floors, they undress you, take away your clothes, saying that “this dirt cannot be washed off and they will give you something else.”

Then they talk about some insects and shave your head. Then they take you to wash, and for the first time in your life you wash with something prickly that tears your skin, the soap stings your eyes, and you cry. Someone wipes your face with a hard waffle towel. They give you new things and tell you to put them on. You don’t want to, because these are not your clothes, but they tell you that your clothes are no longer there, that they were all rotten from dirt and were thrown away, and now you have new clothes - much better than the old ones. You wear clothes that smell of something foreign and are unusual.

You are led down the corridor, your brother is told that he will be taken to a group for older children, and you lose sight of him. You are led into a large room with many beds. They show you your place, tell you that you will share a bedside table with some other child, that all the children are now on a walk, but soon they will come, and you will have lunch with them. You are left alone in this room, you sit on the bed and wait...

What does separation from family mean for a child?

What feelings arise when reading this text and feeling like a child in such a situation?

What thoughts and sensations appear?

What does it feel like to leave home like this with strangers to who knows where?

What is it like to find yourself in an unfamiliar place with complete uncertainty - what will happen next? To be separated one by one from all your loved ones and not know where they are and whether there will be an opportunity to see them ever again?

Lose all your belongings, including underwear, and hair?

What would you like in such a situation from the adults around you?

If such a move is necessary, how would you like it to happen?

What would you like to know about your loved ones? Would it be important to be able to see them from time to time?

Very often, people do not give themselves the trouble to think about what separation from their family means for a child. “Well, a child lives in an orphanage - that’s how his life has developed, and there is no need to dramatize the situation.” Nevertheless, for a child this situation is very dramatic. The first step that adults must take when they are truly interested in a child’s life is to recognize his feelings in this situation and the fact that this kind of event cannot pass without a trace, because, in essence, it is the collapse of his world for the child.

The child regards separation from family as rejection (“the parents allowed this to happen”), and the result is negative ideas about oneself and about people. “Nobody needs me,” “I’m a bad child, you can’t love me,” “You can’t count on adults, they’ll leave you at any moment,” these are the beliefs that most children, abandoned by their parents, come to.

One boy who ended up in an orphanage said about himself: “I am deprived of parental rights.” This statement very accurately reflects the essence of what is happening: the child is a victim of circumstances, but as a result he loses the most. Family, loved ones, home, personal freedom. This brings pain and is perceived as punishment. Any punishment happens for something, and the only explanation that children can find in such a situation is that they are “bad.”

The hopelessness of the situation is that ideas about oneself largely determine a person’s behavior. The idea of ​​oneself as “bad”, the pain of experiencing a life catastrophe, the abundance of aggressive behavioral patterns in life experience (family, social environment) lead to the fact that sooner or later such children become social destructors.

To break this “fatal circle of ill-being” and really help the child, it is necessary to work with his feelings in connection with the loss of his family, and with traumatic life experiences, to work through his current life problems, finding alternative models of behavior. To provide the opportunity for successful social self-realization and help in the formation of motives for it. A separate task in working with a child is the formation of a positive model of the future, the skill of setting goals and achieving them. All this is complex, labor-intensive and painstaking work, requiring the participation of a large number of people and a systematic approach. But without her, the child will not get a “second chance” in his life.

Comment on the article "Parting with family and moving to an orphanage through the eyes of a child"

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How does a child feel when parting with his family and moving to an orphanage? Then the car stops near some building, they take your sister away and say that she will stay here, since small children under 3 years old live here. Moving and a small child.

Recently, young people have been leaving Daugavpils en masse in search of a better life, or rather, in the hope of making money, they are going abroad. It’s time to sing a cheerful song, slightly changing the words: “My address is not a house or a street, my address is the European Union!” That’s how it is, and everything would be fine, but the children remain in their hometown, and they stay for many years. And children without parental supervision can grow up in such a way that no money earned in a foreign land will be a joy.

It is no secret that drug addiction has increased among teenagers. Often, dens are created in apartments where teenagers left to their fate live. Moms and dads would be happy to stay in their hometown close to their children, but it is not always possible to find a job with a normal salary. What to do? What are the most necessary precautions to take when leaving your children? Order police inspector Svetlana Fedorova answers these questions.

*Every age has its own nightmares*

Over the past 4-5 years, the percentage of neurotic disorders in children of parents who left to work in Europe has increased horribly, although the children grow up in good conditions, are loved and spoiled.

Children 3-5 years old react noticeably to separation from one of their parents or both; they are scared and feel unprotected and suffer from nightmares. They develop fear of separation.

Children aged 7-8 years experience depressive reactions, night phobias, even paroxysmal attacks.

9-12 year olds experience obsessions, superstitions, and frequent nightmares. They imagine their parents as dead, sick, or victims of accidents because they are afraid of never seeing their parents again. Anxiety leads to problems in behavior and learning.

Teenagers are better able to make sense of what happened; they see the positive side of their parents' departure. Their attention is directed rather to themselves as individuals and to their own relationships with people; they are interested in their own freedom and sexuality.

However, such children are at risk and are not protected from problems associated with alcohol and drug use.

Psychologists address parents who have left and intend to leave: “If you dig deeper into the souls of your children, you will find frightening things. Give them back their childhood!"

Teachers say: children left without parental supervision receive a lot of freedom, which they use ineffectively (entertainment, discos, nightclubs, dubious establishments).

If one parent leaves, the child is left in the care of the other. In such families, the situation is relatively stable; students have moral support both at home and at school. But if both parents are absent, the children are taken care of by grandparents, relatives, neighbors, guardians - persons who are less close. After the first disagreements, the guys prefer to do without them. The result is lateness for classes, depression, lack of self-confidence, alcohol and drug use.

Lost illusions

Igodda the departure of parents - so promising at first, leads to the loss of the family. The experience leaves negative marks on the mental health of abandoned children.

What happens to a child for whom for many years his parents are only photographs, a voice in the telephone receiver and expensive gifts?

For a little man, his mother is part of himself. The crisis of three-year-olds, known to all parents, is nothing more than the child’s first attempt to realize the fact that he is a separate person. But this is only a tiny step on the path to growing up. The child will be able to completely separate from guardianship much later, after eighteen or even twenty years. Until this age, parents for him are the very wall on which he can always lean if necessary. For a child, this is as immutable a fact as the need to eat, sleep or breathe.

Children from large rural families perceive the long-term departure of their parents most easily. In such families, parental roles are evenly distributed between brothers and sisters: the elders look after the younger ones, each has their own part of the housework, which simply cannot be delegated to anyone.

It is much more difficult for a single child. For him, any explanation that “we don’t have enough money” is an abstraction that he cannot yet understand. Trying to cope with the tension caused by the need to come to terms with inevitable changes, the child begins to explain to himself in his own way the fact of leaving.

Depths of the soul

Most often, parents leaving to work means nothing more than betrayal for the child! The child is offended by his mother and father, strong feelings are raging in his soul - resentment, anger. Problems begin from the moment that aggression, rushing out, collides with the child’s internal censor: parents are taboos, gods who cannot be guilty. The child still cannot understand and explain to himself or others what is happening to him and therefore decides that the parents’ departure is only his fault. If he were better, smarter, more obedient, then his parents, of course, would have stayed at home. The feeling of guilt grows like a snowball, the child becomes insecure, withdrawn and uncommunicative. Some children, desperate to attract attention with their successes, slide to the other extreme - dreaming of achieving at least some reaction from their parents, they stop obeying and behave defiantly and shockingly.

Parents should also remember that the baby can react to strong feelings with various diseases - problems of the gastrointestinal tract, allergies, skin rashes, frequent colds. This is a consequence of the stress suppressed inside.

Perhaps the only option when parents leaving to work is good for the child is a situation where lies reign in the family. For a child who perfectly reads the real relationships between parents, external appearances when adults try to “keep up the brand” are nothing more than appearances. The kid, sensitively feeling the anger and resentment of loved ones, is forced to distrust his own feelings, listening to the cheerful words of adults. Such duality very quickly leads to psychological problems and even mental illness. Getting rid of such family relationships is one of the ways out for the child.

Thirst for love

In a full-fledged family, a child learns to experience emotions, manage them, and understand the reactions of other people. People deprived of such baggage subsequently do not understand their emotional reactions; in the eyes of other people, they look like robots, busy only with their career and external manifestations of success. They are called “thick-skinned”. This is one of the possible options for the mental development of children whose parents left to work. Once deceived in their thirst for love, they cannot overcome their inner fear all their lives, preferring to keep people at a distance rather than experience the pain they experienced in childhood due to the absence of parents. Partially, this can be smoothed out ad infinitum with repeated declarations of love, but, unfortunately, any words will not correct the situation of the past.

...The girl has been raised by her grandmother for four years, while her mother left to work. By the age of nine, the child developed severe neurosis, manifested by tics. Yes, she missed her mother, like any child, but her relatives did not really connect one with the other. The problem is that a child, unlike an adult, cannot come to a psychologist and say - I’m depressed, I’m anxious.

In children, tension manifests itself through behavior and emotions - many bite their nails, enuresis begins. They may behave inappropriately - twitch, run away from home, refuse to communicate.

The child cannot understand what it means - “mom will return.” If he is left with his grandmother, who has nursed him since infancy, and the child’s attachment to her is greater than to his mother, then it is easier for him to bear the departure. But in any case, the departure of parents causes a feeling of loss. The same thing happens to children who end up in an orphanage from a family. Such children later find it difficult to establish attachment relationships in their own family.

And if you can’t survive otherwise?

If you have weighed all the pros and cons and realized that departure cannot be avoided, you need to prepare for it in advance.

Firstly, you need to ensure long-term contact with the person with whom the child will stay (grandmother or aunt) so that the child has time to get used to it. You need to start doing this at least six months before departure. Ideally, spend this time together as one family, so that the child has the opportunity to change the object of attachment.

Secondly, when leaving, you need to leave at home as many reminders of yourself as possible - photographs, things of your parents. Try to do the same as with a child who is going to kindergarten for the first time - it is very useful to put some piece of paper in his pocket that is related to mom and dad, for example, a very ordinary coupon, so that the child puts his hand in his pocket and stumbles upon reminder about parents.

Thirdly, it is advisable to call and talk with your child every day or at least every other day. The more often the better.

Fourth, try to find a job that allows you to leave not immediately for five years, but, say, at least for a year every other year.

But even with the right approach to departure, problems remain. The fact is that if a person loses the object of healthy dependence - parents, close people, then computers, drugs, alcohol or slot machines can become a replacement.

You need to place the emphasis correctly - will this house, bought with the money you earned, be needed later if there is a drug addict nearby, which your own child has turned into?

Every year, 26 thousand children graduate from Russian orphanages. And in total, according to various sources, there are 670-700 thousand orphans in Russia. 80-90% of them are social orphans, that is, orphans with living parents. The question arises -

Most graduates of orphanages become disadvantaged elements of society, only a tenth of them more or less get back on their feet.

Children are a miracle, a blessing for some, but it happens that good parents are an even greater miracle... Orphans and children raised in orphanages know firsthand about the latter. They, in the majority, have suffered enough in this life even before entering government institutions, and after being placed in a “government bed” they generally forget what “mother” and “father” are, and at the same time what warmth, care, kindness are. .

But along with the moment of deprivation and the feeling of being useless to anyone, children often, experiencing dulling of feelings after the shock they experienced and many other negative emotions, begin to treat people the same way they treated them at one time.

Children very often reflect what they see in the behavior of their parents or others. Children brought up with an indifferent and consumerist attitude towards the world carry the same thing into adulthood. Children raised in a “conveyor belt” are often able to think the way the system taught them.

There are those who break into life and take their place in the sun despite everything, but the opposite is much more common. Why does this happen? Parents actually mean a lot to children; the younger generation always absorbs the images of their ancestors most of all, and when there are many faceless and alien aunts and uncles before your eyes, then the child grows up lost, filled with stereotypes, etc. An orphanage will never replace parents.

Very often, children of orphanage residents repeat the fate of their parents - this already says a lot...

The future of those who leave the walls of the orphanage

What boys and girls become after leaving the orphanage can be judged from statistics.

« Every third orphanage pupil becomes homeless a year after graduation, every fifth becomes a criminal, every tenth commits suicide. Orphanages have become “factories” for the production of criminalized individuals. And the issue of money is not the main one here: such institutions are better provided for than many Russian families. How to change this situation?

Today in Russia approximately 144 thousand children are under state care. According to Galina Semya, an international expert in the field of protecting children's rights, the population of orphanages has changed greatly in recent years.

70 percent are children over 10 years old, 15 percent are disabled children, the rest are mainly children from large families and with ethnic status. For most of them, future prospects for life in society are very dismal.

According to research by the Childhood Research Institute of the Russian Children's Fund, every third person will become a person without a fixed place of residence, every fifth person will become a criminal, and every tenth person will even commit suicide.”

“The statistics are scary. According to the Prosecutor General's Office of the Russian Federation, 40 percent of graduates of orphanages become alcoholics and drug addicts, and another 40 percent commit crimes.

Some of the children themselves become victims of crime, and 10 percent commit suicide. And only 10 percent manage to leave the threshold of an orphanage or boarding school, get back on their feet and establish a normal life.” .

They weren't taught to live

Genes or the influence of government walls? Why is the path of many children in orphanages predicted? There are studies and articles devoted to both one version and the other. Some people are convinced that genes are much more important than upbringing, even something as “soulless” as upbringing by the “state machine.”

There is even a certain gene for alcoholism, found by scientists, that is, if there are many children in an orphanage born from parents who abused alcohol, their children have a risk of repeating the path of their ancestors.

However, if you look at the lives of children who grow up in families of alcoholics, they simply repeat the fate of their parents, because they see it before their eyes.

There are also studies by foreign scientists that an adopted child who has spent a long time in a stepfamily eventually becomes similar both externally and genetically to his adoptive father, and there are also studies that upbringing means much more than physical, mental potential, phenotype, genotype and etc.

From personal observations I can say that both an adopted child and the life of an orphanage graduate are a lottery. In some cases, we can say that genes worked; in others, upbringing prevailed over genes.

I know a family where a natural and an adopted child grew up (both of the same age, but different sexes, the girl was his own, the boy was adopted and he did not know that he was not his own), the girl was always positive, an excellent student, modest, similar to her father in appearance, and the boy from an early age was prone to vagrancy, bad habits, and studied poorly.

And there are families where adopted children are more obedient than their relatives and being in a warm family community has had a very beneficial effect on them; they have grown up to be adequate, absolutely normal, independent people.

An orphanage is a string of strangers, indifferent emotions, friends who know no other attitude towards them than betrayal and they don’t know how to live, a shared room for 8-10 children (if you’re lucky, for 4), sometimes delicious food... walks on the territory of the orphanage, a broken swing, an unpainted horizontal bar.

Life according to the schedule, breakfast, lunch, dinner - everything is served, there is no need to wash the plates, no one will teach you how to sew on patches, children living in an orphanage sometimes have never held needles in their hands, have no idea what it means to “wash the floors” and other economic matters, they have no idea how money is obtained and what work and responsibilities are.

“Hazing” often reigns in teams, turning to educators and curators for protection is considered a disgrace, so poor children, those who are offended, are forced to keep all their annoyances to themselves, reaching the point of nervous breakdowns, and even in this case no one cares about them.

Older orphanage residents easily adopt bad manners, sometimes they smoke in corners, “shoot” cigarettes at passers-by, swearing and addressing elderly people as “you,” but in fact the terrible thing is that there are orphanages where morals are worse than in prisons where older students rape younger ones...

We have heard about how many cases of suicide of teenagers in orphanages who were bullied by their “classmates” on TV, and how many have not yet been heard about...

Complete impunity for aggressors and lax management is most often found in rural institutions for children, somewhere on the outskirts of the periphery...

Nannies working for pennies would have time to clean everything up before instilling the right values ​​in their children. Educators, who have a salary of a couple of thousand more than nannies and who have seen enough of different pictures of life, left their feelings in their distant youth, no longer care about much.

In boarding homes for disabled children, in the position of educators you can often find aunts who treat children only with obscenities and screams. People who came there to work with good intentions cannot withstand the psychological stress and quit... Children remain surrounded by people with a hardened conscience or stubborn people who are used to everything... which of them grows up?

There are also good orphanages, I don’t argue, in the same village area... They are small, cozy, and children raised in such institutions can grow up to be human, but this is a happy accident.

In Russia, there are different forms of placing children in families, some of them are patronage and foster family(when the child is not adopted, but sometimes taken for a visit or a small orphanage is organized).

If at least every tenth Russian goes on a weekend visit (albeit not for every) child from an orphanage (most often children 7-11 years old are taken into foster care) and teach him something about life - we will have much fewer criminals and drug addicts. Indifference breeds cruelty...

Adoption is too serious a step for many (and it is better not to take risks if you are not confident in your abilities), and foster care is a compromise between adoption, which is difficult to decide on, and a little help for the benefit of the children.

Masha (a girl who grew up in an orphanage), when asked about when she had the best time, answers that in a state institution, they say, it’s almost like at a resort, only boring, but the main positive impression is mashed potatoes with goulash, just like in kindergarten , this is what makes it worth being there, in her opinion.

Upon leaving the boarding school, Masha got into a thousand troubles; the girl, by the way, is very pretty and not stupid, but troubles stuck to her against her will.

She didn’t even want to remember her mother and father (who were no longer alive), they drank and treated her cruelly. The girl, despite all her potential, did not even want to study to become a cook; she dreamed of finding an oligarch, but remained close to unworthy gentlemen...

And these are not genes at all: this is a given vector of life, which a person placed in certain living conditions is not able to change, and a wounded soul that seeks healing where there is none... After all, despite the fact that Masha is cheerful and bright, she is not I wanted to live and tried to take my own life several times. And there are millions of such girls and boys...

They have not been taught how to live; they may have a ton of potential, but zero ability to realize it.. You can’t help everyone: even if you make an effort to “pull” such a Masha out of the whirlpool, she often does not understand the outstretched hand, since she has already grown up in a cruel atmosphere and “bites” herself and does not trust anyone.

But the main thing: after a cold, unfriendly home, an indifferent, but all-providing orphanage - they break any desire to achieve something, teenagers do not understand why they need to achieve something...

They were fed and clothed for a long time, and now they have some kind of independent life, where they need to bite into the ground with their teeth in order to survive... why?

The whole problem is that they do not understand not only “how”, but also “why”. If they at least understood that they desperately needed this, they would find opportunities, but there is no initiative.

Children who grew up without parents, within the walls of state-owned houses, do not think about what’s next, they live one day at a time, and therefore very often end up in tears as soon as they leave the walls of the orphanage.

The reality of life for orphanage graduates

After leaving the orphanage, many boys and girls are given apartments, however, this is not an unfounded statement: they still need to achieve housing and have time to get on the waiting list before the age of 23.

115 thousand children from orphanages (as of 2015) were not given apartments, that is, they were taken away fraudulently, or they were given ridiculous refusals...

Vika and her brothers were deprived of the opportunity to get apartments, having been declared incompetent based on a “false” psychiatrists’ report; naturally, the management of the orphanage was involved.

By the way, Vika met good people who replaced her family, she often visits them, and they brought her into the public eye. And in terms of her behavior, despite her 25 years, she is a reckless child... if she had not fallen into good hands, no one knows what would have happened.

They can give housing for demolition, on the outskirts, but this is better than nothing, but you can achieve better, only which of the orphanage residents knows about their rights... Two graduates of the orphanage (a guy and a girl, whom I know personally) were given housing on the outskirts, in wooden houses.

The girl, despite everything, has become a very good person, a wonderful mother and wife, and the guy, despite the fact that he is not a bad person, has already been in prison several times, cannot get settled in life...

Unemployment benefits (if you register with the labor exchange) in the first six months after leaving the orphanage today range from 37 to 45 thousand rubles. Where do you think those who have never been able to earn money spend this money?

They simply squander what they could have used left and right, but this is not the worst thing, but the fact that many become drunkards and become addicted to needles during this period... and when the funds run out, it is not so easy to return to a sober life.

In our remote area of ​​the city, among ordinary panel high-rise buildings, there are several buildings in which apartments are being given to children from orphanages en masse. Neighbors often complain about noise, rows, brothels, and drinking parties organized by graduates of orphanages.

They don’t pay utility bills, not even because there is no money (after all, with benefits they could pay for a couple of years in advance), but because they don’t understand that they need to pay, that not everything will be given to them and not everything is owed to them... Nobody taught them how to organize their lives, plan the future...

In the five-story building next to a friend’s house there is a cluster of criminal elements, they rent apartments there, and every evening groups of drunken young people occupy benches and huddle in nearby parks... Among them are many orphanage residents. Why are they together?

Those who leave prison try to survive by any means possible; who is better suited for this than a young man who recently left the walls of an orphanage, who knows nothing, has no skills in life, and receives an allowance of 40 thousand? So the latter end up drinking themselves to death and end up on a “slippery slope”...

Girls who grew up without maternal care often have a carefree, indifferent attitude towards their children, whom they can give birth to immediately after leaving the orphanage.

I remember a story on TV where they talked about a girl at 18, expecting her 3rd child, a couple of cereals at home and empty shelves, the first children were already in an orphanage. They either lack or have a poorly developed maternal instinct... Their children quite often also become pupils in orphanages.

“Orphanage syndrome” is an almost incurable disease; the more a person lives with the understanding that everything around him is given for nothing, the more difficult it will be for him. The habit of a dependent lifestyle, of what everyone around should do, is one of the most harmful habits.

Graduates of the orphanage are victims and dependents at the same time, they are not to blame. But for people who have been taught at least something and once found themselves in a difficult situation, a “compensation mechanism” can work, that is, they will find a way out, but those who have not been taught anything — forever remain in the position of a victim-dependent.

And this is sad, but, in general, it is fixable, as they say, nothing is impossible. Many people are saved by coming to faith; this protects them from drugs, alcoholism and other negativity and gives them hope for a good life...

Let’s not forget that dependency affects not only those who were raised in state institutions. but also a huge part of young people who grew up in prosperous families... and among the graduates of the orphanage there are still enough of those who have become people, and usually very good ones.

Also, do not forget that we can all make our small contribution, I mean patronage.

“Life after the orphanage”, TV channel “Teledom”:

Teenagers often, in an effort to grow up faster and become independent, want to leave their parents.

How realistic is this desire?

At what age can you legally live separately from your parents?

Article 20 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation determines the actual place of residence of minor children (i.e. under 14 years of age) at the address where their parents live.

If the parents do not live together, the child’s place of residence will be determined by the decision of his mother and father.

Thus, Article 65 of the RF IC states: if one of the parents wants to register a child in their home, he must obtain the consent of the other parent. This means that responsibility for the child’s accommodation will lie with the parent who registers.

A teenager from 14 to 18 years old is given the opportunity to independently register at the addresses assigned to his parents by writing an application.

Article 18 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation states that legally capable persons can choose their place of residence independently with the written consent of their parents.

Children must live with one of the parents or their legal representative. Until the age of 14, the child’s place of residence is determined unambiguously - at the address of residence of the parents or legal representatives.

According to the law, responsibility for the upbringing, maintenance and development of children lies with parents or persons replacing them: guardians, adoptive parents, trustees.

At the age of 14, a teenager is not yet ready to live independently, therefore, even after reaching this age, the law determines his place of residence with his parents (Clause 1 of Article 63 of the RF IC).

At the same time, a child, with the consent of the parents, can live with close relatives, for example, with a grandmother or grandfather, but at the same time, receive care and education from their parents.

Children under guardianship, or adopted children, live together with those who care for them.

Having reached the age of 16, the child continues to live with his parents, who are fully responsible for him.

A teenager can move to live separately only with the consent of his parents, and he must be registered in the dormitory of the educational institution or live with an adult on the basis of a power of attorney issued by the parents.

As for wards, in some cases it is possible to obtain the consent of the guardianship authority for a 16-year-old child to live separately from the guardian.

In this case, the guardian/trustee is subject to 2 conditions:

• A child’s independent life will not affect his upbringing in any way.
• The guardian/trustee is obliged to take care of the child and pay attention to him (Article 36 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation, paragraph 2).

Without the consent of the parents, a 16-year-old child cannot live separately from them, unless the emancipation procedure is first carried out.

In this case, with the consent of the parents, the child can live independently. From the age of 18, parental consent is no longer required.

Emancipation, that is, recognition of a minor as legally competent, is carried out by decision of the guardianship authority with the consent of both parents/guardians/adoptive parents, or by a court decision in the absence of consent.

According to the law, parents/legal representatives are not responsible for the obligations of an emancipated child.

Thus, if a 16-year-old child is recognized as fully capable, then he has every right to live separately from his mother/father or persons replacing them.

Is it possible for a child to live independently from the age of 17? The same rules apply for 17-year-olds as for 16-year-olds.

The desire of children to move to live separately, especially at a very young age, is usually perceived with hostility by parents. Mothers, who are accustomed to caring for and protecting their child, are especially attached to their children.

Even a grown-up 16-year-old boy still seems small and helpless to his mother.. Overly suspicious mothers, having heard the child’s desire to live separately, immediately imagine the darkest scenarios for the further development of events.

Another reason why sometimes mothers do not let their grown-up children leave them is the fear of loneliness.. Often this fear haunts single mothers.

It seems to them that once the child moves, their life will fade and become meaningless. If a daughter or son moves in with their significant other, mothers sometimes feel jealous.

If you decide to move away from your parents at the age of 16-18, you will have to prepare them, especially your mother, for this in advance so as not to encounter a flurry of emotions.

First you need to understand what exactly is bothering your mother.. If she thinks you are not yet completely independent, explain that you can do an excellent job cleaning the room and cooking.

Tell your mom about your earnings, which will allow you to pay the necessary expenses. Be sure to give her your address, leave the keys, and ask her to come see you at any time.

Promise to visit her often. If your mother uses the Internet, install Skype on her computer, through which you can hear and see each other every day.

Try to find positive aspects in your move not only for yourself, but also for your mother. For example, she can now stand at the stove less, a room will be freed up, there will be more space in the house, your friends will no longer make noise when they stay up late at your place, etc.

Convince her that it will only be difficult at first; anyway, sooner or later she will have to let you go into an adult, independent life. And now mother, having fulfilled her parental duty, has the right to live for herself.

If you have a desire to move away from your parents, it means that you are already mature and are quite capable of living on your own. However, remember that this life will be significantly different from the cozy, comfortable life in your father’s house.

Additional expenses will appear, and you will bear full responsibility for your life.

The independent, separate life of a child who has just left the parental wing has its pros and cons. On the one hand, living together is good: parents will feed, drink, clean, wake up, and give money for expenses.

However, modern youth are trying to do everything to live separately. According to statistics, the age of separation from parents decreases every year. Today's young people tend to separate themselves as soon as they finish school. So what's the deal?

Here are some disadvantages of living together:

The advantages of living a separate life from your parents are that you get rid of control, reproaches, remorse, punishment, etc. However, there are also disadvantages.

You will have to get used to taking full responsibility on yourself. In addition, you will have to fully support yourself and pay bills. In addition, be prepared to lose a cozy environment, round-the-clock love and care, as well as pocket money.

So, the law does not prohibit living separately from parents at the age of 16, subject to the above conditions. However, do you need such early independence? It's up to you to decide.