A child in an orphanage. How do children live in orphanages? Orphanage children at school

2024 Author: Priscilla Miln | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 00:21

The topic "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 homeless children in Russia now reaches two million. And the number of residents of orphanages is increasing by about 170,000 people a year.

In the last decade alone, there have been three times as many such institutions as before. Not only actual orphans live in them, but also small invalids abandoned by their parents, taken away from alcoholics, drug addicts and convicts. There are special closed institutions for those who were born with congenital defects, or such a form as an orphanage for mentally retarded children. The conditions of life and maintenance there are not advertised, and society prefers to turn a blind eye to this.

How children live in orphanages

What is happening in such a closed space, according to eyewitnesses, bears little resemblance to normal human conditions. Organizations, sponsors and just caring people are trying to makeeverything in their power to help these children. They raise money, finance trips, organize charity concerts, buy furniture and household appliances for orphanages. But all these, undoubtedly, good deeds are aimed at improving the external conditions for the 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 mother and other relatives, 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 guardianship of the state. In Russia, the form of raising orphans mainly exists in the form of state large orphanages, each of which is designed for the number of residents from 100 to 200. The advantage of the state support system lies mainly in social guarantees - receiving one's own housing upon reaching adulthood, free 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 the graduates of orphanages, becoming adults, find a worthy place in society and lead a normal life. Almost half (about 40%) become alcoholics anddrug 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 of orphans.

Children's home - the age of children and the transition along the chain

Such a system was built on the principle of a conveyor. If the baby 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, a boarding school becomes the place of permanent residence of the pupil. Such an institution differs from an orphanage by having its own educational institution.

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

According to staff standards, there is only one educational rate for 10 children, in the summer period - one person for 15 children. Of course, a child in an orphanage does not receive any real supervision or real attention.

About everyday life

Another problem and characteristic is the insularity of the world of orphans. How do children live in orphanages? and study andthey communicate, stewing around the clock in an environment of the same destitute. In the summer, the team is usually sent on vacation, where the children will have to contact with the same as themselves, representatives of other state institutions. As a result, the child does not see peers from normal we althy families and has no idea how to communicate in the real world.

Children from the orphanage do not get used 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 own maintenance. Moreover, any work (for example, helping in the kitchen) is prohibited 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 just laziness. This vicious practice is detrimental to the formation of personality and the ability to solve problems on their own.

On independence

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

As a result, graduates of government institutions are not adapted to life in any way. Having received housing, they do not know how to live alone, take care of themselves at home on their own. Such children do not have the skill of buying groceries, cooking, and spending money wisely. Normal family life for them is a secret behind seven seals. Such graduates do not understand people at all, and as a result, they very, very often end up in criminal structures or simply become drunkards.

Unfortunate result

Even in outwardly prosperous orphanages where discipline is maintained, there are no egregious cases of cruel treatment, there is no one to instill in children moral ideals and give at least elementary concepts about life in society. This alignment, unfortunately, is generated by the system of centralized state education of orphans.

Pedagogical tasks in orphanages most often come down to the absence of an emergency and wide publicity. Orphans in high school are explained the rights of the child in the orphanage and upon leaving it (for housing, benefits, free education). But this process only leads to the fact that they forget about all sorts of duties and only remember that everyone owes them everything - from the state to the 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: the big statethe orphanage as a form of educating orphans has completely proved its inefficiency. But what can be offered in return? Among experts, it is believed that only adoption can become optimal for such children. Since only a family can give what a child in an orphanage is deprived of in a government environment.

Those who know firsthand about life in foster families are firmly convinced of the need for state assistance to people who have decided on the feat of raising someone else's orphan child. Such parents need the support of the state, society and the church, since adoptive parents with their difficult responsibilities always have a lot of problems and complex issues.

There are foster families that can replace an orphanage. At the same time, the state pays parents a salary, and there is no secret of 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, a mother officially appointed to this position, and her assistant. Children are all together and take turns 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.

The experience of SOS children's villages is also interesting, in the device of which the model of educating a teacher fromAustria. There are three such villages in our country. Their goal is also to bring the living conditions of pupils as close as possible to family ones.

Besides, there are small children's homes. They are arranged 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, the environment is much easier to make home than in a huge boarding school. A child in this type of orphanage attends a regular school and interacts with peers from normal families.

Will the Orthodox Church save?

Many educators and public figures believe that church representatives should be involved in work 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 it doubly.

This is precisely 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. A similar educational institution created at the temple has another important advantage - the church community is in some way able to replace an absent family for an orphanage. In the parish, pupils make friends, strengthen spiritual and social ties.

It's not that simple

Why is such a form as an Orthodox orphanage still not widely used? The problem is that there are many complexities of a very different nature - legal,material, shortage of educational personnel. Financial problems - first of all, in the lack of necessary premises. Even the most modest shelter will require a separate building or part of it.

Philanthropists are also not too 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 permit commissions cavil at the slightest deviation from existing formal guidelines, while most state-funded large orphanages exist amid a myriad of 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 for any legal acts capable of regulating the upbringing of orphans by the church, and, accordingly, it does not allocate money for this. It is difficult for an orphanage to exist without centralized funding (only with sponsors' money) - it is practically unrealistic.

About money issue

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

How cost effective are orphanages? The content of children in a state institution flies a pretty penny. No family spends on childrenupbringing is the amount that is allocated to him in the orphanage. It is about 60,000 rubles. annually. Practice shows that this money is not spent very efficiently. In the same foster family, where this figure is three times less, children receive everything they need and, moreover, the care and guardianship of foster parents that they need so much.

On the moral and ethical side of things

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

Often, random people go to work in orphanages. They have neither the love for their wards, nor the reserve of patience so necessary in working with destitute 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, get into print and media.

A very difficult question about corporal punishment, which is officially banned, but their existence and, moreover, the widespread practice of their use is actually not a secret to anyone. However, this problem is by no means typical only for orphanages - it is a headache for the entire modern educational system.