Children in orphanages do not cry: no one will come anyway. All children in the orphanage dream of one thing

/based on an article by Lyudmila Petranovskaya, a psychologist, author of the book "A foster child came to us"/

There are such philistine notions that children in an orphanage are lonely, sad and lack communication. And now, as soon as we start going there, we will arrange communication for the children, and their life will become more joyful. When people really start visiting the orphanage, they see that the problems in children are much deeper and sometimes even frightening. Someone stops walking, someone continues, trying to change the situation, someone understands that for him the only possible way out is to take at least one child out of this system.

In the regions, you can still find orphanages where children are not cared for, not treated, and so on. You will not find such an institution in Moscow. But if we look at children from orphanages that are financially prosperous, we will see that they differ from “home” children in terms of perception, reaction to situations, and so on.

It is clear that children's institutions can be different: an orphanage for 30 children, from where children go to a regular school, differs from the "monsters" for 300 people.

Children who ended up in orphanages have past traumas and difficult personal experiences. And with these injuries, they do not end up in rehabilitating, but, on the contrary, stressful conditions. Some of these stressful conditions are:

1. "Dictate of security"

A lot has changed lately, orphanages have become more equipped, but at the same time there is an offensive of “normalization”, the dictate of safety, “the power of the sanitary and epidemiological station”. “Harmful” are soft toys, flowers on the windows, and so on. But still, you want to live like a human being, and now the child has a teddy bear with which he sleeps, flowers begin to decorate the windows. Before the checks, all these forbidden things are hidden in some orphanages.

Children's opportunities to do something economically useful (again under the slogan of safety) have been greatly reduced. There are almost no workshops, household plots in orphanages, children are not allowed to participate in cooking, and so on. That is, there is a tendency to “wrap children with cotton wool” from all sides. It is clear that they will go into the “big life” completely unprepared for this life.

2. "Regular life"

Children in a children's institution are in a constant stressful situation. Now, if we, adults, are sent to a Soviet-style sanatorium, where there are 6 people in the ward, where at 7 o'clock in the morning there is a mandatory rise, at 7.30 - exercises, at 8 o'clock - a mandatory breakfast and say that this is not for 21 days, but forever - we'll go crazy. From any, even the best conditions, we want to get home, where we eat when we want, rest as we want.

And children are always in such stressful conditions. All life is subject to the regime. The child cannot adjust his day to his well-being, mood. Does he have bad thoughts? You should still go to a general entertainment event. He cannot lie down during the day, because most often they are not allowed into the bedroom.

He cannot “chew” something between meals, as children do at home, because in many institutions food cannot be taken out of the canteen. Hence - "psychological hunger" - when children even from the most prosperous orphanages with balanced meals five times a day, getting into the family, begin to eat continuously and greedily.

By the way, in some institutions they are trying to solve this problem in the following way: they dry crackers and allow children to take them with them from the dining room. A trifle? But it is important for a child to eat at the moment when he wants ...

3. The child cannot manage himself in this rigid routine. He feels that he is on a reservation, "behind the fence."

4. Lack of personal space and violation of personal boundaries.

Lack of doors in toilets and showers. Even teenagers have to change underwear, perform hygiene procedures in the presence of others. This is stress. But to live, constantly feeling it, it is impossible. And the child begins to turn off the senses. Children gradually learn not to feel shame, embarrassment.

Even if there are several bedrooms in the orphanage, it would never occur to anyone that they should enter by knocking.

The concept of personal boundaries in a child can only appear if he sees how these boundaries are respected. In the family, this happens gradually.

Now orphans in society pay a lot of attention. But more often than not, the help that people seek to provide to orphanages does not bring benefits, but, on the contrary, often corrupts. Outwardly, it turns out - gloss in orphanages, but inside - the same lack of personal space.

It makes no sense to buy carpets and televisions in an institution until there are toilets with cubicles.

5. Isolation of children from society

When they say that children from orphanages need to be introduced into society, they are more often talking about a unilateral order: to make sure that children go to a regular school, to regular circles, and so on. But not only children need to go out, it is important that the society also comes to them. So that they can invite classmates to visit, so that "home" children from neighboring houses can come to the circles that are in the orphanage, so that residents of these houses are invited to concerts that take place in the orphanage.

Yes, all this requires extra responsibility from employees. But here it is important to prioritize: for whom are you working - for the sake of children or bosses?

6. Inability to communicate with money

Many children in orphanages up to the age of 15-16 did not hold money in their hands and therefore do not know how to manage it. They do not understand how the budget of the orphanage works, it is not customary to discuss it with them. But in a family with older children, such issues are necessarily discussed.

7. Lack of freedom of choice and the concept of responsibility

In the family, the child learns all this gradually. First, he is offered a choice of milk or tea, then they ask which one to choose in a T-shirt. Then his parents give him money, and he can go and buy a T-shirt he likes. At the age of 16, he already calmly travels alone around the city, and sometimes even further.

From this point of view, a child in an orphanage is the same at the age of three and at the age of 16: the system is responsible for him. And at 3 years old, and at 16 years old, he equally has to go to bed at 21.00, cannot go to buy clothes for himself, and so on.

It is important for everyone who works with children in orphanages to understand what they mean: children are people who will then grow up and begin to live the lives of normal adults; or children are just a sphere of responsibility until the age of 18, and what happens after that is no longer important?

It is strange to expect that people who had 100% guarantees and 0% freedom before the age of 18 suddenly, at the age of 18, suddenly, as if by magic, learn what it means to be responsible for themselves and others, how to manage themselves, how make a choice… Without preparing a child for life and responsibility, we doom him to death. Or we hint that in the adult world there is only one place for him - a "zone" where there is no freedom and no responsibility.

8. Misconceptions about the outside world

Are we ourselves misleading children, making it so that every exit into the world is a holiday for them? When everyone is running around with them, they are busy with them. And I also show this world on TV, where it’s as if everyone you meet has bags of expensive brands, expensive cars and few worries ...

One day, psychologists conducted an experiment and asked children from orphanages to draw their own future. Almost everyone drew a big house in which they will live, a lot of servants who look after them. And the children themselves do nothing, but only travel.

Psychologists were surprised at first, but then they realized that this is how children live: in a big house, many people take care of them, but they themselves do not care about others, do not know where their livelihood comes from, and so on.

Therefore, if you take your child home for “guest mode”, it is important to try to involve him in your daily life, talk about it. It is more useful not to take a child to a cafe or to a circus, but to work. You can discuss family concerns with him: a loan, what the neighbors flooded, and so on. So that external life does not seem to him a continuous circus and McDonald's.

Lyudmila Petranovskaya also notes that it is important for volunteers to change their tactics in relations with the leadership of orphanages and from such applicants: “Can we help the children?” - become partners, communicate on an equal footing. It is necessary to talk with them not only about children, but also about themselves, about possible development options. And smart leaders will listen, because it is important for them to preserve the institution (jobs) against the background of the fact that orphanages in the form in which they exist now are doomed - maybe in 10 years, maybe in fifteen ... But you can save, only by reorganizing, not trying to cling to the old.

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Family is the most important thing in a person's life.

website On Children's Day, I decided to talk about kids who do not have this most important thing. Let's remember and help such very strong little people in every possible way.

• First course, winter. As an activist, I was offered to be Santa Claus in an orphanage.
  I learned a couple of rhymes and games, put on a suit, glued on a beard and thought I was ready. Hell no, it's impossible to be prepared for this. For when I arrived, the children shouted that I was not real (I thought it was a failure). When the time came for gifts, each child, after telling a poem, whispered in his ear a wish for the next year: to find mom and dad or that they find them. All the children, without exception, asked for it. After the matinee, he silently smoked and cried.

• Often visited the orphanage. Children taught me a lot, it was a good motivation. But one incident I will remember forever. Somehow I just sat in the hallway. A boy appears from around the corner with a woman, it seems, his mother, who came to visit him. And as a gift, she brought ... a package of Rollton noodles. But this boy glowed with happiness, because his mother was next to him. And we have iPhones of the wrong color - and immediately a scandal.

• My twin brother and I were completely orphans and lived in an orphanage until the age of 5. Then we were taken by different families. I don’t remember much about my brother, but I remember our last day in every detail: we hid in a huge toy box and, with tears and smiles, told each other how we would continue to live and who we would become. We promised that we would find each other.

  Years have passed. In the orphanage they don't give information about him - they don't have the right, I can't find him myself. I finish school and go to study as a marine biologist, because then, sitting in this box, I said that I would become exactly that. I believe that if I arrange my life as I planned then, I will certainly meet my brother. I do not need anything from this life, just to find him.

• Orphanage. I walk down the corridor, looking into all the bedrooms. Quiet, still sleeping. The last calm moments of my working day. I go into the rooms, pull back the curtains, turn on the lower light. The boys begin to toss and turn, raise their tousled heads, someone has already risen. In one of the bedrooms, the boy “makes the bed” with one hand, sitting on its edge and not opening his eyes. Disgruntled grumbling at each other in the corridor and the toilet. One of the children, coming out of the bedroom, comes up to me and nuzzles my side. He stands like this for a few seconds, trying to keep the sleepy stupor:
  - Good morning, Mom.
  • He helped to bring gifts to friends from caring people for babies in an orphanage. Himself not in business, purely as a driver. But you can’t convey the look and purity of the joy of children! He played with them, he was a giant, and they attacked in a crowd.
    Leaving was the hardest thing. It hurt me so much that I, an adult man, having returned home, roared all evening. Now I think a lot. I will help the children in any way I can.
  • An acquaintance until her retirement worked in a Latvian maternity hospital. She said that she exchanged children who died many times after childbirth for children abandoned by their parents. Made a list. During 42 years from 1963 to 2005, she saved 282 children from the orphanage. When asked if she regretted breaking the law, she replied that she regretted how little she had done.
    And I am one of that list.
  • Journalists came to the orphanage. In the corridor, the educator is immediately hugged by children: “Tatiana Yuryevna, will sponsors or patrons come to us today, that is, candidates or deputies?” The guys do not see much difference, but they understand: now there will be a concert, and then they will distribute toys to everyone and treat them with sweets. The most popular type of charity is to come for a short time, arrange a holiday, give gifts, cheer up. And leave, leaving everything as it is.
  • I heard this story from the employees of the Spanish embassy. There lived a wealthy family and they really wanted grandchildren. But the daughter and son were in no hurry to have children. And once they watched a program on television (“So far, everyone is at home”), and there they showed the story of an orphan boy. And then they heard that the boy's surname was the same as theirs. They decided that it was fate, and adopted a child. Now they all live happily together in Spain in their home.
  • My young man works as a bartender in a well-known institution. There is face control and it is strictly forbidden to come with children. Yesterday he said that before the start of the shift, a girl of about 6 years old came into the bar and asked to go to the toilet. He allowed her to go, and then a whole string of little ones came for her. It turned out that the children from the orphanage, on the tour. My compassionate invited all the guys to the bar along with the leader, chatted with everyone and gave them free soda to drink. The teacher then brought him a chocolate bar.
  • I picked up a boy of 12 years old at the station. He ran away from the orphanage, begged, wandered. Fed, washed. The boy turned out to be smart and clean. I realized that I can’t just return him to the orphanage. Made an appointment to pick it up for the weekend. Then he began to stay with me for a week. Acquaintances and friends condemned. The same thing happened to the boy. And quarrels, and cries of “You are not my father!” And when it was time to get a passport, he took my middle name and last name. I raised a good son.
  • Collected help for an orphanage. We arrived there with toys, things, sweets. We talked with the children for a long time, played. When we were about to leave, a girl of about 12 came up to me and said: “I like it so much that you came to us. I love it when people come to talk to us, and not just take pictures, and then take back the toys and leave.”

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 do 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 do everything 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 the mother and others. relatives, loved ones.

State 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. 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 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 of orphans.

Orphanage - the age of the children and the transition along the chain

Such a system is 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 educators, they 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 surrounding adults are a temporary phenomenon, and soon there will be others.

According to staff standards, there is only one educational rate for 10 children, in the summer - 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 feature is the isolation of the world of orphans. How do children live in orphanages? And they study and 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, prosperous 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, 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 just laziness. This vicious practice has a detrimental effect on the formation of personality and the ability to solve problems on their own.

About 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 infancy get used only to follow other people's instructions.

As a result, graduates of state 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.

Sad result

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

The pedagogical tasks in orphanages are most often reduced to the absence of an emergency and wide publicity. Orphans-high school students 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: a large state boarding school as a form of raising orphans has completely and 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 state-owned 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 foster 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.

Also of interest is the experience of SOS children's villages, in which the model of educating a teacher from Austria is implemented. 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.

In addition, there are small-scale orphanages. 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 an orphanage of this type attends a regular school and communicates with peers from normal families.

Will the Orthodox Church save?

Many educators and public figures believe that representatives of the church 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 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 the absence of any guidelines. Such an 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.

Not so simple

Why is such a form as an Orthodox orphanage still not widely used? The problem is the presence of many difficulties 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 commissions, on whose decision the obtaining of permission depends, find fault with the slightest deviations from existing formal instructions, despite the fact that most state-funded large orphanages 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 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 financing (only with the money of sponsors) - it is practically unrealistic.

On the 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. Not a single family spends on children's upbringing the amount that is allocated for him in an 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 the matter

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. In the truest sense of the word, it involves selfless service, because teachers' salaries are simply ridiculous.

Often, by and large, 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 the press and the 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.

Tells Ludmila Petranovskaya, teacher and psychologist, who has worked for many years with children from orphanages, with foster parents, with employees of orphanages and guardianship services, founder of the Institute for the Development of Family Placement.

The text is emotionally heavy, I warn you in advance! If you don't want to spoil your mood - pass by ... Although I would advise all parents to read it in order to better understand what a child needs in order to grow up happy.

An orphanage is a system in which a child does not develop attachment, relationship to his significant adult. And human beings are so arranged that their development revolves around attachment. The formation of personality, knowledge, interest in the world, any skills, abilities and everything else is strung on attachment, like the rings of a pyramid on a rod. If there is no rod, then the pyramid may seem ordinary in appearance until we try to push it and it will not easily crumble. It seems that a child who grows up in an orphanage is a child like a child. He goes to school, he has toys there, puts things on the shelf, plays games and so on. But this rod is not here. And therefore, as soon as the orphanage is removed like a formwork, the will and character of the child crumble.

When he feels secure, when he feels that the rear is covered, everything is interesting to him, he has a lot of strength, he tries a lot. Even if he hit, got scared, climbed somewhere, something didn’t work out, he still has his own adult, to whom he returns.

It has been estimated that about twenty-five different adults flash before the eyes of a child in an orphanage in a week. Educators, nannies, speech therapists, nurses, massage therapists are changing - there is just no one. There are a lot of them there, and attachment is formed only in conditions when the child has his own adults and there are strangers. A normal child will not allow a stranger, for example, to come up and pick him up and take him somewhere. He won't understand what's going on. He will resist, he will cry, he will be afraid. He will look for his parents. And any foreign aunt can come up to an orphanage child, take it from the crib and take it wherever it wants. To do, for example, it hurts him - some kind of vaccination. And there is no one who would protect him from this, there is no one whom he would perceive as his adults, whom he must hold on to, who will not let him be offended. Attachment is selective, he cannot become attached to twenty-five aunts at once, even if they treat him like a child, and not like a bag.

The attachment program is not about love-carrots, but about survival. This is a program that allows mammalian babies to go through a period of helplessness after birth. The cub is always attached to its adult, who looks after him, who feeds him, who carries him away in case of danger, who fights for him if a predator comes. It's about life and death. Therefore, a child who is not in an attachment situation is a child who experiences mortal horror every minute of his existence. Not sadness and loneliness, but mortal horror.

And he, as he can, copes with this horror. He goes into dissociation - that's this dullness and stupor. He goes into obsessive actions when he sways and beats his head against the bed, against the wall. He goes into an emotional state. If all his spiritual strength is spent on overcoming horror, then what kind of development does he have there, what does he care about the fact that the world is interesting?

I had such an experience when I conducted classes in one provincial town for employees of orphanages. When we get to know each other, I ask people to remember their first impression: you came to this job, saw these children for the first time - what caught your eye, what did you remember, what struck you, impressed you? And it so happened that at first we had employees of the shelter, where children, just selected from the family, go. And then the employees of the boarding school where children are sent from the orphanage were sitting. And the shelter staff began to talk about the children who got to them: they grieve, they miss, they love their parents - even the most unlucky, drinking ones, they worry that no one is helping their mother or grandmother. Then the employees of the boarding school, where the children had spent many years, started talking. And they say: the children don't care, they don't love anyone, they don't need anyone. They treat people consumeristically, they are interested in a person only from the point of view of what can be obtained from him. They are told that their mother has died, they say: "Well, the pension will be bigger." And it happened by chance, I didn’t plan it, but when this circle passed, there was just such silence ...

Children come into the system, yes, even dirty, even lousy, even if they don’t know how and don’t know something, but they are alive, loving, devoted, with a normal heart. And after several years of living with a balanced diet and with computer classes, they turn into something frightening, with which you say that your mother has died, they answer: “Okay, the pension will be bigger.” And this is the main horror of this system.

Next problem - a total violation of personal boundaries in all these children's institutions. Not a single toilet closes there, not a single shower closes there. It's normal there when the underpants are in a common box for the whole group. It's normal there when a girl needs pads, and she has to go to the nurse on the other floor to ask for it. Constant total violation of boundaries, when completely different people can constantly lead you to some kind of inspection. I remember some talk show where a scandal was sorted out, how a man in an orphanage, himself being a guardian, took the boys for the weekend from the orphanage and harassed them. Not that he raped, but molested. He fired on the fact that he called the child from the yard and also climbed up to him - a family child. And the family child came home in a state of shock, in tears. His mother immediately noticed this, began to ask him, and it all unfolded. Before that, he took children from the orphanage for the weekend for two years, and another boy from the orphanage lived with him constantly. Not once were they in shock or in tears. Journalists are interviewing the director, she says: “Yes, this cannot be, but they did not complain at all, every week a nurse examines them, we would have noticed.” She doesn't even know what she's talking about. In fact, children live for years in a situation where any foreign aunt can at any moment undress them, examine them, climb into all places. How will the pedophile surprise them after that? Well, they weren't impressed, he's still an uncle. By the way, perhaps he does it more affectionately and carefully than the nurse.

Children constantly live in a situation of violation of personal boundaries. Naturally, they then turn out to be very easy prey for any scoundrel, because they do not know how to say "no." And there is a lot of violence inside the children's groups, because the children do not see this as a problem: well, they are squeezed in a corner, well, fucked, but what? And of course, it can be very difficult for those children who ended up in an orphanage at an older age from a family, for them this is a severe trauma.

When a child lives in a family, we gradually transfer more and more decision-making rights to him. At the age of five, he can only walk with us, at ten he can already do it himself, and at fifteen he travels around the city alone. In the orphanage, the rules are the same for everyone, whether you are four years old or eighteen. Orphanages are becoming more and more closed, when you can only pass from floor to floor inside the building with electronic passes. The most expensive fancy orphanages are designed like prisons: safety, safety, safety. And for all the daily routine with a release at nine o'clock. Children live completely regulated lives.

On the one hand, everything is regulated for you, on the other hand, everything is done for you. There are now in vogue room preparation for independent living. A kitchen where they teach how to cook, for example. But preparation for an independent life does not consist in being taught how to cook pasta - you can learn how to cook pasta on the Internet in five minutes. I always ask if you gave them money for groceries and they went to the store and bought Pepsi-Cola with chocolate or cigarettes instead, didn’t buy groceries for dinner and didn’t cook dinner, or prepared it in such a way that it turned out to be inedible, they will they be left without dinner that day? There are already enough educators: “Of course not, it’s impossible!”. O They don’t understand the main thing: in life it’s so arranged that if you don’t cook dinner, you simply won’t have dinner. No one will educate you, no one will lecture you - they simply won’t, and that’s it.

Responsibility does not come at all. If the child has torn or soiled the T-shirt, he takes it off and throws it out the window. Then he will say to the caretaker: “I lost it” - and the caretaker will pull out another one. For him, this is some kind of incomprehensible and bottomless source that will spit out another T-shirt. And all these philanthropists who come with gifts - then the volunteers tell how children play football with candy and walk on mobile phones with a crunch. The child has a fantasy that he is a poor orphan and the world is arranged in such a way that everyone owes him.

Psychologists are surprised at the ideas about the life of children from orphanages. The children say: I will live in a big house and I will have servants. And they live like that - in a big house where they have servants. Because now the sanitary and epidemiological station has banned everything: they cannot participate in cooking, they cannot do laundry.

Madness, simply madness: children cannot be responsible for anyone, they themselves have zero percent freedom and one hundred percent guarantee. Then they grow up, and one day everything changes. They are given a passbook with two hundred or three hundred thousand rubles on it. They have no experience of self-regulation. For a week they spend all this money in restaurants, in saunas. And, as all the previous eighteen years of their lives tell them, they are waiting for the continuation of the banquet, but it does not come. Well, then the crime story begins. All our programs, which most often come down to pumping money, only strengthen this position. In Moscow, for example, if a graduate of an orphanage after school did not immediately find a job for himself (and they are not looking, because it is better to say that he did not find it), he can go to the labor exchange, register there, and as a graduate of the orphanage he will half a year to receive for something that does not work, some very considerable amount - forty-five, perhaps, thousand a month. Then six months are over. And it turns out that from tomorrow the rules are changing, he has to work eight hours on an uninteresting one - and where does the interesting one come from? — and an unpleasant job for fifteen thousand. Who would want. They start looking for other options. Therefore, the orphanage is an expensive self-deception of society, it eats crazy money - from forty-five to one hundred and ten thousand rubles per child per month - and disfigures children.

The only thing our state can do is control. They say that we have the country of the victorious Parkinson. The control system begins to work for itself. Now teachers are laughing that the school has turned into a place where children interfere with teachers' work with documents for higher authorities. Guardians and adoptive parents, if receiving benefits, must account for their expenses. Not just checks, but checks from supermarkets, where the name of the product is written. And in all seriousness, people are sitting with a pencil and checks collected for a month, line by line, checking: are there cigarettes or beer somewhere? There is no need for this, and it creates difficulties for many people.

Hello! My name is Evgenia, I live in Moscow, I am married and have two children. But on this day, my relatives will not be there, because on June 25 I left for Vologda, and from there on June 26 - to the Sokolsky orphanage for disabled children, which is located in the village of Sosnovaya Roshcha, about 40 km from Vologda. I brought materials for creativity to the creative circle of the orphanage, for which my LJ-friends chipped in, and my master class on creating jewelry. Under the cut 70 photos of my day on June 26, 2013.

On June 26, I woke up at the Spasskaya hotel in Vologda, had breakfast, and at 9:40 got into a taxi. Already at 11-00 o'clock I was at the gates of the orphanage - we got a little lost with the taxi driver. The girls met me and took me to their "apartments".

This is the official status of this orphanage.

After I unloaded my heavy suitcase with materials for creativity, I was invited to a holiday-competition, which was arranged for the children by Vera, the head of the cultural part in the orphanage, in the old way, an entertainer.

There were several assignments. One of them - girls draw boys, boys - girls.

Everyone tried very hard.

Everyone asked to take a picture of them and those drawings that they depicted on the pavement. And then they looked into the camera - to look at themselves).

Another competition - with dressing up. Groups of boys and girls were supposed to form three pairs - in each - a boy and a girl in costumes. If someone didn't manage to change clothes quickly on their own, they were helped by the staff and more "safe" pupils. But everyone tried, well done!

Only pupils with serious disabilities participate in such events, the “safe” ones are not interested, they usually just watch. Perhaps it is time for an explanation here. 250 pupils live in this house. Of these, 38 are recumbent. These are very serious cases that need medical attention, and we have it in the house. The rest are walking, but with serious health disorders and "safe" people - those who ended up in this house in their deep childhood for various reasons, more often - as refuseniks. The age of pupils is from 5 to 45 years. It doesn't look like an orphanage at all. Now the reorganization is taking place - the kids are being taken away to other orphanages. Sokolsky will become a home only for adults.

Yeah, here are a couple of winners among boys - they dressed up as a young lady and a gentleman the fastest)).

Another competition - they played a train. All pupils took part with great desire.

And here are the prizes - balloons. Inflated by the whole world. Someone did not succeed - both the staff and other guys helped. By the way, Vera later told me that the balloons are also the help of philanthropists and you can’t squander them too much. And how to please children, I'm interested? These little things also need money - to buy these balloons and send them to an orphanage.

The teaching team that hosted me. From left to right - Tatyana Kozlova, teacher of labor, pupil - I forgot the name, I'll clarify)), Vera - the same "cult-mass sector")) and Natalya - also a teacher of labor. People are crazy, in the good sense of the word, giving themselves to work 100%.

Rehearsal space.

With a huge full-length mirror.

There is also a dressing room. These are all the possessions of the Faith.

There are several workshops in the orphanage. This is a shoe store. Now apprentices work here. But I was told a story that one of the pupils of the orphanage received "capacity" and opened his own shoe repair shop in a neighboring town. He does not abandon his own, he helps them learn this craft. The story was told breathlessly, like something out of the ordinary.

We worked - you can relax with songs to the accordion)).

Muscovites, remember when you took your shoes for repair and how much they charged you. You can compare with the prices that pupils-shoemakers charge for their work. Communism!

This is the auditorium. It is currently being refurbished.

Gym. The chairs were dragged from the assembly for the duration of the repair.

This is a bed room. Three chambers. They asked not to take pictures, but I confirm that there are no horrors, the children all sleep on beds with mattresses and linen, they have nannies and medical staff with them. And they take them for a walk to the nearby square, however, that day I did not see the “heavy” children walking around. But there is a ramp for wheelchairs, which means, I hope, they are still in the fresh air.

Here it must be said that in the orphanage "safe" pupils live in rooms like a hostel. And they showed me all their farms. But for some reason I forgot to ask for it in the rooms of children with severe disabilities, but walking. I hope next time to correct this misunderstanding. This is the boys' bathroom, although they are no longer boys by age, but men).

One of the men's rooms.

masculine order).

Class for classes.

On the wall - anti-smoking propaganda. I think it's right).

The students made their own posters. In the orphanage, many pupils smoke. Propaganda, alas, does not take them. Do not quit smoking.

Here foam rubber is cut for stuffing toys and pillows. Pupils love to do this and, according to their instructor, they even stand in line).

Turtle pillow. How are you?

Plush cat.

And this is a sewing workshop, they sew covers for pillows and toys). Well, the workers of the orphanage are asked to sew clothes for themselves. If, for example, trousers turned out to be long, then they will be shortened here.

And this is a loom.

Wonderful "rugs" are obtained on a loom.

The kitchen, in my opinion, is girlish.

Well, we got to my master class (time - 14-20). Polina is sitting next to me (in a yellow T-shirt). She is 28 years old. She ended up in an orphanage when she was little, her mother refused her (at that time her mother was a high-ranking "bump"). Polina's intelligence and health are absolutely intact. But due to the fact that she is in an orphanage with the status of "mentally retarded", she needs several commissions to prove her capacity. She already tried once - and was rejected. I sincerely wish her to make another attempt and win!

Something very actively explain.

And there was something funny.

And what attentive listeners!

Here someone did not waste time - he made his own bracelet).

I show you how to tap the wire.

very attentive). In the center are two twin sisters - Vera and Nadya. They are 27 years old. The story is similar to Polina. Only when they were small, the mother died, and the father and grandmother did not want to deal with them and handed over to the orphanage. The family was dysfunctional - parents drank ... In general, I must say that all the girls are great, they can and can do a lot of things. By the way, one of the sisters, the one in the black and white dress, seems to be Nadya (pardon me, I haven’t learned to distinguish between girls yet - but I’ll fix it)), she does beautiful hairstyles, she knows how to do a beautiful manicure and even pedicure. The staff of the orphanage runs to her for services. And she takes mere pennies - a manicure for 50 rubles, how do you like it? All the girls are excellent cooks, they treated me to different sweets there. Polina baked mannik - overeating).

In the girls' rooms, there are solid "prohibitions" - pets. But even here the leadership closes its eyes, and when the SES arrives, the cells are hidden out of sight. This gorgeous parrot lives with Polina and her neighbors. She bought it herself, boasted that the parrot was not cheap - it cost 3,500 rubles.

And there is a guinea pig. In total, I counted three of them in the girls' rooms.

And a cat.

Apparently, believers live here.

In the other room is an aquarium.

Clean and tidy.

Some of the girls embroider at their leisure. There will be a pillow.

This is how they decorated the wall in their room).

And this is already a tea party (time - 16-10). He was preceded by a chic dinner, all entirely from homemade dishes.

Then we went for a walk around the area. There are flowers everywhere - the pupils themselves make flower beds and take care of the plants. Flowerbeds are broken up to your taste - some are "sun", some are "circle", etc.

The general plan of the house from the side of the playground.

The site itself.

And these are vegetable gardens. Everything is done by pupils. This is where potatoes grow.

There is a pond. Only boys swim. The girls abandoned this activity, as one of the guys drowned a cat there.

And these are beds assigned to groups of pupils.

There is a pigsty. It was closed, however, so I took a picture through the bars. There used to be more pigs. Now they have left a few to teach pupils the business of pig breeding.

The local security is right there.

Cowshed. There are also few cows left. And also for learning.

But they give milk and calves.

And there is a horse. The girls said that they rode it, bareback - it’s more convenient).

Protection of private gardens.

Two brothers planted their garden.

With a greenhouse

And with a gazebo.

Evening watering the beds.

And this building of a separate hostel was built just for the "safe" pupils. Both Polina and other girls should move in there. But there is no money for furniture, so this house is empty.

Shared dining room.

And here - behind the fence, the same platform where the recumbent "walk".

Goodbye!

I left at about 7:30 pm. My day ended the same way it began - in a hotel in Vologda. And my impressions from this trip are not unambiguous. For the first time in my life, I realized that there was almost nothing I could do to help these people on a large scale. And my help in the little ones is like a drop in the ocean. But I will continue to help further - as much as I can, because these people live locked up, they have practically never been anywhere, for them the arrivals of people like me are like a light in the window. Tatyana told me that they, discussing our day, said about me: "she is kind." And this is the highest praise in the mouths of the orphanage, their people are divided into good and evil. Thank you girls, we'll definitely see you again!