Personal development in conditions of deprivation and in special conditions of life. Personal development in conditions of deprivation Personal development of a junior schoolchild in conditions of deprivation

The problems of school maladjustment and psychological deprivation underlie a number of psychological difficulties in childhood, some disorders of emotional and personal formations and behavior of children. The destructive force of this imbalance for a growing person manifests itself the stronger, the younger the child. To confirm the legitimacy of what has been said, let us turn to the statement of N.V. Vostroknutova: “during the school years, the period of primary education is especially vulnerable in this respect. Manifestations of school maladjustment at this age stage have the mildest forms, but its consequences for the social growth of the individual turn out to be disastrous.

T.B. Dmitrieva (SRC named after V.P. Serbsky) notes that in children who have undergone prolonged massive deprivation, a deprivation personality symptom complex is formed. “It has its own specifics and includes basic violations of the self-concept and social interactions. It is characterized by a passive-dependent type of adaptation in the microsocial environment; limited and poor emotional empathy and empathy; low level of motivation and self-awareness; pronounced discrepancies between the real and the ideal "I"; low level of self-control and rental orientation to social support”. In general, this determines the features of mental maladaptation of children with deprivation disorders. Deprivation personal symptom complex contributes to the formation of maladaptation in children. School maladaptation of deprived children, according to T.B. Dmitrieva, is, first of all, their “failure in the field of education due to the conflict that is insoluble for the child between the requirements of the educational environment and his psychophysical abilities and abilities”. (State Scientific Center for Social and Forensic Psychiatry named after V.P. Serbsky. Electronic resource.) V.V. Butukhanov (Irkutsk 2002) also argues that school maladaptation is a very common phenomenon among primary school students. This is confirmed by the data obtained by him during the study.

Consequently, the study of disadaptation during the period of primary education is important for understanding the age-related patterns of development of the emotional sphere of the child, the formation, consolidation and development of emotional-personal formations of deprived children.

An analysis of foreign and domestic literature shows that the term "school maladaptation" or ("school inadaptation") actually defines any difficulties that a child has in the process of schooling. Among the main primary external signs of manifestations of school maladjustment, scientists unanimously attribute learning difficulties and various violations of school norms of behavior.

In the psychological literature, there are various interpretations of the term "school maladjustment":

  • - violation of the adaptation of the student's personality to the complex changing conditions of schooling (Vrono M.Sh., 1984); violation of adaptation to learning (Kovalev V.V., 1984);
  • - new requirements that exceed the capabilities of the child, changing the state of the emotional sphere (Semke V.Ya., 1988);
  • - a violation of behavior, in which children with normal intelligence, not suffering from a progrudient mental illness, from learning, attending school (Volkov N.S., 1991);
  • - Kagan V.E. (1995) understands school maladjustment as “created by multidimensional and multilevel relationships, the inability for a child to find “his place” in the space of schooling;
  • - Galazhinsky E.V. (1997) under school maladjustment means a set of signs indicating a discrepancy between the sociological and psychological status of the child and the requirements of the new social situation (education).

Consequently, in the existing system of definitions, the concept of school maladaptation is neither descriptive nor diagnostic. This concept is largely collective and includes social-environmental, psychological-pedagogical, medical-biological factors, or rather the conditions for the development of the very phenomenon of school maladaptation.

The analysis shows that most often researchers identify three main manifestations of school maladaptation:

  • 1. Failure in education in programs appropriate for the age of the child, including such signs as chronic poor progress, as well as the insufficiency and fragmentation of general educational information without systemic knowledge of her educational skills (cognitive component);
  • 2. Permanent violations of the emotional-personal attitude to individual subjects, learning in general, teachers, as well as prospects related to learning (emotional-evaluative component);
  • 3. Systematically repeated violation of behavior in the learning process in the school environment (behavioral component) (Vostroknutov N.V., 1995;).

In most children with school maladaptation, all 3 of the above components can be traced. Based on the data of numerous studies, it can be argued that any risk factor rarely occurs in isolation, but, usually acting in combination with other factors, forms a complex hierarchical structure of impaired school adaptation. O.A. Matveeva argues that the effect of each factor is not direct, but “manifests itself through a chain of mediations and the measure of its influence, and its place in the structure of the disorder may change in the process of unfolding maladaptation. The formation of the picture of school maladjustment occurs in an inextricable dynamic connection with the process of mental dysontogenesis. (Forms and means of organizing complex psychological assistance to children of school age O.A. Matveeva // Education: researched in the world. International scientific pedagogical Internet journal 2003). Consequently, the predominance of one or another component among the manifestations of school maladaptation depends, on the one hand, on the age and stage of personal development, and on the other hand, on the reasons underlying the formation of school maladaptation.

A theoretical study of the problems of deprivation and school adaptation led to a number of conclusions:

  • 1. As the analysis of theoretical studies devoted to the study of the problems of deprivation and school adaptation shows, these problems are very relevant and are of particular theoretical and practical interest. This is confirmed by numerous studies (by M.P. Aralova, E.I. Afanasenko, L.M. Bernstein, L.I. Bozhovich, I.V. Dubrovina, I.A. Kairov, J. Langmeyer, Z. Mateichik, N .G.Travnikova and others).
  • 2. Consideration of the problems of deprivation from the point of view of scientific and theoretical approaches allows us to conclude that all researchers, despite the conceptual disagreement of positions, noted that prolonged deprivation leads to specific changes in the child's personality and contributes to the development of mental deformations. A comparative analysis of the data presented in the literature indicates that prolonged and massive mental deprivation leaves a heavy mark on the child's mental life.
  • 3. The views of domestic and foreign researchers on the issues of socio-psychological adaptation are diverse (B.G. Ananyeva, I.A. Aliverdieva, B.N. Bodenko, S.A. Egorova, A.N. Leontiev, M.V. Maksimova , A.V. Petrovsky, V.A. Petrovsky, P.A. Prosetsky, S.L. Rubinstein, D.I. Feldstein, V.I. Chirkov and others). However, scientists are united by the understanding that the process of adaptation to school depends on the ratio of deprivation and psychogenic factors at different stages of the child's personal, physical, intellectual and social development.
  • 4. When summarizing the literature data, it is emphasized that the most significant factors influencing the formation of school adaptation of children aged 6-7 are:
    • school motivation,
    • emotional well-being
    • a positive self-attitude,
    • good interpersonal relationships,
    • moral categories, which are the structure-forming system of personality relations and necessary in communication and activity;
  • 5. The theoretical material presented in the literature is important. However, the analysis of the literature available to us on this topic shows an insufficient study of the problem of adaptation to the conditions of the school of mentally deprived children of 6-7 years old.
  • 6. In connection with the above, we have identified the purpose of the study: to study the influence of the formation of social trust on the success of psycho-emotional and social adaptation to school of mentally deprived first-graders.

The personal and psychophysiological characteristics of deprived adolescents differ in the time and completeness of the stay of ties with loved ones (complete and partial deprivation). There are two integral statuses (development options): general mental deprivation and partial mental deprivation.

The first option: the degree of deprivation - complete, integrative status - general mental deprivation. The specificity of development is characterized by a disproportion of all aspects of the personal and psychophysiological state of the child.

Adolescents are characterized by an introverted personal orientation: hidden, uncommunicative, withdrawn, shy and indecisive, isolated. They are sensitive to the opinions and assessments of the people around them, unsure of themselves, fickle in relationships and interests. Many are characterized by emotional instability and increased excitability. Most adolescents (about 90%) have a high level of personal anxiety. Low sociability, isolation, imbalance, irascibility are serious obstacles to the successful adaptation of adolescents. In comparison with adolescents from families who are more likely to be verbally aggressive and negativistic, orphans with a greater degree of severity show resentment and suspicion. Every third teenager differs in dependence on others. Dependence is expressed in obedience, helpfulness, conformity.

Features of self-consciousness. Orphans have deformed sexual self-awareness. The third part of adolescents is characterized by an identity that does not correspond to gender and androgenity of personal qualities, manifested in the dominance of both male and female qualities.

The negative consequences of upbringing outside the family are manifested in the peculiarities of adolescents' ideas about men and women and understanding of their role and functions in family life. The poor and dysfunctional (or lack thereof) experience of life with parents is reflected in the fact that adolescents do not fully and clearly understand the functions of a man and a woman in the family.

Intelligence Capabilities. Unlike peers from families, adolescents are distinguished by a low level and a level below the average level of development of intellectual capabilities.

Psychophysiological possibilities teenagers are limited. Most have a reduced functional activity of the body.

The second option: the degree of deprivation - partial, integrative status - partial mental deprivation. The specifics of development are diverse, but shallow negative manifestations in the mental and psychophysiological state, which are characterized by unevenness and mosaic.

characterological features. Adolescents are more often characterized by an introverted orientation - secrecy, low sociability, isolation, indecision and isolation. Emotional instability is characteristic of half of adolescents. Partially deprived pupils are less than fully deprived adolescents dependent on others.

Features of self-consciousness. Sexual self-awareness is deformed and determined by the age of admission to a boarding school and the completeness of the interruption of ties with relatives. Manifestations of "distortions" in the development of the psychosexual sphere are similar to similar features of adolescents with complete deprivation, but are characterized by a lesser degree of deformities.

Adolescents are characterized by a self-protective type of response, characterized by censure of the situation and a pronounced defense of their "I".

Intellectual possibilities. Approximately a fifth of adolescents have an average and above average level (equally), half of all pupils are below average and a third of adolescents have low levels of intellectual development.

psychophysiological possibilities. Most adolescents are characterized by reduced functional activity of the body.

Sklyarova T.V.

Psychological problems in the development of both children and adults most often arise in connection with their experience of deprivation or loss. The term "deprivation" is used in psychology and medicine, in everyday speech it means the deprivation or limitation of the ability to meet vital needs. “When they talk about deprivation, they mean such a dissatisfaction of needs that occurs as a result of a person’s separation from the necessary sources of their satisfaction and has detrimental consequences. It is the psychological side of these consequences that is essential: regardless of whether a person’s motor skills are limited, whether he is excommunicated from culture or society, whether he is deprived of maternal love from early childhood, the manifestations of deprivation are similar. Anxiety, depression, fear, intellectual disorders - these are the most characteristic features of the so-called deprivation syndrome. The symptoms of mental deprivation can cover the entire spectrum of possible disorders: from mild oddities that do not go beyond the normal emotional picture, to very gross lesions in the development of the intellect and personality.

Depending on the deprivation of a person, various types of deprivations are distinguished - maternal, sensory, motor, psychosocial and others. Let us briefly characterize each of these types of deprivations and show what effect they have on child development.

maternal deprivation. The normal development of a child in the first years of life is associated with the constancy of the care of at least one adult. Ideally, this is maternal care. However, the presence of another person who takes care of the baby when maternal care is impossible also has a positive effect on the mental development of the baby. A normative phenomenon in the development of any child is the formation of attachment to an adult caring for the child. This form of attachment in psychology is called maternal attachment. There are several types of maternal attachment - reliable, anxious, ambivalent. The absence or violation of maternal affection associated with the forcible separation of the mother from the child leads to his suffering and negatively affects mental development in general. In situations where the child is not separated from the mother, but does not receive maternal care and love, there are also manifestations of maternal deprivation. In the formation of a sense of attachment and security, the bodily contact of the child with the mother, for example, the opportunity to cuddle, feel the warmth and smell of the mother's body, is of decisive importance. According to the observations of psychologists, children living in unhygienic conditions, often experiencing hunger, but having constant physical contact with their mother, do not develop somatic disorders. At the same time, even in the best children's institutions that provide proper care for babies, but do not allow physical contact with the mother, there are somatic disorders in children.

Maternal deprivation forms the type of personality of the child, characterized by unemotional mental reactions. Psychologists distinguish between the characteristics of children deprived of maternal care from birth and children forcibly separated from their mother after an emotional connection with the mother has already been established. In the first case (maternal deprivation from birth), a stable lag in intellectual development, inability to enter into meaningful relationships with other people, lethargy of emotional reactions, aggressiveness, and self-doubt are formed. In cases of a break with the mother after the established attachment, the child begins a period of severe emotional reactions. Experts name a number of typical stages of this period - protest, despair, alienation. In the protest phase, the child makes vigorous attempts to regain the mother or caregiver. The reaction to separation in this phase is predominantly characterized by the emotion of fear. In the phase of despair, the child shows signs of grief. The child rejects all attempts to care for him by other people, grieves inconsolably for a long time, can cry, scream, refuse food. The stage of alienation is characterized in the behavior of young children by the fact that the process of reorientation to other attachments begins, which helps to overcome the traumatic effect of separation from a loved one.

Sensory deprivation. A child's stay outside the family - in a boarding school or other institution is often accompanied by a lack of new experiences, called sensory hunger. A depleted habitat is harmful to a person of any age. Studies of the conditions of speleologists who spend a long time in deep caves, crew members of submarines, Arctic and space expeditions (V.I. Lebedev) testify to significant changes in communication, thinking and other mental functions of adults. The restoration of a normal mental state for them is associated with the organization of a special program of psychological adaptation. For children experiencing sensory deprivation, a sharp lag and slowdown in all aspects of development is characteristic: underdevelopment of motor skills, underdevelopment or incoherence of speech, inhibition of mental development. Another great Russian scientist V.M. Bekhterev noted that by the end of the second month of life, the child is looking for new experiences. A poor stimulus environment causes indifference, a lack of reaction of the child to the reality surrounding him.

motor deprivation. A sharp limitation of the possibility of movement as a result of injuries or diseases causes the occurrence of motor deprivation. In a normal situation of development, the child feels his ability to influence the environment through his own motor activity. Manipulating toys, pointing and asking, smiling, crying, making sounds, syllables, babbling - all these actions of babies give them the opportunity to be convinced from their own experience that their influence on the environment can have a tangible result. Experiments with offering infants various types of movable structures showed a clear pattern - the child's ability to control the movement of objects forms his motor activity, the inability to influence the movement of toys suspended from the cradle forms motor apathy. The inability to change the environment causes frustration and associated passivity or aggression in the behavior of children. The limitations of children in their desire to run, climb, crawl, jump, scream lead to anxiety, irritability, and aggressive behavior. The importance of physical activity in human life is confirmed by examples of experimental studies of adults who refuse to participate in experiments associated with prolonged immobility, despite the proposed subsequent rewards.

Emotional deprivation. The need for emotional contact is one of the leading mental needs that affect the development of the human psyche at any age. “Emotional contact becomes possible only when a person is capable of emotional consonance with the state of other people. However, in an emotional connection, there is a two-way contact in which a person feels that he is the subject of interest of others, that others are in tune with his own feelings. Without the appropriate attitude of the people surrounding the child, there can be no emotional contact.”

Experts note a number of significant features of the appearance of emotional deprivation in childhood. So, the presence of a large number of different people does not yet fix the emotional contact of the child with them. The fact of communicating with many different people often entails the emergence of feelings of loss and loneliness, with which the child is associated with fear. This is confirmed by observations of children brought up in orphanages, who show a lack of syntony ((Greek syntonia with sonority, consistency) - a feature of the personality warehouse: a combination of internal balance with emotional responsiveness and sociability) in relation to the environment. Thus, the experience of joint celebrations of children from orphanages and children living in families had a different effect on them. Children deprived of family upbringing and the emotional attachment associated with it were lost in situations where they were surrounded by emotional warmth, the holiday made a much less impression on them than on emotionally contact children. After returning from guests, children from orphanages, as a rule, hide gifts and calmly move on to their usual way of life. A family child usually has a long holiday experience.

Some features of the mental development of children brought up outside the family

The constant stay of a child outside the family (even in a very good orphanage or boarding school) has such an impact on the process of his development that many experts tend to consider it as some kind of disability. The atmosphere of the child's family environment (in this consideration, it does not matter whether it is a native family or not) determines a qualitatively different type of development of a growing personality.

Thus, long-term studies of the development of the intellectual and affective-need spheres of children from a boarding school and the characteristics of their behavior, conducted by A.M. Parishioners and N.N. Tolstykh, allowed them to conclude that there is a psychological specificity of orphanhood, which the authors interpret not as a simple lag in mental development, but as a qualitatively different nature of the child's development. This specificity is manifested, for example, in younger schoolchildren, in the lack of formation of an internal, ideal plan, in the connectedness of thinking, motivation of behavioral reactions by an external situation.

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The article deals with the problem of the formation of the emotional and moral sphere of younger schoolchildren in conditions of mental deprivation. Comparative results of the study of the emotional sphere and moral standards of children brought up in different social conditions are given. The results of the study testify to the deformation of the social and moral sphere in younger schoolchildren who are brought up outside the family. This turns out to be connected not only with the conditions for raising orphans, but also with the inadequacy in the formation of social standards of good and evil. Deformations of emotional and moral norms are manifested in a low culture of behavior, in difficulties in communication, in the inability to empathize and sympathize with one's neighbor, as well as in low self-control and independence. Mental deprivation has a negative impact not only on the formation of social and moral standards, but also on the formation of an emotional and value attitude towards one's own personality.

social and moral standards

personal development

children of primary school age

orphans

social and moral sphere

mental deprivation

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2. Ovcharova E.V. Features of communication in children of primary school age brought up in conditions of mental deprivation // Psychic deprivation in childhood and the possibility of its correction: Collective monograph / Ed. A.V. Polina. - Volgograd: Volgograd scientific publishing house, 2014. - 303 p.

3. Parishioners A.M., Tolstykh N.N. Psychology of orphanhood. St. Petersburg: Peter, 2005. - Ed. 2nd. - 400 s.

4. Polina A.V. Deprivation of trust in childhood: Monograph. - Volgograd: Volgograd scientific publishing house, 2008. - 188 p.

5. Polina A.V. Personal characteristics and compensatory forms of behavior of preschoolers with mental deprivation // Fundamental research, 2013. - No. 6/2. – Penza, 230 p.

6. Rubin K.H. Socially withdrawn children: An "at-risk" population? // Schneider B.H., Rubin K.H., Ledingham J.E. (eds.) Children's peer relations: Issues in assessment and intervention. N.Y.: Springer-Verlag, 1985.

At present, the need to provide psychological assistance to children brought up in conditions of mental deprivation is becoming obvious. In child psychology, there are problems associated with the lack of scientific and practical developments relating to psychological assistance to children brought up in difficult social conditions. One of these little-studied areas is the problem of the formation of the social and moral sphere in children brought up in conditions of mental deprivation.

In a situation of mental deprivation, a child is exposed to many unfavorable factors that can not only deform the development of the personality, but also create conditions for the situation of the impossibility of its normal formation. Therefore, in recent years, much attention in the works of psychologists and psychotherapists has been paid to the problem of personality formation in deprivation conditions.

Deprivation is considered as a violation or lack of formation in a child of a specific human need for communication. Almost all modern researchers have developed the idea that the upbringing of children in an orphanage is built without taking into account adequate psychological conditions that ensure the full development of children (V.S. Mukhina, M.I. Lisina, G.V. Gribanova, A.M. Prikhozhan , A.N. Tolstykh and others).

In modern conditions, the problem of the formation of social and moral standards in childhood is also particularly relevant. The younger student develops new motives that stimulate the emergence of self-love, the desire for self-affirmation, the ability to arbitrarily regulate behavior changes. In general, the level of moral development of a younger student is characterized by the active assimilation of moral norms that form the basis of moral self-regulation. Of particular interest in the emotional sphere and the formation of moral standards are the differences between children brought up in families and children living in institutions of a closed type.

In order for a child to form adequate social and moral norms of behavior, it is necessary to create favorable social conditions, this is, first of all, harmonious relations in the family. A child brought up in deprivation conditions (closed institutions) is deprived of a model of behavior of a significant adult, the moral values ​​of a deprived child are distorted through the prism of public education. The standards of "good - evil", which children first learn in the family, are formed in a deprived child based on their own, often negative social experience.

Earlier in our research, the problem of the development of the emotional sphere in deprived preschoolers was raised, where attention was paid to the peculiarities of the formation of the first social and moral standards associated with the concepts of "good", "bad", "kind" and "evil". Preschoolers gradually begin to differentiate people according to these criteria on the basis of these standards. "Good and evil" are the ethical characteristics of human activity, delimiting the moral and the immoral. Therefore, the problem of "good" and "evil" is especially prominent among children from orphanages, who often have a distorted idea of ​​these moral categories. After conducting a study of the formation of social and moral standards among preschoolers, we found that children from the orphanage are poorly oriented in choosing adequate social standards. In children brought up in an orphanage, due to the lack of ideas about who “close, dear people” are, there is no differentiation of adults into “friends” and “strangers”. The reason for the lack of differentiation in relations with people is the deformation of emotional and moral standards: "good - bad", "good - evil".

With all the originality of the specific situation of each child, it can be assumed that typical violations in the formation of the personality of a junior schoolchild under conditions of deprivation will be violations in the emotional and moral sphere and in the field of interaction with people around them. Due to the absence of parents, their love and care, children do not learn close, trusting communication. Schoolchildren brought up in conditions of mental deprivation do not know how to empathize and sympathize with their neighbor, since they themselves do not receive these emotions from others. Alienation from people in these conditions is considered the norm, hence their “right” to violate social principles. At school, orphans often have a negative attitude towards classmates living in families.

In order to study the characteristics of the social and moral sphere of deprived children of primary school age, a study was conducted in which children of the first and second grades took part - students of secondary schools brought up in a family, as well as pupils of a boarding school and an orphanage in Volgograd and Volzhsky. As empirical research methods, the following were used: observation, psychodiagnostic methods (methodology "The best - the most evil" (modification of the methodology by V.S. Mukhina "The most beautiful - the most ugly"); the method "Unfinished situations" by A.M. Shchetinina, L .V. Kirs, method "Observation of the culture of child behavior" by AM Shchetinina).

The methodology "The most kind - the most evil" is aimed at studying the emotional and moral standards of younger students, as well as identifying the severity of social emotions and trusting relationships. Based on the results of this technique, it can be concluded how children relate to people in terms of categorizing good and evil.

When analyzing projective drawings, attention was paid to the color scheme, which reveals the emotional attitude to the drawing, and to the content of the drawing, which allows you to determine the state of formation of the social standard. In addition, the formation of emotional and moral standards was determined by the child's adequate reflection of the content side of the social standard. Repeating standards were combined into the following groups: mother, loved ones, peers, animals, nature, fairy tale characters, inanimate objects. At the same time, the typical standards of "good - evil" of younger schoolchildren from the family differed from the drawings of children brought up in a boarding school and an orphanage. If children brought up in families mainly depicted close people as “good”, then orphans portrayed “good” through drawings of nature, fairy-tale characters and inanimate objects.

The results of the study showed that schoolchildren brought up in deprivation conditions are worse at choosing adequate standards. Most orphanage pupils do not equate the concept of "good" with the people around them, which means they have problems in communication. Moreover, children from the orphanage draw their peers (classmates), referring them to the standards of both “good” and “evil”. This is due to the lack of communication with other people, especially with adults. In the sphere of communication with peers, the same children appear, since children from the boarding school and orphanage have to live with the same peers, as a result - the deformation of children's social experience.

An analysis of empirical data made it possible to identify the levels of expression of social and moral standards in children of both groups. The main criteria in determining the levels are the choice of a certain category, the child's adequate reflection of the content side of the moral standard, and the direct relation of the subject to this standard. A high and medium level of expression of social and moral standards was observed mainly among younger schoolchildren brought up in families. These children demonstrated adequate social standards of "good" and "evil". Basically, children in this category form a positive social experience, so more than half of the children from families have information about social values, norms and requirements in accordance with their age.

The results of the study testify to the deformation of the social and moral sphere in children brought up outside the family. This turns out to be connected not only with the conditions for raising orphans, but also with the inadequacy in the formation of social standards of good and evil. However, this inadequacy is associated mainly with the negative social experience of communication between children from the orphanage, both with peers and with adults.

Thus, the data obtained clearly indicate that orphans generally do not classify people as “good”, boarding school and orphanage students more often associate people with evil; this means that their emotional and moral standards are deformed.

In order to study the peculiarities of children's acceptance and awareness of moral norms, the method "Unfinished situations" (A.M. Shchetinina, L.V. Kirs) was used.

The vast majority of children from families (95%) showed an average and high level of acceptance and awareness of the moral norm, and only one child (5%) has a low rate of acceptance of moral values. These children often offer adequate solutions in an uncertain situation, taking into account the morality of the act. This group included children who gave adequate detailed and reasoned answers.

Half of the children from the orphanage and boarding school (50%) have a low level of acceptance of moral standards. These schoolchildren are poorly guided in the choice of adequate moral deeds, often offering to resolve the situation without taking into account generally accepted human norms and values. If the child gave an answer without taking into account the morality of the act, then to the question: “Why so?” answers followed: “I don’t know”, “I want it that way.” Some children from the boarding school found it difficult to answer and gave completely inappropriate options. The greatest difficulties were caused by requests to argue the proposed variant of the end of the situation.

It is interesting that the most numerous group of answers is the average level of acceptance of moral standards, and it included both children from the family (60%) and children from the boarding school (40%). This group included children who offered a more or less adequate solution to the circumstances, but were unable to explain their choice. Children are aware of and accept certain norms accepted in society, but explaining their choice with the help of verbal arguments is a very difficult task for them. We associate this rather with the general underdevelopment of the lexical and grammatical structure of speech. The fact that most of the children from the family belong to this group suggests that at primary school age the foundations of the system of values, norms of behavior have already been formed, but are accepted by the child not logically, but because it is so “correct”, so “good” , but why "good", exactly the child cannot formulate.

A high level (35%) of the formation of moral standards was shown by children brought up in a family, and only 10% of children from an orphanage and boarding school. Basically, these children have already formed a positive social experience, so they have information about social values, norms and requirements in accordance with their age.

As a comparative analysis of the obtained data shows, children with mental deprivation, in contrast to children from the family, have significant deviations in the acceptance and development of moral norms. This is manifested in the deformation of emotional and moral norms, in the inability to adequately choose social and moral standards, in overload with negative experience, negative values ​​and patterns of antisocial behavior.

In order to study the culture of behavior, moral standards, the technique “Observation of the culture of child behavior” by A.M. Shchetinina.

Rice. 1. Levels of manifestation of the culture of behavior of children brought up in different conditions

Analyzing the data of questionnaires and observations of children, we found that the behavior of children with mental deprivation is very different from the behavior of children from the family.

It can be said that half of the children (55%) who are brought up in deprivation conditions practically do not have a culture of behavior, which manifests itself in inadequate ways of interacting with people associated with increased conflict, aggressiveness and the general non-constructive nature of relations. Difficulties in communication are most likely associated with the expectation of negative attitudes towards themselves from other children. Deprived children assigned to this level do not know how to empathize, do not express sympathy for another if he is upset. Aggressive behavior towards other children, protection of their belongings, “their territory” are often observed. Younger students with mental deprivation rarely turn to adults for help in order to resolve conflicts with their peers, since they have an aggressive self-defense mechanism. Many of these children are characterized by too cheeky behavior, they most often do not take into account the rules and norms of behavior, so they do what they want at the moment. This group of children exhibits compensatory forms of behavior associated with the protective functions of their "I".

To the average level of manifestation of a culture of behavior, we attributed the children from the boarding school (30%), who were taught the rules of behavior (how to say hello, say goodbye, address the teaching and service staff). They can help adults at their request. However, learning these rules and norms does not entail their awareness and acceptance. Children do not show activity until they are asked or given instructions. Some children apply the rules of behavior from case to case, which indicates the non-acceptance of individual norms and rules of behavior.

Half of the children (50%) from the family also belong to this group, but the qualitative characteristics of their behavior differs from the behavior of children from the boarding school, who are also included in this group. More often, children brought up in a family know the rules of behavior well, but do not always apply them.

The high level of culture of behavior mainly includes children from the family (40%). These are children with fairly established norms and rules of behavior in society. Most likely, this is the merit of parents who instill in children social and moral forms of behavior. Basically, they form a positive social experience, so more than half of the children have information about social values, norms and requirements in accordance with their age. A high level of culture of behavior was also shown by several children from the boarding school (15%). As shown by the anamnesis of their development, these children were brought up in the family in early childhood and therefore apply socially appropriate norms of behavior.

Thus, the social and moral sphere of deprived children clearly differs from the level of its development in children brought up in a family. The presented data of the study indicate that children brought up in deprivation conditions have learned some social norms and standards of moral behavior. This development took place through the educational work of teachers - employees of a social institution: through role-playing games, reading literary works. But the children did not have the opportunity to gain life experience of interaction with their parents (mainly mother) and other close relatives.

The results of our study showed that in the formation of the social and moral sphere of deprived children, there are features that manifest themselves in the deformation of social and moral standards, in a low culture of behavior, in difficulties in communication, in the inability to empathize and sympathize with one's neighbor, as well as in low self-control and independence. . In children brought up in an orphanage, due to the lack of ideas about who “close, dear people” are, there is no differentiation of adults into “friends” and “strangers”. This is due not only to the conditions for raising orphans, but also to the inadequacy in the formation of moral standards.

As evidenced by the diagnostic data of the emotional-value attitude towards oneself, mentally deprived children find it difficult to evaluate themselves as individuals, to express their "good" and "bad" qualities. There is a kind of confusion of concepts of good and evil, good and bad. "Good I" acts as a synonym for obedience, correct behavior. There is a kind of substitution of concepts, and the child realizes that he is “bad”, no one needs him. Such aspects significantly influence the formation of a child's own adequate self-esteem, which is laid directly in childhood. Therefore, we believe that the factor of mental deprivation has a negative impact not only on the formation of social and moral standards, but also on the formation of an emotional and value attitude towards one's own personality.

Thus, mental deprivation of children of primary school age brought up in an orphanage, boarding school, has a destructive effect on the formation of the social and moral sphere, which is manifested in a negative emotionally valuable attitude towards oneself, in the formation of inadequate social forms of behavior and moral standards, as well as in inadequate self-esteem and self-acceptance in the child.

Reviewers:

Cheremisova I.V., Doctor of Psychology, Head of the Department of Psychology, Volgograd State University, Volgograd;

Chernov A.Yu., Doctor of Psychology, Professor of the Department of Psychology, Volgograd State University, Volgograd.

Bibliographic link

Polina A.V. FEATURES OF SOCIO-MORAL SPHERE OF CHILDREN OF PRIMARY SCHOOL AGE IN THE CONDITIONS OF MENTAL DEPRIVATION // Modern problems of science and education. - 2015. - No. 2-2.;
URL: http://science-education.ru/ru/article/view?id=22572 (date of access: 01.02.2020). We bring to your attention the journals published by the publishing house "Academy of Natural History"

L. M. Shipitsina describes a generalized portrait of a personality that is formed in a child who finds himself in conditions of maternal deprivation from birth. Such a person is characterized by:

- intellectual lag;

– inability to enter into meaningful relationships with other people;

- lethargy of emotional reactions;

- aggressiveness;

- lack of self-esteem.

One of the controversial issues in modern psychology is the problem of the age at which a child is subjected to deprivation, and when its consequences become irreversible. V. S. Mukhina, I. V. Dubrovina, M. I. Lisina consider the “involvement” of the child in relationships and communication with others as the main condition for the development of personality. Modern research considers the beginning of such development not the infantile period, as before, but the prenatal period of development.

This fact is confirmed by the results of the experiment on "prenatal learning". The essence of the experiment was that the five-month-old fetus was included in regular organized communication not only with the mother, but also with the father. As a result, earlier and more intensive formation of emotional attachment was noted in children who went through this experiment.

The deprivation of the prenatal period is caused by the very carrying of unwanted pregnancies by potential “refuseniks” (those who abandon newborns in maternity hospitals). The stressful effect of bearing such a pregnancy leads to distortions of the vitally important interaction between mother and child during intrauterine development, to a violation of sensory, metabolic, and humoral connections between them. Most of the future "refuseniks" during pregnancy have mental disorders: depressive states, psycho-vegetative disorders, exacerbation of mental, somatic chronic diseases. An important pathogenic factor is the behavioral disorders of such pregnant women associated with mental disorders: hyperactivity, unsuccessful attempts to terminate a pregnancy, smoking, alcohol, and drugs. According to modern studies, the distress of a pregnant woman leads to the release of a large amount of adrenaline into the blood - the hormone of fear and anxiety, which, entering the developing brain of the fetus, penetrates into its autonomic nerve centers that control the work of internal organs, and causes anxiety of the fetus, and in the future - a variety of emotional disorders in a child.

Modern research shows that attachment is born even in the prenatal period of development, when the fetus captures the emotional coloring of maternal behavior through the smell and taste of amniotic fluid, heart rate, and voice influences. This fact is confirmed by the registered motor activity of the fetus in response to sound, vibration, temperature and other stimuli. Later, researchers suggested that the fetus hears speech sounds, mainly maternal, through the amniotic fluid and, having the ability to determine the intensity and nature of this speech, specifically responds to the effects of changes in metabolism and motor activity.

The mother's organism perceives the motor reactions of the bearing child and all changes in its organism and consciously or unconsciously builds a line of its response behavior. By the time of birth, a complex interaction is established between mother and child, strengthened through the channels of emotional exchange, which are sensory systems - tactile, olfactory, gustatory, auditory, visual.

These studies confirm the postulate about the influence on the formation of the psycho-emotional sphere of a child at the stage of intrauterine development, relationships with the outside world. And if they are harmonious, then the development conditions are favorable for the normal psychophysical maturation of the fetal body, but if the mother experiences constant anxiety and anxiety, the child feels discomfort, which in the future can determine the inadequate nature of his response to external influences, and in connection with this, appropriate behavior in society.

L. M. Shipitsina notes that children of the first year of life who are brought up in a children's home already differ from their peers brought up in families: they are lethargic, apathetic, deprived of cheerfulness, they have reduced cognitive activity, flattened emotional manifestations. Those prepersonal formations or internal structures that arise in children in the first year of life and form the basis for the formation of the child's personality are deformed in children at the orphanage. They do not have attachment to an adult, they are distrustful, withdrawn, sad and passive.

In children of the second and third years of life, brought up in closed institutions, new features are added to the above features: reduced curiosity, lag in speech development, delay in mastering objective actions, lack of independence, etc.

Preschool children of three to seven years old from orphanages show passivity in all types of activities, impoverished speech, poor attention, and conflicts in relationships with peers.

The younger schoolchildren were found to have specific deviations in the development of the intellectual and motivational-demanding spheres of the psyche. This is expressed in a delay in the development of figurative thinking, which requires an internal plan of action, which leads to a consistent increase in difficulties in mastering the educational material. Children are characterized by underdevelopment of arbitrariness in behavior, self-regulation, and action planning.

One of the critical periods of ontogenesis is adolescence with a wide range of psychological problems, both intrapersonal and interpersonal. In adolescents who are in conditions of deprivation, these problems are most difficult.

Adolescence occupies a special place among other age stages of personality formation. It is called the transitional, critical, turning point, age of puberty. L. S. Vygotsky believed that adolescence is a period of destruction of old interests and the maturation of a new biological basis, on which new interests subsequently develop: “egocentric dominant” (a teenager’s interest in his own personality), “a dominant given” (a teenager’s attitude to vast , large scales, which are subjectively more acceptable for him than near, current, today), “dominant of effort” (a teenager’s craving for resistance, overcoming, volitional tensions), “dominant of romance” (a teenager’s desire for the unknown, risky). L. S. Vygotsky also noted two new formations of adolescence - the development of reflection and self-awareness based on it.

In the period of early adolescence (11-14 years), according to D. B. Elkonin, the child has a new activity - intimate personal communication with peers, there is a "sense of adulthood" - a special form of self-consciousness, thanks to which the teenager compares himself with others and finds new role models, rebuilds his activities and relationships with adults and peers. In older adolescence (15–17 years), the leading activity becomes educational and professional, there is a need for self-determination, tasks of self-development, self-improvement, self-actualization are set, a worldview and life plans are formed.

L. I. Bozhovich, analyzing the crisis of adolescence, pointed to its heterogeneity: in the first phase (12–14 years old) it is characterized by an orientation towards goals that go beyond the present day (“the ability to set goals”), and in the second phase (15 -17 years old) - awareness of one's place in the future, that is, the birth of a life perspective: it includes the idea of ​​the desired "I" of a teenager and what he wants to do in his life. I. Bozhovich considered the development of the adolescent's self-awareness and its most important aspect, self-esteem, to be the central moment in the development of the crisis. This is a complex and lengthy process, accompanied by a spectrum of specific, often internally conflicting experiences. The transitional period ends with the emergence of a special personal neoplasm - self-determination, characterized by awareness of oneself as a member of society.

According to the concept of the development of personality and self-consciousness by V. S. Mukhina, the structural units of self-consciousness are value orientations that are formed at various stages of ontogenesis and fill the structural units of self-knowledge. Self-consciousness appears in V. S. Mukhina as a psychological structure, which is a unity of links that develop according to certain patterns. All links of self-consciousness are already included in the self-consciousness of a teenager. But their content content has its own age specificity.

The structure of self-consciousness includes: 1) an emotional-valuable attitude towards oneself bodily, towards one's own name and towards one's Self; 2) claims for recognition; 3) gender identification; 4) the psychological time of the individual (individual past, present and future); 5) psychological space of personality: rights and obligations.

A. M. Parishioners and N. N. Tolstykh described two lines of behavior for orphans, predetermined by the dissatisfaction of their need for communication with adults. One is characterized by anxiety towards adults and is more often observed in children of primary school age, the other is hostility and aggressiveness towards elders in the form of rudeness, intolerance and is more characteristic of adolescents. At the same time, as M. I. Lisina noted, orphans expressed a desire to be in the center of adult attention, a need for affection and human warmth, positive contacts, and constant dissatisfaction with this need.

Distortion of the process of development of the “I-concept” in orphans, which is the core of personal development, violates the entire system of their relationships with other people. A. G. Ruzskaya and I. V. Dubrovina note that in younger adolescents, relations with adults and comrades are based on their practical usefulness and necessity. They do not develop deep emotional interaction - attachment, and feelings are often superficial and unstable.

The conditions of life in orphanages explain both the object orientation of the pupils’ relations with other people (the other person is perceived only from the point of view of his “need” to satisfy his own needs), and the features of their self-concept. These features include:

- weak expression of ideas about oneself as about another, which indicates insufficient attention to the intimate and personal side of communication with peers;

- the ability to adapt to the situation of adult requirements in terms of being able to get around it and behave according to one's own desires and ideas;

- insufficient expression of ideas about one's own skills, interests;

- orientation to the assessment of others.

V. S. Mukhina analyzes the situation of development in deprivation conditions through her conceptual position on the structure of self-consciousness. Her works reveal the psychological characteristics of the pupils of boarding schools, complicating their socialization and social adaptation.

1) In adolescence, as noted by V.S. Mukhina, the name of the child may be subjected to special tests, being replaced by a nickname that mercilessly assesses his individual properties or completely devalues ​​his personality. Depriving the value attitude to each other's names, adolescents, however, defend their right to an acceptable address to themselves by name with due respect and compliance with the norms of the culture of the social environment. Appropriate addressing by name is an indicator of social recognition that is easier to regulate than other pretensions.

2) Within their group, adolescents living in residential institutions may abuse some of their peers or children younger than them. This position is formed for many reasons, but, above all, because of the unfulfilled need for love and recognition, because of the emotionally unstable position of a teenager deprived of parental care. These children have a lot of problems that are unknown to a teenager in a normal family.

3) In puberty, issues of gender, relationships between a man and a woman, and sexual relations become especially relevant for adolescents. It is during adolescence that gender identity acquires real social significance for a person. It is from this period that gender begins to determine life plans, and the choice of profession, and possible marital status in the future. In the normal gender-role identification of a teenager, parents and the family play a huge role: it is the family that makes it possible to integrate the gender-role identity of the child. A teenager brought up outside the family has no one to identify with: in a boarding school it is impossible to create an identification mechanism that completely repeats family identification. In addition, the question of the expediency of replacing identification with parents with identifications with educators and teachers is rather complicated and does not have an unambiguous solution. An adult in these conditions does not become a "source of life meaning" for the child himself. The main condition for the full-fledged psycho-emotional development of the child is the parental family with an organization of life corresponding to the nature of the child, with a level of communication inherent only in the family with relatives, and especially with the mother. Educators remain only carriers of knowledge, patterns of behavior, rewards and punishments, but do not generate their own aspirations and conscious experiences in children, therefore, the knowledge and patterns of behavior transmitted by them most often remain formal, alienated and do not cause an emotional, subjective attitude. Often, girls, by virtue of the group “WE”, borrow aggressive forms of behavior that are not characteristic of the social standards of femininity. The pupils are characterized by an ambivalent attitude towards the family, very emotionally saturated and tense. Many children have a sharply negative attitude towards their birth family, especially towards their mother. Some children (especially those whose parents have died, or those who remember them well) have a positive attitude towards their parents. At the same time, all children have a pronounced desire to have their own family in the future.

4) In the psychological time of the individual during adolescence, changes also occur in comparison with the younger school age. It expands, is associated with the reorganization of self-image. Many researchers note the growing importance of the past and the future in the self-consciousness of a teenager. Since the child gradually begins to take on the position of an adult, the future becomes an important object of his thoughts. Adolescents in relation to themselves discover a time perspective as a component of the emerging self-attitude. They begin to realize their "I" as changing in the time perspective of their own lives, which indicates the connection of psychological time with a new vision of themselves in adolescence.

The psychological time of the individual - the ability to relate the present self with itself in the past and future - is an important positive formation of a developing personality, ensuring its full existence. A highly developed personality in his personal past and future includes the historical past of his people, the future of his fatherland. The pupils of orphanages develop extremely poorly in this respect. They very often do not have an individual past, since the past is given to a person by the family. In conditions of deprivation, a person is most often formed without a responsible attitude to his own time of life, without a formed psychological time. Emotional distress, anxiety related to the past, present and future in children deprived of parental care, have a typical representation in their minds (memories are mostly negative, mosaic in nature, the future is syncretic). Deprivation of a person's value attitude to his past, present and future or the absence of a structured past in the history of a developing person and uncertain life prospects destroy the internal status of a person.

4) Social space as the next component of the structure of self-consciousness in the concept of V. S. Mukhina for a teenager appears in the reality of communication. A child in an orphanage does not learn productive communication skills. He exhibits ambivalent behavior, simultaneously demanding attention and rejecting it, turning to aggression and passive withdrawal. Until adolescence, pupils find it difficult to reflect on the emotional states of others, since, in need of love and attention, they cannot build their behavior in the direction of satisfying this need. As a result of incorrect communication experience, the child takes a negative position in relation to the other. In the conditions of the boarding school, the children develop an orphanage “WE” - a special psychological education, the content of which is the division of the world of pupils into “we” and “them” (all other people), it is formed as a result of a kind of identification of children with each other. In a normal family, there is always a family “We” - feelings that reflect involvement in one's own family. This is a very important, emotionally and morally organizing force that creates conditions for the protection of a teenager. Teenagers without parents divide the world into "us" (WE) and "strangers" (THEY). From the "alien" they are all together ready to extract their benefits. They have their own special normativity in relation to all "strangers" and their own.

The social space of the individual is the rights and obligations that orient a person in life among other people. Being in the social space is provided by a moral feeling, which in everyday relations is defined by the word "should". Residents of boarding schools, as a special community, live according to the moral group standard, bypassing the laws, focusing on the group conscience.

Children who are brought up in boarding schools form a dependent position, as they live on full state support. They have a poorly formed picture of the world and do not develop a system of views corresponding to a high level of personality development (for example, responsibility for oneself and others). Pupils are guided by recognition in their environment most often through physical strength, aggression, antisocial forms of behavior.

Of particular importance and meaning for him are the duties and rights that exist in the social space of adult relations and separately in the teenage subculture. A teenager strives to master the entire range of social space (from teenage groups to the political life of the country). According to the author, he shows a high sensitivity to communication and interaction with the system of rights and obligations. Adolescents are focused on developing a sense of responsibility for themselves and others, on the need for independent choice in everyday life, in extreme situations, as well as on the implementation of civic choice. A teenager is already able to understand and accept the meaning of choice as an element of culture, when he himself makes it responsibly. Finishing the characterization of the features of filling the structural links of self-consciousness in adolescence, V. S. Mukhina notes that the adolescent "We" and the adolescent "I" often oppose, which is manifested in motives, in individual actions and often in the general line of behavior. “We” is the ability to identify oneself with others, to merge with others in situations of social choice, emotional situations; it is the ability to reflect oneself as part of a community. “I” is the ability to separate from others, awareness of oneself as a unique person.

Violation of the emotional sphere of pupils, the sources of which are the lack of support, support in childhood, security leads to the gradual formation of an aggressive complex. The basis of aggression is the need for self-affirmation, leadership, power over other people.

The self-awareness of the child is distorted in a peculiar way: he understands that he does not need anyone in particular, the awareness of himself as an orphan contributes to the formation in the child of a sense of his social exclusivity.

These phenomena contribute to the development in the child of a tendency to accuse the environment of their inferiority, exclusivity.

To describe the psychological status of orphans, V. S. Mukhina proposed the term “psychological encapsulation”. The conditions of life and development of children in the orphanage form a special internal position in the pupils - psychological encapsulation (alienated attitude towards others and towards themselves, perception of themselves as no one), which leads to the desire of the subject to be in the usual conditions of life, in a limited social space, without forming independence and responsibility for their actions and the general line of the life path.

To bring the child out of the state of “encapsulation”, it is necessary to ensure the acquisition of social experience outside the institution, to form a value attitude towards oneself, others, the world as a whole, to develop reflection on oneself and others, to ensure knowledge of one’s rights and obligations and awareness of their interconnection, to instill independence and responsibility for their actions and the general line of their life path.

Features of the development of adolescents - pupils of boarding schools are due to their deprivation, which, according to J. Bowlby, is closely related to attachment disorders.

The type of personality of the child, which is formed in conditions of deprivation, is called by Bowlby "a subject without an emotional connection." The features of such personalities, along with their intellectual lag, are: inability to enter into meaningful relationships with other people, lethargy of emotional reactions, aggressiveness, self-doubt. Growing up, they find it difficult to establish contact and relationships with loved ones; realize relations of dependence, are distrustful of a partner who, in their opinion, seeks to subordinate to their will. Deprivation also causes specific difficulties in communicating with other people: inability to adapt one's behavior to the needs of others; the choice of behavior that does not correspond to generally accepted norms; difficulty in determining the consequences of their behavior; failure to demonstrate the social skills required in a particular situation; inability to control behavior.

The group of adolescents brought up in conditions of deprivation has significantly higher indicators of a high level of experiencing loneliness compared to their peers brought up under constant family care. These respondents experience a deep sense of loneliness, feel abandoned, distant from others, they lack communication. They are deeply immersed in this state. A low level of loneliness was revealed by us only in adolescents brought up under the constant care of the family. Respondents are calm, feel lonely only from time to time. Sometimes such subjects lack communication and attention, understanding. This confirms our assumption that adolescents under constant family care experience a less pronounced state of loneliness.

Psychological problems in the development of both children and adults most often arise in connection with their experience of deprivation or loss. The term "deprivation" is used in psychology and medicine, in everyday speech it means the deprivation or limitation of the ability to meet vital needs. “When they talk about deprivation, they mean such a dissatisfaction of needs that occurs as a result of a person’s separation from the necessary sources of their satisfaction and has detrimental consequences. It is the psychological side of these consequences that is essential: regardless of whether a person’s motor skills are limited, whether he is excommunicated from culture or society, whether he is deprived of maternal love from early childhood, the manifestations of deprivation are similar. Anxiety, depression, fear, intellectual disorders - these are the most characteristic features of the so-called deprivation syndrome. The symptoms of mental deprivation can cover the entire spectrum of possible disorders: from mild oddities that do not go beyond the normal emotional picture, to very gross lesions in the development of the intellect and personality.

Depending on the deprivation of a person, various types of deprivations are distinguished - maternal, sensory, motor, psychosocial and others. Let us briefly characterize each of these types of deprivations and show what effect they have on child development.

maternal deprivation. The normal development of a child in the first years of life is associated with the constancy of the care of at least one adult. Ideally, this is maternal care. However, the presence of another person who takes care of the baby when maternal care is impossible also has a positive effect on the mental development of the baby. A normative phenomenon in the development of any child is the formation of attachment to an adult caring for the child. This form of attachment in psychology is called maternal attachment. There are several types of maternal attachment - reliable, anxious, ambivalent. The absence or violation of maternal affection associated with the forcible separation of the mother from the child leads to his suffering and negatively affects mental development in general. In situations where the child is not separated from the mother, but does not receive maternal care and love, there are also manifestations of maternal deprivation. In the formation of a sense of attachment and security, the bodily contact of the child with the mother, for example, the opportunity to cuddle, feel the warmth and smell of the mother's body, is of decisive importance. According to the observations of psychologists, children living in unhygienic conditions, often experiencing hunger, but having constant physical contact with their mother, do not develop somatic disorders. At the same time, even in the best children's institutions that provide proper care for babies, but do not allow physical contact with the mother, there are somatic disorders in children.

Maternal deprivation forms the type of personality of the child, characterized by unemotional mental reactions. Psychologists distinguish between the characteristics of children deprived of maternal care from birth and children forcibly separated from their mother after an emotional connection with the mother has already been established. In the first case (maternal deprivation from birth), a stable lag in intellectual development, inability to enter into meaningful relationships with other people, lethargy of emotional reactions, aggressiveness, and self-doubt are formed. In cases of a break with the mother after the established attachment, the child begins a period of severe emotional reactions. Experts name a number of typical stages of this period - protest, despair, alienation. In the protest phase, the child makes vigorous attempts to regain the mother or caregiver. The reaction to separation in this phase is predominantly characterized by the emotion of fear. In the phase of despair, the child shows signs of grief. The child rejects all attempts to care for him by other people, grieves inconsolably for a long time, can cry, scream, refuse food. The stage of alienation is characterized in the behavior of young children by the fact that the process of reorientation to other attachments begins, which helps to overcome the traumatic effect of separation from a loved one.

Sensory deprivation. A child's stay outside the family - in a boarding school or other institution is often accompanied by a lack of new experiences, called sensory hunger. A depleted habitat is harmful to a person of any age. Studies of the conditions of speleologists who spend a long time in deep caves, crew members of submarines, Arctic and space expeditions (V.I. Lebedev) testify to significant changes in communication, thinking and other mental functions of adults. The restoration of a normal mental state for them is associated with the organization of a special program of psychological adaptation. For children experiencing sensory deprivation, a sharp lag and slowdown in all aspects of development is characteristic: underdevelopment of motor skills, underdevelopment or incoherence of speech, inhibition of mental development. Another great Russian scientist V.M. Bekhterev noted that by the end of the second month of life, the child is looking for new experiences. A poor stimulus environment causes indifference, a lack of reaction of the child to the reality surrounding him.

motor deprivation. A sharp limitation of the possibility of movement as a result of injuries or diseases causes the occurrence of motor deprivation. In a normal situation of development, the child feels his ability to influence the environment through his own motor activity. Manipulating toys, pointing and asking movements, smiling, screaming, pronouncing sounds, syllables, babbling - all these actions of babies give them the opportunity to be convinced from their own experience that their influence on the environment can have a tangible result. Experiments with offering infants various types of movable structures showed a clear pattern - the child's ability to control the movement of objects forms his motor activity, the inability to influence the movement of toys suspended from the cradle forms motor apathy. The inability to change the environment causes frustration and associated passivity or aggression in the behavior of children. The limitations of children in their desire to run, climb, crawl, jump, scream lead to anxiety, irritability, and aggressive behavior. The importance of physical activity in human life is confirmed by examples of experimental studies of adults who refuse to participate in experiments associated with prolonged immobility, despite the proposed subsequent rewards.

Emotional deprivation. The need for emotional contact is one of the leading mental needs that affect the development of the human psyche at any age. “Emotional contact becomes possible only when a person is capable of emotional consonance with the state of other people. However, in an emotional connection, there is a two-way contact in which a person feels that he is the subject of interest of others, that others are in tune with his own feelings. Without the appropriate attitude of the people surrounding the child, there can be no emotional contact.”

Experts note a number of significant features of the appearance of emotional deprivation in childhood. So, the presence of a large number of different people does not yet fix the emotional contact of the child with them. The fact of communicating with many different people often entails the emergence of feelings of loss and loneliness, with which the child is associated with fear. This is confirmed by observations of children brought up in orphanages, who show a lack of syntony ((Greek syntonia with sonority, consistency) - a feature of the personality warehouse: a combination of internal balance with emotional responsiveness and sociability) in relation to the environment. Thus, the experience of joint celebrations of children from orphanages and children living in families had a different effect on them. Children deprived of family upbringing and the emotional attachment associated with it were lost in situations where they were surrounded by emotional warmth, the holiday made a much less impression on them than on emotionally contact children. After returning from guests, children from orphanages, as a rule, hide gifts and calmly move on to their usual way of life. A family child usually has a long holiday experience.

Some features of the mental development of children brought up outside the family

The constant stay of a child outside the family (even in a very good orphanage or boarding school) has such an impact on the process of his development that many experts tend to consider it as some kind of disability. The atmosphere of the child's family environment (in this consideration it does not matter whether it is a native family or not) determines a qualitatively different type of development of a growing personality.

Thus, long-term studies of the development of the intellectual and affective-need spheres of children from a boarding school and the characteristics of their behavior, conducted by A.M. Parishioners and N.N. Tolstykh, allowed them to conclude that there is a psychological specificity of orphanhood, which the authors interpret not as a simple lag in mental development, but as a qualitatively different nature of the child's development. This specificity is manifested, for example, in younger schoolchildren, in the lack of formation of an internal, ideal plan, in the connectedness of thinking, motivation of behavioral reactions by an external situation.

Modern psychology and pedagogy have a fairly complete picture that describes the features of the mental development of a child growing up outside the family - his emotions, thinking, speech, behavior and relationships with peers and adults. At each age stage of the development of the child's personality, certain qualities of the psyche, characteristic of this particular period, are formed. In a pupil of a boarding school, the formation of the psyche has qualitatively different patterns than in a child brought up in a family circle.

A person who is far from the realities of boarding life will not even think that in an institution where a child grows up, as a rule, one smell or, at best, several dominate. And most of them still smell of a "state house" - bleach, medicines, food prepared for a large number of people. The absence of home smells, which in families are seasonal, festive, everyday, situational and regular, is only one and very small aspect that characterizes the global otherness of the atmosphere of an orphanage or boarding school. Therefore, experts use the concept of "impoverished habitat" for children who are outside family care.

An impoverished living environment is also just one of the components that influence the formation of personal qualities in a child living in an orphanage. Relationships with adults, which at each age of childhood in their own way determine the formation of the most important regulators of the worldview, behavior and communication of the child, in a boarding school are institutional (conditioned by the rules of the institution's life), while in the family, the nature of the relationship between the child and the adult is personal-related. This circumstance contributes to the deformity of the qualities of the psyche that are vital for any person, such as, for example, curiosity, cognitive activity, selectivity in relationships with peers and those who are younger or older, persons of their own and the opposite sex, and many others.

Enumeration of the differences between family education and upbringing in an orphanage can take more than one book volume. These features have been studied in detail by Russian psychologists and educators. The general trend in describing the psychological characteristics of a pupil of a boarding school is as follows: the emotional background of their development is extremely poor, which prevents the formation of the child's personal qualities, which occurs in the conditions of the creative activity of the subject of development himself. Residents of boarding schools are forced to adapt to the requirements of the environment, while family children actively respond to their environment, creatively mastering it (regardless of whether it is favorable for their growth or not).

A different experience of living and raising a child in a boarding school leads to underdevelopment of the emotional-volitional sphere, which can be confirmed by a long list of examples.

So, I.A. Zalysina compared the need for empathy in older preschoolers brought up in the family and outside the family. Pupils of the orphanage are practically incapable of empathy for the people around them. And they are alien to how reactive(hereinafter in italics - T.S.) empathy that appears in response to the feelings of other people, and initiative empathy - the desire of the child to share his experience with other people, to involve them in empathy for him, the child. Family children in an experimental study by I.A. Zalysina not only sought sympathy from an adult and a peer, but also actively responded to the experiences of both partners and characters in fairy tales.

The data of the study allowed the psychologist to make the following conclusion: “The need for empathy and mutual understanding is typical for children with an extra-situational-personal form of communication - its highest form. However, the desire for empathy in an elementary form is inherent in children from a very early age. Already at the end of the first six months of life, children show a need for adult empathy in the conditions of their affective-personal relationships (M.I. Lisina, S.Yu. Meshcheryakova, A.G. Ruzskaya). This need has its own through line of development throughout childhood, reaching its most developed form at an older age. In order for the need for empathy to be satisfied, such an interaction is necessary that gives the child the opportunity to speak out, to open up to another person.

Children from the orphanage cannot express their opinions. Even if they have them, the child does not seek to approve his attitude to what is happening with the attitude of an adult, he only relates them. The pupil of the orphanage very timidly sought a response to his experiences, his efforts were chiefly aimed at attracting the kind attention of an adult. The formation of the need for empathy begins in infancy and is impossible without a developed emotional sphere.

Deformations in the development of children brought up outside the family are also subjected to the sphere of communication with adults, which is characterized by the special tension of the child's need for this communication.

A.M. Parishioners, N.N. Tolstykh write: “Against the background of a pronounced desire for the need to communicate with an adult and at the same time an increased dependence on an adult, the aggressiveness towards adults in the boarding school is especially noteworthy. The frustration of the need for communication, combined with the inability to take responsibility for resolving the conflict, demonstrates a "consumer" attitude towards adults, a tendency to wait and even demand solutions to their problems from others ... Boarding school students are less successful in resolving conflicts in communication with adults and with peers. Aggressiveness, the desire to blame others, the inability and unwillingness to admit one's guilt, i.e. in essence, the dominance of protective forms of behavior in conflict situations and, accordingly, the inability of a productive, constructive solution to the conflict.

These features give rise to "protective formations" in orphans - instead of creative thinking, classification develops, instead of becoming arbitrariness of behavior - orientation to external control, instead of the ability to cope with a difficult situation - a tendency to affective response, resentment, shifting responsibility to others.

These features far from exhaust the entire characterization of the formation of the emotional-volitional sphere of a child deprived of family care.

At present, specialists - psychologists, teachers, psychiatrists, state a dangerous trend in the development of most institutions of the system of public charity for orphans. Several years of a child's stay in a typical orphanage or boarding school atrophy the functions of the regulatory block of the brain. Such a person does not have an internal program, he is able to respond only to actual stimuli and lives according to the “here and now” principle.

This behavior is typical to some extent of all children and even some adults, but it is dominant among the homeless and the homeless. Experts call this feature of the psyche "field behavior syndrome." The named syndrome manifests itself in the fact that a person is not able to independently perform a series of sequential actions that require switching from one type of activity to another while simultaneously keeping in memory the ultimate goal of what is being done.

After the age of three, family children begin to master volitional behavior, which is an alternative to field behavior. It requires a long-term development of complex step-by-step actions with an adult, which have their own logic, sequence and meaning. But the most important thing is assimilated by the child not so much in learning by adults, but in living together with them and independent development, based on imitation of an adult.

Deprivation of emotional and volitional manifestations in an orphanage subsequently leads to the fact that its graduate is practically incapable of establishing strong personal ties that allow a person to create a family and master a professional business. The infantilism of the sensory-emotional sphere, as a rule, has a negative effect on the spiritual development of the child. Archpriest Vasily Zenkovsky calls family feeling a psychological womb for a child's religious feelings. "The religious nourishment of a child is possible only in the family, only it develops such a spiritual environment where it is easy for the child to live in God."

To overcome the harmful consequences of the syndrome of hospitalism in children brought up outside the family, professionally coordinated actions of a whole team of specialists are currently required. Only under these conditions is an effective psycho-emotional rehabilitation of the child possible, which will allow him to subsequently live independently - to earn a living by professional, and not by "begging" or other unseemly craft, to create a family and raise children.

The materials of the book by I.A. Furmanov, N.V. Furmanova were used. Psychology of a deprived child: a guide for psychologists and teachers. M., Publishing Center VLADOS, 2004. - 319p.


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