Parent's guide 

When we talk about the institutionalized child, we think, of course, about the child included in the protection system in Romania, so, we think about the abandoned child. There are different forms the system has to ensure the protection of these children: placing the child in a foster care, if he is very young, institutionalizing the child in a placement center, formerly known as the "House of Children", placing them in social apartments, when they reach the age of consent and are able to maintain themselves, etc. Usually, there are two forms of protection for the institutionalized children in placement centers: the placement when parents keep their quality, but for the moment, for various reasons, they can not fulfill their parental responsibilities, and there is the custody, when parents, for one reason or another, renounce or are deprived of their parental rights. 

The reasons why these children are institutionalized are related to the familial dysfunctions, which can have different forms: 

• Mono parenting (the child has only one parent, unable to take care of him); abuses the child is put on (physical neglect, which comprises the adult's inability to provide necessary for living, emotional neglect, meaning the parents impossibility to ensure a safe environment from a psycho-emotional point of view), physical abuse, which may take different forms, etc 
• Parents' incapacity to work, so, the lack of material resources for the child's maintaining; the mother's undesired pregnancy, not assuming the responsibility to raise a child, etc. 

Regardless of the reasons the child was abandoned, the effects of institutionalizing on his personality's development, are equally important. 

There are two types of factors which decisively influence the psychological development of children: internal factors, which are related to genetics, and external factors, which include all the external situations which contribute to the individual's formation, starting with the family, environment, education and, later, the group of friends, profession, etc. 

In the case of the child abandoned at birth, it starts with an essential minus: the absence of the maternal relationship which, in his first years, is decisively for the ulterior development, at self-consciousness, personality and intellectual development level. The trauma caused by this situation, most times leads to irreversible dysfunctions for his personality. A deficit in his identity's formation occurs, generated by the absence of the person who gave birth to him and who has the important role to assist and guide him, to give him love and to show him the way in his first steps in life. 

According to the studies carried out by Freud, between 1-3 years the child is in a state of primary narcissism, wavering between fusion with the mother and his natural tendency to form as a person. Mother's role is to support gradually both the child's needs, which in the first stage are focused exclusively on feeding act, and the need to identify, separate and acquire a sense of being different, in relation the others. Therefore, placing him to a foster parent is an act of high responsibility, as the person who will take care of the child must be aware of his needs, so she will be able to support them and to substitute in a satisfactory way the mother's absence. 

In most cases, these children end up in protection institutions after a long period spent within the family, a period during which they suffered various forms of abuse, producing psychic disorders. 

Institutionalizing itself creates in the child's consciousness the picture of abandonment, the feeling of not being wanted, cared, love and, as a consequence, a feeling of insecurity, self-esteem decreasing, concept of personal identity disturbance occurs; all these being emotionally and cognitive experienced in a dramatic way. The child now has to face both the mourning produced by the separation from his family, and the adaptation to a new environment, which involves a reorganization of his entire life. Most times, disturbances occur caused by his inability to adapt to the new environment, such as depression, panic attacks, behavioral disorders, language disorders, deficit on social maturity level. 

The child whether withdraws, refuses social contacts, expresses disbelief and suspicion, or he becomes aggressive, claiming, revengeful, or he yearns for the other's attention, he is well-behaved, kind, willing to please. Of course, there are successful adaptations also, if the child manages to face the changes, sets a reference person, manages to make safe relationships, but the trauma of losing his own family is an emotional wound which rarely cures. 

A very important thing to mention in the case of institutionalized children is the way they create, in many cases, their own scenario about life. Each of us organize our lives around a pattern (relational, behavioral), formed as a consequence of the conditions we subjected to. The child raised in a safe environment will tend to see in the others trustful persons, and to be open and cooperative. But the abandoned child, having the "abandonment wound", often creates a scenario having loneliness, abandon as the main drama. As a consequence, he proves not being able to maintain lasting relationships, even if, at consciousness level, he wants to. His relational behavior may have different forms, depending on each one's personality. Either he will look for fusion in every close relationship, in a wrong way, and he will be rejected by the person with whom he is in a relationship, or, to test this person's capacity to unconditionally love him, he will do all kinds of things meant to disappoint this person, until he will be left, so the scenario created unconsciously by him, will repeat. Following this pattern, most times, if we carefully study their family history, we find out that these children come from parents who themselves were abandoned children. 

So, who can substitute the absence of the ones who should take care and love these children? Can we always blame the parents? If he had to choose between a dysfunctional family and institutionalization, what would he choose? Is the protection institution the solution? Certainly, at this point, it is a solution.