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- Waiting rooms at rest: who is to blame for the difficulties of orphaned children with education
Waiting rooms at rest: who is to blame for the difficulties of orphaned children with education
The educational system demonstrates insufficient willingness to work with children who have experience of orphanhood: There is little individual training with them, teachers have a lack of knowledge about the consequences of trauma, and the school does not interact well with the foster family. At the same time, such students themselves, although they have problems in relationships with classmates, perceive school even better than their peers from ordinary families. This is stated in a study by the charity foundation "Volunteers to help Orphaned children." The main conclusion of experts is that the difficulties of foster children are not individual, they are problems of the education system. What to do to make students with orphanhood experience feel better at school, and how to fine—tune the system - in the Izvestia material.
What was the purpose of the study?
A study on children with the experience of orphanhood in schools (available to Izvestia) was conducted by the Volunteers in Aid of Orphaned Children charity foundation with the support of the Absolut-Help Foundation. It consisted of three stages: first, an analysis of Russian and foreign scientific publications, research, and statistics, then interviews with 28 foster adolescents about their school experiences, difficulties, and support resources, and finally, a survey of 92 foster children aged 10 to 17.
It is worth emphasizing that the study was conducted among residents of Moscow and the Moscow region, and these are children who have mostly been living in a family for quite some time — more than 61% of the respondents have been outside the orphanage for more than five years.
The researchers relied primarily on the opinion of the students themselves to see the gap between the expectations of adults and the real needs of adolescents and to understand: are orphaned children really so difficult for school, or is the educational environment simply not ready to work with them?
"The main conclusion of the study is that the problems of foster children at school are not individual, but systemic," said Antonina Popova, coordinator of research and analytics at the Volunteers for Orphaned Children Foundation. — Of course, each child and his situation are unique, but there are difficulties that are typical for most. They arise not because the child is "complex", but because of the discrepancy between his special needs, formed by traumatic experience, and the unwillingness of the school system to take them into account.
Key findings of the study
In the study, the school acts both as a source of risks for children with orphaned backgrounds — they are stigmatized and bullied — and as a potential resource for making it easier to fit into society. The key barrier remains precisely the systemic unwillingness of the educational organization to work with such students. Researchers talk about the lack of teachers' competencies, weak individualization of education, and the school's disciplinary and punitive approach to the problems of orphaned children.
For foster children, this often leads to fatal consequences: it is school problems that often become a stressful factor for the substitute family, and sometimes the catalyst for the decision to return the child to the orphanage. The researchers cite federal statistics: the proportion of children returning to institutions relative to those adopted into families has even been growing slightly in recent years.
The orphaned students themselves perceive school positively. 86% rate it satisfactory or good, and 32% say "everything is great." Absolute disadvantage is rarely discussed — only 2% of such responses. And 12% answered, "generally so-so, but there are some good things."
At the same time, in comparison with adolescents from the general sample, that is, from blood families, foster children demonstrate an even higher level of satisfaction with school. Their share of negative ratings is lower: 14% versus 25% (the second figure is from the St. Petersburg State University "360° Teenagers" study in 2023), and "everything is super" — 32% versus 17% in favor of foster teenagers. However, the researchers admit that it is necessary to take into account the large difference in the size of the compared sample and draw conclusions very carefully.
The researchers cite communication with peers, favorite subjects, academic success, and teacher support as the main resources of the school for foster children. The main source of help is parents (71% of responses). But among those who support, there are individual teachers (47%). At the same time, only 9% of orphaned students trust a school psychologist. And there are complaints about parents: 53% of teenagers complain about being lectured about their studies, and 41% complain about their hypercontrol.
But with peers, everything is quite difficult: on the one hand, teenagers declare the support of friends (48%), but on the other, they call classmates the main source of trouble (52%).
Researchers call psychological safety, respect, fairness and confidentiality the key demands of teenagers. At the same time, children do not want to soften academic requirements for themselves.
"Empirical evidence has shown that... The most acute problems are not related to academic failure, but to teacher injustice and pressure, as well as ambivalent relationships with peers," the researchers conclude.
What recommendations do the researchers give?
Antonina Popova emphasizes that the main conclusion of the study for teachers is the need for training. Teachers do not have mandatory programs on the psychology of orphanhood and trauma today.
— According to our other study last year, which was conducted jointly with 2GIS and included in the desk part of the current study, 65% of teachers receive information about working with such children only from their own experience, and 61% from colleagues, — says the expert.
The school does not need new methods, but rather skills in working with children with experience of orphanhood.: The ability to communicate effectively, carefully, deal with conflicts, and build relationships in the classroom, she emphasizes.
For the state, the main conclusion of the study is the need for interdepartmental cooperation. Currently, schools, families, guardianship authorities, escort services, etc. often do not work well together, the Izvestia interlocutor notes. She refers to research data, according to which 31% of teachers believe that foster parents "do not take into account the characteristics of the child," and 22% of substitute parents believe that the teacher "does not know how to work with such a child."
— This is a conflict at the level of "who is to blame", and it is a direct consequence of the lack of mechanisms for joint work, — the fund's coordinator draws attention. — In practice, how difficult situations are resolved depends on the personality and competencies of specific parents or teachers. Many schools do not have systematic working practices for typical situations (bullying, educational maladjustment, family-school conflict).
At the same time, as the expert clarifies, the study clearly showed how teachers, substitute parents and foster teenagers look at the same things differently: neither side sees the full picture.
— This means that school difficulties are not the "laziness" of a child or the "incompetence" of parents, but the result of no one coordinating efforts. Schools and the state need regulations for the joint discussion of such children (with the involvement of a psychologist, a class teacher and parents), and not mutual accusations, Antonina Popova is convinced.
What is the legal status of a foster child at school
Currently, there are no accurate statistics on the number of foster children in schools in open sources, said the coordinator of the foundation "Volunteers to Help Orphaned Children." The State keeps general records of orphaned children and children left without parental care. According to these data, more than 300 thousand children were raised in Russian families in 2025. But this data includes all foster children, not just those who study in schools.
And the law does not oblige parents to inform the educational organization that the child is adopted. You only need to provide the documents for enrollment: a birth certificate and a parent's identity document.
Disclosing sensitive information in terms of benefits for the child is a difficult decision.
— On the one hand, a teacher who knows about the child's characteristics can better understand his behavior. The study shows that 79% of teachers feel a desire to help such children, but 25% of teachers feel sorry, which creates a barrier to constructive communication. Knowing about the status without special training can lead to overprotection or, conversely, to high expectations, warns Antonina Popova.
On the other hand, the interlocutor of the editorial office notes, the adopted teenagers themselves are categorically against disclosure.: 85% of them consider this unacceptable. For them, this is a matter of psychological security.
"For a while, until he gets smarter"
The experts interviewed by Izvestia generally agree with the findings of the study. Svetlana Stroganova, Director of Development at the Our Children Foundation, notes that the problems are even broader: it's not about school, but about society.
— For example, a teacher's purse disappeared from her bag during recess. Guess whose mom the teacher will call? To the mother of the adopted child, that's right," she says.
The general education system as a whole is not tailored to individual work with a child, the editorial interlocutor adds. And when children with psychological trauma engage in various defensive strategies, teachers mistake it simply for bad behavior, disrespect for the teacher, etc.
— Sometimes strange solutions are offered, so to speak. I have a younger adopted son. Of course, there are problems at school. At one of the talks, the teachers suggested that he be sent to an orphanage. "For a while, until he gets smarter." Sometimes teachers don't have this understanding that an orphanage doesn't add intelligence, peace of mind, and stability," Svetlana Stroganova points out the problem. — It is very important, of course, to raise awareness that other tactics of interaction are needed with children with experience of orphanhood.
Irina Ryazanova, director of the Big Change Orphan Aid Foundation, also notes that orphaned children have problems in schools, as well as in the education system itself. It is especially difficult when such a child is not raised in a family: in orphanages, tutors are not always able to provide adequate support to all children, and there is no such task — to help with their studies.
— Of course, in order to support the children in overcoming these difficulties, we need an individual approach and understanding not only of the student's task in the lesson, but also of his life situation. It is difficult, expensive, and requires cooperation between teachers and parents. But you need really paid time from specialists and time with your family in order to sit down, figure things out, understand each other, and build individual educational routes," the expert explains.
Allocating time to interact with parents and to build individual learning programs for the child, taking into account his life situation and educational experience, can be a solution to the problem. Cooperation between different subjects is also important, not only in mastering the school curriculum, but also in supporting the child, developing self—education skills, taking into account his interests and other circumstances, Irina Ryazanova believes.
"I've already seen situations where this happens, but it's more of a point—based solution, when either a parent or an interested teacher, on their own initiative, enters into such cooperation beyond the existing ready-made system solutions," she notes.
Izvestia has sent a request to the Russian Ministry of Education. No response had been received at the time of publication.
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