Behavioral Problems among Institutionalized Children

Institutional care is ¿a group living arrangement for more than ten children, without parents or surrogate parents, in which care is provided by a much smaller number of paid adult carers¿ (Browne, 2009). Browne¿s (2009) stated that ¿residential care implies an organized, routine and impersonal structure to the living arrangements for children (eg, all children sleep, eat and toilet at the same time) and a professional relationship, rather than parental relationship, between the adults and children¿. A child can be considered to be under institutional care or is said to be institutionalized if he/she has been under institutional care for more than three months. These children need emotional support or psychological needs like care, love, affection, protection, attention, security, attachment and they want to be praised and rewarded. They do have stressful events or trauma in their lives like parental loss, abuse, negligence and poverty. This makes them emotionally suppressed and makes them withdraw from the social activities. Hence this study is taken up.