What are some of the typical behaviors in post-institutionalized children?
When children leave orphanages, they enter a world about which they know nothing and have absolutely no experience. Their departure into this unknown world is tantamount to opening the door of the space shuttle and stepping off into the vastness of space. It’s understandable, then that the overwhelming emotion most of these children feel is fear. Fear causes some very strange behaviors in people, and some of the behaviors seen in post-institutionalized children seem very odd, indeed. We need to remind ourselves how difficult this transition is for our newly arrived children, especially when some of the more common behaviors start to drive us crazy. The most common behaviors break down into three broad categories: self-soothing behaviors; defensive and hypervigilant behaviors; bad habits learned as survival techniques in a previous environment. The oddest behaviors may be the self-soothing behaviors. These can include finger sucking, clothes sucking, hair twisting, full-body rocking, bo
