Kids r kids prosper: Premier Daycare & Preschool Prosper, TX
Premier Daycare & Preschool Prosper, TX
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We are so happy that you found us! We invite you to come take a tour, meet our teachers, and see why Kids ‘R’ Kids of Prosper is the best choice for your family. We understand that you want the best for your child, and we do too! With a unique mix of technology-filled classrooms, highly trained educational staff, live stream cameras, security code entry, and nationally accredited curriculum; what we can offer your child sets us apart from any preschool or daycare in Prosper, TX. Our age specific programs range from infant through pre-K (6 weeks – 5 years old) , as well as before and after school care for youth 5 years to 12 years old. Your child is your pride and joy, and we would love the opportunity to contribute to the educational foundation they deserve!
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Hours of Operation: 6:30am – 6:30pm
Location: 130 Coit Rd, Prosper, TX 75078 | Directions
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VIDEO: Tour Kids ‘R’ Kids Learning Academy
We want to meet you!
Kids ‘R’ Kids is proud to deliver first-class child care and early education to our community for families with children aged 6 weeks through 4 years. We also offer before and after school programs for children 5 to 12 years of age who attend local elementary schools for kindergarten through 5th grade.
We want to meet you and show you around our Learning Academy. Remember to Like us on Facebook and be sure to visit our blog often for great advice on everything from education to parenting.
Our Mission Statement
Kids ‘R’ Kids Learning Academy provides a secure, nurturing, and educational environment for children.
Our school is a place for children to bloom into responsible, considerate, and contributing members of society.
Kids ‘R’ Kids Learning Academy wants all children to have the opportunity to grow physically, emotionally, socially, and intellectually by playing, exploring, and learning with others in a fun, safe, and healthy environment.
As a family-owned and operated school, Kids ‘R’ Kids Learning Academy welcomes positive family involvement and encourages a parent-teacher approach where the needs of every child come first!
WE HOLD THE FUTURE®
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Our Accredited Programs
Kids ‘R’ Kids Learning Academy is fully accredited and offers the ultimate foundation for your child. We are very proud to provide the most effective educational programs and innovative facilities for children 6 weeks through 12 years of age.
Our Exclusive Curriculum
Our exclusive line of curriculum is designed specifically for every developmental stage of education with theme-based units, specific learning activities and teacher-friendly lesson plans. As a parent, rest assured your child is benefiting and advancing from the most innovative curriculum available.
1/10: All smiles in our Infant Program!
2/10: Our Summer Campers go on awesome field trips each year!
3/10: Enjoying the Splash Pad in the Texas heat!
4/10: “Hug First, Then Teach”
5/10: We incorporate STEAM Activities into our daily curriculum!
6/10: Tons of fun in our Toddler Classroom!
7/10: More Splash Pad excitement at Kids ‘R’ Kids of Prosper!
8/10: We challenge our students to think outside of the box!
9/10: Nutritious snacks and meals are provided daily!
10/10: Just look at that smile!
Assistant Preschool Teacher – Kids ‘R’ Kids of Prosper
Kids ‘R’ Kids of Prosper in Prosper, TX is looking to hire a full-time Assistant Preschool Teacher to provide a warm, safe, nurturing, and loving environment for our students.
Are you a motivated self-starter? Would you like to further your career in the childcare industry? Are you interested in a job that doesn’t require nights and weekends? If so, please read on!
This entry-level teaching position earns a competitive wage of $14-$18/hour. We provide excellent benefits, including a healthcare supplemental program, sign-on bonus, bonus plan, vision, dental, disability, life, paid time off (PTO), paid holidays, meals, and free childcare. If this sounds like the right childcare opportunity for you, apply today for this teaching position!
ABOUT KIDS ‘R’ KIDS OF LAWLER FARM
With love at the center of all we do, Kids ‘R’ Kids provides a safe and secure environment for the children in our care. Our most cherished principle, “Hug First, Then Teach”, defines every aspect of who we are at Kids ‘R’ Kids. Unlike other daycare centers or childcare providers, our methodology is a whole child approach.
We work to strengthen and encourage every child’s emotional, intellectual, social, and physical well-being through the expertise of our childcare providers and a unique partnership with parents. Based on decades of experience, we have designed classrooms to create an atmosphere where education and safety are our priorities.
The key to our success is our family-oriented staff dedicated to providing a secure, nurturing environment. Because our employees invest in each child’s development, we invest in our employees. In addition to excellent benefits and perks, we offer a supportive work environment!
A DAY IN THE LIFE OF AN ASSISTANT PRESCHOOL TEACHER
In this entry-level childcare position, you play a crucial role in helping the lead preschool teacher keep your classroom running smoothly. Always vigilant and observant, you report anything potentially harmful, including potential abuse or neglect, to the franchisee, director, or assistant director.
Following cleaning chart recommendations, you ensure the classroom and equipment are properly sanitized and disinfected. Additionally, you maintain the daily mat chart as well as make sure all blankets and sheets are washed. You are well-read on the procedures for fire- and weather-related emergencies and child injuries or illnesses.
Each day, you greet every child and parent with a smile as they arrive. You mark attendance, begin a daily report, observe behavior, and record the development of each child. With care and concern, you are responsive and attentive to the needs of our preschool students. You establish and maintain open communication with the parents and are always ready and willing to discuss their child’s progress along with any concerns.
Always attentive and calm, you maintain a safe, nurturing, and loving teaching environment for every student under your care! You love being around the children and providing them a safe and happy place to learn and grow!
QUALIFICATIONS FOR AN ASSISTANT PRESCHOOL TEACHER
- 18+ years old
- High school diploma or equivalent
- Ability to lift up to 50 lbs
- Reliable transportation
- CPR and first aid certification or willingness to obtain
- Willingness to comply with our company policy regarding background checks
Experience is preferred but not required.
We are willing to train the right candidate. Do you have sound judgment when making decisions? Can you remain patient and levelheaded during stressful situations? Do you enjoy working with kids? Are you always energetic and positive? Do you have good communication skills, both verbal and written? If yes, you might just be perfect for this entry-level teaching position!
WORK SCHEDULE FOR AN ASSISTANT PRESCHOOL TEACHER
This full-time entry-level childcare position typically works between the hours of 6:30 AM – 6:30 PM. Three shifts are available, including opening, mid-shift, and closing.
ARE YOU READY TO JOIN OUR CHILDCARE TEAM?
If you feel that you would be right for this entry-level teaching job, please fill out our initial 3-minute, mobile-friendly application. We look forward to meeting you!
Location: 75078
90,000 “Unconditional love is required for children to thrive.
” 20 important parenting quotes
Psychology
“Unconditional love is required for children to thrive.” 20 Important Parenting Quotes
June 3, 2021
4 333 views
Daria Gordeeva
Being a parent means constantly doubting. Practice patience. Cry and laugh more often than others. Fight off unsolicited advice. And, of course, experience boundless love. For all those who are involved in the most difficult job in the world – raising children – we have collected a selection of inspiring, honest and deep quotes from our books for parents.
Do not try to make the child become the adult you want him to be. Become such an adult yourself.
From the book “The Most Valuable”
A prestigious diploma is unimportant without creativity, collaboration, integrity and communication skills, because the child will not be optimally prepared for the demands of the modern age.
From the book “The Most Valuable”
Children’s achievements are not ours.
In this sense, it is important to have your own interests and achievements so as not to stick to the child like a leech.
From the book “The Most Valuable”
Empathy begins with attention to others, so when communicating with a child, forget about everything else.
From the book “Sensitive Children”
Of course, parents wish their children success. Just don’t turn their life into a competition with one prize – then everyone loses.
From the book “Sensitive Children”
Source
When we give children undivided attention, they feel special.
From the book “Magic in the morning for the whole family”
Sit on the floor and lie down on the ground, run in the rain, don’t be afraid to get your clothes dirty. Do what your children do and be happy!
From The Magic Morning for the Family
Children need unconditional love to thrive.
From the book “Raising by Heart”
Children are not pets to be trained and not computers that can be easily programmed to react predictably to data input.
From Parenting with the Heart
Children should be involved in problem solving when things go wrong and have a say in what regularly happens to them
From Parenting with the Heart
Source
Supporting the child with a simple hug or conversation, we teach him to live emotions, to accept them.
From “Just the Big Things”
The evolutionary role of parents is to protect their children. But, alas, in the future, such overprotection prevents the child from learning to cope with situations and overcome the fears associated with them. Therefore, it is very important to sometimes resist your natural protective instincts and give children the opportunity to act on their own.
From The Calm Ones
We do better when we feel we can influence the world around us.
That is why the child who decides for himself whether to do his homework, whether to prepare for the final exam, will be happier, less stressed and, as a result, will be able to better navigate life.
From the book “Baby Kids”
Instead of forcing children to do what they resist, we should help them find what they like and develop motivation.
From the book “Independent Children”
Seeing your child succeed in what he loves, how his eyes light up from mastering a new skill, how he copes with a difficult task – what could be better? And you don’t need statistics to feel it.
From the book “Everything is fine!”
Source
Good parenting begins in your heart and continues when your children experience strong emotions such as upset, anger or fear. It is about providing support when it really matters.
From The Emotional Intelligence of a Child
When you are emotionally close to your children, you invest more in them, which means you can influence them more.
From The Emotional Intelligence of a Child
Parenting well means looking at things realistically and working with what you have.
From the book “In Partnership with the Child”
Society reserves the most severe critical judgments for their parents: they are inconsistent, passive, undemanding, condescending, strict, not strict enough, sentimental, whimsical, too actively involved in the child’s life, they communicate little with him, are prone to overprotection, are indifferent, irresponsible.
From the book “In Partnership with the Child”
Constant striving for excellence in parenting will never succeed. For any parent, this is an unattainable ideal, a source of stress and anxiety.
From the book “What is the child thinking about?”
Cover photo from here
Children of dictatorship: how in Romania several generations were doomed to life in orphanages
Upon coming to power in 1965, the Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu decided to increase the birth rate to develop the economy.
The population boom turned out to be a path to a social catastrophe. Over the course of 25 years, about 500,000 children were taken from their families and placed in orphanages where they had to survive in appalling conditions. More than 30 years after the fall of the Ceausescu regime and the exposure of the orphanage system, members of the “lost generation” fight for justice
In January 1990, The Daily Mail journalist Bob Graham came to Budapest and became the first foreigner to visit Romanian orphanages since the death of Nicolae Ceausescu. The dictator and his wife Elena were shot two weeks earlier. The Briton was shocked by rusty, falling apart beds, the complete absence of toys and books, bare walls without drawings and a gloomy atmosphere. But most of all – the children themselves, who did not interrupt the oppressive silence with cheerful cries and noisy running around.
“There are two things I remember most clearly that will stay with me forever,” Graham said.
The smell of urine and the silence of many children. Usually, when you enter a room with children, you expect them to make noise: chatting, screaming or crying. But these children did not make a sound, although none of them slept. They lay in their beds, sometimes in twos or threes, and watched what was happening. Silently. It was creepy, almost sinister. The pungent and disgusting smell, which I had become familiar with in the months and years that followed, visiting various social institutions in Romania, knocked me off my feet.”
Despite the change in power, breaking through the veil of silence around the orphanage system proved to be a difficult task. Journalists and investigators are still learning new facts about how the government doomed several hundred thousand children to pain, loneliness, fear and disease. Such was the price for Ceausescu’s desire to spur the economic development of Romania.
“It was inhuman,” Graham added.
– Pens where small children were treated like animals. No, even worse – at least the animals have enough courage to make sounds.
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How and why Ceausescu launched the structure of orphanages in Romania
Ceausescu took the post of chairman of the State Council of Romania in 1967, and in 1974 became the first president, but in fact he ruled the country from 1965. The first years of his leadership were marked by a relatively liberal policy: the head of state allowed foreign press to be sold, and citizens could cross the border almost without obstacles. In addition, Ceausescu sought to reduce dependence on other countries of the socialist camp and actively established contacts with the West. The image of a communist reformer ensured the support of the population for the future dictator.
Already in the mid-1960s, one of Ceausescu’s main concerns was the deteriorating demographic situation. Inspired by the experience of the Soviet Union under Stalin, he decided that an increase in the birth rate would spur the development of the economy. The younger generation would provide Romania with a labor force. In addition, children who grew up under the new leader would receive an ideologically “correct” upbringing and, according to Ceausescu’s idea, would be as loyal to the authorities as possible. To implement this program, in 1966 the dictator approved Decree 770, which prohibited women under 40 from terminating a pregnancy if they gave birth to less than four children.
Contraceptives disappeared from the open market, and all Romanians who could theoretically become mothers were obliged to visit a gynecologist once a month. Sometimes the examination was arranged right at the woman’s workplace in order to take her by surprise. If the doctors determined the pregnancy, then the patient had to report on the birth within the prescribed period, otherwise she would be held accountable for activities contrary to the interests of the state.
“The fruit is the property of the whole society,” explained Ceausescu. “Anyone who deliberately does not have children is a deserter who betrays the laws of national succession.”
Ceausescu pursued the goal of increasing the population of Romania from 19 million to 30 million by the end of the 20th century. In the first years after the implementation of Decree 770, the birth rate actually doubled (from 1967 to 1971 the population grew by six percent), but then slowed down again . The demographic policy of the communists forced women to terminate pregnancies underground or on their own, risking their health and sometimes their lives. A black market for contraceptives flourished in the country, which dealers and smugglers sold at a huge markup.
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Ceausescu tightened the legislation in regard to demographics: in 1977, all childless couples, regardless of gender and marital status, were required to pay a monthly tax. Now motherhood was considered not a possibility of a woman, but a duty to the state and the leader of the party. Doctors who performed illegal abortions were arrested and imprisoned for terms ranging from two to 10 years. Women who applied for help could be imprisoned for two years. Abortions were only allowed for women over 45, victims of rape, and those who had given birth to at least five children.
At the same time, the regime itself became tougher. The dictator decided, following the example of the DPRK ruler Kim Il Sung, not only to increase the influence of the party on society, but also to introduce a cult of himself. Even those close to Ceausescu could not question his decisions.
One of the “side effects” of the totalitarian demographic policy was the increase in the number of families in which parents could not provide their children with a minimum level of social welfare. Some Romanians from the lower social strata gave their children to municipal institutions. Others did not pass the check of the guardianship authorities and were forced to abandon the children, even if they did not want to.
But the state did not have the resources to support families with many children, despite propaganda assurances. The exact number of children who passed through the orphanages from the mid-1960s to the late 1980s is unknown – some sources say 500,000 victims of the regime. In 1989, 170,000 minors were held in state institutions. They have become “collateral damage” to Ceausescu’s ambitions. Some parents turned directly to the president – they wrote that they had fulfilled their “patriotic duty”, but now they needed the help of the authorities in order to adequately raise and educate their children. The state was limited to minimal support.
It soon became clear that a population boom was not a way to achieve prosperity, but a path to economic and social disaster. But even worse was the conditions under which the main victims of Ceausescu’s failed program had to exist.
“People were destroyed in us, we were shut up and humiliated,” said one of the “children of the Decree,” Daniel Rukarecanu. “Our identities were dissolving. These places were slaughterhouses for the soul. How can you recover after this?
Rukarekanu never knew his father, who separated from his mother before he was born. The first years, the mother raised Daniel with a new partner, who often beat the boy. When Rukarekan was six years old, he often ran away from his home in the city of Ploiesti, 56 kilometers north of Bucharest, but the police repeatedly brought him back.
In the summer of 1985 the teacher visited the boy to see how he was doing. The situation of poverty and decline shocked the woman so much that she turned to the guardianship authorities to take care of Daniel there. He was placed in an orphanage. Rukarekanu was physically assaulted for the first time a few hours after his arrival.
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What happened to children in shelters
British activist Jane Nicholson, who arrived in Romania in 1991, recalled that the situation in the shelters more closely matched her idea of concentration camps than what an institution to support children from disadvantaged families should have looked like.
The youngest children in state care were sent to kindergartens under the Ministry of Health. Upon reaching the age of three, they were sorted. They were divided into three categories: “treatable”, “partially treatable”, and “defective”. The latter category often included children with strabismus, anemia, cleft lip – features that would not prevent them from living and developing normally, provided care and attention from adults. However, it was these children, who were distributed among the 26 orphanages operating throughout the country, who had the hardest time.
“There were so many of us,” recalled Isidor Rukel, who fell into the “defective” category due to a leg deformity caused by polio. “After breakfast, we were left in an empty room, where we just wandered from one wall to another. Some cried and even beat themselves. Then they put on straitjackets. After dinner, the same thing happened again.
“I saw a lot of terrible moments,” confessed Kodruta Burda, who in the late 1980s went to work as an educational expert at orphanages for “defective” children. “They did not receive any support, they could not walk, talk and eat on their own. The cleaners kept the children away from the table until they had taken most of the food themselves. The number of rations was strictly controlled, so some children had to cut slices of cheese in half in order for others to get at least something.
Many children who ended up in Ceausescu’s orphanages agreed that the hardest thing for them to endure was not even the culture of violence established in such institutions, but the indifference of the staff. No one cared about their problems, no one smiled at them or talked to them. The pupils were often left without light and heating, doctors were not allowed to consult with foreign colleagues, and nurses were sent to institutions without the necessary training. Negligence led to poor sanitation — for example, needles for injections were not properly sterilized, which caused infectious diseases, including HIV, to spread in shelters.
Employees were warned about inspections in advance: they dressed them in decent clothes, fed them to their heart’s content, and explained how to answer questions. The rest of the time, the children made do with sandwiches with thin strips of cheese and thin stew, wore torn T-shirts, and often did not have a single pair of shoes. About 40 people slept in one room. If someone peed in bed, he was forced to take a bath with soiled sheets – sometimes in ice water.
“No one cared about the children in the orphanages,” Daniel Rukarecanu explained. “You could do whatever you wanted with them. When some guys died, no one cried. I didn’t cry either, I was just scared. If it happened to them, it could happen to me. I knew that if I died, no one would cry either. No one will even remember that you lived there. But I never forgot those guys.”
The order resembled a prison, with the difference that instead of convicted criminals, innocent children became the objects of pressure from the ruthless disciplinary apparatus. Children almost did not leave one building – there they slept, ate, studied and washed. There was nothing else in their lives, and they had almost no contact with the outside world, although 80% of the pupils of orphanages under Ceausescu were not orphans. They were left with parents who often worried about their children, even if the state believed that they did not perform their duties well.
Florin Soar of the Institute for the Investigation of Communist Crimes concluded that between 15,000 and 20,000 child deaths in Romanian orphanages between 1966 and 1989 could have been avoided if the authorities and employees had been more responsible in their duties. The researchers analyzed the statistics in three institutions for “defective” children and concluded that in 70% of cases, the cause of death of the wards was not congenital ailments, but diseases that, with proper care, could be treated, such as pneumonia.
“We went into a dark, windswept building and found children inside,” recalled American pediatrician Jane Aronson, one of the first foreign specialists admitted to shelters by the new government in the early 1990s. “They were small for their age and looked strange, like trolls from fairy tales. Everything was dirty and smelled bad. We opened one door and met a population of “nerds” suffering from advanced hypothyroidism (a disease that manifests itself in a lack of thyroid hormones). I didn’t know how old they were. They were less than a meter tall, but they could have been over 20. In other rooms, we met teenagers with the physical characteristics of seven-year-olds and no secondary sexual characteristics. Children with genetic abnormalities lay in cages. It didn’t fit in my head.”
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Charles Nelson, a professor of pediatrics and neuroscience from Harvard, remembers his meeting with the pupils of Romanian orphanages: “I went to one institution in Bucharest. A little boy stood right in the hallway and cried. He was very upset and wet his pants. I asked, “What’s going on with this child?” The employee replied, “Mother left him this morning and he’s been like this all day.” That’s all. No one consoled this little boy or hugged him.”
An integral aspect of the Ceausescu orphanages was physical violence: the older children beat the younger ones, and the employees beat all the wards. Sometimes they deliberately forced pupils to beat each other as punishment for “lack of discipline.” Codruta Burda, who joined the orphanage shortly before the revolution, told how she once almost got into a fight with a colleague for using corporal punishment on a girl with a weak heart. Some children so yearned for touch that did not hurt them that they clung to each visitor and would not let go until they were torn off by force.
One might think that with the fall of the dictatorship, the nightmare ended for tens of thousands of underage Romanians, imprisoned at that time in orphanages. However, at the turn of the 1980s and 1990s, when the country plunged into political chaos, few people cared about “homeless children.” Even when doctors, researchers and journalists were allowed into Romania, the situation did not immediately change for the better. During the 1990s, another generation suffered from the legacy of totalitarian attitudes and bureaucratic arbitrariness normalized by the Ceausescu regime.
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How victims of the Decree are trying to return to normal life
After Bob Graham’s revealing report, The Daily Mail managed to raise $2. 5 million in a month and a half to help Romanian children. However, the humanitarian aid purchased with these funds often did not reach those in need: educators and officials sold it or appropriated rations and sets of clothes intended for pupils.
Some children were lucky – many European and American couples, having learned about the Romanian social catastrophe, decided to adopt a child from Romania. Others had to stay in shelters until adulthood, despite living and capable parents.
“When I first came to Romania, my adoptive parents were shocked by the conditions in which we lived,” said Alexandra Smart, who was adopted by the British in 1990. – Mom talked about how there was literally no heating and how we were washed in ice water. My body was covered with thin hair, which somehow protected me from the cold.
No less serious were the psychological consequences faced by the victims of the Ceausescu Decree. Soon after moving to England, Romanian friends came to Alexandra’s new family and began to communicate with her in their native language. The familiar sounds triggered traumatic memories in the girl, and she began involuntarily banging her head on the stone floor to silence the adults. Since then, the parents realized that it was better not to address Alexandra in Romanian.
“Mom recalled one time I fell off the swing and hit my head hard, but didn’t cry,” Smart continues. “Until then, I didn’t know that crying is a normal response to pain or grief.”
Children who spent several years in public institutions where they were malnourished, neglected, deprived of minimum comforts, and subjected to abuse experienced a decrease in brain activity in the areas responsible for memory, problem solving, and reasoning. Their IQ was lower than that of their peers who grew up in families, and decreased as they grew older. They were worse at learning languages and suffered from motor impairments. In addition, children from shelters showed signs of various mental and emotional disorders. Most often they suffered from depression and increased anxiety. Approximately 40% of former pupils were diagnosed with mental disorders in adulthood.
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Another serious difficulty for victims of Romanian shelters was the lack of social skills: they did not understand how to react and what to feel in response to the care shown by foster parents.
“Every time we started to quarrel, I wanted one of them to say: “We never wanted to adopt you and now we will send you back,” recalled Isidor Rukel, a teenager by an adopted American couple. “But they never said it. I reacted better to blows than to conversations. In America, they have “rules” and “consequences.” I hated being told, “Let’s talk about it.” As a child, I never heard the phrases “you are special” or “you are our boy. ” Then when your foster parents say something like that to you, you think, “Okay, whatever you say, thanks. I don’t even understand what you mean. I don’t know what you want from me and what I should do.”
American evolutionary biologist John Medina, in his book Rules for the Development of Your Child’s Brain, notes that the behavior of adopted Romanian children differed greatly depending on the age at which they entered the upbringing of other families. If they left the orphanage before the fourth month of life, then they were no different from children from prosperous families and grew up without any deviations in behavior. Those who were adopted after the eighth month of life often suffered from uncontrolled and unreasonable aggression.
“The inability at a certain infancy to feel secure through secure attachment has obviously put tremendous stress on their body systems,” Medina concludes. “And that stress was reflected in their behavior years later. They were taken away from the orphanages a long time ago, but they never really became free.”
For Isidor Rukel, the turning point in the perception of the past was the return to Romania and the meeting with biological relatives. For other victims of the Decree, the main way to normalize adult life was the struggle for the restoration of justice. For example, Daniel Rucarecanu, with other former pupils, founded the association Federeii, which requires the authorities to recognize systematic and institutionalized crimes against approximately 500,000 children. In addition, former pupils are fighting for the reduction of orphanages and the improvement of conditions in them.
“People still send their children to orphanages because it was considered normal under Ceausescu,” says Visinel Balan, a human rights activist who grew up in one of these institutions.
“How can we improve the child care system if we are still not ready to investigate what happened in the past? Rukarekanu says. “You need to sort out your trash first.”
Even now, many employees of orphanages and administrative institutions of the Ceausescu era do not admit that their actions harmed children.
“We didn’t need any specialists, because these children were recognized as incurable,” a former head of one of the state institutions told reporters. – Why waste time on a specialist with a person who is not treatable? There were crazy, incurable children everywhere. They broke and destroyed everything. We were engaged in Sisyphean labor, changing their clothes and bedding. They undressed and stood naked in the middle of the room, like little monkeys.”
Another serious problem is the low availability of abortions. Conservative and religious organizations oppose sex education for teenagers, and also call for limiting the possibility of abortion. Human rights activists fear that such trends could lead to history repeating itself, despite the fall of communism more than 30 years ago.
Some of the former pupils started families, learned to feel and respond to manifestations of emotions on the part of loved ones. Others, even many years after their release, psychologically remained in gloomy houses, where nothing protected them from the drafts and cruelty of adults. They had one thing in common: the experience of being in shelters shaped their personalities and still affects them now, even if they lead normal lives and seem completely ordinary people.
“Not a single day goes by that I don’t think about what I’ve been through,” admitted Rukarekan, who is now raising two sons. “It is easy to harm people, to repeat the evil that others have done to you. I draw strength from my first day at the orphanage when I was beaten. Then I told myself that I don’t want to be like them. There are so many bad things running through my head, but I try to control them. Sometimes I don’t succeed and I think about them in the evening before I go to sleep.