I PLAY, FANTASIZE, CHANGE NAMES AND TRANSGRESS IN ORDER TO PLAY: CHILDREN PLAYING EXPERIENCES FOR FULL PROTECTION

Abstract

This study focuses on some reflections about childhood, particularly about games of institutionalized children. It is related to questions of childhood institutionalization, the challenge for the institutions to implement practices based on the guidelines of ECA (the Brazilian statute of children and adolescents), the perception of who institutionalize children are, children’s playing experiences and the strategies used to deal with separation and the sense of abandonment. It also shares the idea that practices considered typical of children, such as rules, representations, obligations and ways of relating with peers and adults are notably recent, from Modernity, and four factors are important in the process of structuring. The first is the creation of public schools in the late eighteenth century, and the second is the reorganization of the nuclear family that gradually encompassed other forms of family reunification, such as the clan, the extended family, the polygamous family and others. The third factor is the production of an institutionalized set of knowledge about normal child associated with a set of medical, psychological, educational and behavioral prescriptions. Finally, the last factor is the symbolic administration of childhood with implicit and explicit definition of inclusion, interdiction, compulsion and recognition rules for children. Childhood is reconstructed in Modernity through institutional arrangements such as school, family and justice. And, finally, the study brings some thoughts about playing and childhood. Historically, an irregular, invisible, fragile (to the point that it is not even able to play, requiring extreme vigilance) childhood was coined. Actually, this childhood crossed by negativity does not want to be visible, as it prefers anonymity. However, the childhood considered in Sociology of Infancy requires a different and changing look. A close look at their needs and desires requires a major challenge within the institution because it presupposes significant changes in practices. A look that seeks more than it is able to see, that understands their dreams and imagination, fulfilling their rights with top priority.

Key words: Childhood; sheltered children; playing; games.