The family is the first social relations model. Children see in their parents, or whoever is in charge, the referential model they will identify with. The parents are responsible for transmiting to their children the values, rules and limits that are necessary to the social relationships and the healthy development of a child s personality. As children grow up, they get gradually appart from their family and that tends to be helpful to the socialization process. However, according to another perspective the child could not only separate but detach, either briefly or permanently, from his or her family. That is the institutionalization perspective. According to that perspective, an institution will, inevitably, reproduce the family affection and authority models in face of the demands of children in shelters. The institutional space becomes a broader reference of the parental model, thus the children find themselves vulnerable to a previously arranged and consolidated rules system. Therefore it was necessary to investigate the implications of limit to the institutionalized children. Thus a qualitative research was carried out. A semi directed interview was applied to psychologists and social workers who work with sheltered children in governamental organizations and non-profit or charity institutions. Those interviews focused on the limit and its unpredictable changes reported by the professionals involved who emphasized several aspects such as lack of uniformity of educational rules at the institutions that make those rules difficult to be taught to institutionalized children. The research s results indicated that to establish rules at institutions there are severals underlying facts ranging from domestic violence to privation of affection both reflected in the institutionalization and in the infant s educational process
