This paper aims to discuss the current configuration of public policies, especially from the psychological practices, based on the ways the childhood category was created in Brazil. Childhood is understood as a social construction, meaning here a geographic and historical knowledge's schedule. By the setting of some disciplinary approaches, Psychology is highlighted in themes as such as patterns of normality and abnormality connected to evolution steps with the childhood. As examples the Juizado de Menores, the Serviço de Assistência do Menor (SAM) and the Fundações Estaduais do Bem - Estar do Menor (FEBEMs) as well as the current shelters reorganized from the Estatuto da Criança e do Adolescente (ECA) can be pointed. So, a problematization about the interplay of the Psychology on the public policies debate about the way childhood's vulnerability was proposed.
childhood; public policies; psychological practices