Tweeting, they've asked me to give it a go. I already have a Twitter account of my own, set up for me ages ago by someone I knew who said it was going to be the next big thing. It's a bit like the pasta making machine which came as a Christmas present one year, I owned it but didn't really know what to do with it. Until a foster child found it and had enormous fun squirting bits of dough through the rollers and out the other end. And left me with an almighty mess. 
End of metaphor.

So I'll give it a go. The idea seems to be you can buzz a quick thought out to everyone who knows you, when it comes into your head.

Here's something about Twitter that's just come into my head.

None of my foster children have ever used it.

Am I alone in that? If you're a carer, has any of your children been an avid Tweeter?

I bet not. Wonder why?

They text alright, boy can they text. Beat this: one girl arrived to stay with us, her mobile was always in  her hand. She never spoke into it. Just tap tap tap. She had a deal where £7.99 per month bought her limitless texts. On the third day I asked her how many texts she'd sent since she'd arrived. Answer: 11,200.

They like the messaging services, once they get to middle teens, but we've had to keep an eye on those, because you don't know who they might bump into roaming around the various boards.

The internet, generally, they like, of course, and anything that has wires coming out and/or a screen, foster children love it. Thinking about it, they generally don't do email either; they seem to think it's had its day.

But definitely they don't do Twitter. Maybe it's something to do with the fact you need to have to be a bit of show-off to do Twitter, because you're kind of performing to a kind of audience. You have to be concise too (147 characters or something like that), and they'd rather ramble on. Actually no, their texts are very spare, so that's not it.

Ah, maybe it's that Twitter is public. It has no intimacy, no sense of one-on-one, not in its mainstream form.

Not clandestine, not secret. Quite the opposite.

And like I say, Twitter is for people who think they are a bit important. Not a thing for kids with low-self esteem, and who maybe have learned the safest thing in life is to be seen and not heard. Well, probably to be not even seen.

Anyway, it's 3.00am, and the sleepover in the next bedroom is still going on. 

"Sleepovers" that's a laugh. "Stayawakeovers" I call them in our house.

Right, that's it, I'm going in there and saying "Time to be quiet now, and no more turning on the light."

I'll Tweet it too, it's less than 147 characters.

The Secret Foster Carer