When you're bringing up children you need carrots and sticks to encourage good behaviour.
In the past parents used actual sticks. Violence. Some still do. Shouting, threatening, berating, it all happens.
A man has just been convicted in Italy, a wealthy man, for forcing his daughters to go ski-ing and eat a macrobiotic diet because he thought they were overweight.
Until recently the best...
Wednesday, January 28, 2015
Monday, January 26, 2015
FINDING OUT ABOUT THE PARENTS
People outside fostering, especially people thinking about taking it up, often ask what foster children are like. They want to find out about the children you find yourself inviting into your family, albeit temporarily.
The next question they ask is usually about the foster child's parents.
The people who ask are usually adults with experience of the adult world. They usually have knowledge...
Wednesday, January 21, 2015
WHAT'S A FOSTER CARER WORTH?
The giant US financial organisation Forbes report that a "Stay-at-home Mom" would earn $115,000 a year if you paid 'her' the hourly rate. They split the role of 'Mom' into 10 duties. They get to the big final salary thanks to the fact they estimate 'Mom' works 97 hours a week, rather than that she's on a highflyer salary for each 'job'.
Yawn. A tired old PR exercise this one. Gets trotted...
Sunday, January 18, 2015
IN AND OUT OF CARE
Not enough is known about how it feels to be fostered.
So a book that starts like this:
"I wrote this book to repay a debt. Not a financial debt, although money does come into the story, but an emotional debt to two groups of people. Those who helped me survive 18 years of living in foster care or in a Children's Home and those who subsequently helped me to recover from those difficult times."
Is...
Wednesday, January 14, 2015
BEST CHRISTMAS EVER
Now that Christmas is back in its box it always seems like it never happened. It's such a standout Bank Holiday. That's all it is really, a Bank Holiday. The Christians big day. But we all go to town, especially the athiests and agnostics.
It lasts ten days, ten days away from your normal life.
Things happen differently. Family is right to the fore. If you foster it's a very special stretch.
This...
Sunday, January 11, 2015
LYING
Truth or Lie?
The business of lying/telling the truth presents foster parents with more problems than most people, with the obvious exception of the police. Only just, mind.
Until I started fostering I think I believed that something someone said was either a lie or it wasn't.
But for children from a chaotic home lying is a special issue.
Try watching any Jeremy Kyle and if a lie-detector isn't...
Saturday, January 10, 2015
WHAT'S A 'NORMAL' CHILD ANYWAY?
It's easy to get the wrong view about foster children. It's easy to assume that they are different from children who aren't in care.
Yes, they can try your patience at times, no question.
But they're not a separate breed. They are normal kids, dealing with life as best they can.
If you ever think they are somehow unusual, then do what I did the other day and help out at a local school and see what...
Wednesday, January 07, 2015
TEACHERS AND NURSES
People from all walks of life are perfectly able to foster, and it's not for anyone to know if they have the right background until they apply. It's a shame, for example, there aren't more teachers and nurses in fostering.
The process is friendly, there are no exams or interviews. A single social worker turns up at your house once a month about eight or ten times, you chat things through over...
Thursday, January 01, 2015
IS DECEMBER THE HARDEST MONTH?
I don't suppose anyone who has never fostered could possibly understand how it is through Christmas week if you are in fostering.
There's big and little stuff they won't get, can't ever get, to be fair.
So if you've done it, or have been doing it, or might do it next time, I hope the following few thoughts help you along.
The regular weekly pattern of fostering is tied to the rhythm of the week:...