NINE FOR BREAKFAST

This is a kind of a rolling blog on a recent emergency placement of 3 sibs with us.

They are gone now - which is why I have a chance to blog. I kept records of their stay, which Blue Sky RETAIN; I tweak any information which would allow then to be identified.

Last time I talked about the early morning wake-up of two of them.

I'm picking up about an hour later, the whole family is getting moving.

The 3 emergency sibs had arrived around 1.00am, completely out of the blue. One of our foster children, Ben, woke up and was unbelievably helpful. The other foster child, along with my own kids, are in the dark.

Ideally I'd have woken them up gently in their own beds and broken the news; children don't like huge routine-changes especially first thing on a school day.

But it turned out that all but one had pieced together that something was going on from noises on the landing and voices downstairs, and that hurdle was crossed without mishap.

THOUGHT: Our own children gain so much from our fostering.

It's true. I'm not going to pretend it's plain sailing always, what is in family life? But on the whole our children gain maturity, responsibility and a sense of achievement from being in a family which fosters. They see how hard we work as parents to make things work. 

They learn from the children we foster.

I've just remembered a little true story which illustrates this, if I may... I don't think I've mentioned it on the blog before, but it's amazing.

A mum of a girl who was in the same class as a foster child I was caring for approached me and asked if she could encourage her daughter to play with my foster daughter because; the mum hoped some of the characteristics of the foster child would rub off on her daughter. The mum saw my foster daughter as independent, forthright, feisty. Able to look after herself.

An accurate profile of her public persona. (Mind, she's all those things and a whole lot more when she's back home...)

So how about that! 

True story.

Back to the first morning, 8.00am;

We breakfasted all over the place, nine mouths to fill, then the house emptied. I had the 3 newbies rattling around exploring what toys were available and squabbling over the remote. Ben, my eldest foster child, went back to his own bed now it was free to "catch up on some Zeds".

The kitchen is a wreck, as are all the bedrooms. In fact the whole house is upside down. I have to steel myself to put the children first. The youngest is most needy, understandably. Our training teaches us to begin offering attachment as soon as a normal placement foster child arrives, but I'm out on a limb with how to behave towards a child who might be gone in a few hours. Might it confuse the child (a child who's confused enough) if I try to mother her, and then I'm gone from her life in a heartbeat? 

Maybe I should be neutral.

Who really actually knows for sure?

Thing is; I don't have a range of ways to behave towards some poor mite who's suffered goodness knows what nightmares and is entrusted to me for even a few moments. They can expect all the kindness I can muster, end of. 

Ten to nine in the morning, and I'm playing a kind of peekaboo game with her. I didn't expect any movement from social services on finding a proper home for the 3 new kids for an hour or two, I used to work in offices, no-one's available until 10.00am in offices.

But the phone went. 

Fostering never sleeps...

To be continued.