CHANGE

 One of the biggest changes in family life over the last few years has given all families something to think about, especially families who foster.

It's got to do with how families hunker down in the evening.

When I was a child there was no central heating so the entire family huddled together around in the one heated room in the colder months. Only one source of heat; some type of fire.

And there was only one source of entertainment, the telly.

So, out of necessity, families were all together every evening 'til bedtime.

Very different now.

Family members want their own space, their own privacy to surf the net, message friends, watch YouTube.

As foster parents we're quite rightly encouraged to gel the family members together. Eat at the same time and same table. Then share the rest of the evening together.

My goodness the second bit is a hard negotiation sometimes!

You could argue that on the whole their independence can be a good thing; better they are interacting with friends and playing games which call for quick thinking. My generation ended up with square eyes watching a box and doing  nothing with our hands. Or our minds.

TV is essentially sedentary, the internet is inter-active.

You could even say it makes the job of the foster parents easier, because building every evening out of the TV schedule or a game of scrabble calls for party skills the like of which we haven't seen since they downgraded Butlins Redcoats.

The biggest success I ever had with a houseful of family and foster children was the X Factor, which we watched en masse, passing round a box of Quality Street. It was truly joyful, and you could feel the comfort and security that everyone, especially the foster children, felt at this sharing of an hour's company.

When they take themselves off into private corners, or go to their room and shut the door saying;

"I need to concentrate on something for 5 minutes" but never come down again…

That's when foster parents are faced with a bunch of dilemmas.

What are they doing up there? Should we know about it? How can we ask? What will be the effect on our relationship if we order them back down, or ban bedrooms between the evening meal and bedtime?

The older ones think that we don't know that when they say...

"Oh dear, I have so much homework tonight"

…we foster parents know it's a good bet they hop straight onto Instagram.

I'm tempted to believe that the change in the way families are arranged during social hours is of benefit to the kids who are going in the right direction, but potentially a negative for those who are struggling.

I guess what I have to own up to is that I don't know the answer, but, as the only thing we can rely on never changing…

…is that everything changes. 

You have to make the best of it.

And if I'm in any doubts, thank goodness for our social worker.