Oh dear, youngest foster child is at another crossroad in life.Crossroads.Have you ever noticed that life is nothing but a series of little crossroads punctuated by occasional big crossroads?It's odd but the big crossroads are somehow easier to deal with because we can see that they are crossroads.When we know we're at a big crossroad we hunker down and give it our all. We think about it endlessly,...
Thursday, June 29, 2023
Wednesday, June 28, 2023
WHEN YOU ASK A CHILD TO DO A HOUSEHOLD CHORE
An anonymous reader has commented on a post I wrote 7 years ago. I had to re-read the post so that I could reply to the comment, and I smiled re-reading something I'd forgotten writing. It was a quotation from a psychologist I met at Blue Sky. She said "No child has ever said to me 'My problem is that I'm loved too much'".The reader wrote about how they've begun getting the children to...
Saturday, June 24, 2023
WARTS AND ALL
Blue Sky have had a flurry of feedback from readers of The Secret Foster Carer. Many of the comments and contributions are in response to posts that date back a long time. I want to say thanks to each and every respondent. And apologise for any delay in replying to all feedback; I try, but when one fosters there's not much free gtime.I left that "gtime" back there on purpose. I'll tell you why....
Saturday, June 17, 2023
ENCOURAGING THEM TO HOPE
It's hard enough coaxing some enthusiasm out of children, especially when they get into the teenage years.If I had a square yard of paddock for every time I heard "What's the point?" I could graze a herd of horses.It was hard enough sometimes to motivate my own to get out of bed and go to school, even though they'd grown up in a home where the motto was that you get out of life what you put...
Monday, June 12, 2023
GONE BUT NEVER FORGOTTEN
One of the first things that goes straight to the back of your mind when a new child arrives is that the job is about getting them back to their birth parents' home.You find you SO want to make it work for your whole household that the thought of them one day packing a bag to leave your house, your home, your family…FOREVER…simply doesn't get a look in.This is where your Social Worker kicks...