NOTHING ROUTINE ABOUT ROUTINES

 Routines.

I've learned down the years how vital it is for people to have routines.

I've got them coming out of my ears, and they all do me the power of good.

First thing every morning; I wake up, remember who I am and what day it is. Then I have a listen to make sure I'm first one awake. Then I slide back the duvet and squirm diagonally so my legs are sticking out, then sit up quietly. This is all to let my other half doze on. I slip my feet into my slippers, lift my dressing gown off the hook, silently open the door and close it noiselessly behind me. 

I go down the stairs careful not to creak the stairs, but no matter how quiet I am the dogs know I'm coming. Into the kitchen I go where I get one of those dog-welcomes that gladden the heart. I flick the kettle, which I filled last night, put the dogs' food bowls up on the counter so they know they've got food coming, then open the door to let them out for a quick pee. 

Knowing that their food bowls are up on the counter they also know that breakfast is imminent - it's the Routine - so they're back inside in 10 seconds. I don't want them to hang around outside because if they smell last night's fox they'll have a bark, and the neighbours don't want that.

Not at 5.35am.

I've been awake and existing for nigh on 10 minutes and haven't had to make a single decision.

This particular morning is different; I'm sitting at the kitchen table with the dogs at my feet and a cuppa tea at my elbow, writing today's blog.

All about Routines.

Kids who come to us for fostering have been through unthinkable chaos. I suspect the only Routines many of them have ever experienced have been negative ones. It's vital to build positive, rewarding Routines.

The best bet is to start small. Serve tea at the same time every night and find the best way to alert everyone that it's on the table, then stick to it. I had one child who was triggered by raised voices, so instead of shouting up the stairs I went up and whispered "Tea's ready'. Another child preferred a text message "Tea ready 17.33". I usually start building our Routines around food. I offer the same choices for breakfast. Then offer the same post-breakfast race "Bet you can't go up and clean your teeth and come down before I count to twenty." Followed by "Bet my teeth are whiter than yours…" Cue comparison in the hall mirror, which they win. 

Routines signal that all is well, everything's under control, there will be no sudden surprises.

One of my all-time favourite Routines was a child who experienced awful trauma at having to meet a family member for Contact. The adult in question was being investigated for horrendous crimes against the child, but until found guilty was entitled to insist on their statutory right to meet the child once a week. Contact can be my biggest bugbear in fostering, and this case was a standout travesty. I mean; would any adult put up with having to sit in a room for an hour once a week and 'play' with the alleged perpetrator of heinous crimes against them? Not in a million years. 

It went on for a whole year until the court case. Twelve months of it, once a week, every week.

And I had to deal with the car journey home between the Contact Centre and our house; about a 40 minute drive. The child would be in the back of the car, having a meltdown. 

This called for a Routine.

What would happen was this; I would pull into the first petrol station we came to. Same one each time. Contact always happened after school, so by the time we were heading home it was early evening, and the garage was quiet. I'd put some petrol in the car, and as I did the child would begin to quieten as they knew what was coming. I'd undo the child's seat belt and we'd both go into the shop to pay. The child didn't need to ask any questions; the deal every time was they could choose any sweets they wanted up to two pounds. I'd pay at the till, then say to the child; "I'll go and re-park the car, I'll only be two minutes." This I do so as not to block a petrol pump.

This "re-park" thing was all part of it. I'd leave the child in the shop in a state of near-bliss. Sweet shops are absolute Aladdins Caves for kids, and to know they have TWO POUNDS to spend on WHATEVER THEY WANT is both an anaesthetic and a euphoric. To top it all, the child is given independence - more than they've ever had - for 90 seconds. Imagine the sense of relief and freedom, that there was no adult hovering over them, bossing them.

The shop has a huge glass frontage and is well lit, so I can watch the child the whole time. Then I rejoin the child and we do the maths on the selected treats. The child would always (Routinely) try to squeeze a few extra pence on top to the two quid.

Did it every single time, always worked.

*    *    *

There, finished writing.

Back to my early morning Routines. It's now 7.15am and people are stirring upstairs. I have another Routine to attend to, in the front room.

Several years ago a friend moved home and asked us to look after their goldfish. "Jetski" - a foster child gave her the name - has been with us ever since. I decided she was lonely, so bought a bigger tank and a friend. The new goldfish hasn't got a name yet, so we refer to her as "Newbie". Actually that's her name I guess. Jetski and Newbie go everywhere side-by-side. Not that they can go far, but as we are told that goldfish have a memory of 3 seconds it probably doesn't matter they can't go far and wide.

Generally I'm not a fan of captive animals, but if I have to have them in our house I'll give them the best life.

Jetski and Newbie expect their breakfast at 7.15 every morning. When I go into the front room and open the curtains they're right there, up at the surface at the spot the food goes in, wagging their tails and frantically opening their mouths.

I even find myself chatting to them, same things. They don't know what I'm saying, but…

…memory span of 3 seconds or not; even goldfish love their Routines.

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SPOIL 'EM? YOU BET

 A recent comment from "L" set me thinking. L is singing the praises of McDs and how they can be a magic wand in fostering.

So true.

I found myself reflecting; foster carers have a mysterious image in the eyes of non-foster carers. Many are not sure what to make of us.

Are we a) some kind of angels on earth? super-parents? earth mothers and fathers with hearts as big as the great outdoors?

Or b) chancers who can't hold down a proper job? Dead-enders out of ideas, fallen back on incubating other people's kids.

My point is this. Although I believe the truth lies a lot closer to a) than b), we are only human and very human at that. You have to be human! Humanity is the name of the game!

Here it is, my point;

If the public saw us doing stuff such as dangling the prospect of a Maccy D in return for good behaviour, or using any other other (many) devices we use to achieve everything from major de-escalation to simple compliance - or even 5 minutes peace - they'd think we were nothing special.

But we often have to...shall we say...compromise our high ideals...

To paraphrase a German politician;

"The public must never know how sausages and fostering are put together."

Before I lay a few things bare, I have to stress that we never, ever trangress any of the golden rules of proper fostering. It's a noble profession and we always observe the highest standards. Truth, honesty, kindness, decency, good values, proper behaviour, proper language, high morals; we do all those things, to the very best of our ability.

But. Do we use fast food treats to get what's needed? Sometimes, yes. Do we allow crisps and biscuits and sweets popcorn and Coke? The sugary stuff? If the moment cries out for it, yes. Plenty of ordinary parents are able to take the high moral ground against snackfood, and other children's treats such as late nights and mobile phone use, good luck to them.

We foster folk are playing a different game, in a different league. There are times when we MUST indulge.

Times when we have to bend, be flexible. Give in, even. 

Meet their hopes and dreams, even if that dream amounts to little more than a second Magnum in one day.

Spoil them a bit. Yeah, spoil them rotten sometimes. Can we ever begin to imagine what they've been through? The world owes them a bit of recompense.

So; 

Do we discreetly re-do the washing up when they're watching TV when they've made a pig's ear of it, because we don't want to on their case all the time? Often, yes, and hundreds of other things like that.

Do we put up with bad language (sometimes), and even bad behaviour because we understand where it comes from? Yes, yes and very much YES. And so long as we square it with our own kids if we suspect they might think; "I wouldn't have got away with that…?", if it helps our foster children, then yes, yes, yes.

For example;

Caitlin was a 15 year-old who came to us when her birth mum was hospitaised and it looked like she'd be out of action for some time. No dad on the scene, mum's family somewhat to pot (pun intended). Mum had a problem with obesity, not to mention alcohol, tobacco and maybe other substances. 

Caitlin had understandably picked up some poor eating habits which needed to be managed. She was aware she wanted to lose some pounds, but didn't want to switch to salads, not for a while at least. She wanted - needed - her chips.

I talked to our Blue Sky social worker about it. We came up with a scheme; Caitlin deserved emotional security first and foremost, she could lose some pounds as soon as she lost some of her insecurities. A few weeks after she came to us her school threw a parents evening, which they dressed up as a social thing; quite a good idea actually. The pupils were invited too.

I don't often go to parents evenings, mainly as we foster parents have regular school meetings to track their schooling, but I decided to support the intiative.

There was food. A buffet. A help-yourself job.

Caitlin was in clover; crisps, cup cakes, twiglets, cheese things on toothpicks, pork pie quarters etc etc.

And some big sponge cakes, cut into wedges.

I hovered near Caitlin all evening without it looking obvious, I'm glad I did.

She'd dealt with the evening brilliantly. Several of her teachers wanted to tell me she should work harder, not cause trouble, try to be punctual…the usual. She took it well. As long as she had a paper plate with nibbles in one hand.

Then I saw her go up to the cake table and reach for a second wedge of cake.

The woman behind the table, not a teacher or parent, some kind of in-between who'd presumably had something to do with baking the cakes actually reached out and took the plate out of her hand saying;

"Excuse me, you've had one slice, don't be greedy."

Greedy!

I saw a bit of red mist. I went over, picked up a plate and served myself, then, right in front of the woman turned to Caitlin and slid the wedge onto her plate. It was all I could do to resist poking out my tongue. Then got worried that maybe the woman had only meant well, but nevertheless, it wasn't for her to judge. So I said sweetly;

"She's earned it. Had some really good reports."

Unfortunately Caitlin was nothing but embarrassed. At least, she told me in the car on the way home that she'd been SO embarrassed.

Mind, I knew she was partly angling for a bit of sympathy to negotiate a duck and dive into the One Stop before we got home, which I nipped in the bud.

We indulge them when it's right to do so, it's the professional in us.

We also know when to say no.

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THE PROBLEM WITH SOME BIRTH PARENTS

 One of fostering's biggest headaches can be the child's birth parents.

I have to remind myself loud and often what it must feel like to be a parent to a child that's been removed from your care. They must be mortified, well, they ought to be at any rate.

Unimaginable thing to have to deal with mentally.

They have to process social workers, sometimes the police, who have made a damning verdict on their ability to do one of life's most fundamental and important jobs. You can't get into much of a worse place than being told your parenting is so bad you're being relieved of your own children, and no argument.

It's only to be expected that many birth parents turn their frustration on the foster parents;

"Who do they think they are?"

"What makes them so special?"

You sometimes get deliberate dificulties put in your way such as unreasonable requests over contacting the child, or stipulations about haircuts or choice of new clothes.

We foster folk manage this challenge with the help of our Blue Sky social worker, and y'know what? It often turns out we're more concerned about the effect it has on the child than the effect on ourselves.

But then you sometimes get the opposite, and this one's hard too.

I'm talking about the parents who seem only too glad to see the back of their children!

They're happy to go on collecting the benefits (last time I asked the parent of a child taken into care still recieves the same benefit they collected when the child lived with them - I must check if that's still the case, but I haven't heard otherwise).

One case I remember vividly.

The child arrived at our house having had an irreconcilable dispute with her existing foster carer, I think it ran deep and was complicated by the fact the foster carer had a highly opinionated teenage son who saw himself as protective of his mum. The foster child had been subconsciously trying hard to userp the son as the mother's favourite and naturally, friction happened. When there were clashes the mum and the son joined forces and in the end social services felt it was best the child moved on.

So she arrived at ours, and we got to learn all about her circumstances.

The big issue with her was that social services were trying their socks off to return the child to her birth home. They had begun a transitory phase where the child would spend every other weekend at her mum's house and then return to care. It was part of my remit to drive her home on a Friday evening and collect her on a Sunday late afternoon.

This all looked like a piece of cake on paper, mind you it was an hour's drive there, an hour back, which was about my limit as a cabbie, but hey ho.

The child arrived midweek. Over tea one evening I asked if her mum had been in contact, she replied no, but that mum wasn't very good with mobile phones.

Ten days went by, the girl was in great shape. Happier than in her last foster home, and still ejoying the hallowed honeymoon period of being polite, obedient and respectful of her foster family.

Then Friday night arrived, and the tension began to mount. She couldn't decide what to wear. Couldn't make up her mind whether to cram her stuff into one holdall - which made her look casual - or use a suitcase, which she decided against as it made her look like she had an "I'm moving in" agenda. 

She came down with too much make-up on and her hair seriously boufant.

I drove her over to her home mostly in silence, she was clearly doing heavy-duty visualisations of how she hoped the weekend would play out.

I took her to her house, it had been agreed I should go in and say hello to her family. When she reached the door I saw her pull out some keys and let herself in; this was clearly a big thing for her; she had the key of the door. This house was her home.

When I followed her into the living room I was so saddened.

Her mum was slouched on a sofa strewn with food wrappings, a pack of Jaffa cakes on the go, her main TV remote in one hand, the other two balanced on her knee. She not only didn't get up to greet her daughter, she didn't even look up from the TV. Instead she mumbled into the air in front of her face;

"It's a mother an' 'er daughter. They's goin' fer the jackpot."

Some TV quiz show.

The girl asked;

"Is Emily (her older sister) in?"

The mum ignored her, repeating the quiz question out loud;

"What female singer had a number one with Elton John?"

I knew it was Kiki Dee, but daren't get involved in what was clearly a seismic dynamic, albeit a deeply damaged one.

The moment moved on. The mother said to her daughter; "You've missed tea, hard luck. Yer'll have to order sommatt fer yersel'."

The girl turned and took herself and her luggage upstairs.

I introduced myself to the mother as the child's foster carer.

The mother still didn't look up from the TV, just started clicking around as the credits rolled on the quiz show.

Eventually she replied;

"Right…so, you've got her for now then yeah?"

Then she muttered:

"Lovely Jubbly!"

'Lovely jubbly' is slang for lots of money. Many parents of children taken into care believe that foster families are only in it for the money and that it's big bucks.

I left.

Got a phone call the following day; the child had been arrested in town for shoplifting.  Social Services decided the child should stay on with her mother that night and that I would collect her on Sunday. On monday they'd review the arrangement, there was concern the child had offended as a reaction to being outsidered by her mother and sister.

When I arrived to collect her it was clear there'd been some recent antagonism. The child wasn't packed to come back with me, the mother was again splayed out on the sofa, this time clutching a fag which she was tapping ash off into a heaped ashtray. I got the strong impression the mother and older daughter were keen to get the girl gone from the house, yet I'd already got to know her well enough to know that she wanted to stay. 

Most of all, she wanted them to want her to stay. But there was no chance of that.

I treated her to a Big Mac on the way home, which cheered her up no end.

But what chance has a youngster got in life when rejected by her own mum?

*PS Forgive me using phonetics for the mother's spoken words, it's something I don't normally do, but in this instance when I wrote it up initially my accurate spelling and correct grammar and punctuation gave an inaccurate impression of her overall laziness and cyncial dismissal of everything, especially her own child.

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WHAT IT MEANS TO BE PROPERLY "FULL TIME"

 Of people who work, some are part time, some are full time. The full-timers believe they are full timers, but, know what? The fact is they aren't. There's only one profession on earth that works FULL time, that's us fosterers. Proper nailed on 24/7 we are. Don't even let that frazzled bloke who came to fix your gutter tell you he's run off his feet because he does gutters by day then puts in a shift behind the bar at the Royal Oak, don't let him pull rank. Good luck to him or her and their efforts to make ends meet, but they go home at the end of their long day and switch off.

I never bother to tell folk what it feels like to be on the clock every minute God sends. 

Keep it to myself, is best. Mind, if you foster, you find that fostering crops up in conversation with new acquantances from time. I'm talking about anyone from dog-walkers to fellow parents waiting for their kids at the school railings.

Our reticence is due partly because frequently - almost always - when other people discover they're talking to someone who fosters they get flustered. 

I never volunteer, but sometimes folk ask you disinterestedly what you're "Up to these days?", or that most boring question; "What you do?"

If you say; "Actually I foster.", their response is almost funny. They blurt out things such as;

"Ah fostering…actually, a friend of my sister works in a Care Home..."

Seriously, she did, this woman I was on nodding terms with from dropping off at school. First time we chatted she told me how it's difficult it is to find tenants for the holiday home they owned in Italy, and that she'd need to be on the phone about it all afternoon. So after ten minutes on that rivetting topic she felt obliged to ask  me what I was going to do that afternoon. I replied "Taking my foster child to Contact". She went a bit white, and came back with;

"A friend of my sister works in a Care Home." I kid you not.

What was I supposed to reply? "How fascinating. Tell me all about your sister's friend…"

Another. A woman who asked me in the supermarket queue about the party food in my trolley. She guessed; "A grandchild's birthday?" (cheeky so-and-so). Stung, I replied "No, my foster child's having a Batman party."

She wavered momentarily then came back with;

"Ah! Now, I know a single mum who'd be a wonderful foster parent."

Anything but ask about fostering.

One more, this one's probably my favourite. Some time back I was walking the dog across the field with a foster child in tow. The child was aged eight, great lad, of second-gen Caribbean parents. A woman's dog starting gallivanting with mine so we ended up speaking. All too quickly she asked if the child was mine. She'd seen a white middle-aged woman out and about with a black kid…she had to know what was going on.

Nosy.

I replied;

"He's my foster child."

There was a short pause while the woman processed this. I waited. Her response was pure gold;

"Do you know where I might get a template for a hare?'

Me; "A...hare?"

She; "Yes. A running hare, in full flow. I need one about an inch and a half."

Me; "I don't…"

She; "See, I make jewelry to raise funds for the animal sanctuary at Wendham. Do you know it?'

Me; "Heard of it..."

She; "They do wonderful work there…"

And she went on, telling me ALL about the wonderful work. 

The wonderful work SHE did for THEM. All about her jewelry and the sanctuary's gratitude, adding "I've only visted once, so distressing. However I own a jewelry company based in my home workshop so I offered to help and they bit my hand off…"

In other words she had a dead-end kitchen hobby, and hoped to shift some of her knick-knacks by pushing them as "For sick and injured animals." And make herself out to be Mother Theresa, all because she found herself in the company of…a foster mum.

Yawn.

I'm not yawning at whatever good the woman does, I'm yawning at the fact that she HAD to make me listen , purely to ensure I knew that I wasn't the only one out on the meadow that day who did their bit.

See, like I said at the start, fostering isn't a "bit". It's not something we do on a wet Wednesday afternoon, and it's not nothing at all which is people whose conribution is having social circle that includes an acquantance who's borderline useful.

In terms of hours it's even more than overworked NHS staff, teachers and police officers put in.

If your foster child starts crying at 2.00am, you can't turn over and go back to sleep arguing you've been "at it all day". Fostering folk are at it all day and often all night. Every day and night. It's why they call the alowance we are given an "allowance" rather than "payment", because if it constituted "payment" then stretched over a 24 hour shift it would amount to about one fifth the minimum wage.

Obviously we fostering folk aren't up all night every night, far from it. But many of us sleep in a track suit so we're good to go whatever might happen. We sleep a shallow sleep a lot of the time, alert to anything that might need us to go into action. I've spent countless lights sleeping, well not so much sleeping as dozing, on the landing on a bed made of pillows and cushions. Watched the sun come up while watching yet another Spongebob Squarepants. Once or twice waiting anxiously into the wee small hours while the police relayed their efforts to locate our teenaged foster child.

Fostering; that's proper full time work.

So, my advice to people who don't foster, and who find themselves talking to someone who does, just ask them; "Oh, may I ask you about it?" Sometimes we might agree, most times we'll defer. We can't go into details about any cases. Just to put people at their ease I have been known to say;

"Don't worry, I'm not recruiting."

But sometimes they say;

"Actually I've been giving some thought to fostering…"

Then we're off and away.

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