DO WHAT YOU CAN

 As they grow up children develop two personalities, the public one that we all see, and the private one.

If the child belongs to us we get to know both of their personalities and how to manage them.

We usually know when our own child is upset about something but doesn't want to talk about it. We can often work out what it is; it might be a problem with a friend or a setback at school. Or maybe they've lucked out on their current Gamebox game.

We can work out that if the scissors aren't in their usual kitchen drawer someone's probably borrowed them to cut their own hair and haven't put them back. We usually know them well enough to say either;

a) "Your hair's looking nice"

Or

b) "Have you seen the scissors on your travels?"

Or

c) We say nothing at all, but have a quick shufti in their room next time they're out and check the bathroom sink for hairs as it's the favourite place for a quick trim, nice big mirror and a door they can lock.

We know them inside out and that makes parenting them all the easier.

Different in fostering isn't it?

When a new child arrives we've usually seen paperwork about their history, but that never prepares us fully for their actual arrival. From the moment they step through the door we begin a lightning fast learning experience; the more we can understand them, the better we can foster them.

We knew, for example, that one of Raphael's favourite meals was pizza, but didn't know that he never, ever, ever.. ate the crusts. That is, he never wanted to. We found out soon enough that he'd been forced to eat crusts. Crusts were some sort of trigger. He was frightened/repulsed by them. As soon as we made the discovery I took to snipping the crusts off with the same pair of scissors that had frecently gone missing. Raphael had borrowed them to  trim his own hair.

But he hadn't been with us long enough for me to know which response to the scissors thing of a, b, or c would be best. You don't want a pair of kitchen scissors to stay in any eight-year old child's bedroom longer than necessary, just to be on the safe side. Nor do you want to make a mountain out of a molehill. 

Didn't need to make the decision, as he came downstairs later the same day carrying the scissors by the blades and walking very slowly, with the scissors scrupulously  pointing downwards.

From his behaviour we began to learn that his parents had drummed certain things into him to make sure he was "safe". Yet social services judged that on their evidence his home, and his parents' parenting, was unsafe. Yet his parents, who we hadn't met yet, had strict rules about things they thought made proper parenting. They made him stay at the table until he'd finished every last crumb of his food, which they believed would somehow make him a better person.

They'd made Raphael brush his teeth to a slow count of one hundred to 'get rid of all the germs'. We drew this out of him when we asked why he brushed his teeth for an age three times a day.

Our social workers were professional about the nature of Raphael's parents' parenting, but advised us that our latest young arrival was being brought up in a household where he was subjected to extreme supervision. Social Services had been alerted by his school, where teachers had grown concerned about Raphael's anxieties. His constant hand-washing, his huge meltdowns if his painting wasn't a new Mona Lisa. 

Children (and adults) often fall victim to hyper-anxiety for almost no reason, but his school gently took him aside and became aware of the regime he was living under in his own house.

So, with Raphael, we went to work. We made small but important adjustments around the house to help him loosen up.

We'd leave the washing up, we'd not polish the cutlery at teatime, we'd leave his socks on the floor of his room. 

These were all things we were informed, had been taboo in his home.

How much of a help was our fostering, using this programme? We'll never know. At best, probably a bit.

We tried.

Bottom line is this; we worked our way into our foster child's personality, and unobtrusively tried to use what we learned to help him. You can't do much more than that.

Probably a maxim for fostering; "Do what you can for them, you can't do much more than that."