CHATTING WITH YOUR FOSTER CHILD

 Sometimes I have the most revealing conversations if there's a foster child or two involved.

Here's an amazing one from last week;

Our Blue Sky social worker had dropped in for a visit. 

One of our own children happened to be at our house returning the lawn mower, plus there were two foster children home from school, one of whom was Alicia, who's transitioning.

Our social worker is brilliant at finding things out without the other person feeling they're being grilled. She asked Alicia;

"Anyway, I remember what I wanted to ask you, just out of interest, are there any other students at your school who are transitioning?"

It's a big school. Alicia answered;

Alicia; "Dunno…maybe two."

BS Social worker; "Do you ever meet them and talk?"

Alicia: "Kinda."

BS; "I know you're a bit of a hero in your school, are the other two ok?"

Alicia; "Hero? You being funny?"

BS; "Mrs Allsop says you're well respected."

Mrs Allsop is Alicia's Senco. Looked after children are so looked after in the UK. The Senco is the teacher whose extra role is to look after the looked-after children in the school. And Blue Sky ensure the Senco is doing the looking-after."

Alicia; "What does Allsop know?"

BS; "That other pupils say you're a bit of a hero."

Alicia; "What does Allsop know about heroes?"

BS; "Probably about as much as I do."

Alicia; "What do old people know about heroes?"

A silence as that sunk in. I said:

SFC: "Quite a bit actually. I liked the Hulk and Spiderman. Superman and Batman."

Alicia; "Last century."

BS: "Meaning?"

Alicia; "Boring. Totally goodsie-woodsie-woo. And the bad guys…so totally bad guys."

BS: "Whereas?'

Alicia rolled their eyes at how slow and out-of-touch 'old' people are.

Alicia; "Proper superheroes still have powers, but they're like…normal."

BS: "Normal? as in human?"

Alicia; "Yeh. Kinda, like... a mess. Wolverine right? A serious mess, his family are messed up. When he was 13 he attacked some big guy who'd attacked his dad, and thought he had to run away. His home life's a mess. He kinda goes missing from missions to sort out stuff at home."

BS: "I didn't know that."

We all agreed that none of us knew that. Alicia warmed up;

Alicia; "Most of them had a rubbish time when they were kids. Superman, Batman, Spiderman, Iron Man, Wolverine...different powers yeh, but all of them, like,  their parents were killed when they were little."

The sound of actual pennies dropping would have been deafening.

Alicia; "So…yeah."

Our SW shrwedly felt enough had been said and switched the subject back to the comedy of the adults at the table being elderly. She said:

"Well my favourite superhero is the Green Lantern."

Which got gales of laughter, even from me.

Alicia; "See? Jeez. he's a doofus. Like, he's a pizza."

I jumped in;

"Speaking of pizza…"

A hopeful silence…

"It's Chilli sin carne tonight."

Sound of groans…

Me: "But if people eat their salads I might be pursuaded to rent a Wolverine movie for Saturday night…"

Alicia; "Nah, the world's got superhero fatigue. Wouldn't mind The Joker, probably not available yet…"