A GAME OF SARDINES

 Going back a few years we had a young lady stay with us, Nicky. I've touched on her story once before In the blog, but something came up yersterday which jogged my memory of her.

She'd had a terrible childhood. Both her parernts had learning difficulties and had profound hearing loss. Her father was serving 10 years in prison for a crime against another member of the family, that's all I'll say about that.

The girl and her sister liked to go shoplifting on Saturdays, and one time came back with two live rats they'd stolen from a pet shop. When they got home they released the rats in the house…chaos.

Nicky had a fantastic social worker who would visit and often get into a disagreement with her about why she was in care, and why she couldn't go home yet.

I noticed that she was often comparatively at peace for the rest of the day after their ding dong..

"Yes," said the social worker when Nicky was out of the room, "You see she needs a bit of chaos. It's all she's ever known. Your home and family are lovely, you're in harmony. She struggles unless she's got a some mayhem going on, and I'm happy to provide."

The thing that came up (and when I say 'came up' I mean exactly that) was this;

At the supermarket they were selling fresh sardines. It's been such a ruddy cold winter, and sardines remind me of holiday lunches at Mediterranean beach cafes, so I bought a dozen.

I cut the heads off and gutted them. I wrapped the gunge tight in tin foil and wrapped some kitchen towel around it, ready to take it outside and put it straight in the rubbish wheelie, because our dog has been known to raid the kitchen bin for scraps and I didn't want her eating fish innards.

But, despite my best efforts, I turned my back for 10 seconds and the dog snuck in and made off with the package. I didn't notice at first, but when I did I raced into the hallway and there she was, looking proud as punch with a sheet of baco foil and a soggy ball of kitchen roll. Licked clean.

She'd eaten the lot.

Now, as a crusty old colonel once remarked when returning to the dinner table from a comfort break:

"Generally speaking when I've eaten something I don't wish to see it again."

How much more true is that sentiment when applied to something nasty a dog has eaten…

She was ill on the landing, just a bit. Then at the top of the stairs; a lot. Then in the living room.

All the while we were frantically trying to anticipate the next event and get her outside for it. We had some success, her final two clearouts were on the patio.

Then we turned our attention to clearing up the mess and soaking it out of the carpets.

It was horrible work, and the odour alone made me retch several times, never mind the sights. 

Here comes the payoff…

The kids LOVED it. Not in any sense in an unpleasant way; they simply found release in everything being fraught and topsy turvey..

I'm not going into further details, picture the madness for yourself.

The experience has evolved into a standing family joke;

"Mum, any chance of sardines for tea tonight?"

"Mum, is it true that it's good for the carpet?"

etc etc etc…

I'm certain I'll never use chaos as a tool to help a looked-after child feel at home, not in a million years. But, as the T shirt in Forrest Gump put it "S**t happens."

And when it does it helps to have some foster children around.

Helps the situation, helps them sometimes too.

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I'M NOT WASHED UP!

 Fostering is all about helping a child from outside your family feel comfortable in your home.

How you do this depends on a) understanding your own home, and b) understanding the foster child.

It's all about working out where the child fits.

I want to flag up the task of WASHING UP.

Age plays a huge part in the whole integration thing, as does personality.

Then there's the matter of how much damage, and what type, the child has met prior to coming into care.

From Day One when a new child arrives, you beaver away trying to place them into your home.

Me; I rarely sit them down and have massive heart-to-hearts.

I know an excellent foster mum who does. She sits her foster children down once a day after school, one-on-one; for a pow-wow about their day, their emotions, their opinions…everything.

Not for me; too formal. It would feel to me like the job interview or a visit to the doctor.

Not the usual, comforting, topsy-turvy exchanges that are true family fare.

Example;

Most children coming into care have no experience of doing household jobs.

Mainly because the jobs rarely got done anyway, but also because the children were seen as a nuisance and were best kept out of things.

So. It's right and healthy to ask everyone in your home to pull their weight. Children benefit from being tasked to trundle the wheelie bin out front, take a black plastic bag up to their room and de-garbage the crisp packets, juice boxes, apple cores and the rest. 

The key for me, in getting this done, is them seeing me enjoying doing chores. 

I put music on when I cook. Washing the car? LOVE it. 

Cards on the table time; I don't ask our children to do many tasks. Why? Because usually I have to go in after them and put it right. Especially the washing up. 

Washing up is a job that appears to the average adult to be child-friendly. It involves water, which some think is automatically associated with fun. As for the drying up; what could be simpler than wiping dry some sparkling plates and cutlery with a nice clean tea-towel?

Long story short; I don't ask my foster children to do the washing up. Not no more. No, I've learned.

See, for one thing the washer-upper has it over the dryer upper because they finish first and are off to play. No fair. 

A bigger thing is this; I want my kids to enjoy their food, to appreciate their meals and the chat and banter that can go with eating. When they know they've got a boring rotten old job to do after eating, it spoils the whole experience.

There are other things, such as that they often make a bad job of it and plates get put away with gravy stains on the underneath and greasy smears on the forks. You end up fixing the problem yourself.

One last thing; I myself don't like doing the washing. I hate the job. I was made to do it when I was young, every Sunday.  I knew my parents made us wash up and dry because they didn't like doing it.

And my foster children would know the same thing. And they'd be annoyed knowing I was getting out of a job I disliked by fobbing it onto them. And that's not a good look in fostering.

Now, in my current household... they LOVE  cooking (eldest is getting good). And there's almost a war over who gets to wash the car!

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MEALTIME MATTERS

 Mealtimes can be complicated in fostering. Food in every form is SO important to every foster child I've ever had. I can't overstate how valuable a piece of kit that food can be in the foster parents' toolbox.

Nobody enjoys feeling hungry, and it seems that most- if not all - children who come into care have suffered all sorts of deprivations in the food department.

Back in the day when I started fostering, the business of providing the family with food was a simple. Breakfast; cereal or toast. School lunchbox; a peanut butter sandwich, a piece of fruit, ready salted crisps. There were no juice cartons in those days, if the child got thirsty at school there was a drinking fountain. At weekends they'd get a slightly fancier lunch - mayber an omellete or a bacon sarnie. 7 days a week the main meal was the evening meal; meat and two veg.

However. The more I fostered, the more I had to keep up with trends, the more I got into getting their food spot on for them.

It wasn't a headache. Doing the best you can for your whole family - including your foster child - is one of the best things in life.

First off; whenever a new child is on their way to me, I ask my Blue Sky social worker if it's klnown what the child's favourite food is. And I rush out and buy whatever is needed to serve it up for their first meal at our house. This trick ALWAYS pays big time. If you're a young person sitting having your first meal with a strange family the last thing you want to have to do is force down food you don't like. Getting this one right isn't hard; they don't want coq au vin or lobster thermidor. 80% of the children I've had arrive at our house were fans of pasta or spag boll. Mind, nowadays the Big Mac is creeping up the leaderboard.

However; I write these words at the beginning of 2025; and things are starting to get complicated…

"Meat is murder"

Vegetarianism and veganism, both of them noble practices, are a growing issue in fostering. Knocking up a simple spag boll isn't simple any more: either the whole family eats one made with plant-based mince, or you have to have two saucepans on the go, one with ordinary mince, the other with soya mince.

These days I find that about 50% of teenage children in care go through a vegetarian phase. You have no option but to go with it.

Then there's food fads. 

"I don't eat nuffink green"

I get that kids have foods they simply cannot even look at. I used to feel nauseaus at school every Friday when it was "cheese pie" for school lunch. I had a brother for whom the humble tomato was a monster of Godzilla proportions. He practically up-chucked at their very mention.

We foster carers have to learn about each new child's fads, and most have quite a few.

"Can I have a biscuit?"

For so many children in care the concept of snack food in the house is seriously flawed.  I've had children who were practised in raiding the kitchen bin for scraps. Another kid used to snack on uncooked spaghetti strands when the parents were asleep because the parents wouldn't notice the packet was one or two stands short.

I try to tackle the snack thing by giving them a bowl of fruit in their room that belongs to them; to eat whenever they want, and offer pan au chocolate pastries and ice cream as ocassional rewards for good things.

"I like this but I don't like that"

This one is what used to be called "Picky".  Young people increasingly know what they like and they don't like. And are proud of their preferences, as if it defines their identity. To me and my other half, a pizza is a pizza is a pizza, Not to todays growing army of gourmet fast food afficionados.

Quick story;

A teenage girl I'll call Millie came to us, she loved food, was a bit on the large size. So what?

A bigger problem was getting her to attend school.

One morning she'd had the results of some blood tests and the doctor wanted to see her. She was stressed. I managed to pursuade her into the car to drive her to school, but halfway there she got a block on the idea and said she wouldn't go in.

We were already late, it was after 10.00am. But if I managed to get her into the building it would tick a box (local authorities track school attendance and chase us if the numbers are poor).

I asked Millie if she'd snaffled any breakfast.

"Nah"

So I said;

"Oh dear you must be hungry?"

Millie; "Ye, a bit"

Me; "If we go by MacDonalds will you go into school?"

A deal was done.

Now, forgive me if I have any details a bit wobbly, I'm no expert on the intricacies of the world of fast food…

We pulled onto the car park of a MacDonalds, it was about 10.15am.

I asked her what she wanted and she said; "A Big Mac"

I went in and asked, they said they didn't serve Big Macs until 10.30am.

I went back and told Millie she'd have to have a Macdonalds breakfast instead.

Millie blew up. 

Thwarted. 

She was being press-ganged into a school where she was bullied about her weight, the doctor was worried about her tests but she didn't know what the worry was, and her foster carer had promised a Big Mac and all she was getting was a puny Macdonalds breakfast.

Long story short; Millie and I sat in the car park until 10.31am and she got her Big Mac.

And boy, the look on her face.

Millie had her nosh, and it was nosh she'd won in her battle with a rotten old world.

Beautiful.

PS: I think about Millie often, and hope she's doing ok. Same with all your foster kids...

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