JARGON IN FOSTERING

 I've talked about this before, but it doesn't go away.

Children coming into care will often be carrying emotional baggage.

It's to be expected that at some point they'll become emotional.

We foster parents come to anticipate that initially a new child will present themselves as 99% at first; but are brewing up their fears and anxieties and all we have to do when the moment arrives is allow them to let off some steam.

It doesn't last long, and when they've let it out they generally repair quickly and it's business as usual.

The thing that irks me, and has down my many years in fostering, is that there's no structured set of terms that we can use to describe a foster child's distress when they hit a bump in the road.

Or a pushback.

The main reason that there needs to be a glossary of terms is because we foster parents are required to write a record of events, and I've never come across a definitive term for a wobbly.

When a foster child finds things all too much - and how could any child fail to be affected by being taken into care? - they get upset. However the desciption "the child became upset" is usually too vague to depict the child's discomfort.

Some years ago a child came to us who was being examined by an eminent clinical psychiatrist (a £600 a day man, so someone told me). He visited our home several times to asses the child and, I suspected, to assess if I was up to fostering a particularly interesting child.

The psychiatrist and I got on like a house on fire. Mind, if you think about it, if a top psychiatrist doesn't know how to click with a fellow human being there's no logic.

The thing I'm on about came up between the psychiatrist and myself one afternoon in my kitchen. We started listing all the words that are used when a foster child finds everything too much.

Such as:

"An episode"

"A tantrum"

"A meltdown"

Being Irish, the psychiatrist threw in a few of his own such as;

"A hooly"

"A bogchroich"

I came back with a couple of English ones such as;

"Threw the toys out of the pram"

The psych rejoined with some medical ones;

"An emotional event"

I countered with;

"Went up the wall"

"Flipped their lid"

We laughed a lot….

The reason I'm bringing this up at this moment is that a new term has surfaced which has the blessing of the professionals. They've embraced it as modern, colourful and a tad medical...

I'll tell it in a moment.

Last evening the young mother of the baby who are with us as a Parent and Child couple found everything a bit much.

She went temporarily elected mute, weeping, and sitting on her bed rocking back and forth.

I knew that her condition would blow over, but it was a situation that dear old Blue Sky are geared up for.

I called their 24-hr Out of Hours service.

Brilliant.

My phone got hot as concerned professionals honed in on events and poured out help, advice and support. You're never alone in fostering.

See, I'd used the new magic word.

When Blue Sky asked me what the problem was I was able to conjure…

"Well, the mother is…overwhelmed."

And everyone got it in one.

Just to round this off; the mother was 100% in the morning and has been more than fine all day. Bought me a bunch of roses and my other half a tub of mixed nuts (his joke is that he likes mixed nuts). 

Moreover her parenting skills continue to develop apace. She Blu-Tacked a weaning chart she'd bought onto the fridge door and is counting down to the day the baby takes his first food.

Thing is; the word "overwhelmed" has different shades of meaning. And what with the roses, the nuts, and the mother's excitement about her baby's impending milestone I felt a bit…

…overwhelmed.