SLEEPLESS IN ____________ (YOUR LOCATION)

 Is it only in my house? My current foster children and my own lot are finding sleeping more difficut than before the pandemic.

It's a real headache when they have to get up for virtual school, can be very upsetting.

One of the first things you learn in fostering is how to deal with the middle of the night. Blue Sky put on masses of excellent training but there are some things they can't really train you for because they are so child-specific, and the middle of the night is one of those things. Luckily you can chat things through with your Social Worker, but in the wee small hours, you're on your own.

Many foster children find sleeping hard, almost all of them in my experience. Their first night is like our first night on a new bed or in a new house or on holiday. The strangeness can keep sleep at bay. Then their minds turn to the overall strangeness of their lives, and dark thoughts start swirling such as why the whole break-up of their family is their fault, and how they might be in trouble when they go back.

Today's a Thursday, they have distance lessons this morning.

One of mine texted me at 02.28am last night asking if I go to the corner shop later could he have an energy drink. I don't think he actually enjoys them, he's just worried that he's going to underperform.

I think these distance-learning classes can be a bit fretful for some children. When they're in class among twenty or thirty other students they can switch off for a couple of minutes here and there, take a breather from out-and-out concentration. People can't concentrate non-stop. You need to be able to look sideways out of the window for a moment, even if your eyes appear locked on the whiteboard or the teacher as if you're rivetted.

I went to an old primary school back in my day which had been built in Victorian times. The classroom windows were so high our teacher had to stand on a chair to see out of them. This was because the schools didn't want children looking out of the window when they should have been paying attention. The teacher stood on a chair one sweltering afternoon because a boy had asked if the could 'be excused' - go to the toilet. The toilets were outside, across the tarmac playgound. She gave the boy permission then, when he'd departed, climbed onto the chair to watch him. I'll never forget the triumph in her voice when she muttered;

"I knew it! He's gone straight to the drinks fountain!" She'd got him!

I mention this because in a couple of decades time many of the fears and pressures we currenly put on our children in the name of education will be seen as just as harsh and as those things from the past. These are my own thoughts BTW, not Blue Sky's or anyone else's. It's just that I notice things keep moving forward nicely and maybe one day we'll have a nation of children all of whom really, really really want to go to school to learn...

My dear little foster child, who's been to hell and back and will live with awful memories all his days is this morning so frit that he'll mess up his electronic lessons that he's begged for a caffiene-packed fizzy drink to help his energy levels after a sleepless night. His sleeplessness is caused in part by his urgent efforts to nod off and we all know that doesn't work. Then the mind starts working overtime and he pictures himself being dumbstruck when asked a question or struggling with a task as his eyelids droop.

I went to the corner shop specially and bought a bottle of some sort of low-sugar non-caffiene fruit drink which I'll pour into a glass, top up with sugar-free tonic water and take into his room where he will be at his PC and tell him it's what he needs. He'll buy it…I hope.

But what to do about sleeplessness in this pandemic? 

Maybe the additional screentime they have to put in is playing a part? Maybe it's the fact that they can't go to school because a potentially lethal disease is out there? Maybe they can sense that the whole house is also struglling to fall asleep.

See, I was awake myself when my phone pinged with his text, at 02.28am. I texted him straight back to let him know he wasn't alone in his wakefulness.

I also texted him to say I knew how hard he worked and he replied;

"meh"

Then I texted him that I know he hates praise, but that I'm very proud of him.

I'm proud of every foster child who's stayed with us, you couldn't not be.

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"HE'S A RESCUE"

 Took littlest foster child for a walk with the dog. We have to trek along a few pavements before we get to an overgrown sprawl of greenery where dogs are allowed off the lead.

Dog loves being off the lead, as do us foster parents…

On the way there we met a lady neighbour I hadn't seen for some time, her labrador had grown old and had needed to make his last trip to the vet a couple of months ago. 

She was standing in her front garden with another dog, a replacement. The first thing she said was; "He's a rescue!" She told me the dog had been bought as a companion dog for a child who had autism, but two years on the child still hadn't taken to the dog and there was increasing argy-bargy. 

We got to the field and I let dog off her lead, she went for a wander. The child ran free too, kind of 'off the lead' and having a wander. I was off the lead too, and I let my mind have a wander. Wanna come with me?

The announcement "He's a rescue!" peeves me a bit. I got to having a nice peeve about low-rent virtue signalling.

One lady I bumped into a while ago with her "He's a rescue!" dog asked me this;

"Do you know where I can get a template for a brooch-sized hare? You see I'm making some jewellery to raise money for the local pet sanctuary."

Bully for her; pretending she was asking for help when all she wanted was to  celebrate the fact that her compatability with Mother Theresa and Tracy Emmin was coming to the rescue of unwanted pets.

I was really enjoying myself, getting peeved about bargain-basement virtue signallers.

"Surely,' I peeved to myself, "There are bigger and better ways of setting the world right than being boastful about having a 'rescue' dog. If anyone's entitled to virtue signalling it's nurses and teachers and vaccination centre volunteers and they don't make a meal of it. Nor do careworn partners of elderly victims of dementia, the scourge of our times. Nor do social workers who are beset by other people's misadventures day and night while putting up with bouts of scorn from some newspapers and an ill-informed public." 

Actually people who foster could toot their own horn louder than most at the drop of a hat, but we tend to hide our light under a bushel.

I remembered that the woman with the new dog had told me that she couldn't let her dog play with ours because it hadn't had any innoculations. A two-year old dog without it's jabs? Made me wonder about the potential for chaos in a house with an autistic child and an incompatable 'companion' dog you don't get innoculated.

I watched our foster child playing happily with our pedigree dog, a dog we had to pay through the nose for. My mind was racing across the grass, free as a bird...

Why didn't we get a blessed 'rescue' dog? I'd have been able to counter "Yes, ours is a rescue dog too". The reason we didn't is because in fostering you have to take care that any pet in the house is harmless to children, and while rescue dogs can be good as gold there's a greater chance they may have had bad times which could throw them off kilter, especially with children who might want to play rough and tumble.

So we bit the bullet and paid through the nose for a dog whose background we could be sure of. It still doesn't mean you can take anything for granted, but you've done your best.

Letting one's mind off the lead it can go off and find all sorts of interesting nooks. I found myself experimenting with a new opinion namely that there are two types of people on this earth; on the one hand there are those that broadly can't get much right in life and their haphazard behaviour sours things for those around them. On the other hand there are those that broadly can't get much right in life but their haphazard behaviour makes things better for those around them.

Even people whose haphazard behaviour makes things worse for those around them.

I looked up and saw littlest foster child heading back to me, and here comes the dog too, hoping for a treat. I've got ten seconds left off the lead.

I told myself that rescuing people is what we do in fostering.

I did a little dance of virtue signalling to myself, in the privacy of my own mind. 

Then I did a bit of other people's virtue signalling for them, like this;

If you are a Foster Carer you are the salt of the earth, a modern day unsung hero. Totally unsung. We keep it to ourselves.

After all you never hear a foster mum or dad say out loud; 

"He's a rescue child"

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JUST ONE LOOK AND MY HEART WENT ZOOM

 Triggers are massive in fostering.

Triggers happen in everyone's head all day long. You know how it goes; one thought leads to another that leads to another then is followed by a thought that gives you a feeling, the same sensation you felt at the time when the thing you've found yourself remembering actually happened.

Example; like many I've been doing lots of things 'virtually'. Blue Sky Social workers can help and support us long distance using laptops or phones. The word 'Zoom' enters my head ten times a week. 

And it's a trigger.

It makes me feel happy and nostalgic in a way it probably doesn't for anyone else. It's a good trigger.

Many triggers, maybe most triggers, are bad. From nowhere we find ourselves remembering things that don't make us feel good, they set us on edge. We find ourselves feeling anxious or embarrassed about something that happened way back. Funny how we have sharper memories of things we'd rather forget than things we'd love to be thinking about all day!

This phenomenon is especialy true for children in care.

There was the child who had a panic attack for no apparent reason around tea time. Turned out the sound of a ring pull being pulled on a can of beans triggered memories of his stepdad's lager drinking which often ended in anger and violence. The child hadn't made the connection and it took us a while to pin it down.

Another child who went into meltdown when her carer rushed out to put out the wheelie bin with a look of urgency on her face. The child saw the expression and mistakenly connected it to the look one of the adults in her house had on her face when there was trouble on the way.

If you can work gently with your foster child and identify triggers you're halfway to fixing a lot of their upsets.

Take current eldest child. When the child arrived I used to shout up the stairs when it was time to come down for tea and there'd often be a kerfuffle. Turned out the child's abuser was a shouter and any raised voices got the defences up. I took to walking upstairs humming and whispering through the door that tea was ready. Why did I hum on my way up? Because lots of foster children develop super-hearing which they needed to stay one step ahead of trouble in the house. They can hear everything that's going on and it can trigger fearful memories if they hear anonymous footsteps on the stairs heading their way. 

What tune do I hum?

Well, these days it's often an eighties song by a group called Fat Larry's Band (I know, I know…probably couldn't call themselves that these days.) It has happy memories for me of a sweet little romance I had way back before I met the actual love of my life.

The song was called "Zoom".

See what I'm saying?

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EXHIBIT 'A' YOUR HONOUR

 Sometimes, not often but sometimes, you forget you are a fostering family.

Which happened quite early this morning like this;

I was on the landing heading for the stairs with the laundry basket and aiming to get the washine machine fired up with another load in time to get it on the drier and dry for tomorrow morning.

As I got to the top of the stairs I noticed something on the carpet in the corner, couldn't quite make out what it was, it was shiny but odd-shaped. I put down the basket and picked it up. It was a torn scrap of a crisp packet.  Not far away was another scrap.

It took me all of three long minutes hunting around and bending down to find and pick up what was clearly a dismembered and licked clean crisp packet.

I guessed it was licked clean because the insides were spotless, the only kind of clean you can get by licking, so obviously whoever had the final go at it was probably canine, the finger pointing squarely at the dog.

However the dog could never be more than an innocent bystander in such an incident as the crisps are kept way out of her reach.

So the question was, which of the human family members had helped themselves to a bag of crisps then left the wrapper lying around for the dog to get at, lick clean, then tear into strips.

In fostering one is well advised to know when not to notice that somebody has done something that deserves a rebuke because if you pick up on everything you're at it all day and people either get fed up or grow immune to your badgering.

But two of my brood, one a foster child the other child one of mine were near enough to the washing machine for me to blurt out:

"Did either of you leave a crisp packet lying around for the dog to get?"

"Nah" came one answer.

"Nope" came the second.

Having asked them both it was only fair I should ask the others so I called up the stairs;

"Did anyone up there have a packet of crisps and leave the bag out for the dog to rip up?"

"Not me…" etc etc from upstairs.

I started loading the washing machine and realised that everyone in the house was having a nice recreational morning except me, because after getting the laundry started I had a dishwasher to empty, an online click and collect supermarket shop to order and a number Nine to order be delivered (not a Chinese takeaway this time, a metal number Nine for our gate post to replace the old one which has got so rusted over that delivery drivers are getting confused). In other words it was the beginning of another day of lockdown jobs jobs jobs. Followed by jobs.

I felt hard done by, a feeling which always wafts away when I'm onto the next job, but it didn't waft away quick enough. Before I could stop myself I ordered;

"Right! Can I have everyone in the kitchen please now!"

As they showed up sheepishly I began to regret turning the home into some kind of suburban Stalag.

I regretted it even more when what happened next happened.

I started to interrogate them as to who was the guilty party, but before I got very far I sensed they were forming ranks. As far as they were concerned they were ALL innocent and if any blame lay anywhere it lay with me.

"If you'd trained the dog properly she wouldn't rip up wrappers" said one. The rest all nodded.

"Whenever we ask if there are any jobs to be done you always say there aren't, but you could have asked us to do a house-tidy instead of getting all stroppy. We only charge the going rate." The others nodded more, in unison.

So there we stood, a Mexican stand-off I believe it's called. Me versus a posse of children, some of whom belong to me, the rest belonging to others. They were all for one and one for all. 

Thick as thieves. The children of one big happy family.

Y'know what? When my fed-upness wafted off, it felt great. Really fantastic. When your own children and foster children bond into one unit you know you're getting something right and that good things are going on.

As for the guilty party? Ah...I noticed as I was putting the shredded packet into the pedal bin that it was a packet of cheese and onion flavour. This gave me a pang of guilt. I buy our crisp snacks in big assorted bags, some of our brood like salt 'n vinegar others prefer plain. Some like Hula Hoops or Pringles. Towards the time for the next delivery the only single packs left are cheese and onion which…

…none of them like.

So me and my other half end up eating most of them.

I honestly don't remember leaving an empty packet lying around, not my nature. Other half has been known to.

Did I tackle other half on it? Not on your nelly. I let it go, but not without another smile at the memory of our houseful of kids sticking up for one another as if they were all family.

Which is how it's best in fostering, if it happens.

You just have to keep your eye out for it, the evidence is there m'lud. 

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SCULE OF HARD NOCKS

Fostering can be the school of hard knocks for all concerned.

To paraphrase Alice Cooper; school is not just out for summer, it's out for the year.

I've got quite a few friends about my age, some are in fostering, some not. By the way there's no better way to meet like-minded people and form lifelong friendships than fostering. We still get a Christmas card from a fostering couple we haven't seen for ten years, but we know they are pals for ever.

Many of my friends have children at home who are being taught long-distance with varying degrees of success.

Some parents/carers/guardians end up being on the rough end of the resistance to learning that schools have to deal with day out, the only difference being that a teacher has 30 students at her all day, we have a fraction of those numbers.

One of the schools one of our foster kids attends tells me off the record that they have no shortage of parents who have given up teaching their children so are finding reasons to send them back to school despite the lockdown, but that most of those parents have not found it in their hearts to express new respect for the professionals who battle away!

Among my friends there seems a growing divide. Some of their children are being uncooperative, others are knuckling down. Among my lot it's about a 50/50 split. That's not how it usually works in classrooms, where the influence of the mis-behavers often overcomes the influence of the kids who want to learn and so you get a 70/30 split or worse.

One mum whose two daughters are both kicking against her efforts is desprate to pick anyone's brains on how to get them working but to no avail. If your kids don't want to learn…you can lead a horse to water etc.

I'm leading up to this weeks PEP for our eldest foster child. PEP stands for "Personal Education Plan". Children taken into care are often behind academically so the system puts a whole load of extra resources their way according to their individual needs. It's one of the many fantastic ways our state and private agencies come to the aid of the innocent victims of domestic crisis.

Eldest has just completed a bunch of exams which could be taken in school before the latest lockdown, so they were for real.

Eldest has been with us a good many years now, on arrival in our house could barely read and write and had a phobia about numbers. The child had been kept at home, never ever been to school. Not only that, the local school we got into turned out to have problems of it's own and the child had to be removed and found a new school.

You'd think such a set of experiences would result in a lifetime block on learning…and yet.

The PEP meeting was attended as usual by myself, our Blue Sky Social Worker, the child's Local Authority Social Worker, the child's SENCO (Special Educational Needs Co-ordinator) and the child's Virtual School Officer.

It fell to the Senco to read out to everyone in their Zoom windows the child's exam results.

A hushed silence followed. No-one quite knew how to react. The little mite nailed it. The results were up there among the school's top 3%.

We all gushed with pleasure and relief that the child is making their way.

I told the meeting that I'm holding back on telling those friends of mine whose children are struggling, partly because I don't want them to get despondent, partly because they might ask for advice.

Advice! 

All we've ever done is always let the child be sure they are unconditionally loved and that our family is not going to fall apart. We share with them our curiosity about the world, we sometimes let ourselves be seen reading a book for fun. If they ask if communism is a bad thing I say "I'll Google it", and they come back having Googled it too. They tell us their opinion and we fun-argue the opposite.

If we teach them anything concrete it's to look on the bright side, count your blessings, remember things could be worse.

I hope these blogs don't seem sugar-coated ever. Fostering can be tough, really tough, but there are always bright sides.

Fostering can be the most fantastic thing you ever ever do.

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THANK YOU TO A READER

One of our readers, "A.M." writes;

" Thanks for your reply! I've been going through your archives, and I know you have written about this a bit already, but curious for more of your wisdom in offering kids the paternal/maternal love and affection they need while also being very sensitive to the fact that of course you never replace or even "compete" with biological parents. I'm sure this is something that is a bit different for each child. I'm thinking specifically about older teens who are starting to sort through complicated feelings about parents, and becoming more and more independent, while still needing true parental love from someone who cares. Would you be willing to talk more about what you've learned about this delicate balancing act?"

What we're talking about here - how to parent a foster child - it's the very heart of fosteringisn't it? I think the first thing I'd say is this;

A.M. gets it dead right with .."a bit different with each child" That is so on the nose. Listen, we just bought our third Golden Retriever, same species, same breed, same background. Are they the same? Heck no. It took us 3 weeks to start to know this new one. And foster children are a thousand times more complex. And individual. So job one is to try to get to know and understand the specific child, and while doing so make a complete foul-up of parenting them."Eh?" I hear you say. 

Us fouling up is what they want and need and are used to. You do your best, you try everything but usually don't get an early connection. Why? To them, you're being useless is what they require; for you to be no good. Again, why? Maybe because they resent you seeming to try to top their real parents (who, believe it or not somtimes they really love and care for in their own way). So their thing is roughly "What makes you think you're better than my mum?" They will notice; "Yes my foster parent tries to listen to me, doesn't get angry/weird/absent/slurry…but WHOA! my mum is still my mum and she's more my mum than these folks so they must stay back."

So the first thing is to get through the opening period, maybe a few days or weeks, as their carer, while still acting like a proper parent.

You start offering attachment the minute they walk in the door. Kindness, respect, consideration, understanding, emotional embrace. So you ACT like their parent. But don't expect the child to act like your child, not yet, maybe not ever. Why? Because attachment is everything a child needs emotionally and it's likely they've had little or none, so they don't get it/resent it/are frightened (of kindness? yeah sometimes).

This goes for foster children of all ages, however A.M. asked about older teenagers.

We've had quite a few, they have all, in our experience, been easier in some ways than younger ones, and harder than little'uns in others. They are closer to being able to reason with and appreciate it when we show our respect of their maturity by engaging with them as kind of equals. They are proud of their world of music and social media and movie culture. They want to tell us things they think we don't know, things they've learned about humankind;

"Did you know a lot of guys act like they're more important than they are?"

You have to say "Really? Wow, tell me about it."

Teenage foster placements are getting into things that younger ones (hopefully) haven't yet. So you're looking at things like staying out late and wanting to try alcohol, tobacco, tattoos, piercings…and other stuff even more interesting. 

You're looking at stuff like drugs and romance and maybe even petty crime.

Sounds scary? It's not, you've got social workers right behind you plus something even more powerful. It's this...

…you were a teenager once yourself. You were no paragon of virtue, who wanted to be?

You remember being a teenager better than you remember being five or seven or ten. So you have a jump start; you can identify. You can sympathise. 

Imagine how you'd have felt if what happened to them had happened to you when you were thirteen or fifteen or seventeen.

What else do you need besides remembering how you were and imagining how they are? 

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ALL'S WELL THAT…(YOU KNOW THE REST)

 Since you're sitting where you are reading these words about fostering it's safe to assume you know a bit about fostering, even if your knowledge goes no further than giving thought to taking it up.

Therefore I think you'll get why I ended up over the moon yesterday despite a rotten start to the day.

Yesterday was a Saturday. We're in lockdown so, like many homes, our house is a bit low. We are feeling the sadness mingled with all the other negatives, one of which is being cooped up. Luckily we have a dog who needs walking, so even though the weather was absolutely wrong (freezing cold, blowing a gale and raining that painful rain which is almost but not quite sleet).

I togged up with a waterproof jacket, thick jeans and my favourite trainers (they are comfy and I wasn't planning to go on wet grass.

I kitted up with the dog lead, some poo bags and some dog treats for when she sits when asked.

Not forgetting my face mask, just in case.

I set off at 9.30am, no-one else in the house was stirring but my dressing-gowned other half was left in charge.

I realised 100 yards on from our house that I'd forgotten a hat, gloves and a scarf. Not only that, my 'waterproof' coat was soaking up the rain like a sponge, so I decided it would be once round the block and home for a cup of tea.

However…

We turned the corner and there it was; the biggest and loudest drain clearing truck ever. Stood still, lights flashing with a bunch of people in hi-viz waterproofs. It looked scary. So scary that the dog froze.

One of the men saw us and kindly pointed out the gate to the meadow. He seemed to be saying they were going to be where they were for some time and the only way we could go on was to take the gate.

I acquiesced. I did as he suggested. I can be pathetic like that, but at the time it seemed the best idea.

The meadow was a sea of mud, and on the far side was another dog walker with two labradors. Our dog begged to have a play with them. I didn't want her off the lead but I flipping well acquiesced again. Before she set off she did a quick poo. By the time I'd scooped it into a bag she was half a mile away and rolling in a muddy puddle the size of a duck pond. 

I wanted to have a nice chat with the other dog walker, but all we coud manage was shouting;

"Lovely day for it!"

By now I'm soaked and freezing so I grabbed the dog, her put on her lead and we headed home.

But when we got to the road the drain-cleaning monster machine had moved and was now right between us and our house. There was no way the dog would go past it.

This meant going the long way home, butat least it took us past a dog-poo disposal bin so I could…

….wait a minute! Where's the bag of dog poo?

I'd dropped it inadvertently somewhere out on the meadow! 

I'm one of those dog walkers who gets riled up when she sees bags of discarded dog poo on the ground. So I had little option but to…go back and find it.

Which took half an hour, by which time I'm aching with cold and wet to my skin.

Luckily when we came off the meadow a second time the truck had gone, so we hauled ourselves home and in. But it wasn't over. The dog was a mudball but I was so cold and wet she could wait for a towelling down, I gave her a dog chew and settled her on the doormat and staggered upstarirs to dry myself with the hairdryer and put on dry clothes.

When I came downstairs the dog was nowhere to be seen. Egad! She must be upstairs! She was, sitting proud as punch on our bed, oozing mud and dribbling bits of dog chew on the duvet.

Cross with myself, I chased her downstairs and into the garden for a hose down.

It was still raining so I got soaked a second time.

Okay, you've been there haven't you? When all the little things that might happen but usually don't happen all happen one after another and you end up cursing the very universe.

Then this happened;

I was sat shivering at the kitchen table hands wrapped round a mug of builders tea, when eldest foster child came downstairs.

I said;

"Morning. Would you like me to make you some breakfast?"

"No, it's alright," he replied.

"I'll make myself some."

See, it's the tiny things in fostering that make you feel warm about the world.

It was the first time he'd made himself a meal.

I acted casual, y'know, you don't want to make them feel self-conscious, in fact I said something cheeky like;

"I'll have whatever you're having."

Which got the usual snort of mock-derision which has become our affectionate way with each other at the moment.

And the dog-walk was forgotten. 

The world was back in my good books, all thanks to our wonderful, brilliant, mixed-up but doing his best to repair himself foster boy!

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