…well what I mean is, fostering is a little like Goundhog Day for us. Every time we get a new child we seem to live the same things over and over again: the same difficulties and solutions; the same successes – and sometime failures ; the same satisfaction when something goes right; the same stories and songs at bedtime… but everything just slightly different and with a new personality.
That’s partly due to the fact that we choose to foster toddlers – and boys only – all the time. So we are permanently stuck in the terrible 2’s (what’s so terrible about them anyway – I think they’re great fun and just a normal but important part of growing up).
My eldest son put it well: it’s a bit like Doctor Who – our foster children just regenerate into a different person every year or so. Underneath they’re basically the same -they just look and behave a little different.
This struck me just the other day at our youngest son’s sports day at school. There we were, chasing yet another foster child around the playing field, trying to stop him getting in the way of the events, stealing the football and generally running off to where he wasn’t meant to be. Whoa – deja vu! We’ve been here before – several times – but with one minor difference each time – a slightly different little boy. (Never seen my wife sprint so fast as when he disappeared around the corner of a classroom – well it made me laugh 🙂
We think we’re getting better at looking after this age group each time we go through it; we understand their needs a little more, know when a cuddle is required and when a telling off is in order, know what’s going to happen at reviews and hearings, know which health professionals to get involved at which stage, know how to deal with toddler behaviours.
Maybe one day we’ll get so clever that we’ll know how to stop it all happening in the first place?
Well we can dream…
