The calmest times of the weekend were long walks in the pusher when he even had a nap, bathtime – where it was worth wiping up bucketfulls of water to have him contained in one spot for almost an hour, and bedtime – he snuggled in my arms with his thumb in his mouth, wrapped in his favourite soft, fleecy blanket, and peacefully drifting off to sleep.

When Angel left my care four months ago it was into the custody of his Grandma but his mother and great-grandmother also live in the home and have some care of him. During the week he spends over nine hours each day in daycare where I imagine he has a number of carers. Having lived with me for nineteen months right through his infancy he developed a pretty strong attachment which I feel is still very evident when he’s back with me for just that one weekend a month.  I wonder who he feels close to the other twenty-eight days?

I worry that with so many caregivers in his life he doesn’t have a healthy strong attachment with any single one of them and this could be detrimental to his development – to his language acquisition, his ability to focus and stick to an activity, or to quieten down enough to play a game or listen to a story.  All weekend I struggled to do any of these things with him – I’d have to catch him first!

But he is a child who engages well with people. He often came to me and ask to be picked up (he knows the word up! …and to raise his arms).  He was happy to share cuddles when he hurt himself or was getting a little tired.  He excitedly showed me things, gave me things and greeted all members of our family, people and animals with delighted joy. And he’s quick to laugh when anyone engages him in a bit of fun. He especially loves the rough and tumble activity he shares with thirteen year old Seth.

I don’t feel confident that Angel has managed to transfer his attachment from me to another significant person in his life (and who would that be?) but I have to hope that the strong, secure relationship he developed with me over the year and a half that I was his mum has given him qualities and resilience that will help him to  grow and develop as he should.  And I hope that Grandma agrees to continue these monthly respites so I get to see him grow for a little while longer and continue to spend time with this little boy that I so love.

(That’s a story in itself.  Mum’s little township was cut off from the airport by floods, which meant hubby and I had two nights in a motel biding our time and impatiently waiting for the water to go down.  When it didn’t my Mum we chartered a helicopter to pick us up and deliver us to the soccer field near her house – an amazing 25 minute trip hovering less than one thousand feet above the coastline of northern New South Wales!  What an adventure – and weren’t my kids envious!)

I can keep myself busy and useful and I don’t mind my own company, but when you’re a foster carer not having a little one to care for leaves life feeling a little empty. So it’s been rather nice the past month or so minding a friend’s little boy a couple of days a week.  This little fellow, nearly three, has been in care with his baby sister for around seven months now.  When I saw my friend (a single mum with no adult children at home) struggling to meet the needs of these two littlies or find any time for herself, I offered to  help with the little boy (I’ll call him Shane) who I’d met a few times and felt very drawn to.

This is the second time Shane has been in foster care, the first time being as a baby.  It would seem both his Mum and Dad have personal problems of their own and struggle to parent their two babies  adequately so Shane appears to have missed out on a good parental attachment and has also had experiences that have caused him significant trauma. He’s a little developmentally delayed, has poor speech, doesn’t know how to socialise with kids his own age, is quite aggressive to his little sister and even occasionally to his carer, and is prone to meltdowns for reasons not always obvious to those looking on. So when I pick him up on Tuesdays and Thursdays to take him home with me for a few hours his carer has a chance to spend some uninterrupted time with the little girl and I have time with Shane trying to make up for some missed experiences that most three year olds would take for granted. And we have fun.

Shane loves playdoh, water and bubbles and, when given a little encouragement, slopping about in shaving cream.  At the park he likes to lay on the grass and play in the tan-bark under the swings.  Sometime soon I need to pick up some clean river sand and fill the plastic sandpit so he can play about with that too. He likes to hold my hand to walk along the curb, but he doesn’t like the swing and won’t come down the slide.  When I make him an obstacle course he will climb over and into things but not under or through them so we’ll work on some of those challenges.

His carer complains that he won’t be comforted easily, that she can’t cuddle him or soothe him, so Shane and I spend quite a bit of time working on that.  We play baby games with his fingers and toes.  I sing little songs that end with me hugging him or tickling or kissing him on the nose.  I roll him around on the shaggy floor mat that tickles his bare tummy. I have furry, fluffy puppets and teddies move over his body and up his tshirt, hugging him and caressing  his face.  Mostly I wrap him in a soft coral-fleece baby blanket and I cuddle him on my lap as I rock in the chair and whisper little stories and songs in his ear and tell him what a sweet and lovable little boy he is.  I only have Shane those few hours twice a week but I’m determined to make the most of our short time together and give him what his own parents were unable to and his foster carer finds difficult to.

While I don’t have a child in my care I borrow someone elses and on those nights I go to bed feeling like my day was worthwhile.

Home schooling Seth with a toddler around was difficult enough, but we were renovating at the same time which added extra noise, mess and stress to our lives.  I was so busy most of the time keeping Angel out of trouble as our old kitchen and family room were slowly demolished that I often had to leave Seth working alone, usually on the computer, which meant he never got much work done.

When Angel went off for a couple of hours access or went down for his afternoon nap I attempted to spend some active learning time with Seth.  But wouldn’t you know it, that would be the time the builder would call me out to discuss some tedious but important aspect of the renovations. By the time I got back to Seth he’d lost the little bit of enthusiasm we had built up and I’d wear myself out trying to reignite his interest, usually to no avail.

Is this typical of kids with FASD do you think?  Seth is very difficult to engage, and he doesn’t possess a lot of curiosity about the world.  He showed a little interest in a few aspects of bodily function (typical of a twelve year old boy) so I went out and bought a rather expensive and exciting book (a DK book called “ALIVE – the ultimate pop-up human body book”).  I figured even if we just read it together and explored all the little pop-up sections and the working bits he’d learn something about how the body works, but getting him interested was like pulling teeth!  I got excited about stuff I hadn’t looked at since year eleven biology, but he didn’t share my interest.  Even when I traced around his body (onto a wall that would later be painted over) and we used the book to draw in the main organs  in his body, he kept asking me how long was it going to take,  when would Portia be home, could he go and ride his bike…

In the end most of Seth’s learning came from his interest in computers and cameras. If I could use either of these in the process of him doing an activity it would be a little more successful than if I didn’t. (Thank goodness for modern technology!)  He shares these interests with his big brother and they spent one day together in early December making a video for a competition run by Big Brown Box. Wasn’t Seth thrilled when they won the competition and he’s now impatiently awaiting the delivery of a new computer as part of their winnings.

As much as I enjoyed spending time with Seth during his homeschooling stint (but feeling forever guilty that I wasn’t teaching him enough), I must admit I was glad when mid December came around and we decided it was time for him to graduate from Primary school. Our State schools don’t break up till a few days before Christmas but the private school system tends to finish a week earlier – so that’s the timeline I followed.  The whole family went out to dinner, we presented Seth with a certificate and a book and he began his seven week break before commencing  Secondary School the first week of February.

Just two days before Christmas our renovations were all complete including the new kitchen and an enormous under cover deck which is perfect for family gatherings and a great place for toddlers to play.  We set up a plastic cubby house for Angel and bought him a ride-on tractor with a trailer. After months of not being able to let him outdoors to play, except out the front on the asphalt driveway,  I could now just close the child-proof gate and let him wander in and out as he pleased.

Not for long though. Soon after that was Angel’s court case, and a decision was made that he would go into his Grandmother’s care after four weeks of transition which included increasingly longer overnight stays.  So during the end of January and the first few weeks of February Angel spent most of his time with his birth family, coming back to us for a few days at a time before returning to Grandma again.  He seemed fairly settled in both homes, although he was always very excited to return to us and cried quite pitifully when the worker took him away.  But the reports from his protective worker were positive and she felt he was building a good relationship with Grandma so when it went to Court on the 18th of February custody was awarded to Grandma and he returned home the next day.

Life is quiet without our lively little boy, and at times I miss him terribly, but I reminded myself that the outcome of reunification is what we as foster carers strive for.  But it’s hard parenting a baby for nineteen months then having him leave.

So now we’re taking a break from fostering and I’m having a catch-up time.  Portia and Seth have been at school for six weeks, and Angel’s been away for most of that time.  With the renovations complete I have a few building and cleaning and sewing jobs to complete which would be impossible to do with a toddler around.  I hope to cross them all of my list by the end of term as we’re going camping for a week over Easter and when we come home I’ll let the agency know we’ll be available for placement again.

In the meantime I’ve been doing a bit of extra training, mostly around infant care, although we’re looking at taking on a toddler to preschooler next time rather than another little babe.  I’m rather keen to try out all that training I’ve done (including  seminars by Bruce Perry and Kate Cairns) on reparenting the traumatised child and building up a relationship with an unattached child which will be much more pertinent to fostering an older toddler than a small baby.

Meanwhile, I have plenty of time to read my favourite blogs, and no excuse not to regularly post in mine!

Well, I was momentarily flabbergasted as this is not typical of Seth’s behaviour.  Despite having FASD, stealing other people’s stuff has never been an issue although I have suspected him of sometimes taking the odd coins laying around.  Rather than making  accusations on those occasions I’ve given the talk about how I need to trust other family members not to take money I leave in places like the car, or the zip pouch on the pusher, so I was surprised that Seth would steal so publicly.

Before driving away from school we discussed the incident, and it seems that, despite a little embarrassment, he was not too concerned about what he did.  I felt better for it having been a group crime – he and another boy had each stolen a five dollar note while a couple of others watched out for the return of the office lady. At least it spreads the accountability around a bit.

Remembering a find I made while doing the washing a few days previously, I asked Seth what he’d done with the money.  He was a little vague about this, replying that he must have spent it at the milkbar or something.  “Surely you’d remember spending five dollars…”, I prompted (while recognising Seth’s memory deficits, surely spending a ‘windfall’ of five dollars on chips and lollies would be memorable within the last couple of days).  “I don’t remember ” he replied, with no concern.

“Well” I said to him, “I’m just wondering about the wet five dollar note I found in the washing machine the other day.  I guess it must have fallen out of someone’s pocket. I was wondering whose it was.” His eyes lit up and he exclaimed “Oh, yeah, so I didn’t spend it.  I can take it back to the office tomorrow”.

I questioned him then about how they were found out and whether there were other consequences to their crime, apart from paying the money back.  It seemed one of the “watchers” felt guilty the next day and told his mum what had ensued so she’d rung the school.  Seth and the other young boy were drawn out of class separately to explain their case and given a little talk about stealing and trust, but there were no disciplinary procedures except to talk to their parents about it and to return the money.

I discussed this issue of trust with Seth for a while but I found it quite frustrating as he just didn’t seem to care or understand that others at the school may not trust him now.  I even did a bit of role playing suggesting an example of a friend who won’t let him near his bag in case he steals from it, but Seth just thought that was silly….”My friends know I won’t take their stuff”.  He was more troubled when I pointed out that he won’t be able to collect and count the money on “special food Wednesdays” any more so I laboured that point for a while in the hopes of him developing some sense of the consequence of his misdemeanour.

Then I asked him “So if you weren’t planning to spend the money, why did you steal it?” and he replied, ” It was exciting and we wanted to see if they could catch us!”

Although this is what I’d expect from my dare devil son, it worries me like hell because he’s not even a teenager yet so how’s he going to be in a few years?  It’s enough of a risk for any young teenager, being egged on by his peers and wanting to impress, but how much harder for our kids with their fetal alcohol affected brains to make the right decisions when they don’t see the consequences and are impulsively seeking an adrenalin rush by taking exciting risks?

It reminds me of an article I read a while ago, possibly recommended by a fellow blogger, which described so well why kids with FASD are seen to have an under-developed conscience.  This helped me to understand better how a sensitive and empathic child like Seth, who has a great deal of compassion for animals and children suffering or in need and is always so apologetic if he accidentally hurts somebody, can show little remorse for some of his actions and how they affect others.

I was glad the teacher (his classroom teacher thankfully, the only authority at the school who Seth responds well to) had dealt with the incident in a low key manner, as blustering and punishing would simply have set up Seth for defensiveness and anger and caused behavioural difficulties with further repercussions.  She later told me Seth’s response to being withdrawn from class and spoken to was quite appropriate, and he was quite ok with the kid who had “dobbed” them in, understanding that it was the right thing to do.  He admitted that stealing was wrong, but didn’t really indicate why he thought so.  She certainly didn’t feel that it had kept him awake at night as it had done the other little boy who didn’t even take the money!

Seth’s been going well these last few weeks since school resumed after the term break but, with the school production and a two day camp coming up, there will be breaks to his routine and extra unstructured time so I hope he manages to keep on track through all these changes.  I’ll keep you posted.

Trouble is I seem to have a long list of blogs I like to read, and some of those busy ladies post every day.  They certainly keep me busy.  I’ll put a list of my favourites in my sidebar for others to try. They are mostly other foster and adoptive families, primarily with kids with FASD, like my son Seth.

Both Seth and Portia have just finished two weeks holiday from school, and we all enjoyed the break.

Seth’s first day home he got together with a bunch of mates from the local state school he used to attend and they all spent the day out bike riding, touring the local “jumps” which the kids have made on spare blocks and council land around the township.  (A BMX track and skate park has been planned for our town for many years, but we’re still waiting for it to happen.  There are several ideal sites but there’s always some vocal residents complaining that they don’t want such a recreation facility anywhere near their home… so the kids miss out).

He headed off most mornings with water and a snack in his backpack, or pocket money for purchasing junk food at the local milkbar, to meet up with this “gang” of eleven and twelve year olds. He’d come home mid-afternoon grubby, sweaty and smelling like a boy, with a few scrapes and grazes on legs and elbows but delighted with his day’s activity, the boys he met up with, the places they went and the increasing size of the jump he could manage without falling of his bike.

It felt a little strange to have my twelve year old out of range of sight and sound for so many hours of the day without an adult in attendance – just half a dozen kids out enjoying their freedom.

I found  the spare mobile phone for him to take after the first few days, just in case I needed to contact him. I never did, but sometimes I felt tempted to be a nagging Mum and ring under some pretence. “Hey Seth, your sister’s just taking a batch of choc-chip cookies from the oven…come and grab some for you and your friends”,  or “Hey Mate, it looks cold out, did you remember to take a coat?”  (Like he’d wear anything but a t-shirt when he’s racing around on his bike!).

I know all the places they go to and none of them are more than a couple of kilometres from home, so if I really needed to I could jump in the car and track them down pretty quickly.

Sometimes after he’d been gone a while I felt just a touch of anxiety. I’m not sure what worried me. That he wasn’t crossing the road as carefully as he does when I’m with him? That he’s not keeping his helmet on all the time, because maybe the other kids don’t and it’s not cool to protect your brain ?

Maybe I’m worried that the other kids are a little more streetwise than Seth, and may convince him to do stuff he hasn’t even thought of yet.  Or that someone older (but not wiser) will interfere with their play and introduce less than innocent ideas to them.  Or it might just be that they’re being noisy and silly as kids their age do, and are annoying other people without me there to make sure he’s behaving well. I don’t want other mums looking at these boys and tsk, tsking because they’re running a bit wild.

Towards the end of the two week break he was out and about less often – most of the others had dropped off along the way.  At one stage they spent a few afternoons working on some jumps in our own back yard so that kept them closer to home.  By the last few cold drizzly days they were more likely to be indoors playing computer games, and that first week of wild freedom seemed just a memory.

I know books and articles on FASD talk about the need for close supervision of kids who are alcohol affected in case they get themselves into trouble with foolish decisions. They are often unaware of consequences and this can lead them astray.

Allowing my son more freedom than usual these holidays has probably set up a precedent. I hope I don’t regret it as he enters the teenage years when other teens will probably introduce him to less appropriate activities than jumping his bike over a pile of dirt. But at this point I guess I’ll just go on trying to teach Seth the rules and values that I hope he will follow as he grows up and hope that, despite having FASD, he takes it on board and behaves accordingly.

I guess that’s what we hope for all our kids as they grow up.

Much of what she had to say focused on the effects that an unsatisfactory or disrupted attachment has on a baby’s development. None of this is new to me (I’m an avid attendee at seminars and conferences, and love to read parenting and fostering “text” books) but she had a very personal way of describing the process which really brought home to me how an attuned baby engages with his caregiver.

This engagement lays down patterns in the brain to ensure that they develop all those important life skills like how to form a trusting relationship with another person, how to self-regulate and to curb impulses and control rage, how to recognise and acknowledge their feelings and those of others.

Any foster carer can look at a child and see the behaviours that indicate “this child’s brain did not form the necessary templates in that first year or so of life”. The child very obviously demonstrates the consequences of this deficit: is unable to trust others or rely on them for help and comfort, needs to control everything and everyone around them, hasn’t learnt to check their impulses or control their rage, and shows no awareness of their own feelings and certainly is unable to show empathy for others.

I look at my own daughter Portia, who has been with us for all but the first year or so of her thirteen years of life and recognise that these behaviors still form a noticeable part of her personality. Her need to control members of her family, particularly her little brother and her dad, drive them both to distraction. She tells them what they should be doing, or how they should be doing it, with utter confidence in her own infallibility.

Luckily, she’s doesn’t get into a rage very often (although plenty of those hissy-fits that teenage girls seem particularly prone to) but she still has a great deal of difficulty curbing her impulses. Despite the guidance she’s had at home and school with the mantra “stop, think, do” we’ve yet to see that being consistently used although she’s not in trouble for scrapes, damage and breakages as much as a few years ago.

But I’m happy to say that Portia is learning how to recognise how others are feeling and to change her behaviour accordingly. At nine or ten she often had social problems at school and most of it stemmed from her own tactless comments and actions. It seemed at that stage that the only way to boost her shaky self-esteem was to put down everyone else and build up her own accomplishments with lots of bragging and showing off. I’d say she’s come a long way since then.

Certainly I now see a quieter and more genuine awareness of her own strengths. She doesn’t need to brag or compete as much as she used to, and when she makes a derogatory comment about someone she’ll catch herself and try to explain why it is she feels that way, which opens up the opportunity for a bit of a learning discussion on why people behave as they do.

When she came to us as a quiet, timid, undemanding, slow-developing one year old, I didn’t know about the effects of neglect and trauma as described by Daniel Hughes and Bruce Perry. I knew nothing about therapeutic fostering and reparenting, but I knew from parenting my own babies that this little girl and I needed to bond. So I did what came naturally, treating her as if she was a much younger baby, which wasn’t at all hard because she was a tiny little thing and nowhere near walking yet.

I wrapped her in a cosy bunny rug and snuggled her into my body as I rocked and sang to her (even though she seemed to never need soothing or to be settled to sleep). I carried her around in a baby pouch on my chest despite her legs dangling down past my waist and making it very difficult to go upstairs or climb up hills and rocks when bushwalking.

Eventually I transferred her to a hip sling which didn’t keep her quite so close but was a great deal more convenient. When giving her milk I always held the bottle and snuggled her on my lap. I would not let her hold the bottle, which she was used to. She needed to rely on me for that warm soothing milk, and trust me to provide it.

I managed to keep that routine going till she was over two, despite her little foster brother arriving in the meantime who also needed constant feeding and soothing. I played baby games with her at a time when most kids have moved on to more sophisticated pastimes. Lots of patty-cake and peek-a-boo games, riding horse on my crossed legs whilst facing me as I sang to her, silly rhymes that babies love, with tickling and blurting on bellies and pressing of noses. All attempts to regain what she’d missed in her first year of life: attunement with a caregiver.

Unfortunately for Portia and I this process of attachment was often interrupted over the next two years, mostly by failed attempts at reunification with her birth mum. This would sometime take Portia away from our family for days, weeks, and at one point three months. Also, as I mentioned before, baby Seth joined our family when Portia was not yet two and his withdrawal from alcohol in those early months of his life took a lot of my time and energy.  I guess that Portia, while getting plenty of care and attention, may not have been getting the intensive mothering that her early neglect demanded.

But of course attachment is an ongoing process. Over the years I made extra effort to pull her in closer to me. It wasn’t always easy as through her toddler and preschool years that the quiet, mousy little baby was replaced by a willful, controlling, angry child. I always felt she was distant and detached from me. Even her younger foster brother Seth, who was with us from five weeks of age, developed a very normal secure attachment to me.

It’s sad but true that the more horrible your child’s behaviour, the more you want to distance yourself from them, and the more frustrated and discouraged you feel. Unfortunately this is exactly when you need to be spending more intensive time with the child to bring them in closer again.

Over the years I noticed a cycle. Portia’s problem behaviours would escalate and I would be forever scolding her, feeling cross and annoyed with her and would crave distance, retreating from the intensity of the frustration and stress. Then I’d recognise where I was in the cycle and realise it was time for some very significant bonding.

A child psychologist who saw Portia when she was five for just a few visits, helped me to realise how, when I was overwhelmed by her behaviours, I would pull back emotionally from her and she gave me a few ideas on how to regain some closeness. She encouraged me to simply spend more time with Portia, doing stuff she enjoyed showing her she was worthy of my attention. Playing simple board games, colouring and making things together, singing and dancing to a music CD, cooking yummy sweet things to eat together, standing outside watching her ride her bike up and down the footpath, sharing stories and making up our own.

It amazed me how much time I could find to spend with her once I’d changed my attitude. I concentrated on softening my tone with her, making sure I met her advances with a smile instead of a frown, decreasing my scolding and nagging and replacing them with encouragement and joy in her accomplishments. It felt so good to begin liking her again, and that was made easier by the fact that her horrible behaviour quite noticeably decreased and she did become more likable by everyone else in the family too. Extra bonus – they weren’t always yelling at her and sending her away from them anymore either. Everyone was happier.

This relationship and behaviour cycle continued over the years. Even now I sometimes feel myself slipping and I have to remind myself to seek out Portia’s company and conversation a bit more – a bit more difficult now she’s a teen who naturally tends to spend more time alone in her room with her homework or reading or just listening to loud music. But it’s still worthwhile working on strengthening that still shaky attachment and the rewards are gleaned by seeing a corresponding shift in her behaviour and attitude.

Nowadays the activities are a little different. Watching her play basketball or skate or dive with lots of encouraging words and gestures, inviting her to help me with cooking, or asking her to make her famous choc fudge cake for afternoon tea. It’s sharing funny things on TV or YouTube or reading an article out loud from a newspaper that I know she’ll be interested in (or listening to something she wants to read out, even though it’s not really that interesting to me) or telling her something funny that I think she’ll appreciate. Sometimes it’s just showing her that I am keeping her in mind, that she is important to me.

I sometimes wonder when Portia’s behaviour reverts a little to that impulsive, oppositional, tantrum throwing four year old that she was, could it have been different? Maybe if we’d managed to do more, known better or tried a little harder, focused just on her and not continued fostering (but then we wouldn’t have our sweet son Seth). Or should we just look at the long way she’s come and promise ourselves to never let up or give in, but keep working hard to make sure this kid stays connected to family and community, feels strong and worthy, has focus in her life (thank goodness for all those sports she loves) and do our best to get her through the teenage years unscathed, to successful adulthood.

Well, that’s certainly an outcome worth a bit of hard work!

Portia wanted to make her famous all-time favourite gooey chocolate cake, but I suggested she bake a cinnamon tea cake instead, more suitable to finish off a morning meal. She’s really becoming great at this cake-baking! The rest was easy – hubby cooked sausages, bacon, onions and mushrooms on the barbecue, whilst I did grilled tomatoes and poached eggs in the kitchen, and grabbed an apprentice to make lots of toast. While all that was under way we ate warm ham and cheese croissants with orange juice for an appetiser. Breakfast was enjoyed by all, and there was plenty of time afterwards to just hang out together.

When we manage to have all the kids (and partners) together for a meal like this, it really reminds me how great it is being a mum to kids of all ages. Sometimes I get pretty bogged down in Portia’s and Seth’s needs and issues and the constancy of caring for a baby, so it’s a nice change to have all the big kids around the kitchen table, chatting about their jobs and studies, homes, pets, hobbies and holidays, comparing movies and books, and catching up on family gossip. I look at these adult children of ours and see how happy they are in their lives, how close they are to each other, how much we all enjoy each other’s company, and I feel amazingly fortunate.

I recall that is why I started fostering in the first place, sixteen years ago – to share my family’s good fortune.

My older kids have taken on different roles with the young foster kids who have been in our family. Portia and Seth are lucky to have three older siblings (and now their partners too) as mentors and positive role models. I watch now as the two of them come and go, not prepared to sit all morning chatting like the adults of the family, but pausing on their way through the kitchen to tell a big brother or sister the latest news of school or basketball, scrapes or friendships. Little Angel crawls about at everyone’s feet, but every few moments someone picks him up for a bit of a play, or to share a tidbit with him. Seth grabs him to chuck him in the air and makes him chortle gleefully.

I’ve been a mum now for twenty-seven years and fostering for more than half that time. There are no happier times for me than having all the family around. I am a lucky woman.

Not a “stay at home” suspension, but a “stay in the office and work alone” suspension. As the teacher explained to me on the phone, even though her behaviour was not acceptable and had to be followed up with consequences, her intentions had been honourable.

“So why did you punch that boy?” I asked her later that evening when we were discussing the issue. Well, apparently that boy had been teasing one of her friends all day, and Portia had warned him that if he continued, she’d punch him. He did, so she did! This daughter of mine has principles.

We had the usual discussion (all parents of impulsive kids know the one I mean) reiterating the “violence solves nothing” and “how do we resolve conflict in our family?” but Portia showed no noticeable remorse. “Like, he wasn’t even hurt”, she said.

At thirteen Portia weighs in under 40 kgs and isn’t quite 150 cms tall, and I’m not sure she’d know how to throw a punch so she’s probably right. I think she felt like a champion of the underdog and an in-school detention was well worth the glory.

The image left in my mind after our discussion – of Portia all fired up with flashing eyes and gritted teeth, aiming a punch at the side of this kid’s head – left me a little dismayed but all things considered I’m not sure I should be too worried.

In over eight years of schooling, Portia has never been suspended before. I must say, in all their school years, none of my three older children were either, but then life was pretty secure and easy for them. Portia, on the other hand had a rocky start to life.

She spent the first twelve months of babyhood with her intellectually disabled birth mum who dressed her baby girl in pretty pink dresses, kept her clean, warm and safe by leaving her in her cot all day, but had no idea of the essential interactions between mother and baby to create a warm and secure attachment.

When Portia came into our care a few days after her first birthday she was a placid, quiet little baby who would just sit on the floor in a pile of toys never saying boo, or lay quietly in her cot, not bothering to sit up till someone lifted her out.

The next two years were unpredictable and disruptive for Portia. She was in and out of care for many months as her birth mum was given numerous opportunities to learn to look after her baby. Portia went to and fro between her mum’s home and ours, never seeming to care who she was with or who was taking her.

She appeared to have no attachment to her own mum, and little chance to attach to me as she was tossed back and forth in the attempt to give her birth mum every chance at reunification. Access was four times a week when she was actually living with us. Other times she spent the week with her mum, but in childcare every week day and weekends in our home.

Her birth mum was invited to spend the days at the childcare centre, learning how to interact with Portia, but usually just visited for an hour or so, sitting on a chair to watch her little girl play. She loved her daughter dearly but seemed incapable of effective parenting.

It didn’t stop the courts trying, however.

The two of them also had a number of stays in assorted family units in an attempt to teach mum to parent. We always stayed available for Portia to come back to us – she’d had a number of respite or emergency placements in her first year of life. We wanted her to have as much stability as was possible, even with all the to-ing and fro-ing. At age two and a half, one final gigantic effort was made. Despite mine and the foster agency’s protests, Portia left our home for three months to live in a family unit where it was hoped her mum could finally learn to parent her adequately enough to have her back home.

It didn’t work. At the end of three months Portia returned to our home, and never left again ( although it was almost another three years before guardianship was bestowed on us). She returned to us angry, defiant, insecure, frustrated and with the ability to throw our family into chaos.

She screamed at the big kids, got into their stuff and lost or broke things, interfered with their games and annoyed their friends. Her frequent meltdowns spoiled family outings and made her older siblings cringe with embarrassment. She tyrannised one year old Seth, pushing and hitting him when she thought they were alone, then patting him in a sisterly fashion when I arrived, explaining sympathetically how he’d fallen over (eventually he learnt to talk and put an end to that clever little act).

Despite all this, when the time came to call a family meeting to discuss the possibility of four year old Portia remaining permanently with us, it was unanimously agreed that, even though she was a little demon, her place was in our home and in our family. Even eleven year old Emily, who seemed to be the one who was most intolerant of Portia’s antics, didn’t hesitate to answer “Of course we should” when we asked the question.

The following years were never easy. Building up an attachment with this prickly child was an all consuming effort. It didn’t come naturally, and we sought professional help on a few occasions in an effort to ease the burden just a little.

At one stage she was diagnosed with ODD and attachment difficulties, and then a little later with ADHD and possible Tourette’s. We educated ourselves, managed behaviours as they arose, advocated for her at school, tried to think of creative ways to discipline her: to stop her stealing money, to stop her lying, to stop her provoking her little brother, to get her to do her homework. We encouraged her sports, her music, her friendships; gave her opportunities to feel good about herself. Sometimes we despaired, we often felt weary… but we always felt joy in her amazing energy and enthusiasm for everything she did.

After years of liaising with the schools on how to manage Portia’s behaviour (appropriate consequences and achievable reward systems usually worked) and receiving numerous phone calls that often began “We had a bit of trouble with Portia today….” I was actually a little surprised to get that call from school this week. It has been many months since we’ve had any complaints and what I’ve been hearing from the teachers has been really positive. In fact I’ve really been pleased with Portia’s progress over the past six months, even during the long summer holidays. After years of struggle and occasional despair, I feel as if maybe we’ve reached still waters and I’m enjoying the present calm.

Portia’s suspension has come and gone. She told me she actually enjoyed the day, and got up to date with her homework and started on her science project. So many kids I know are continually suspended from school (mostly kids like mine who were or still are in foster care).

Should I be worried that this might just be the first of many for Portia as she enters stormy adolescence? I don’t feel anxious. In fact, if anything, it’s made me reflect on the great improvements we’ve seen this past year that friends and family have commented on too.

Portia seems more thoughtful and considered in her actions, less impulsive than she used to be, and more appropriate too. She’s more helpful and reliable and even a bit more organised (she’ll always have a messy room, I guess) and occasionally I feel like we’re having a real conversation – that she’s not just talking over the top of me.

And what’s nice is that she’s recognising these changes in herself, and appears to enjoy the calmer, more mature girl that she’s becoming. Of course she’s still the active, sporty, tomboyish kid she’s always been, still refusing to wear a dress (even to her sister’s engagement party), always sticking her nose in everyone else’s business, and always knows best (she is a teenager after all) but who of us is perfect?

If she just keeps her fists to herself, I reckon I’d be pretty happy.

Unfortunately, Jaimee’s aggressive behaviour caused great difficulties with the placement, especially as there was a younger child in the family who was constantly being bullied by this tiny, angry two year old. A decision was made to move her but, as so often happens, a suitable family in the area wasn’t readily available. Our family happened to be between placements – we had only taken babies in the previous few years. This seemed to suit the new dynamics of our family as Portia and Seth settled into being in their ‘forever’ family. As they were now aged nine and seven, I thought a nearly three year old could suit us. But I was wrong.

Over the next six months our family lived with almost constant chaos. Little Jaimee had significant emotional problems. Her rigidity and defiance, her frequent melt downs with shrill screaming , hitting and kicking meant she was constantly the centre of my attention and energy. Portia responded to the situation by regressing to her own “toddler” behaviour, and little Seth, who needed his environment to be calm and predictable, responded with tears and anger at all these people disturbing his peace. The six weeks of the summer school holidays were particularly difficult to manage, despite seeing some progress in Jaimee’s behaviour, as I tried to parent her with strategies gleaned from my training in therapeutic foster care. Our worker, although very supportive, agreed with our family that it might be better that three year old Jaimee be placed with a new family. In time (we didn’t hurry the process) a new but keen foster family with no other children at home accepted little Jaimee, and four years later she is doing really well in her long-term foster home.

We felt quite guilty at having to disrupt a placement, as foster carers often do. However, seeing Jaimee gradually adjust to her new home and build up an attachment with her new Mum eased my conscious somewhat. The relief felt by all the family when Jaimee left and the work I could put in with Portia and Seth to “mend the bridges” reinforced the rightness of disrupting this placement. But I felt an ongoing commitment to little Jaimee, and we have continued to have her back with us for regular respite (even though we don’t usually do respite foster care).

The advantages are felt by everyone. This little girl has a second family with whom she feels comfortable. A weekend is manageable. With a lot of hard work, and knowing we only have to sustain our efforts for 48 hours, the family stays relatively calm. This has become significantly easier as Jaimee has responded to a stable long term family and supportive therapeutic care from a number of professionals (she was put into an intense fostering program a few years ago) and her behaviours have become so much easier to manage. We have gained a lot of satisfaction from seeing this little girl grow and settle, and from being important in her life. We provide a stimulating family environment with slightly older and younger children to interact with, contrasting to her own home, where she is the only child. I am proud of Portia and Seth who, despite sometimes groaning when I announce it is our turn to have Jaimee, go out of their way to play with her and accommodate her in their busy weekends. And I know Jaimee’s foster parents appreciate the time they have ‘child-free’ knowing their little girl is happy and secure in one of her other families (my friend who first had Jaimee in her care, also offers regular respite). In fact, I would go so far as to state that regular respite is essential for the continuing success of Jaimee’s long term placement.

Most importantly, for Jaimee, it means that the three separate placements in foster care that she has had are still all connected, as with an extended family. Her life story book has no photos of strangers, of placements forgotten. Even if she doesn’t really remember living in our home for that six months during which she turned three , she feels like she does, because the photos of that time are filled with familiar people, pets and places – all of whom she still sees regularly. If for no other reason we will continue to have Jaimee for regular respite, so she retains that sense of continuity, and so that as she grows to adulthood, she still has someone of whom she can ask “… what was I like when I was just two years old?” and we will happily tell her.

My family has been fostering sixteen years. Around fifty children have been part of our family for varying lengths of time, mostly babies to preschoolers. Two have permanently joined our family. “Portia” is now thirteen and came into our care at twelve months. She was nearly six when we got the Permanent Care order which gave us guardianship. In Australia we don’t have the system whereby the legal termination of parent’s rights leaves the child available for adoption, so a P.C order is the next best thing, in the state of Victoria, anyway. “Seth”, now eleven, joined our family at six weeks, and his Permanent Care order went through when he was three. As we already had three biological children, we’ve been a pretty busy household ever since, especially as we usually have one or two foster children in our care as well . Our current little angel is nine months old, and has been with us six months – he doesn’t look like going home any time soon.

Our oldest two children have moved out of home with their partners, so we just have one adult child still living at home. Luckily the others both live just a twenty minute drive away, so we see them fairly often. Our oldest son Ben also works in the family business with his Dad, so they get to ‘hang out’ every day – they’re both well and truly into I.T. so you can imagine the computer talk that goes on there. Our oldest daughter Jessi is a social worker and recently started working at my own Foster Care agency. We talk or email or see each other often – and our themes usually revolve around foster kids and the myriad of issues that go with them. She’s a great support to me. Our second daughter, Emily is studying Photography at Uni, just about to start her third and final year. She’s become the family photographer, so I’ll post her pics occasionally (not the foster kids though, which is a shame, because they’re just so cute!)

If I had time to spare, my interests would be crafts (and I do manage a bit of simple knitting or sewing occasionally, but not the embroidery and smocking I used to indulge in) reading (belonging to a book group does mean I read at least one book a month) and scrapbooking (still working on my daughter’s 21st album, and she’ll be 24 soon!). But the home and kids and a range of fostercare committees and meetings keep me busy, and I love to share times with my husband and friends, watch the occasional movie, and spend some time each day on my computer…. so all the rest just fits around that. And now I’m going to try and include a regular blogging…. I guess I’ll see how I go.