Fostering Blog
We had a blissfully quiet weekend. James (name changed) was invited to his friend’s house for Pizza and a movie and I had to pick him up at 10pm Saturday night.
During the day, on Saturday, he just wanted to chill so I got on with household chores and took it easy. He went off to his mates about 5 and I let him do the journey alone as his friend lived near the school and he now knew the route well. I picked him up at 10 and said hi to his friend’s parents. They commented on what a nice young man he is, which I agreed, and we drove home. James was really happy.
He told me how he’d always wanted to do normal things like this but Mum wouldn’t let him. He also commented on the fact that his Mum would never buy him nice new clothes and he would be embarrassed to go out in the clothes he did have.
I could understand his point. As you get older labels and what you wear aren’t so important but as a young man with peer pressure having the latest gear is important and James had struggled with that.
Sunday my boys came around with their partners and James helped me cook a nice roast dinner. He seems to find talking to my sons really easy and it wasn’t long before FIFA was on the PlayStation and things got a bit noisier. My daughter in law helped me clear away dinner and load the dishwasher and she commented on how well settled James was. I told her about the complaint from Mum and she was angry that someone would do that I explained it was quite common and that I wasn’t overly concerned about it.
So after everyone had gone James and I sat down to a couple of hours of football on the telly. During a half time break he asked me whether it was likely that he would be going back to his Mum’s. I told him that I had no idea and that was something that we didn’t have much control over. He said that he didn’t want to go back to ‘how things were before’.
He said it was nice to have a proper life. I asked him if he missed his Mum and he replied that he missed how she used to be before she had a ‘problem’. He then told me how things used to be and how he seemingly had a nice normal lifestyle but then Mum got in with a wrong crowd and she started to change for the worst.
He got a bit emotional and said he wanted some down time and we went to his room for 15 minutes. He then started talking about football and that was that, conversation over.
At 10pm it was bedtime for James and off he went with all his stuff ready for the next day. I had a lot of stuff to write up in my diary and finally got to bed after midnight. I tossed and turned for a while, thinking about what he had told me and then, with the help of the Calm app, I nodded off.
A Simply Fostering Blogging Foster Carer.
