Fostering Blog.
James (name changed) was very excited about the plans to slowly remove lockdown. I warned him that things could change if infections went back up but he was already planning the things he wanted to do.
Other than his friends and Paige the most important thing to James was football. I told him that he would struggle with his fitness as he hadn’t trained for a couple of months, so he asked if I could take him over the park to do some fitness work.
Now I’m no fitness coach but I played both Football and Rugby and know the types of exercises that work for fitness. So we agreed that three times a week would be enough to get him back on track. So after his school work was finished we went over the park.
As we left he went to get his football but I told him not to bother as he wouldn’t need it today. He looked a bit concerned at that comment. So we got to the park and I told him to run round it. Off he went, at a very slow pace, and I shouted to him that he needed a bit more speed. He got back to me, out of breath and very red faced.
I took 4 cones and placed them on the ground so he could do shuttle runs, or doggys are we used to call them. You run to the first one and back, then the second etc. So we did a couple of sets of those, after which James was puffing like an old cart horse.
We did about an hour of running and various exercises, when I say we I meant James with me just ‘encouraging’ him.
We headed home and I asked James how he felt. He laughed and said shattered. When we got home James went off to shower while I prepared and early dinner. I told James that we would do the running twice a week and some training with the ball once a week and he seemed happy with that.
The following day I spoke to the Police regarding the messages we had received from Mum and friends. The officer said that they had warned Mum about not contacting and had been considering giving Mum a warning for harassment but had decided not to.
The officer said that Mum had made accusations about me but they had spoken to the Social Worker who had told them that Mum threw accusations around like confetti. I updated my Supervising Social Worker about the conversation and we agreed to meet up the following week.
James asked what had been said so I told him. He just shrugged and said that it would probably happen again soon. So we agreed not to let it bother us and that we understood why Mum was acting like she was.
In the evening we settled down to watch the football and James had the munchies so he was scoffing crisps. I warned him that every packet he ate added fifteen minutes to his training and, funnily enough, he stopped eating them.
Fosterman – A Blogging Foster Carer.
