Fostering Blog – Fosterman.
Football, football, football, if James (name changed) isn’t watching it then he’s playing it, either on grass, at school or on his PlayStation.
I don’t mind as it keeps him fit and happy and takes his mind off of other issues. Last weekend he had a match on both Saturday and Sunday so no lay ins for me. Fortunately both venues were reasonably local so no great journeys involved.
When my eldest son played Rugby we used to travel the length and breadth of Kent for a Sunday morning game. The Saturday game was quite intense and got a bit ‘niggly’ and I was pleased to see that James never shirked from physical contact and also backed his team mates up. His team won the game convincingly and he was quite hyper after the match.
As we were sorting stuff out after the game a man approached me and asked if I was James’ dad. I quickly explained the situation. The man was a scout for one of the larger non- league teams in the area and asked if James could pop along one evening for a training session as the man had been impressed with James on the pitch.
I asked James and he was delighted and said yes. So he gave us the details and we left. James didn’t shut up for the rest of the day and was very excited about the prospect of a serious training session.
His game on Sunday was a last minute cancellation as the other team only had 8 players so the team had a training session instead. Then it was home and we shared the preparation of a nice big fat roast lamb dinner.
James was still going on about his trial and had told anyone who called. It got a bit much when he started talking about what he was going to wear! The rest of Sunday was spent watching football and sorting things for the week.
He left for school on Monday and I got on with the normal routine of cleaning and tidying. I had a chat with his Social Worker and updated her about the football.
She told me about a conversation she had with Mum who was saying how she was determined to get James back as soon as possible as she ‘knew’ he was unhappy with me and she knew he really wanted to go home soon.
It was actually quite sad as both the Social Worker and I had conversations with James and knew that he was happy and settled at mine. Mum had been reminded that she needed to go through rehab before any chance of getting James back but was seemingly oblivious to the whole situation.
She said that she thought it was unfair that she had to prove herself to Social Services as she had been an excellent parent before.
In a way I could understand what she was saying as James’ behaviour is very good and he was polite and respectful and that he had, at some stage, received some good parenting. Anyway, she had been been told what the plans were and that there was no deviating from that.
Fosterman – A Simply Fostering Blogging Foster Carer.
