Fostering Alice Blog
Friday
In a bid to change everyone’s attention away from the football, I tried to get the girls to watch Wimbledon. Whilst there were no British players left in the singles, there were still Brits in the doubles and wheelchair tennis. I though Alice might be interested in wheelchair tennis. Whilst her own hand eye co-ordination is pretty poor at the moment – her wheelchair skills are excellent – and what amazing role models the players are. I decided after school we would walk through the park past the local tennis courts. I thought showing her a tennis court in real life would help her to understand the game a little better when we watch it on the screen.
When I picked her up from school, I should have realised this was a bad idea. Her teaching assistant told me that she had been pretty stubborn today, had refused to drink anything and had not allowed her to apply any suncream at lunch time. This meant she was not allowed outside for the break. So she was in a foul mood, she blamed the teaching assistant for this and took no responsibility herself. With hindsight I should have taken her straight home, but I persevered. This was definitely a mistake. I tried to give her a drink and put some sun cream on when we got to the park. She was having none of it and started swinging her arms round to bat me away from her.
I decided to call it a day and take her home. She now refused to move and grabbed the wheels of her wheelchair. She was going nowhere. Eventually after she had run out of energy I managed to get her home, but she was still very cross and telling me exactly what she thought of me. It was pretty good timing that as we crossed the road to get home, the social worker was waiting for us. She had just popped in to drop some paperwork off for our annual review.
Alice didn’t know what to do with herself, she had been having a full on meltdown, then she spotted the social worker. It was like Jekyll and Hyde. Suddenly Alice started engaging in conversation and smiling. It would have been funny but I was pretty exhausted by this point.
The social worker had seen everything though – which was great as usually she only sees the good side of Alice. Her visit had a great influence and the rest of the evening was much calmer.
A Less Ordinary Fostering Family.
