Buttons

Twice this week someone told me I was laid back. I assure you I'm not and if you asked anyone who has spent any significant time with me then they'd disavow you of the notion pretty quick.
I am Fawlty Dad.

I just lost it this week, totally spat my dummy out, my buttons were well and truly pushed. What amazes me is my children's abilities to find new buttons. Of course they don't always intend to push my buttons but good grief they sometimes seem to have a supernatural sense of what they are and when is the most inappropriate time to push them.

I can keep the safety guard on my big buttons, I expect them to be pressed and take appropriate actions to avoid them being being exposed to the sticky little fingers that seek them out.

So, this week I got called a 'freak', repeatedly. I thought oh stuff this for a game of Cluedo and proceeded to unravel over a 30 second eternity. I returned sarcasm with sarcasm and became all 'whatever' and 'I'm so not bothered'. I carefully laid aside my NVR and PACE and rolled with it.

Button thoroughly pressed.

Not my best moment. Of course I fixed it over an hour or so but I should have walked away, I should have kept my button well and truly guarded.

There was a time in my life when I though I had no buttons. Then children arrived and what a deeply upsetting experience it was discovering that I was literally covered from head to foot in buttons, reactions waiting to happen. Over the years I've had some of the buttons surgically removed and some have broken through repeated and persistent over use.

Unfortunately, there seems to be no end to the new buttons that grow back. There also seems to be no end to my children's willingness to press them.

My enduring button is name calling and I'm painfully aware of it and keep it well guarded. But with all the 'stuff' going on in the rest of the world I've struggled under a little cloud and that's when the buttons are vulnerable.

When I'm no longer laid back, when I am Fawlty dad.

Behaviour Management Review

The Department for Education are currently undertaking review of behaviour management within schools. Quite a scary thought with images of schools embracing draconian regimes of punishment or dissolving into unfettered liberal wishy washy group hugs.

It's made me think, actually it's made me think a lot, about what I want from a school, what I expect from a school and what I don't want from a school.

It comes in a week when I've taken Flossy to visit the school that she is due to move up to in Year 7.  An exciting experience for any child but for a child who lives daily with the long term impact of her negative early life a one that is fraught with unimaginable and, at times, overwhelming anxieties and stresses. Why wouldn't this impact on her behaviour?

Later this week I then stood in front of 60 teachers, assistant teachers and lunchtime staff helping them develop their knowledge of the impacts of loss separation and trauma on children. Together we considered the implications for these children in a classroom and school environment. As I described the behaviours and causes I watched teachers nod to each other and mouth the names of children that they teach, support and deal with every day. The feedback was that practice could be changed not to pander to poor behaviour but to divert potential disruptions and help children feel safe, cared for and able to learn.

I'm an adoptive parent and that's my starting position. However, I understand that adoptees do not have the monopoly on trauma, loss and separation. In fact, at the risk of offending, I would suggest that many adopted children have something that many other children do not. They have motivated and articulate parents to advocate for them and support them throughout their school lives. I can't help but think of the children who potentially do not. The children in the Foster Care system and those on the edge of the care system, children living with loss through bereavement and separation or divorce of parents, children with parents in prison, children who experience sexual abuse and those that witness domestic violence or live in homes where it is present. The numbers of these children is staggering and they are represented in every classroom in the land. They significantly outnumber adoptees but they share common challenges. For all of them their lived experience has a profound impact on their behaviour in a school environment and how they respond to discipline and boundaries.

I believe that the behaviour review is an opportunity that we should grasp.

It is an opportunity to highlight the good practice and for it to be broadcast to new audiences. We can highlight the excellent work that is often being done to support our children in their behaviour in school.  How to appropriately challenge inappropriate behaviour. The difference between excuses and reasons for children struggling and disrupting classrooms and how to tell the difference. The teachers that go the extra mile, why they do it and what they do. The development and training of staff from the highest to the lowest and the values and ethos that underpin all of this..

How do we influence this?

Well, Tom Bennett @tombennet71 is the Chair of the Department for Education's Behaviour Group and is heading the review. I'd encourage you all to follow him on twitter and share the good, be that articles, stories, excellent schools or practical advice. If you're not on Twitter then write a letter, send a pigeon or draw him a picture. Lets get a hashtag #behaviourreview16 and use it.
Lets be positive and share the positive, let's be kind. We could set the internet on fire with some of the crap that our children have endured in the name of discipline, order and education but that's for another day.

School life is a huge part of all children's lives and good and bad experiences often wash up at parent's doors. Families of vulnerable children live with the impact of good and bad models and methods of discipline on a day by day basis and at times it's overwhelming.  I've seen it in my own children's lives.

We have a voice that many don't and if we can influence this review for good then we can benefit not only our own children but also the children that don't share the advocates and champions our children do.


Note: The review is due to be published in October.

New School

In a moment of spare thought I realised that if Peanut stays in education until she's 18 I will have been taking my children to school for 31 consecutive years. I suddenly felt very very tired. In all honesty I find education an alien world where I'm constantly feeling disempowered, that might be my insecurity, that might be an interesting essay on power dynamics, systems and knowledge.

Anyway, that's not what I'm blogging about.

We went a looking for a comprehensive school this week, Year 6 is halfway through and we're dithering about looking for blasted schools to move Flossy to for year 7. I put my best pants on and brought my Social Work manbag with me for comfort. I know the drill, you pick the staff not the school and had my radar set to scan.

Fortunately the staff we met were excellent and gave a good account of the schools pastoral/ support team and systems, they even have a qualified Social Worker on site. All good. However, I came away pretty unravelled.

The reality is that fundamentally Flossy's perception of school is that it is unsafe. It's not the schools fault it is a building and educational system that is built on a different paradigm to to the one we inhabit. All the teacher training, support staff, safe places and parent teacher liaisons in the world cannot change how it is fundamentally perceived by Fossy.

If you put a fire guard around a fire it's still a fire. If you're frightened by fire the guard may not remove the fear it may make it manageable.

I walked around the school with Mrs C and imagined I was Flossy and it was a visceral experience. Other children may see it as an adventure, growing up and opportunity and of course that's in the mix for Flossy but it was just daunting and bewildering. 15 and 16 year olds going about their business, children in corridors being disciplined by teachers. School bells and windows and corridors and teachers and crowds and big kids. The knot in my stomach sat with me for a few days, this feeling of me placing Flossy in a place that she will perceive as frightening and bewildering lingers. I feel like a spectator to an event rather than a player.

Time will tell how we fare over the next 5 years.  

Unresolved narrative

It's been a hard week for a load of different and mainly external reasons. Of course it goes without saying that I can't say what, when, who, how or why. Of course I can confirm that they're all related directly to the early lives my children and their route to my door. I'm not down or depressed. I just am.

I was speaking to a friend about something or other and he noted that some folks he knew struggled with what I wrote sometimes as there was, as he said it, 'an unresolved narrative'.

Well if it makes you feel any better so do I.

I write what happens, what I see and what I think. Of course I filter and edit it but it's an account of our lives from my perspective. Other perspectives are available of course but I feel that I'm fairly representative of a large number of parents who care for children who have experienced trauma, loss, separation and have travelled through the care system.

I write to make me feel better, to get the dirty water off my chest. I'd love to write about all the warm hugs and beautiful moments that blossom out of difficult experiences. Perhaps I do but in different less obvious ways, I think I find hope.

Today as Mrs C and I returned from our recent sessions with one of the massive's therapist I confessed that I didn't know how all of this is going to turn out for us as a family. Not the immediate but the long term. Not depressed just pragmatic, what does the future hold? I never thought that we'd retire to the seaside, see the grandkids once a week for a slice of Battenberg cake and a Wurthers Original, crikey no.  But I'm not sure how in the medium to long term some of my children's adult lives are going to play out. Our journey so far indicates that for some it will be ok but for some it's not so clear,  so our narrative is unresolved, but can anyone's be resolved?

This week my heart skipped as I walked through the shops, Lotty's 10 year old hand took hold of mine and we walked and talked. Her hand felt small but it was just so natural with an easy familiarity that was precious. Big deal, you say but I'm her dad and I'm the proudest dad in the world because she loves me. I also know that in 5 years this time holding hands will not happen.

Sometimes I hold onto that second in time when my hand is held because in that moment my narrative actually feels pretty much resolved.

An Adoption Support Charter

I had a thought, I should write an adopters charter. Then I thought, I'm sure that I've read one somewhere. So, after a little Googling I discovered a charter produced by the Department of Education in 2011 here . Surprisingly, or not, there's not one mention of post adoption support I honestly don't know what to say about that.

So I've written my own little charter, an Adoption Support Charter.

Adoption Support Charter

As an Adoption Support Service:

1. We commit to being available and if not get back to you promptly
2. We commit to listening.
3. We commit to being honest and keeping you informed.
4. We commit to supporting parents to support their children.
5. We commit to show empathy and compassion.
6. We commit to offering emotional support and advice.
7. We commit to being honest about what we can and can't do.
8. We commit to work in partnership with you.
9. We commit to advocate for you, two voices are louder than one and signpost us to appropriate professionals, services and training.
10. We commit to employing Social Workers with appropriate interpersonal skills and appropriate knowledge and giving them the time and resources to support families.

As Adopters we commit to:

1. We commit to not waiting until we are desperate or in crisis before we contact you.
2. We commit to listening.
3. We commit to working collaboratively with you.
4. We commit to being honest. 

What interests me is that often the stuff that can make the biggest impact has limited cost. The principles of respect, kindness, gentleness, encouragement and availability, these are the things that can make all the difference. We all know that resources are under ever strain but the foundations of all Post Adoption Services should be on these, or similar, principles.

We could debate the specifics of the service and we should, but I'd like to see the kind of things I've listed as a start.

I often hear 'there was no money for services but my Social Worker was great and really helped'. I also hear 'my Social Worker made me feel like I was the problem, I'd rather not have him/her in the house'.

That is a shame on my profession.

White noise

I was a cookie cutter kid and I just drifted through school the top end of average at all but English where I was strangely significantly below average. Or as I reflect now plain lazy and a slow writer. I had the wherewithal to manage the usual issues at comprehensive and was socially able enough to not be bullied or ostracised. The world of education has changed since the early 80’s. My parents were more than pleased that I didn’t follow in my brother’s footsteps. He had a flamboyant and quite remarkable distain for the requirements of the schooling system and infamously skipped one of his final exams to go and see the Rolling Stones. By comparison I was probably just white noise to most of my teachers, neither ‘nowt nor summat’.

This is not going to be the case for Flossy. She is many things but she is not white noise in a school environment especially a comprehensive school she definitely a Rolling Stones kind of pupil.

In relation to Flossy’s education my attitude stinks. She can get her GCSE’s anytime between now and the end of her life. But she only gets one pass at adolescence. She’s going into year 6 in September and that gives us a year to find a ‘safe’ comprehensive. Mrs C and I decided in May that Mrs C that we were going to give no consideration to the looming issue of school til we’d moved house. As we know you should never open a European land war on two fronts.

So, we’ve moved house and now is the time to start to think about the future schooling shenanigans. We want a safe place, Flossy needs a safe place. On a most fundamental level what can she learn in a scary place? Her feeder comprehensive, or Stalag Luft VII as I affectionately renamed it, is exclusively for ‘cookie cutter kids’* or so Ofsted concludes. Our preferred choice, a Catholic school Sarah and Gracie went to, is unfortunately in a ‘no go’ area for a range of reasons geographic/family reasons. So, we are plotting and scheming, consulting a range of professionals and casting our net further afield to locate more nurturing and sympathetic environment. We get ones pass at this and the increasingly punitive education system, or so it seems, needs to be negotiated with the least trauma possible for Flossy. We’ll travel if we have to and we’ll go where we have to and do what ever we have to do.

What do I aspire to for six years from now? To be the father of a child that feels included and welcome in society rather than excluded and alienated. Doesn’t seem like much but I’m taking nothing for granted.

*Clearly there’s no such thing.

Aim Higher

We are bereft, undone and broken.

We did our best and resisted the authorities but they will have their way.

We know it’s in her ‘best interests’.

We stalled as long as we could postponing the inevitable.

With a heavy heart we announce that Peanut is going to Nursery.

Yes, she’ll look cute on the first day, but that is no consolation.

I know peanut and her story, though crestfallen, I’m confident Peanut will do fine.

I cannot say that for all my children.

The recent Twitter feed from the @BAAFAdoption conference on education was interesting to follow.

Stark facts on the educational outcomes for children in the care system that are shadowed, varyingly, in adopted children’s lives.

The # for the twitter feed was #aimhigher and being honest I could not help but reflect on the aspirations that I have for my children.

We have had a spectrum of experiences with schools good, bad and everything in-between. By the time Peanut leaves school we will have been at the school gates and parents evenings for 28 consecutive years, we've seen a lot.

I confess to having different priorities for each of my children and they reflect each of children’s unique experiences, view of themselves and the world they live in.

Generally:

I want them to be and feel safe.

I want them to be at school not marginalised/excluded.

I want them to have a few good friends

I want them to feel able to do their best.

I want them to have hope and aspiration.

I want them to participate positively in the world around them and enjoy it.

I want them to be literate and numerate but not at the expense of the above. 

Being honest I'm not sure what my child can learn when not feeling safe. The terror that gripped Sarah when being asked to read a word to me aged 6 shut her down for 10 minutes, unable to speak for fear.

Reading didn't seem so important after that. 

Maybe I’m out of step with the government, school league tables and the parents next to me at the school gate.

So be it.