Parenting Work for Foster and Adoptive Parents

There is no parenting course or technique that will enable anyone to control their children 100% of the time. If we attempt to do that we are bound to fail. And anyway, controlling children never really works. As a Life Coach I believe in developing a strategy that works for you, I will not set you up to fail.

There is no point beating about the bush. Children who have had social services involvement in their lives require a different level of parenting from other children.
They have all had more things happen in their short lives than they should have, and it is likely that some of those things will not have been good.
Having said that, what all children need is love, clarity and consistency.
Some children, however, do need more understanding and patience, and because of this, and some of the things they do, it's natural for their parents to need some extra support.
This is where I can help you.

As everyone says Parenting is the most difficult job in the world, and it's also the most important.
My aim is to make parenting easier for you, not harder, so I'm not going to issue you with a list of do's and don'ts to try and remember.
I believe the most important thing is to control yourself.
Firstly, the only person you can control is yourself, so only attempting the possible makes things simpler from the beginning.
When you control yourself, you are fairer with your children and they appreciate that (maybe not while they aren't allowed to play with the ball that broke the window, but in a general way).
When you control yourself you don't scream and yell at them and scare them.
When you control yourself you don't hit them.
When you control yourself you are able to respond not just react, so your response is much more appropriate and in proportion.
When you control yourself, you are a beautiful example of how you want your children to behave.
So really this is the first and only rule; when you control yourself, everything else becomes possible.

I know controlling yourself can be difficult; personally I have a hot temper, and shout and cry easily. I also believe that it's important for your children to experience you expressing emotion, and keeping the balance here is difficult too.
So if there is a second rule, it is, forgive yourself when you make mistakes. If on the whole you are able to be fair and balanced and you don't beat yourself up and behave guiltily when you do made mistakes and you don't deny they happened, your children will forgive you too (actually, they'll probably forgive you anyway). Children are very forgiving, and will give you second, third and fourth chances.

Next time you breathe in to shout at your children, try this;
Breathe out, and then do it again (as long as they're not in immediate danger) just keep breathing until you can think more clearly and then ask yourself "How do I want to respond to this?"
You have bought yourself some thinking time, use it, and come up with an effective response you're comfortable with. Not what your mom or your neighbours or the woman in the supermarket think you should do. You have to do it, you have to live with your children, and you have to live with yourself, so you have to be comfortable with whatever you choose to do.
Next you have to carry it through, but you'll be calm, and your voice will be calm and low, not hysterical and likely to inflame the situation. These things will let you know you're in control of yourself, and that plus some determination, will enable you to carry it through.

You being in control will help in other ways too, because your children will realise this, and knowing that you aren't going to be so easy to wind up, they're less likely to try.
Of course, ideally you would stop things before they got to screaming point, but if this is a new way of managing your children, you have to start somewhere, and just trying this is a good place.
When you work with me as a parenting coach I will encourage you to develop strategies to catch situations before they get to the screaming point, but I live in the real world and I know that this is simply not always possible, so dealing with the screaming point this way is a gift to you.

Because of my extensive experience working with children who've had things go wrong in their lives, I am in a unique position to help the parents of these children.
I can help you understand why they behave in the ways they do, because of my psychological background. One of my special skills is translating all that psychobabble into ordinary language.
For a lot of foster parents, just getting all this in perspective really helps.
My position as a person outside the statutory system means I can be there just for you. I don't have any other agenda.
I do not have a boss, and I am not paid by Social Services.
I do have over 15 years experience of working with parents and carers of children who have (or have had) social services involved in their lives, I understand "the system" and it's affects on those children and their parents.
I understand the particular difficulties those children are likely to have, as a result of the reasons they came to social services attention, and as a result of being "Looked After".
Because of all my work with foster parents, I also understand the affects of that system on you and the awkward position you are sometimes in.

Child Protection Statement

I am very familiar with the Children Act and I work to Child Protection Principles (I used to be the Child Protection Officer for my organisation, and have delivered training on it), so if I feel a child is being (has been or is about to be) harmed I will, of course report that, but only if I am certain that there is no other way to protect that child's best interest. I will attempt to work with you first.
You are my client, but the children's best interests are paramount.
Although within agencies I have had to take this sort of action, as an independent I never have.

Due to my work with vulnerable people, I keep my CRB disclosure up to date.