Struggling to follow SWs advice

[Woollysocks18]

Hi all,

We are around 3 months into placement with our little boy who is 3. We felt that everything was going well but had a less than positive visit with LOs new social worker a few weeks ago. She told us that in order to encourage attachment we should stop doing the following:

Trips out to park
Trips out to anywhere new
Trips to anywhere that he would come into contact with strangers
No visits to anyone else's house
Severely limit contact with other family members

I have to stress that anything we have done so far before the visit was carefully considered, he is a super active little boy who has been used to being out and about all the time. We had been heading out two to three mornings a week for a few hours and had restricted this to a local cafe with play area, our local park and a little mum's and tots group. We had visited my mum's house on two occasions.

He has come to us from a long term foster home where he had several secure attachments.

Since her visit we have really felt that we can't go anywhere and are agonising over where we can and can't go and who he can see. The difficulty is that we are now trying to entertain a 3 yo at home in the middle of winter for 12 hours a day. I have pretty much exhausted my theraplay ideas. It's exhausting for us and I feel that LO is more unsettled than ever.

My close family have suggested that we need to just use our judgement and get things back on track but I am so afraid of getting things wrong. I'm sure LO is sensing that we aren't feeling good about things too.

Any advice greatly appreciated.

Xx

[Italiangreyhound]

I guess social workers vary greatly.

To be honest I was very lucky and had great social workers but I wouldn't assume social workers knew best.

[MummySharkDoDo]

I’d add schools are also different. I’ve often felt SW were v v v keen to keep routines of nursery etc from the off, and parents very often felt pressured. I was often suggesting a slower start because of difficulty settling, but it was always a huge no no. SW would state it would make them stand out among their peers (yet often ask for them to share stuff to the class too). I never pushed as such, but I certainly put the idea on the table a fair few times

[everythingbacktofront]

Good to hear!

[MummySharkDoDo]

By successful I certainly don’t mean no difficulties!!! I’m just referring to the outcome of we’ll bonded happy kids in the long term

[MummySharkDoDo]

Teenage families, now past years of my school and just friends.

I have no judgement on what anyone does, it’s all different and each case is different.. I’m just saying trusting your judgement, along with advice from multiple sources often works

[everythingbacktofront]

mummyshark when you are referring to wonderful successful families, are you referring to still young families or families who have hit teenage years and beyond? I was wondering as often problems come to light later on. Younger children of 8 or 9 can seem fine because there are so many things to distract them. But I hope that you are indeed referring to teenage and beyond!

[Italiangreyhound]

MummySharkDoDo Although I like the idea of trust your judgement, in our situation our school put some pressure on us to get our son into school quickly.

They didn't want us to trust our judgment.

We took advice from a specialist adoption related ed pysch. We had a slow entry to school and all is mostly well.

Putting children into school quickly might be right for some but I can't see how for the majority.

I think school only see one side.

When the teacher saw my adopted son and birth daughter interacting in the class after school, she was so surprised. She said 'We never see this behaviour at school.' Or words to that affect.

I just think kids can sometimes present one way at school and another at home.

[MummySharkDoDo]

Disclaimer: I’m not an adopter, I sometimes pop on here for a dose of reality as I as a teacher with responsibility for LAC only see one side...

But from my view, and Ive become close friends with a few, I’ve known families who’ve had kids in nursery or my school within a week who’ve thrived into wonderful successful families. My friend did similar with a nearly 3 year old, whilst I don’t know al the ins and outs it makes me inclined to say ‘trust your judgement’.

[Woollysocks18]

Hi tldr, I hadn't considered timing our outings at the same time every day. We have nailed down meal times and sleep times but it's also something else worth thinking about. We have a crafty box and do stuff regularly, thank goodness for pinterest. I like the obstacle course and fetch ideas, thank you.

Thankfully LO has never been what I would call inappropriately friendly, even with our close family, but he will say hi to people and of course people think this is fabulous and then engage him further so I do take thomas' point on how strangers can be a liability. We've found a paddling pool nearby that can be booked so are looking into that.

[Thomassmuggit]

Swimming is fantastic. Sometimes you can access local hydrotherapy pools, or sensory rooms. Soft play in the early morning is often empty.

It's hard. But so worth it, imo.

[tldr]

Hello OP
I tried a little dance class til LO climbed on perfect stranger’s knee for cuddle, then we stopped.

I made something of an art form out of doing chores with him. A trip to the post office could be our day’s entertainment, but it was always just me and him. I probably took him to the supermarket twice a week (and still did an online shop for what we actually would eat).

Also, if you have a garden, you can run him around out there. We used to play fetch a lot - he got to run, I got to stand still, I got to praise him and say well done every time he brought the ball back. 😂 In crappy weather I’d hide the fetch balls around the downstairs for him to find. You can set up easy obstacle courses in your house or garden too - nothing too tricky, just using cushions as stepping stones and throwing some balled up paper at a bin or something.

For arts and crafts you don’t need to be creative or have an end goal, just some stuff to mess with and see what happens. (But equally there’s tons of ideas on YouTube and Pinterest if you want.) DD and I did lots of colouring in together, DS and I watched lots of demolition videos on YouTube.

If any of these are useful, come back - I have more 😀

I also stuck religiously to routine - so we were out the house for the same 90 minutes every morning no matter what we were doing.

[Woollysocks18]

I can see some really good points so thank you all so much. I do have to stress that although the SW only knows what she has read in LOs file we did feel that a lot of what she said made sense, even if the delivery was somewhat lacking. As a child who has been looked after for most of his life, his 'normal' is being in constant contact with relative strangers, when you think about the amount of SWs, support workers etc that he has been in contact with. It will take time, lots and lots of time, to overcome that.

In theory everything she told us to do should be just the ticket to start to overcome all of that, but the reality is that he is literally climbing the walls at this stage! Maybe we aren't creative enough or fun enough or we don't have enough of the right stuff to make it work this way, but in all honesty if we don't make some changes this is just not going to work out and that is 110% the last thing we want. As some posters have said, for the sake of my sanity we really really do need to be out of the house. We had a long talk tonight and have decided against going to the mum's and tots again, I also think the cafe could go but we're still thinking about that one. We do plan to restart going to the park but I like the idea of always following the same route so we will do that going forward.

I also really like the idea of swimming, LO loves the bath we will look at where we can go that will be quiet. I also think I'll start to take up friends offers of a coffee in the evening, you become so absorbed in doing everything for LO I think I've forgotten how to have an adult conversation, DH and I collapse on the sofa in front of the tv every evening these days!

Thanks again for all your advice, it has been so helpful x

[Thomassmuggit]

Ime, FC do play down attachment seeking behaviours.

Funnelling doesn't have to mean isolation, no, but it can be difficult to ask, e.g., Cafe staff to back off being so friendly. If the child is at an age where secure kids would have some stranger awareness, and yet yours doesn't, that would ring alarm bells. A few "small world" months now could save major difficulties later. Ime, again, sws are more likely to be too lax about over-familiar behaviour, or of attachment, so it's quite nice to hear of some that value the benefits of working hard at it. It is hard work. And you can only do so much, or you go mad, but that doesn't stop it being beneficial. The investment now, especially with Christmas, can pay off hugely later.

[Ted27]

funnelling does not have to mean isolation, which the SW here is suggesting. If you take the advice not to go anywhere where you might come into contact with strangers you literally cannot go anywhere.

At some point you have to have a nornmal life. What about those of us who adopt school age children, or single adopters. There is a balance to be struck with funnelling. No one suggested that it was a good idea to throw this child into party central or hand them over to babysitters for a few hours.
I agree funnelling isnt just an early days thing - my son is 14, we are 6 years in, we still have times when its just us, over Christmas itself we saw no one for three days. Because we needed the time out together.
Like most things its about balance.
The SW seemed to be concerned that the child said hello to the cafe staff, if its a regular outing then the child will be familiar with them so a hello would be natural. But there are ways of teaching a three year old not to say hello to random strangers without stopping trips to the park or the cafe

[Thomassmuggit]

Funnelling is the best investment we made, especially over Christmas. Depending on the child, the community where you loud, etc, strangers can be a complete liability in terms of destabilising a loosely attached child.

Going against the grain of the thread, I would advise caution about disregarding this archive, and explore what the SW saw to prompt it.

Funnelling isn't just an early days thing.

[MurkyWaters]

I work as a carer in a care home for looked after children and although it is not the same as adoption (I myself am now in the process of adopting) in my experience a lot of the time the social workers have got so much on that they work according to a standard playbook. In order to tick a box and to cover their backsides. As if each child fits the exact same mould.
Having spoken to a lot of adopters, before we decided to go down this route, I have learned that you have to use your own judgment a lot.
Some people took their child to meet the family after a week or went on a holiday the following month. For some families it worked and others returned home after several hours as the child needed more time to settle.
Learn and adapt according to circumstances. Try something and if it doesn't work, change your plans.
It's not like coming into contact with strangers in your presence will prevent the child from forming a positive attachment with you, is it?

[pastalavistababy]

I normally lurk more than I post but I wanted to say that your circumstances are very similar to ours, OP, as DS moved in with us when he was 3. I don’t want to disparage any of the sensible and wise comments you’ve received so far but I would say that for us, fairly extreme funnelling did work. We prioritised time at home and made that the focus of our life. We did a daily visit to the park but we kept to the same route and pointed out the same things. We did a visual schedule with the same mealtimes and the same activities. We kept his world VERY VERY small with very few new people in it. I think it was a good thing... and it worked for us. Perhaps this is what your SW is alluding to? Anyway, in any event, I hope you’re doing well and managing OK.

[Moomooboo]

Really glad to read this thread!

We are also 3 months into placement and absolutely loving it - but when I said I was going to groups I was greeted with shock and horror at our first review. Our LO is younger - 10 months now, but is incredibly active and had a very busy life with foster carer.

If we stay in, both of us just get really bored! He starts trying to climb the TV and I spend my whole time trying to entertain him with the same rattles that he’s seen over and over again.

Family is so important to me and my mum has been round quite a bit and so has my mum in law - they love our DS and have been so incredibly helpful. It’s been such a drastic change to our lives. It’s almost like they want you to have this amazing support network but then not call on them for any kind of practical help!

I completely get that our adopted children need to bond with us as their primary carers. But all the groups I go to- nobody else is looking after him. I don’t understand why you wouldn’t be allowed to go to the park, it’s not as if your child would be interacting with anybody else...

I have just ignored advice - as I need to go to the groups so I can ask questions about childcare and become a better parent, and so I can learn some ideas on how to play/sing to my child. It has made our bond stronger - going to groups and has given us the entertainment we both need!

[MarthaG]

I would ignore that advice. SW advice is inconsistent therefore not gospel in my eyes. After all it is only that, advice, you could kindly acknowledge it ..... and then ignore it ! X

[flapjackfairy]

To be honest as a foster carer and adopter I have learnt to take SW comments with a pinch of salt. There are many excellent ones but others are hung up on going by the textbook. Is she newly qualified? They are often long on theory but short on experience and are keen to try and do it by the book.
I agree with everyone else. Trust your own instincts . You sound like you are doing great.

[Italiangreyhound]

Woollysocks18 he ds was 3 when he came to us and I had something similar. Was told to avoid toddler groups etc but very soon I found it very hard to be at home all the time!

We ended up going to a toddler swim once a week, and a toddler group once a week. Ds didn't interact with the other adults and didn't even interact much with the other kids. But it was a big open space full of toys and for me it was an hour out of the house.

When you go to court and the adoption becomes final you won't need to deal with social workers anymore.

[Colourfullanguage]

Oh and after months of being with your children, I can safely say you know better than a sw. purely because you know the kids!

[Colourfullanguage]

Our daughter was 1 when she came home. She came from a busy foster family with lots of children that she loved interacting with. Luckily the sw were not rigid and her foster carer told us that our daughter would probably relax with my young niece and nephew round.

We compromised and did visits to neutral places with her cousins and our family. I don’t think anybody visited us in our home for about 2months just because we wanted her to associate home with us. She was and is such a sociable girl, we even took her to her cousins birthday party a week in! She just sat at the side watching with great interest as his little friends ran round.
I just made sure that absolutely all care was done by us. My family were very good, the instant she cried they took her to me. They knew I had to comfort her. We are 3 years in now and she adores my family. If she gets hurt she will accept a cuddle off her nan etc but she then reaches out for me or her dad. Attachment takes ages!

[Woollysocks18]

Some really great points for us to consider. It was always foremost on our minds that anywhere we went was quiet and we stayed close to LO throughout, providing all care as some of you have mentioned.

Santa Claus brought LO a bike so we ventured out around the block today, LO loved it. I think we will slowly work back towards a few trips out to familiar places a week, although probably best to wait until all the schools are back.

I think the hardest bit of the last few weeks has been trying to pick ourselves up after what felt like a very negative meeting, we have questioned our every move and doubted our own judgement. We just need to accept that we can't get this perfectly right all the time but keep in mind everything we know about building attachment and do our best.

Thanks again xx