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

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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’.

[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.

[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!

[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

[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

[everythingbacktofront]

Good to hear!

[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

[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.