Childcare in your own home experience

[GPL123]

Had my home visit, was all going well. But then she said she has big concerns about my relationships. I am an only child, mostly brought up by my mum, I live alone and being asexual have had no relationships. I do have close friends and lots of relationships like that. She is worried that I like to be in control and wouldn’t cope with sharing my space. How she knows this I am not sure?!
She also said about childcare experience in my house and sharing my house with a child. She wants me to ‘borrow a child’. Have them round evenings, nights and weekends.
I do understand some of her points but equally how am I meant to do this?! I have hardly any family and all are older. I have one friend with a 7 year old. But I am also a teacher at his school so a bit tricky. That’s it child wise.
Now I think it’s just a non-starter 😭 any tips?

So many adopters have this issue during the assessment process. My advice would be to ask for clarification (via email, if poss for future reference) exactly what they want you to do to satisfy there concern over your childcare experience.

Sorry it posted early... Then you can assess whether that is realistically achievable for you and discuss further with your social worker.

If I you’ve always lived alone and aren’t used to sharing your space or your life with others, it can be hard to understand just how much of a bombshell adding a child to the mix would be. The sw will want to know that you’re flexible in your approach, can cope with the chaos and mess and unpredictability that comes with a child. You may also find your personal space is massively compromised, in my case I had a 4 and 6 year old who literally clung to me 24/7 for years, they still prefer to be physically touching me if we’re in the same room and I can’t remember the last time one of them didn’t come through to my bed at some point in the night.

It’s very hard to accommodate the level of physical closeness some children really need, and if you’re not used to having someone in your space that’s a lot of culture shock to be dealing with. Can you talk through with your sw times when you’ve had to put someone else’s needs first over a protracted period of time, when you’ve had to be very flexible in your approach to life, or when you’ve had to really go with the flow. I’d be looking for personal examples rather than professional ones - as a teacher I’m sure you spent half your professional life bending over backwards, but they’re looking to see how able you are to share your life with someone else.

I think also asexuality is often misunderstood and can be taken by some to mean you’re uncomfortable with physical touch or affection which would be a problem for children who do need physical touch and need you to be able initiate that as well as respond to their approaches. I’d give some thought to how you talk about that aspect of your life, again thinking about where in your life you have physical closeness and how that might translate to parenting children.

I’m usually very critical of the demand from sw around childcare experience but if you don’t have young children in your life or wider social circle, or don’t have experience of providing care to small children I’d probably want to see you gain experience outside of a work setting.

It’s not insurmountable, but you do need to give some thought to what your sw has observed in her assessment and how you can present a different side of yourself to counter that. I’d also ask her what makes her think you need to be in control - her view may be based on assumptions or she may have examples of things you’ve discussed which has given her that impression.

If a teacher in primary doesn’t have enough childcare experience I’m not sure who does!!!!

Teaching a child in school, with rules, boundaries and a clear purpose for 6 hours a day is vastly different to having to care for a child in your own home, or having prolonged unstructured time caring for a child. If the OP said she had children in her extended family that she spent time with, or cared for children of friends I’d agree with you, but that’s not what she’s saying.

While nothing can prepare you for having a child 24/7, and for the parenting of that child I think solely basing your childcare experience on a class room setting isn’t enough. I’d be looking for good, informal, social relationships with children in addition to professional experience.

If you look at my previous posts on the matter you’ll see I’m hugely critical of the automatic demand for childcare experience regardless of the potential adopters experience but in this case, going by the OPs description of her social circumstances I think it’s reasonable.

Hi, I’m a single adopter. I’ve had a couple of long term relationships but had been single for several years when I applied. I had lodgers for a number of years.
So even though I had shared space with other people, I did find it incredibly hard when my son came home. Its a much more intimate relationship, he was like a limpet. To be honest I was glad when he went to school after 5 weeks and started swimming lessons and cubs because I got some physical and emotional space from him.

So from personal experience, your SWs concerns are not unreasonable.
Thats not to say its a deal breaker.
Acknowledging there may be an issue is not a weakness. Think how you might address the concerns, maybe it will influence the age of the child you will be looking for.

Jellycats has as always articulated things much better than I could.

I think there’s a lot of similarities between being a parent and being a teacher, especially in primary schools. I understand what you’re saying, but I feel like when it’s nearly impossible for people to achieve these said experiences it becomes a bit ridiculous.

I can understand volunteering at a nursery to gain some experience of little ones. I can’t understand befriending children that you don’t know/borrowing children!! If the OP doesn’t know anybody with children, what are they supposed to do??

It's an interesting point. I've just added a post about issues with a teacher at my child's nursery and how she managed handover, although I'm perhaps over reacting, but personally in my circumstances I'd say just because this teacher works at a nursery does not mean she has the skills to parent an adopted child, I'd have more concerns that kids are actually their field of expertise yet they seem to have little understanding or experience of working with Traumatised children /children with sensory issues, as a side note there have been other issues, this is not the only one. To be clear I'm not suggesting you are similar to this nursery teacher OP.

As others have said I would suggest you go back to the SW for clarification on some of the points raised, particularly re control. The process is designed to get you to reflect and address any underlying issues, my SW was adamant she wanted me to have counselling for something I had dealt with, from the start I told her I didn't agree it was an issue but I agreed I was happy to have counselling if it was felt it was needed, in the end she seemed happy with that.

Thanks for the replies. Some useful things to consider. I just don’t know how I can practically do it. My friend has a 7 year old but I am also a teacher at his school, she has just had a baby and he normally sees his dad at weekends. So it’s so hard. I have broached the subject of ‘borrowing’ him and didn’t get the feeling it was going to go anywhere to be honest which I can understand as well. I have looked after him, he is always around when I see her weekly but not at my home, especially now baby is born.
Thanks for the advice though, especially about showing how I have been in circumstances where I have not been in control etc.