Terrible 2's

[mum2tots]

There's only one thing harder than terrible 2's and that is a foster child in their terrible 2's. I feel frustrated a lot at the moment. She is lovely but does nothing for herself, pretends she doesn't know how to do the simplest things and with a 3 and 5 year old of my own its been quite stressful. Also my first placement and a very complicated case.....not sure why i've posted this...just needed to vent. :(

I can imagine what hard work it must be with 3 very young ones and all the more so as this is your first placement. When we got our first placement of siblings aged 3 and 6 I lost over a stone in the first month and never sat down!
You mustn't forget it is very early days yet and the little one will still be settling in for a while yet, getting used to your routines and your own children etc.
I know it's easier said than done but assuming you've got real life support try and take a breather even if it's just for a cup of tea ( which I never manage to finish incidentally!)
A few months down the line hopefully you will be able to see little differences which hopefully will make your current frustration feel worthwhile.
Good luck.

first placement....toddler....its no wonder you are stressed! how long has she been with you?

No matter how prepared we are, I think that the difference between our own children, who have had a nice secure upbringing, and the foslings, who have had neglect and abuse in their lives, is a stark contrast. Maybe the fosling justs needs to regress a little and be the baby, in order to heal herself.

My last LO regressed and wanted to be fed, would only drink from a bottle, wouldnt even help get himself dressed, wouldnt potty train, couldnt play... But after a while, he started to change and feel happier and while he was still demanding, he needed that time to feel secure and loved. He needed me to be the mum he didnt have.

She's been here almost 3 months now. She doesn't play at all and doesn't understand imaginative play. We are still trying hard to convince her you can pretend to give teddies a drink. She's with us due to sexual abuse so of course i can't leave any of them unsupervised either which has me exhausted. She's not showed any behaviour towards my kids but i can't risk it. She's broken two pairs of glasses in 6 days as well. She has come a long way since she arrived, and i adore having her around most of the time but that's not to say it's not hard some days

its still early days, we had to teach ours how to play, bit by bit, teaching him how to play in the sandpit and how to drive his cars and trains into the tunnel....fundamentally, his language was so poor and his understanding so limited (from never having been spoken to, and from never doing anything) that until his speech was developing, his play just couldnt go anywhere. Once his speech improved, he was able to start expressing himself. We found lots of books - starting with "thats not my truck" type books, then moving onto story books - helped to develop his language but also his imagination. we could "act out" the story, and then allow it to develop a little.

as a well seasoned foster carer, and therapeutic carer the simplest advice i can give you is 1. don`t compare your foslings to others.2. half their age and act appropriate likewise.3.dont set yourself up to fail trust will be gained over time speak soft plenty of eye contact track your movements and thoughts with the child as you would with a young child.4.after every outburst keep calm rewind find the trigger and change what you did and try again. no gun fires without a trigger find the triggers find the child. good luck