by Cathy Glass
‘No, I looked them,’ he said, popping another one into his mouth.
‘But Reece, that’s stealing. I didn’t pay for them.’
He gave a shrug. ‘No worries. The police can’t do me. I’m under age.’
I stared at him, dumbfounded, as he chewed loudly, unashamed by his admission. Clearly Reece had no idea that stealing was wrong but was well aware he was below the age of criminal responsibility and therefore couldn’t be prosecuted even if he was caught.
‘Who told you that?’ I asked.
He shrugged. ‘Don’t know.’ So I could guess.
‘Did you use to steal things when you lived at home?’
He didn’t say anything, but popped another pastel in his mouth and grinned. I certainly couldn’t let him enjoy the spoils of his theft. I opened my door and got out. I went round to his door.
‘Reece,’ I said leaning in and taking the pastels. ‘You have taken these without paying for them, so they are not yours. It’s stealing. We have to pay for the things we want: we don’t just take them.’
‘But they’re mine!’ he yelled, making a grab for them.
‘No. They are not, Reece. They belong to the shop. They only become ours if we pay for them.’
If the item had been of any greater value I would have taken it back to the store, but returning a half-eaten tube of fruit pastels was going to cause more trouble than it was worth, particularly as I would have to take Reece with me and he was now erupting with force.
‘Mine!’ he yelled, kicking the back of the seat in a frenzy. ‘Mine! Give me them! Thief!’ which I thought was choice.
‘No, Reece. You won’t have these sweets. They are not yours, they are the shop’s.’ I dropped them into my coat pocket to throw away later.
‘Mine,’ he screamed. ‘Mum gives me the sweets when I help her.’
‘Help her do what?’ I asked over the noise.
‘Take things,’ he said. Then he stopped.
‘You stole things for your mum?’
He stopped screaming and looked at me. ‘Hate you,’ he said and poked out his tongue, which was bright green from the pastels.
The return journey from the supermarket was more eventful than the one going when Reece had sat quietly in his seat with the promise of pushing the trolley. Now he screamed, yelled he hated me and kicked the seat relentlessly. I had to stop three times to resettle him and return him to under his seatbelt. After repeated warnings, I told him he had lost thirty minutes’ television time that evening because I couldn’t have him distracting me while driving, as it was dangerous.
‘I’m watching television,’ he yelled defiantly as we finally entered the house.
‘No, you are not, Reece. You can help me to unload the car or you can play with some toys.’
‘I’m watching telly,’ he yelled again, sticking out his tongue.
I ignored it and began unloading the car with the front gate bolted so that he couldn’t run out into the road if he had a mind to. Each time I carried the bags of shopping into the house I checked on where he was and what he was doing, which was zooming around, arms outstretched and making whooping noises, so at least I knew where he was.
Once I had all the bags in the hall I began carrying them through to the kitchen. ‘Would you like to help me?’ I called to Reece, but he was in no mood for cooperating. By the time I had all the bags in the kitchen Reece had done a dozen laps of the house and was demanding lunch.
‘You can have lunch, yes,’ I said, glancing at the clock. ‘It’s twelve o’clock. But say “Can I have lunch?” rather than “Give me”. Sit at the table and I’ll make you a sandwich.’
The promise of food settled Reece and I quickly made a ham sandwich, which he ate while I unpacked the food into the cupboards and fridge-freezer. As soon as he’d finished he was out of his seat and orchestrating one of his plane landings or shark attacks. I made a hasty sandwich for myself, took it into the living room and ate it while reading Reece some stories. He was quiet again and the incident of the sweets had now been forgotten. I wouldn’t say anything more about them now, but next time we went shopping I would remind him that things in the shops only became ours when we paid for them.
Sadly, Reece wasn’t the first child I had come across whose parents had primed their child to thieve as though they were modern-day equivalents of Fagin. Sometimes it had been out of necessity — there was no food in the house and the benefit money wasn’t due until the following week. Sometimes it had been for more expensive items like iPods, jewellery and CDs, where the easiest option was to take the item rather than save up for it as socialized parents teach their children to do. I didn’t know enough of Reece’s home situation to know whether it was from necessity or greed he had been trained to steal and then rewarded with sweets, but clearly I would have to be more alert in future, because I still had absolutely no idea when he had slipped the sweets into his coat pocket. His technique had clearly been well designed and I suspected well practised.
The afternoon passed with me reading Reece more books and then with me beside him, painting and Play-Doh. This was interspersed with him zooming around when there was a break in the activity. Reece repeatedly asked if he could have his television on and I repeatedly explained that he had lost half an hour of his television time for his behaviour in the car, and that he could have it on at four o’clock instead of 3.30 when the pre-school programmes began.
When Lucy and Paula returned, I briefly took them aside and, having asked them how their day had gone, told them of Reece’s comment that morning after he’d kissed them goodbye. I didn’t need to say anything more: they knew the implications of having a sexually aware child in the house, and they also knew the guidelines we all had to follow. We followed the ‘safer caring’ guidelines anyway, with any fostered child, but if there were issues over possible sexual abuse or even inappropriate television watching which had made the child sexually aware, we were even more careful. So, for example, bedtime stories were read downstairs, not in the child’s bedroom, and kisses and cuddles were given downstairs, with the child at our side, not on our laps or face to face. It’s sad, really, because we naturally hug and kiss our own children without a second thought, but with a child who has been sexually abused, or has come from a highly sexualized and inappropriate home life, even the most innocent of hugs or kisses (like those the girls had allowed Reece that morning) can be misinterpreted. Reece would still be having his hugs and kisses — he was after all a little seven-year-old — but there would always be someone else present and we would be just that bit more careful so that nothing could be misconstrued by him.
Jill phoned just after 5.00 p.m. and I updated her, and before I went to bed I wrote up my log notes. That night I lay in bed contemplating and worrying over the day’s events, and I wondered how well I had handled everything that had happened — from Reece’s hyperactive behaviour, to the stealing, and of course his comments about giving the girls one. Foster carers are plagued by analysing and self-doubt, even more so than when raising one’s own children; for when all is said and done what greater responsibility is there than bringing up someone else’s child?
Chapter Six:
Kids in Care
On Sunday evening, as we were approaching the end of our first weekend together, I was feeling quite positive. Although it had been hard work, with Lucy and Paula home for the weekend the three of us had been working together and continually reinforcing the expected standards of behaviour. Perhaps it was my imagination, but Reece now seemed to be cooperating more readily than he had done during the first couple of days. I was still having to resettle him regularly in the morning, but it was taking only half an hour rather than the hour and a half when he’d first arrived. He slept well each night and because Lucy and Paula had helped, the task of caring for Reece’s many needs had been split three ways and hadn’t been so draining on me. We’d had only a couple of incidents over the weekend when he’d tried to head-butt and none of him b
iting.
It was seven o’clock. Reece had had his bath and hair wash and was downstairs in the living room in his pyjamas, dressing gown and shark-shaped slippers. Paula was reading him some bedtime stories. We had all been sitting together in the living room to begin with; then Lucy left to watch a television programme in her bedroom and I slipped into the kitchen to clear up. I had purposely left the living-room door open — this was one of our safer caring policies — and I was standing in the kitchen waiting for the kettle to boil.
Suddenly I heard Paula squeal, and then shout: ‘No, Reece! That’s naughty! Don’t do that!’
Paula is the most quietly spoken and placid of my three children and it was so unlike her to raise her voice, let alone cry out in alarm, that I was instantly out of the kitchen and into the living room. Reece was still sitting on the sofa, now grinning from ear to ear. Paula was on her feet and looked flustered and alarmed.
‘What is it?’ I asked her.
‘Don’t know,’ Reece said.
I looked at Paula, who, while not crying, was quite clearly upset and embarrassed.
‘I’m talking to Paula,’ I said to Reece. I looked again at Paula.
She came up close to me and, with her back to Reece, said quietly: ‘Mum, he grabbed my breast and tried to put his hand up my skirt.’
‘Reece!’ I said, turning and glaring at him.
‘So?’ he said and shrugged, clearly seeing absolutely nothing wrong in his behaviour.
‘Stay there,’ I said to him. I drew Paula out of the living room and into the hall so we couldn’t be overheard. I wanted to speak to Paula first and find out exactly what had happened before I spoke to Reece. ‘Are you all right?’ I asked. It was an unpleasant thing for a grown woman to have to deal with, let alone a self-conscious teenager.
‘Yes,’ she said, still acutely embarrassed. ‘I was just reading him a story and he suddenly grabbed my breast. Then he tried to put his hand up my skirt and kiss me on the lips.’
‘Dear me!’ I said, appalled. I’ll talk to him now.’ Paula knew it was no good me simply telling off Reece, because he had seen nothing wrong in his lewd behaviour and therefore wouldn’t know what he was being told off for. If he had come from a home environment where it had been the norm for people to grope each other, then he was probably copying what he had seen without any moral judgement or principle.
I desperately needed more information on Reece’s background to know what exactly I was dealing with in terms of the level of abuse at home. No one had phoned from the social services on Friday and when Jill had phoned she didn’t have any more information. I would phone her first thing on Monday and ask her to find out more. I wasn’t having my family abused because of simple lack of information. It is a sad fact that foster families are abused by the children they look after — physically, mentally and, even as had just happened to Paula, sexually. However, I could minimize the risk by knowing more, and it was a sign of how mature my family had become with fostering and having to deal with this type of behaviour that Paula wasn’t more distressed by the incident.
‘I’m sorry,’ I said to her, blaming myself for not being more vigilant. ‘Are you sure you’re OK?’ I gave her a hug.
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I know it’s difficult. He didn’t think he was doing anything wrong, Mum.’
‘I know, but he is going to start to learn, and now.’
Paula went upstairs to her room while I returned to the living room. Reece was still sitting on the sofa and looking at the book, not zooming around as he normally did if we left him alone for a minute, so that I wondered if he was subdued because part of him knew what he had done was wrong and he was expecting to be told off. How naive I was!
‘Isn’t she gonna read the story?’ Reece asked as I went over and sat beside him on the sofa.
‘No, Paula isn’t going to read. She is upset and I have to tell you why.’
He didn’t look up but turned the page of the book. I took it from him and, closing it, set it to one side. I wanted his full attention.
‘Reece,’ I said, searching for eye contact. ‘I need to talk to you about how you just touched Paula. It wasn’t nice and little boys don’t do that.’
He glanced up at me and shrugged. ‘I wanted to feel her cunt. Ain’t nothing wrong in that.’
I looked at him, and felt sickened to the core. Whatever had he been party to at home to acquire that type of language? He said it so easily and matter-of-factly that he clearly believed there was absolutely nothing wrong in it. As foster carers we become used to hearing all types of crude language but never before had I heard it so blatant and in one so young.
‘Reece,’ I said, deathly serious. ‘What you did to Paula was very wrong. You touched her private parts, and they are private. We don’t touch anyone there. You have private parts which are different from a girl’s, and they are private too. Private means they are only ours. We can touch or look at our own private parts but no one else can. Do you understand?’
He shrugged again. It was a difficult conversation to have with a child of seven, even one with an average IQ, but it was so much harder to explain to a child who had learning difficulties, so I tried to explain further.
‘Reece, do you know where your private parts are? The places that only you can touch?’
‘Yeah,’ he said, grinning.
‘OK, point to them.’ He jabbed a finger towards his crotch. ‘That’s right,’ I said. ‘But it’s a wider area, all round here.’ Without actually touching him I ran an imaginary band round him, below his waist. ‘It includes your willy and your bottom,’ I said. ‘Those are a boy’s private parts. Now a girl’s private parts are down here too’ — I drew my hand across the lower part of my stomach — ‘and round here.’ I patted my bottom. ‘But girls have another area that is private, here.’ I ran my hand round my bust line. ‘This is also private and you never touch a girl in either of these places. Do you understand?’
‘Yeah,’ he said, grinning. But I wondered how much he was actively taking in, and how much of what he had seen and learned at home could now be corrected by my lecture. I paused.
‘Why did you do it, Reece?’ I asked after a moment. ‘Why did you touch Paula there?’
He shrugged. ‘Dunno. Felt like it. Felt like touching her up.’
‘Well, don’t,’ I said firmly. ‘Ever again. Do you understand me?’
His language and attitude suggested he had assumed his behaviour was completely acceptable, the most natural thing in the world, and that I was making a fuss over nothing. I shuddered at the possibilities of what exactly had been going on at home and what he had seen and heard. I was also somewhat angered that when Reece had been placed with me the social services hadn’t told me more. The family had been ‘known’ to them for years, so someone in the offices must have a good idea of what had been going on.
It is a continual and justifiable complaint of foster carers that we aren’t given enough information when it is available and known to the social services. We are told things about the foster child (or children) on a ‘need to know’ basis, and sometimes the social services’ interpretation of what we ‘need to know’ is very different from the foster carer’s. Not only does this mean that we can’t cater for the child’s needs as best we might, but in the worst-case scenario foster families have been put at risk, and even had their own children abused because vital information has been withheld. There have been cases brought by foster carers against the social services where the judge has found in favour of the foster carers and awarded damages against social services, so attitudes should have changed.
Without wishing to labour the point, a friend of mine who fosters recently had a two-year-old boy placed with her whose parents were intravenous drug users and were known to be HIV positive. The child had been given a test for the HIV virus the year before, and although the test result was known to the social services, they refused to pass it on to the carer. They said if she was practising good hygien
e then she and her family wouldn’t be at risk and so she didn’t need to know if the child was HIV positive.
I repeated to Reece what I had already told him about private parts meaning exactly that. Then, without finishing the book Paula had been reading, I took him upstairs to get ready for bed. He was still unrepentant, which was understandable, as he appeared to genuinely not know that he had done anything wrong, but as with all his unacceptable behaviour we had to try to help him unlearn it, and change what he was used to; otherwise his future was mapped out, and it wasn’t good.
After I’d settled Reece in bed and said goodnight, I checked on Paula in her bedroom. With years of experience as the daughter of a foster carer, she showed resilience and understanding.
‘It’s OK,’ she said, raising a smile. ‘It was more a shock than anything.’
‘All right, love,’ I said, kissing her cheek. ‘But I want you to put some distance between you and Reece for the next few days. It will help him to understand what is acceptable if he feels your disapproval.’
First thing on Monday morning, with Reece settled in the living room in front of a DVD of the Walt Disney Aladdin, I telephoned Jill and updated her. She appreciated the seriousness of what I was saying and said she’d phone the social services, try to get some more information and then get back to me asap.
True to her word, half an hour later Jill phoned, having spoken to Karen, who was standing in for Jamey Hogg while he was on leave. Disappointingly Karen hadn’t been able to add much beyond what she’d already told me, but had said again that she’d seen Reece watching a sexually explicit adult video when she’d visited the family, and that there were concerns about Reece’s father’s sexual behaviour towards Susie, Reece’s half-sister. This, together with neglect, had been the basis for bringing Reece and Susie into care. Karen had said that as soon as Jamey Hogg returned he would contact me.
I thanked Jill and asked if she could find out what was happening about contact arrangements, and also Reece’s schooling, as I hadn’t heard anything about either. She said she would and that she would visit us the following morning. I spent the rest of the day keeping Reece constructively occupied, reinforcing the boundaries for good behaviour and praising him at every opportunity. By the time the girls returned from school I was exhausted and dinner was late, but I felt I was making some progress.