A Long Way From Home

by Cathy Glass

  I flicked back through the Life Story Book, looking more carefully at some of the photographs. I suppose I was looking for any sign of where something might have gone wrong. But of course a photo is a small moment in time, a second, not the full picture. Mrs Taylor had said there’d been problems almost straight away. It was so very sad – from all that promise of happiness to the reality of now. I wondered how much Anna looked at her Life Story Book. I hoped it wasn’t too much. A Life Story Book should be used with discretion to help answer any questions the child might have about their past, not as a constant reminder. Again, Mrs Taylor’s words came back to me about her sister’s adopted children needing to move on from their past.

  I returned the book to the bag and took out the Memory Box, which had Anna’s name on the front in fancy lettering. Inside it was a treasure trove of memorabilia from Anna’s past. An empty milkshake carton that, the tag said, Anna had drunk in the car after leaving court. Then a wrapper from a packet of biscuits with the name and ingredients in a foreign language. The tag said, Anna’s favourite biscuits. Pity we can’t get them in England, so I guessed these were the biscuits Anna had mentioned to me. I took out the clothes she’d worn at court, and then a crucifix on a chain in a box with a note saying it had been given to Anna at court by her mother. ‘Birth mother,’ I found myself saying out loud. ‘Elaine, you’re her mother.’ Little wonder Anna is angry: to lose one mother is traumatic, but to lose your adoptive mother too was painful beyond belief.

  Aware that time was ticking by, I carefully returned the items to the Memory Box. I felt I had been party to their adoption journey and it helped me to understand, although clearly there was a lot I still didn’t know. I continued sorting through the other bags and boxes and took them upstairs. The items Anna would need with her now I took into her bedroom, and the rest I stowed out of the way in the loft. Then it was time to collect Anna from school.

  At two o’clock Miss Rich brought Anna to reception as arranged and told me she’d done a nice piece of literacy work, but unfortunately there’d been an incident with another child in the playground and as a sanction Anna had lost some of her playtime. ‘Oh dear,’ I said, frowning at Anna. It was important she knew I was disappointed with her behaviour, even though it had happened at school. Miss Rich said there was spelling homework in Anna’s bag, and she’d checked it was still there.

  ‘Also,’ she said, looking a little uncomfortable, ‘I need to tell you that Anna said your son has been bullying her.’

  ‘What! Adrian?’ I said, astonished. ‘That’s ridiculous. Anna hasn’t had anything to do with him since she arrived. They’re never alone together in the same room.’

  ‘Anna said it just after she’d been told off in the playground for bullying the other child, so we thought it might be a reaction to that,’ Miss Rich added.

  I looked at Anna, who didn’t meet my gaze. ‘You mustn’t make up things like that,’ I said firmly. ‘It’s very wrong and could get people into trouble.’

  ‘Well, he did!’ she persisted.

  ‘When? What did he do?’

  ‘Can’t remember,’ she said with a shrug.

  ‘No, because it didn’t happen.’

  She shrugged again. I didn’t think Miss Rich believed her, but that wasn’t the point. Incidents like this can have serious consequences for foster carers and their families. Any allegation made by a foster child is noted by the social services and investigated. If it is serious enough, the child can be removed from the carer and the carer even suspended from fostering pending an investigation. I’d make a note of what Anna had said and the circumstances in which it had been said in my log, and also inform Jill the next time we spoke.

  Worried, I said goodbye to Miss Rich and left the building with Anna. ‘You mustn’t make up things,’ I said to her again.

  ‘Can if I want,’ she returned.

  ‘Anna, I know you’re angry and upset, but trying to make trouble for others because you’ve been told off is not going to help. And it could lead to you having to move again to another carer.’

  ‘Don’t care,’ she said, and that was part of Anna’s problem. She didn’t care. One of the symptoms of a Reactive Attachment Disorder is the child’s apparent callous disregard for consequences, others and what others think of them. All children test the boundaries sometimes and say they don’t care, but mostly children do care and want to do the right thing to please their parents (or main caregiver). But because Anna hadn’t formed a secure and meaningful attachment in those crucial early years, she didn’t feel she needed to do the right thing or please others. The damage could be undone but it would need the help of a therapist, so I hoped the referral Lori was making wouldn’t take too long.

  I watched Anna like a hawk once we were all home, and didn’t let her out of my sight, but then I hadn’t before. I also mentioned to Adrian that he wasn’t to be alone with Anna even for a second. Sad though this was, I daren’t risk her making more potentially harmful allegations; she wouldn’t see the damage she could do. Adrian didn’t ask why but knew enough of fostering to appreciate that sometimes these steps were necessary.

  Aware that Anna was likely to be resistant to doing her homework, I created a small incentive and said we’d do homework before we had pudding. Anna liked her puddings. I fetched her school bag from where she’d left it in the hall and, returning to the table, took out the list of spellings she had to learn. Adrian had his homework and Paula was getting her reading book from her school bag. Anna spent a lot of time fiddling around, ignoring me and avoiding what needed to be done, then said her spellings were too hard. ‘I’ll help you,’ I said.

  ‘I don’t need your help.’

  ‘OK. I’ll listen to Paula read then.’

  ‘I want my pudding first,’ Anna demanded.

  ‘We’ll have pudding after we’ve all done our homework.’

  ‘Why not now?’ she persisted. I heard Adrian sigh.

  ‘Because we’ll do the homework first.’ I returned my attention to Paula and eventually, after more fiddling around and trying to distract Adrian, she began learning her spellings. There were only six but she did seem to find them difficult to remember. When I tested her on them she only knew three well, but at least she had done as I’d asked – eventually.

  Because everything was such a struggle with Anna we didn’t have time to sit down together and relax as a family in the evening. After homework and pudding I began their bedtime routine and steeled myself for more refusals and confrontations. It was 8.30 before Anna was out of the bath and in bed. Adrian and Paula were already in bed with their bedroom doors closed, so they would hopefully be able to get off to sleep. I took up my place on the landing ready to return Anna to bed with minimum disruption. She was persistent to say the least – old habits die hard. If she had been sleeping with her parents every night, it would take time to change that. There was less screaming and kicking tonight, and when she was in her bed asleep at ten o’clock I viewed it as a huge step forward. I still had time to go downstairs, make a cup of tea and write up my log notes before going to bed.

  I’ll admit that looking after Anna was stretching me to the limit. I went to bed exhausted and was continually on guard. I could understand why the previous carers had given up so quickly. Looking after Anna wasn’t the joy of fostering a child who just wanted to be loved and cared for. It was part of Anna’s condition that she gave the impression she didn’t need anyone. I knew from my training that managing her behaviour was paramount, but I could only do so much. Once in therapy she would hopefully be helped to understand her own emotions and taught to appreciate those of others too.

  Chapter Twenty

  Bad at Home

  The strain of having Anna live with us was taking its toll on Adrian and Paula. Since she’d arrived I had hardly spent a minute with them, and they were looking forward more than usual to spending the day with their father on Sunday, when he would take them out somewhere nice. He saw them every month
and phoned in between. Regardless of what I thought of him leaving us, I didn’t let it impact on Adrian and Paula’s relationship with him. I told Anna they were seeing their father and I wondered if this would prompt a comment from her about seeing her own parents. She’d hardly mentioned them at all since she’d arrived, which was very unusual. Most children who come into care, even those who have been abused by their parents, pine for them, want to see them as soon as possible and often ask when they can return home. Anna had originally said she didn’t want to see her mother. Had that changed? Apparently not. She didn’t mention wanting to see her parents at all – not then, at least.

  Once Adrian and Paula had left with their father, I asked Anna what she would like to do and suggested the cinema, a park (the weather was cold but dry) or an indoor activity centre. She didn’t want to do any of these, so I said we could do something at home then. She shrugged and didn’t offer a better suggestion, so I opened the toy cupboard in the conservatory and asked her to choose some games we could play together. The phone rang and I answered it in the living room. It was my mother; we usually spoke a couple of times a week, but now I said I’d have to call her back later for a chat. When I returned to the conservatory Anna was nowhere to be seen. I’d only been away from her for a couple of minutes. I went round the downstairs calling her name and then upstairs. My bedroom door was wide open and I went in to find her going through my wardrobe.

  ‘Anna, whatever are you doing?’ I asked, going over.

  ‘Nothing,’ she said. But she didn’t immediately stop.

  ‘That’s private,’ I said, and closed the wardrobe door. ‘Do you remember when you first arrived, I explained our bedrooms were private and we didn’t go into each other’s rooms unless we were asked?’

  ‘You go into mine,’ she said.

  I was taken aback. It wasn’t the reaction of an average five-year-old, even one with behavioural issues. ‘Yes, because I am your carer and I look after you. I go into your room to make your bed, put your clothes away and keep it clean and tidy. At your age it’s part of my responsibility. When you are older you can do it yourself. Now come on, out of here, we’re going downstairs to find a game to play.’

  She didn’t move, but stood with her back to the wardrobe. ‘I go into my parents’ bedroom whenever I want,’ she said brazenly.

  ‘That’s up to them,’ I said.

  ‘No, it’s up to me.’

  I believed her, and not for the first time I saw that the distinction between adult and child in their house had become blurred. This, among other things, would make disciplining Anna very difficult. Children need to see the adult in the parent, set apart from them, in order to respect and be guided by them, until they become adults when (hopefully) they have learned what they need to be responsible for themselves.

  ‘Well, in this house we don’t go into each other’s rooms unless asked,’ I reiterated. ‘Now, come on downstairs and I’ll choose us a game to play.’ This was enough for her to leave.

  ‘I’m going to choose the game, not you!’ And she rushed out.

  I closed my bedroom door. I didn’t want to have to start locking it as I had done with one young person I’d fostered, but I might have to if Anna kept going in. Apart from the privacy issue, I had items likes scissors and nail varnish remover in my room, which could be harmful in a young child’s hands.

  Downstairs Anna was already rummaging in the toy cupboard. Taking out a large, brightly coloured jigsaw puzzle suitable for quite young children, she took it to the table. I sat on the chair next to her but it soon became clear she didn’t want me to join her, so I simply sat beside her. When the puzzle was only half complete she gave up, despite my offer to help her finish it, and chose another. The second didn’t get completed either, but the third did. Then she wanted to crayon, then ten minutes later paint, then model with Play-Doh, and so the day continued with a break for lunch.

  Usually when I have one-to-one time with the child I’m fostering I find our time together is enjoyable and it advances our relationship, with the opportunity to talk and break down barriers. But I didn’t feel that with Anna, not at all. Although I stayed close by her as she played, she didn’t want me to join in any of the activities and continued to reject me and shut me out of her world. Any questions or comments I made she answered with a shrug or ‘don’t know’, or she just ignored me. It was hard work and the day disappointing. Also, not only had our one-to-one had no positive effect on Anna, I discovered later it had actually had a negative one. When Adrian and Paula returned Anna clearly resented them being back, as she was no longer the centre of attention. She told Adrian she didn’t like him and that his father would die soon.

  ‘Anna, that’s a hurtful thing to say, and untrue,’ I said.

  She shrugged dismissively, then pushed Paula out of her way so hard she fell over. I told her off again and said she’d lost television time. It was an impotent sanction as Anna barely watched television, but I had to do something.

  ‘Don’t care,’ she said, and clearly didn’t.

  The atmosphere was strained, with Adrian and Paula even more wary of Anna now, and at dinner they weren’t their usual chatty selves after a day out with their father. Of course I felt guilty for allowing this to happen. After dinner I read to Adrian and Paula while Anna, who didn’t want to listen, played with one of her toys. Then I began their bath and bedtime routine, taking Anna and Paula up first.

  ‘Why do I always have to go up before Adrian?’ Anna grumbled.

  ‘Because you’re younger than him.’

  It was around ten o’clock again when Anna finally settled and stopped getting out of bed, and as usual once asleep she slept through until I woke her the following morning for school. I praised her, but not too much, for my amateur psychology said that if Anna thought she was starting to cooperate she would rebel and go back to square one. The following night, to my absolute delight and relief, after I’d said goodnight and come out of her room she didn’t leave her bed, not once! Nor the night after, so I knew we had turned a corner with this issue at least. She might relapse, but it would be easier to correct the next time – the hard work was done here. And this wasn’t just about us all having a good night’s sleep, but about Anna doing what the adult looking after her had asked.

  The next morning at eleven o’clock Jill visited as arranged. I made us coffee and we settled in the living room, with the heating turned up and Toscha asleep on her favourite chair. Her visits usually lasted about an hour, but she was with me for nearly two as there was so much to discuss – an indication of how complex Anna’s needs were. By the time she left there was just an hour before I had to return to collect Anna from school. The next time I’d see Jill would be at Anna’s review in three days’ time.

  As well as managing Anna’s challenging behaviour I was trying to help her sort out the muddle of thoughts about past and present and who her ‘real’ parents were. The longer Anna was with me the more I appreciated what her teacher, Mrs Taylor, had said about Anna confusing the past and present. So successful had Anna’s parents been in doing what is seen as the right thing and making Anna aware of her origins that it had created confusion, mixed loyalties, insecurity and uncertainty in her. If I asked her about home, she was unsure if I meant the orphanage, home with her birth mother or home with her adoptive parents. Similarly, if I mentioned her mother she’d say, ‘Which mother?’ She told me her father was dead. I didn’t know if her natural father was dead or not, the paperwork didn’t say, but certainly her adoptive father – the one she should have thought of as her father – was alive. Lori was in the process of tracing him.

  What I had also noticed was that if Anna mentioned a memory from her early years, before the adoption, it was always of a scene in one of the photographs in her Life Story Book. Sometimes she repeated the caption her parents had written beneath, for example: ‘My mother is a lovely lady. She was very brave outside the court.’ Or, ‘I went on a plane. An hour to landing.’
So that I thought most of her ‘recollections’ were in fact false memories from the Life Story Book. If I asked her anything outside of these, such as, ‘Did you have toys at the orphanage?’ or, ‘What did you have to eat there?’ she didn’t know. I’m not saying she didn’t have any memories of her early years, just that most of what she believed she remembered appeared to be from the photographs and what her parents had told her. It was something I would bring up with her social worker and possibly at the review.

  All children in care have regular reviews. The child’s parent(s), social worker, teacher, foster carer, the foster carer’s supervising social worker and any other adults closely connected with the child meet to ensure that everything is being done to help the child, and that the care plan (drawn up by the social services) is up to date. Very young children don’t usually attend their reviews, whereas older children do. I’d received the review forms in the post, which Anna and I were expected to fill in and I would take to the review. There’d been a note enclosed from Lori saying she wouldn’t be able to see Anna before the review, but as her parents were being invited and there was no contact at present she didn’t think it was appropriate for Anna to attend. At her age not many children did attend anyway, and their views were expressed through the review form and their foster carer.

  Given Anna’s general lack of cooperation, I wasn’t expecting her to be at all interested in completing her review form, but the expectation is that the carer tries. It is a child-friendly booklet with colourful illustrations and questions designed to ascertain the child’s feelings and wishes on being in care. After dinner that evening I asked Anna to remain at the table (while Adrian and Paula went into the living room) and, taking the booklet, I sat beside her and explained about the review and the questions. She was interested and grabbed the booklet from my hand. I knew she couldn’t read the questions or write her responses, so I said, ‘I’ll read the questions to you and then you tell me what you want to say and I’ll write it.’ This was what I usually did. She nodded, which was a first.