The older age group are often dismissed as being too difficult and too much trouble. People assume that they will come along with attitude and crime and anti-social behaviours. It is true that they might, but to think that the challenges they present are somehow greater than a baby, a toddler or a 7-year-old is widely misplaced. Don’t expect the worst.
And teenagers need someone to have their back more at this crucial time of their lives. They need to know that someone is bothered about why they haven’t answered their phone, why they are late. They need someone to pick up the pieces and want them to do well. Particularly teenagers who have probably been let down and have problems with trusting adults in their lives. It is a time of intense growth, a confusing time.
Teenagers are rewarding, energetic, and often thoughtful.
They need a consistent calm environment to guide them to making the right decisions. To help them reach their potential and become the adults you know they could be. And when you see them become those adults. You know you have done a wonderful thing in taking that chance on letting that child into your home and your life.
“I was shopping at Tesco’s and became aware of a very tall young man in his twenties bending down to try to pacify a young girl who clearly didn’t want to be there. He was attentive and patient and when he looked up he clearly recognised me and came over and said “do you remember me you fostered me for two months when I was fifteen” The penny dropped and this patient and attentive young man was the lad I collected from the police station over ten years previously. He had been arrested for getting involved in a fight over something that had been said about his Mother who had spent her life battling the demons of alcohol. He was tall then and I remember how he could occupy the whole of the sofa when he was watching the TV and at fifteen it would have been easy to have been intimidated by his size.
When I collected him as an emergency placement it took us over numbers so the plan was always for him to move on within a few days.
As often happened there was no alternative place for him and the few days turned into a few weeks. He behaved impeccably was well mannered and the whole family felt warmth towards this gentle giant of a boy. Both our own, and the other children in placement took him to their hearts and made sure that he stayed out of trouble. I was now standing in front of a charming and polite young man who asked about all of the other seven children who had lived in the house when he was living with us and he introduced me to his five year old daughter. I was amazed that he remembered everyone’s name.
He did eventually move on to another foster family which didn’t go well and I was aware that he went to foster home after foster home and then sadly onto to a secure unit. That was pretty much the last I heard about him until this day in Tesco. I said he looked well and he told me that he was working was married and he was feeling good about his life. He then knocked me cold when he said that the eight weeks he spent with my family were probably the best eight weeks of his childhood. He was always a charmer but I felt that he really meant what he said and it made me feel that being a foster carer could, at times like this, be the best job in the world."
