Cathy Glass

If your child automatically resorts to throwing things when they are angry or don’t get their own way, I suggest you insist they pick up the objects. I’ve fostered many children who throw things in anger, often because their parents do. Indeed it is surprising just how many otherwise responsible adults resort to hurling objects when angry or upset.

There has been an awful lot written about attachment disorder and you aren’t a foster carer for very long before you attend at least some training on the subject. Some of what’s written is very academic so I thought it might be useful to simplify it.

I hope you had a lovely summer. We did. I looked after two separate sibling groups. Hard work but great fun. We had lots of days out. While in one adventure park I stood next to a woman who spoke rather loudly when talking to her three young boys who appeared to be quite a handful. One thing that struck me was that she used third person when talking to them, referring to herself as Mummy – ‘Mummy told you to stay in sight,’ instead of ‘I told you to stay in sight,’ which to my ears grated.

If your child’s school hasn’t broken up yet it will be doing soon, so I just wanted to say have a great summer.

An increasing number of children are being diagnosed with a behavioural disorder. But what exactly does that mean?

Following my last blog on the importance of mealtimes I thought it might be useful to say a few words about some of the problems connected with eating. As foster carers many of the children we look after often have a poor relationship with food, binging or starving, hoarding food, or refusing the meal we have prepared and then taking food from the cupboard when no one is looking. We nurture our children and take pride in seeing them grow and thrive. Food is essential to sustain life and therefore an intrinsic part of that nurturing and love, so that if a child or young person has a poor relationship with food it is very worrying.

Many of the children who come into foster care have never had regular mealtimes, sat at a dining table, or know how to use cutlery. As foster carers we appreciate mealtimes are important, but why?

Since the publication of my most recent book, Saving Danny, in which I used a number of strategies for managing Danny’s behaviour, including the closed choice, I have received many emails from readers saying they’d tried the closed choice and were amazed at how successful it was.