Do you have a bottomless supply of energy and patience, particularly from 4 o’clock onwards?
Are you well-organised and yet spontaneous and able to think on your feet?
Do you believe chairs and sitting in them to be over-rated?
Are you physically strong, thick-skinned and able to deal with some degree of public humiliation?
Are you startlingly assertive and yet also non-competitive (ie do the words ‘donkey’ and ‘nativity’ give you a warm feeling?).
Are you a self-starter and a sticker atter, good at mazes and labyrinths?
Are you able to withstand bad and sickly poetry (with much overuse of the word ‘heart’)?
Do you enjoy drinking overstewed tea and eating Nice biscuits (fingers) in windowless conference rooms?
Are you happy to let yourself go for a few years? (this post may preclude shopping in actual shops for some time)
Do you carry a child-shaped hole in your soul?
If you can answer ‘yes’ to all the above, then you are wanted and needed by children in this country now. Please contact Adoption and Fostering Recruitment at your local social services department.
that’s brilliant! Made me LOL. ALso include ‘do you enjoy being on first name terms with teachers as you see them nearly as much as your child does?’
Excellent! And so very true.
and do you wish to make yourself and your child known to the new head even before the start of her 1st day to explain a situation which could potentially put your child on the top of her ‘oh my god, what have i let myself in for’ list. And then have a little laugh to yourself when she says ‘we’ll talk again soon’, How very true and how often her and i refer to that 1st conversation and how silly she feels for underestimating how much of her thoughts our family will occupy!lol
How true. They start off thinking you are ‘over-egging the pudding’ but soon learn otherwise!
Very good and very true!…I’d add:
An ability to use words such as engage and strategies, in a non-boardroom environment.
‘Appropriate’, I seem to use that word a lot.
Wonderfully wise .I will add the amazing ability to laugh in the darkest times which you obviously have.
Mostly I can laugh, sometimes it can verge on the hysterical though.
Thanks for your comment.
I laughed when you used the word hysterical. I know that feeling.
And hysteria is just one junction away from sobbing!
All you lovely people are also the best people to support the new Mum’s and Dad’s still in awe at their new family but having too high expectations of their own and the rest of their family members and friends.
The “honeymoon period” who invented this?!!
Well be a “buddy” or volunteer to help the children in school who struggle – reading, anything…
I can’t help my child at her school..so I help the children in another school – the SEAL room-4 members from the community have 35 mins every Friday to be an adult in a child’s world but an adult who is not in authority, just one who cares.
And after all your experience of parenting your child you will have loads to offer other vulnerable children. Great suggestion.