Sleepovers

This week, our eldest son is camping with our church youth group. I know they will all be having the most amazing time away and we are so grateful to the team who have taken them.

The older two have been on short residentials or weekends away in the past year with their school or church, but this is the longest any member of our family will have been away from our home since our little one has joined our family. 

Our eldest has been so excited about this trip, so while helping build the anticipation and excitement for him we have also needed to prepare our youngest. His life experience before us has taught him that children move. Often this was him, but within his foster home sometimes other children would come for respite then they would go again. 

We have spent a huge amount of time reassuring him over this past year, that he is now part of our family forever and won't be moving, but as he is only 4, this isn’t the easiest concept to grasp.

So in preparation for this week, we’ve talked a lot about who our eldest would be with, how many sleeps he would be having on his holiday, and shared photos in the days leading up of their tents, and the event site. In addition, we asked that the youth team send a couple of photos of our eldest once there, so that we can share these with our little one when needed. We found this was very helpful when our middle child was on residential earlier in the year as it eased the worry if he could ‘see’ him.

So far (two days in!), we’ve heard a little from our eldest who is having an amazing time! Our little one is doing well but has clearly been unsettled. Yesterday whilst being woken from a late in the day unexpected nap, he was very confused saying he wanted to go home; but couldn’t be sure where home was despite us sitting on our sofa at the time. He also couldn’t be sure who we were, prompting us once again to remind him that we were his Mummy and Daddy and that he is loved as part of our family.

Last night, in order to make the week exciting for our middle child too, he had a friend over for a sleep over. This is our middle son’s best friend who he has known from birth. His family are close family friends and our youngest has seen them regularly through the past year both at our home and theirs. While he can sometimes still get in a muddle with who belongs to which family within our friendship group, he has always been very clear of the distinction between our family and others. However, this morning, he was asked by someone we were visiting who was in his family and his response was, ‘mummy, daddy, his big brothers, our son’s friend and our cat’. He didn’t correct himself, or look confused, it was a fact: this friend had stayed at our home and therefore must now be in our family.

Now, this has happened once before around February time when some other close friends children came to stay, but it’s interesting to me to see how despite the many conversations and the reassurance, that even now, he still doesn’t have a solid view of family. For him it’s still interchangeable.  

I of course reminded him that the friend was just having a sleepover, who his mummy and daddy and family were, reminding him again who was in our family too. He didn’t seem upset or confused, he just carried on with his day.

I know that as time passes his understanding will grow, not only will he feel more secure in his place in our family, he will also have a clearer idea of how others fit together outside of the five of us.