Mummy Told Me Not to Tell

by Cathy Glass

  At five o’clock while I was making dinner, Reece left the television, stood at the top of the stairs and yelled at the top of his voice: ‘Cathy! I need a pooh!’ I heard him clearly from the kitchen, which is at the opposite end of the house, so great was the volume in his voice. Aware that Reece had a history of soiling himself, I immediately left peeling the potatoes and went upstairs.

  ‘Good boy,’ I said. ‘Straight into the toilet, then.’ I turned him round and steered him along the landing, and opened the toilet door. Completely unselfconsciously he pulled down his joggers and pants and sat on the toilet. I held the toilet door to and waited outside. Presently a none-too-pleasant smell wafted out, followed by, ‘Cathy! I’ve finished!’

  ‘Good boy,’ I said from the other side of the door. ‘Now wipe your bottom and wash your hands.’

  I remained waiting outside because I wanted to make sure Reece did wash his hands, and properly, for so many children come to me having never been taught basic hygiene. I waited some more but couldn’t hear the toilet roll being used; it was on the back of the door and rattled on its fitting when pulled.

  Are you OK?’ I asked.

  ‘I’ve finished!’ he shouted back.

  ‘Yes, now wipe your bottom, flush the toilet and then wash your hands.’

  More silence and I repeated the instructions again. Then I said, ‘Reece, are you wiping your bottom?’

  ‘No.’

  I eased open the toilet door and looked in. He was still sitting happily on the toilet, joggers and pants round his ankles, elbows resting on his knees as though he was in a deck chair on the beach, and making no attempt to clean himself.

  ‘Come on,’ I encouraged. ‘If you have finished, get off and wipe your bottom.’

  ‘Can’t,’ he said.

  ‘You can’t wipe your bottom?’

  ‘No.’

  Although I was surprised that a child of his age, even with learning difficulties, hadn’t been taught to wipe his own bottom, I wasn’t going to make an issue of it; but neither was I going to do it for him, which was presumably what had happened in the past. His abilities and coordination, although delayed, were quite adequate to master this skill: if he could count to a hundred I felt sure he could learn to wipe his own bottom.

  ‘All right. I’ll show you what to do. Now watch me carefully, Reece, then you can do it. First you tear off three sheets of toilet paper, like this.’ I tore them off. ‘Then you fold them like this, and wipe yourself like this.’ I turned slightly away from him and ran the folded toilet paper over the outside of my trouser where he should wipe. ‘You only use it once. Then you throw it down the toilet and tear off the next few sheets.’ Obvious though it may be to most of us, you’d be surprised at the number of children who have never been taught this and try to reuse the paper by turning it over and end up with excrement all over their hands.

  ‘Now you do it,’ I said. I passed him the folded tissue paper and he made a clumsy effort at trying to get it round to his bottom while still seated. ‘You’ll have to stand up to do it,’ I said.

  He wriggled off the toilet and, standing ungainly, made a brave attempt at wiping his bottom. Then he sat down again.

  ‘Right, the next piece. Watch carefully,’ I said. I tore off another strip of paper, folded it and passed it to him. Again he tried to wipe his bottom, still sitting down. ‘Remember to stand up to do it,’ I said.

  ‘Can’t you do it?’ he grumbled.

  ‘I could, but I want you to learn. You will feel very clever being able to wipe your own bottom, won’t you?’

  He shrugged, unconvinced, but accepted the next folded sheets of paper, stood and managed reasonably successfully to use them. And so we continued, with me tearing off the sheets of paper and him wiping, until he was clean.

  ‘Well done,’ I said. ‘Now flush the toilet.’

  He did that successfully first time, presumably used to flushing a toilet after going for a wee. Then he pulled up his pants and joggers.

  ‘Good. Now before you touch anything you need to wash your hands very well in hot water and soap.’

  Reece stood helplessly as I put the plug in the basin and ran the hot water. I then squirted soap into the palms of his hands and plunged them into the water.

  ‘Who wiped your bottom at home?’ I asked as he rubbed his hands in the water.

  ‘Don’t know,’ he said, and laughed.

  ‘What about when you were at school? Who did it there?’

  ‘I never did a pooh at school.’ Which didn’t surprise me, because children who have never mastered toilet skills will wait all day, until they have returned home, before relieving themselves. There’s little alternative if you aren’t going to be seriously embarrassed. It is for the child’s self-respect as much as anything that we teach these self-care skills early.

  ‘Now you will be able to use the toilet at school. Well done.’ I smiled. ‘Shake the water off your hands and then dry them on the towel.’ Reece was very enthusiastic about shaking the water off his hands and it sprayed everywhere. I directed his hands to the towel and waited until he had finished drying them. He nipped back into his bedroom while I opened the toilet window.

  I looked in his room on my way past. He was seated on the beanbag again in front of the television.

  ‘Reece, you can finish watching that programme,’ I said. ‘Then we will switch it off and you can come and play downstairs. Understand?’

  He nodded, although I wasn’t convinced he’d heard me, for he was now completely engrossed in Blue Peter, which would be the last of the children’s programmes before the adult ones took over and his television went off.

  I had just returned to the kitchen and the half-peeled potatoes when I heard Reece again on the landing shouting, ‘Cathy! I need a pooh!’ There was an urgency in his voice and I shot back upstairs as he rushed into the toilet and sat down just in time.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ I said. ‘You’ve got a bit of an upset stomach. I expect it’s because you have been a bit worried about coming here.’

  I waited until he’d finished, and then went through the ritual of tearing off and passing him the folded toilet paper again, until he was clean. I ran the water in the basin and supervised his hand washing, before opening the window wider.

  Two minutes later when I had just returned downstairs and to the potatoes there was another cry: ‘Cathy! I need a pooh!’ I went back upstairs and through the whole process of toilet paper tearing and folding, and hand washing, again. By the time I’d finished peeling the potatoes I had been summoned twice more, and the girls were now asking what the strange smell was permeating round the landing and into their bedrooms, or words to that effect.

  At 5.25 I knew Blue Peter had finished, and with the dinner cooking, I went upstairs and explained to Reece that the children’s programmes had come to an end, and that he had watched enough television. I asked him to switch it off. He didn’t, so I asked again; then I switched it off.

  As soon as I pressed the button on the remote it was as though a button had been pressed on Reece. An hour of sitting still in front of the television had recharged his batteries and he fired off like a rocket. In his own world and oblivious to us, he charged round the landing, up and down the stairs, in and out of all the rooms including the bedrooms, making loud and unrelated zooming and whooping noises. Paula, who tried to catch him as he made another lap of her bedroom, narrowly missed a head-butt as he collided with everything and anyone who happened to get in his way. Reece was hyped up and out of control. I knew the only way to make him calmer was to do a more controlled release of some of his pent-up energy. In the summer I encourage all children into the garden, where they can run and make whooping noises to their hearts’ content. But it was the middle of winter, cold and dark, so I decided to use my other strategy of going for a brisk walk.

  ‘Could you keep an eye on the dinner?’ I said to Lucy and Paula, who were standing on the landing watching Reece unwind like a coiled spring.
I’ll take him for a short walk. I’ll only be twenty minutes, but it should do the trick. He probably hasn’t had much exercise today.’

  It was no good trying to catch Reece because he would see that as a game and enjoy the chase, and that in turn would make him even more hyperactive. So I went down the hall, unhooked my coat from the hall stand and began putting it on, while calling: ‘Come on, Reece. You and I will go for a walk before dinner.’

  He was still zooming around, up and down the hall, in and out of the front room and the living room, now yelping for all he was worth. I wasn’t sure if it was imaginative play and he was pretending to be something like a Boeing 727 or a pterodactyl, but it was dangerously out of control. He had his arms out either side of him like wings but the accompanying noise was more like that of a wolf than a plane or prehistoric bird.

  ‘Come on, Reece,’ I said again. ‘Let’s go for a quick walk before dinner.’

  ‘No!’ he yelled at the top of his voice, zooming past me and narrowly missing my arm with his outstretched wings.

  I knew there was little point in insisting he come with me because it would have led to a confrontation, so I tried a different ploy: one of feigned indifference, which can work with younger children. ‘No problem,’ I said lightly. I’ll go for a walk by myself. You can stay here with Lucy and Paula. They will look after you very well.’ I would never have left a child on their first night with my daughters babysitting, let alone one who had Reece’s problems — it would have been far too much responsibility for them — but Reece didn’t know that. I slowly put on my shoes and then concentrated on buttoning up my coat, while Reece had a chance to think about what he was going to miss. He had slowed down now and was watching me from the far end of the hall. I didn’t look at him but nonchalantly turned towards the front door, calling out, ‘See you all later.’ My hand was on the doorknob, ready to turn it.

  ‘No! I want to come!’ he yelled, charging the length of the hall and straight into me.

  ‘Steady,’ I said, lightly holding his shoulder and looking at him. ‘Are you sure you want to come? You don’t have to.’

  ‘Yes! Take me! I’m coming for a walk!’ He was already trying to get his trainers on.

  ‘OK, if you’re sure.’

  All children like to feel they have some control and responsibility for their own lives, and this is even more so for children who have been brought into care, as they had no choice when being removed from home. By giving Reece the choice I had allowed him to feel he had made the decision. Sometimes there isn’t a choice — for example, when having to get dressed for school at a certain time — but so often if a child feels they have a say in the matter they can be eased into doing something to which they would otherwise have put up fierce resistance. It’s not rocket science, just a useful little ploy, which most parents use without realizing it.

  I helped Reece into his coat, did up his trainers and took hold of his hand as we went outside. It soon became obvious that Reece hadn’t the least idea how to walk safely along the pavement. He hopped and jumped all over the place and tried to pull away from me while gyrating his free arm in large circles.

  ‘Stay away from the kerb,’ I said, as he kept trying to jump into the gutter. Then I swapped hands so that he was on the inside and well away from the road and passing cars. As we walked he repeatedly tripped, over nothing, and had I not been holding his hand he would have gone heavily, knees first, on to the pavement each time he stumbled. Although I was retrieving him before he hit the ground and he wasn’t hurt, he yelped and cursed the pavement as if it was to blame. ‘Watch it!’ he threatened. ‘I said watch out!’

  I was walking briskly to burn off some of his energy, but my pace wasn’t excessive and shouldn’t have caused him all the problems it did. Apart from stumbling and tripping he was very soon puffing and panting, completely out of breath.

  ‘Aren’t you used to walking?’ I asked, slowing slightly.

  ‘Don’t know,’ he said.

  ‘Did you walk when you were with your other carers?’

  ‘No, in the car.’

  ‘What about at Mum’s? Did you have a car there?’

  ‘Don’t know.’

  It wasn’t important; I was trying to make conversation more than anything, and it was pretty obvious he wasn’t used to walking and was very unfit. What I was also starting to notice, as I had done previously at home, was that any question about Mum or home was met with ‘Don’t know’. I never question children about their life at home beyond a general enquiry, unless of course they are trying to tell me something about an abuse they have suffered, when I would gently draw it out of them. But what I was finding with Reece was that even the most innocuous enquiry like ‘Did you have your own bedroom at home?’, which I’d asked earlier when I’d shown him his bedroom, was met with ‘Don’t know’. Reece had only been in care six weeks, so it was unlikely he’d forgotten all about home and the seven years he’d spent there, particularly in relation to quite significant details like having his own bedroom or his parents having a car. I was starting to wonder if he’d been warned off saying anything about his home by his parents. He wouldn’t be the first child I’d fostered who’d been threatened into silence. So a question like ‘Which cereal would you like for breakfast?’ was answered without any problem, but ‘Did you have this cereal at home?’ was met with no reply or ‘Don’t know’. The child, rather than trying to sift through what they were allowed to answer and what was a ‘secret’, found it easier to say ‘Don’t know’ to everything.

  Fifteen minutes later, with my right arm now a good inch longer than my left from having it continually wrenched by Reece tripping up or pulling, we completed our circuit and headed for home. I swapped sides so that Reece was again away from the roadside, because he was still all over the place and would have happily walked in the gutter and under a car if I’d let him. I was still trying to make conversation, but although Reece could talk in short sentences he didn’t seem able to converse. If I made a statement like ‘It’s cold, isn’t it?’ either he didn’t answer or he supplied an unrelated statement like ‘That car’s got lights.’ If I tried to pick up the thread by saying, ‘Yes, the headlights let the driver see the road in the dark,’ he would say something else unconnected, which was now increasingly about his feet aching, or his legs hurting, and how much further was it?

  By the time we reached the house and were going up the path Reece was telling me, ‘I ain’t walking no more. You use the car.’

  ‘We probably will use the car tomorrow,’ I said, putting my key into the lock and opening the front door.

  ‘Silly cow, you should have used it now,’ he said. And although his comment was related to his previous comment, which I supposed was progress, it wasn’t a comment I appreciated.

  ‘Reece don’t say that, please. It’s rude.’

  ‘Silly cow,’ he said again louder, running off down the hall.

  I wasn’t convinced the walk had had the desired effect, for Reece seemed to recharge the moment we entered the house. It took me five minutes to persuade him out of his coat and shoes. Then, abandoning my attempt to get him interested in some of the games and puzzles, I called up to the girls for a volunteer to read Reece a story while I finished cooking the dinner.

  ‘I’ve got homework,’ Paula called.

  ‘I’m on the phone,’ Lucy said.

  ‘Well, put it this way, girls,’ I called up, above the noise of Reece’s imitation Boeing/pterodactyl, ‘if you want to eat then someone needs to read to Reece.’

  They immediately appeared from their bedrooms and came down, and I felt guilty for my terseness. ‘Thanks,’ I said. ‘It’s impossible for me to do anything with him zooming around like this. Reece!’ I said loudly, above the noise of what could have been a plane landing on reverse thrust or a pterodactyl swooping on its prey. ‘Go into the living room and choose a book. Lucy and Paula will read you a story.’

  The mention of the words ‘book’ and
‘story’ was like the off switch being pressed again. Reece dived into the living room and on to a sofa, where he sat quietly waiting for the girls with a book open on his lap. I waited as Lucy and Paula sat either side of Reece and began taking it in turns to read the pages of Shirley Hughes’s Alfie’s Feet. Reece sat mesmerized. It seemed that when he was absorbed in something visual his mind and body were able to switch off and relax, but the second the visual stimulus stopped, hyperactivity kicked in, big time. Whether this was the reason for him watching a lot of television while at home, or the result of, I obviously didn’t know, but one thing was for certain: I was going to be reading a lot of books, particularly with him not being in school.

  Fifteen minutes later I called through to say that dinner was ready. Reece appeared first. ‘This is your place,’ I said, showing him to his seat at the table. ‘Lucy will sit here’ — I patted the chair beside him — ‘and Paula opposite.’ Reece sat where I had shown him and the girls took their places. I served a chicken casserole, explaining to Reece what it was. He looked at it, and then up at me with a huge appreciative grin.

  ‘Cor, this looks nice,’ he said.

  ‘Thank you, love,’ I said. ‘That was polite.’ I took my place at the end of the table and felt that things were looking up.

  Reece picked up a piece of chicken with his fingers and popped it into his mouth. ‘Hmm, yummy,’ he said, chewing loudly.

  ‘Good,’ I said, ‘but try to use your fork. It’s better than fingers for this meal.’ He looked at the fork and then at me and popped another piece of chicken into his mouth with his fingers. I picked up his fork, stabbed a piece of chicken and laid the fork on his plate, ready for him to use. Somewhat clumsily he gripped the fork in the palm of his hand like a spoon and pushed the meat into his mouth. Then he resorted to using his fingers again.