The Pebble
Our fear of setting boundaries is leaving some children adrift in a summer of aimless scrolling
“He’s ever so good,” the social worker said in a hushed tone, as 15-year-old Nath carried his case upstairs. “He’ll always ask you for a bag.” Sonia gave me a pointed look. “It’s been explained, I gather?”
I nodded. The Placement Team manager had called earlier to walk me through the practicalities of keeping Nath safe. I was to drop a heavy pebble into a bag whenever he asked for one, so that he could abuse glue safe in the knowledge that he wouldn’t suffocate should he pass out.
A local teen had died recently, the social worker explained, not from the solvents themselves but because the bag was still pressed against her face when she lost consciousness. With a pebble inside, it would have been far more likely to free her airway when she collapsed.
Nath had also been known to crush diazepam tablets into open cuts on his skin for faster absorption, Sonia went on to explain, so regular checks were essential. “I know, I know,” she added, reading my expression. “But he’ll do it anyway. It’s safer this way.”
I nodded. The logic was sound. Some of the children coming into the care system are so damaged that they struggle to get through the day without some sort of crutch.
But when Nath came down later that evening and asked for a bag, my stomach turned over. I dropped in the pebble and handed it back, and as he let himself out, probably to go “huffing” in our local park, I stood in the hallway, trying to make sense of what I’d just done.
Part of what I’d signed up to do when I became a foster carer was to gently discourage risky behaviour and offer an alternative instead. Enabling a child to treat his body with such disregard felt wrong, but to go against the advice I’d been given in matters of health, felt even riskier.
It’s a dilemma running through the care system. Harm reduction is a good thing, of course. But in our determination to be kind, non-judgemental and trauma-informed, I think we sometimes forget that our job is to guide damaged children somewhere better, not just meet them where they are.
The pebble advice is part of the same overall philosophy as the instruction never to show open disapproval when a young person discloses risky behaviour, not even a raised eyebrow, because any hint of judgement would simply drive it underground.
Treat their choices as neutral, we’re told in training. Meet them without reaction. The therapeutic term is “non-judgemental positive regard”.
Seeing the world through a child’s eyes and experiences can be genuinely useful, keeping a line of communication open when the shutters are very close to coming down.
But over my years of fostering, the young people in my care who made the most progress were rarely the ones I’d tiptoed around. They were the ones who had a social worker willing to let me enforce sensible boundaries, and when they bumped up against them were told, quietly but firmly, that I expected more. The ones who discovered, perhaps for the first time, that someone believed them capable of it too.
The care system has made good progress over the past two decades, becoming more trauma-informed, more compassionate and less punitive. Many children in care come from chaotic and abusive backgrounds with little or no experience of consistent boundaries, so the old approach of imposing immediate, unswerving discipline sometimes alienated them further.
But somewhere along the way, personal responsibility and a gentle but firm insistence on sticking to the rules have been dropped as well. The result is a system that leaves foster carers with few options when trying to steer children towards responsible adulthood.
The same philosophy seems to have seeped into other parts of society as well. Teachers, social workers and even many parents have, over the past twenty years, become fearful of taking charge.
I’ve met parents who’ve come to the attention of social services after small scuffles with their children who, on the cusp of adolescence, have tested the boundaries and tried to leave the house after dark. Those parents, far from abusive, are then terrified of putting their foot down in the future, in case their children are removed. And once their authority is lost, it’s gone forever.
The consequences are now staring us in the face. School exclusions are rising, and some reports suggest nearly 50% of teachers have considered leaving the profession because of threats and violence.
And now we’re in the school holidays, the boundary vacuum for teenagers with absent or non-existent role models is yawning wide open. For six weeks, millions will lose the steadying daily routine of the school timetable.
And thousands of young children will be left alone as parents juggle work and childcare. Calls to the NSPCC peak over the summer from people concerned about very young children being left alone for long periods, and have increased in the last three years, perhaps as families struggle to cover the cost of holiday clubs.
In a state of profound boredom, some will wander aimlessly around our towns and cities, vulnerable to being recruited into county lines. It’s a predictable cycle, antisocial behaviour spiking through the summer months.
But the vacuum can be just as dangerous for those who stay in their rooms. Instead of aimlessly drifting around local streets, they roam online in search of entertainment.
And when they come across influencers like Andrew Tate, we can’t fathom what it is they find so appealing. I think it’s the certainty they offer, as well as the availability and presence, and the unapologetic direction: lift weights, make some money, stop making excuses and be a man.
It’s crude and frequently toxic, but it fills a vacuum society created. These are ordinary young men, for the most part, adrift in a summer of aimless scrolling, who stumble upon a strong male role model willing to tell them what to do, perhaps for the first time in their lives, and find it intoxicating.
We seem to have lost the confidence to say ‘no’. For years we’ve been encouraged to nod along, validate and avoid challenge. We’re not supposed to upset anyone or make them feel “unsafe”.
Yet one of the kindest things I ever did for Nath, a few weeks after his arrival, was to stand in front of the door when he asked for a bag.
“I could squish you with one finger,” he scoffed, when I told him in no uncertain terms that it was too late for him to be going out. At almost six foot to my five feet two, he wasn’t wrong. But we’d built a connection by then, strong enough for me to exert some authority.
I invited him to watch a film with the rest of the family instead. He turned the air blue with a torrent of choice words then stamped upstairs. Five minutes later though, he was sat beside me on the sofa watching Shutter Island.
Three weeks after that he was getting up without prompting and making his way to school.
Building routine, boundaries and an insistence on following reasonable rules into a young person’s life is a way of expressing love, a road map to helping them develop a sense of purpose and self-respect.
What we’re handing many children these days, with the best of intentions, is little more than a pebble.
Names have been changed.
Has our over-correction from the harshness of the past gone too far? It’s a balancing act, but I often wonder whether our kindness has made children and young people feel safer, or are they ‘the anxious generation’ partly because they feel no one’s in charge? I’d love to know your thoughts.
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N.B. I’m taking the rabble camping again next week so there may not be a newsletter for the next week or two!
What a conundrum. It seems to me that non-judgemental acceptance could also feel as if it doesn’t matter what they do. So glad you found another way to make him feel he mattered & was worth caring about.
This is such a gut-wrenching look at an impossible situation. That line about harm reduction versus enabling and where the line actually sits is such an important question to sit with. Thank you for sharing something this honest.