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I fostered a few years ago now but never did any call us mum or dad.And I also adopted 3 children from foster care and they called their fosterers by their first names.

Our LO was with therapeutic foster carers as she have come from a disruptive placement. She was all over the place and called them Mummy and Daddy. They are grandparents themselves so encouraged her to call them Nan and Granddad. They made it clear they were looking for a Mummy and Daddy for her. (Otherwise I would have been the 4th Mummy )We now refer to them as Nan and Granddad although when we visited them for the first time a couple of weeks ago, LO copied the new foster children and called them by their first names. So perhaps she is making the transition on her own.I agree with you. It is confusing if the LOs call them Mummy and Daddy.

what i have found is that to them "mum" is just a name.or to fit in,our own birth /adopted children call us mum and dad ,and they do the same.it makes the children feel part of the family esp when out ,they always start by calling us by our first names,but i dont see it as an issue ,if they call us mum and dad.we have never encouraged it but i would not stop it either,if they are younger and going for adoption its really easy to add to the mum like mummy x then drop mummy and just say x.

Best practice is that they should not do so but some LAs allow it and some don't. Realistically, where it does happen generally (although not always) it is child led and I know from experience that you can say I'm not Mummy, I'm xyz until you're blue in the face but a child might go on calling you Mummy anyway. I had a 4 year old who called me Mummy from Day 2 of her placement which I only gently discouraged as she was so fragile at that point that I didn't want her to feel rejected. I also wasn't comfortable about ignoring her if she called me Mummy for the same reasons. As this was absolutely against my LA's policy I informed her SW who came and spent several hours in a fruitless conversation during which the child insisted that I WAS her Mummy and that BM was actually her sister. In the end the SW gave up and told me to go on doing as I was doing i.e. referring to myself by my name but not ignoring her when she called me Mummy. Interestingly her 2 year old sister did not follow suit and called me by my name as did her brother when he learned to talk. So it can just be down to the individual child and not poor practice by the FC.

Just wanted to add, our boys called all their previous foster carers mummy and daddy, to the extent that they called me their 'fifth mummy' for a while.But, now they never call anyone else mummy and daddy. It wasn't hard to get them used to the idea of us being the only people called mummy and daddy, once they began to see that they were here for good.I don't know about best practice, I do think it would be bizarre to ignore a child calling a foster carer mummy, so I can understand why foster carers would allow it, even if they don't encourage it.I just wanted to say that, in our case, it didn't cause any problems.

Im not a fc, but our children called their fc mummy n daddy. They had lived with them for 11 mths and as the fc had other birth children, then i assume they heard them calling mummy an daddy, and went along with it. They called us by our first names when we first met them, altho they knew that we were their forever mummy n daddy ... and in time (about 2 weeks into placement) we became mummy n daddy. The fc was refered to as my other mummy, but then it became their first names. When the children have spoken on the phone to their fc, they revert back to calling her mummy ... we are now 3 mths into placement and today we met with fc for the first time. They called her by her first name, and me mummy.As confused as they first were when they moved in with us ... they now know who is who and it was pleasing to know that they have settled with us, and that they know we are their forever mummy n daddy.

my LA have a policy of calling fc's by first names but also understand that sometimes children want to fit in and that that is fine. not sure what the other carers do but personally I always refer to myself as LOBS and never mum, but LO's hear my son calling me mum so by the time they can talk thay also sometimes call me mum. I have never said to a child that I am not their mum, I just persist in talking about myself as LOBS, so 'do you want your LOBS to do....' etc, only two children have called me mum and it caused them no confusion, it was just a name, much as LOBS is. one moved in with an auntie and called her mum very quickly as well, but auntie also called herself mum, the other, sb, when going through introductions, called her prospective adopters mummy and daddy and then, finally after 18 months or so of calling me mum, called me LOBS. when it disrupted and she didn't move she reverted to calling me mum again and I assume she now does the same with her new foster carers as there are now three other children calling the carers mum/dad so more role models to copy (kind of ironic really given that the sw's once said she needed to learn not to call me mum as it would confuse her!). it really isn't the big deal people worry about except where it comes with feelings and wishes that the fc IS actually their mum/dad, rather than it just being a title.

When ypur fostering a child espically one from birth its natural that they will think that the foster carers are there parents We were told this that we should never encourage it never introduce ourselvs as there parents and dont call each other mum and dad so i wouldnt say oh give that to dad but that we should not tell them not to of they do imstead carrying out life story work pointing out who we are as foster carers Older children may do this because they sont want anyone to know there in care It can also be very diffcult as most people will naturaY assume your the childs parents so ousiders almost reinforce then calling you mum and dad So when we ar out people say things like oh your being such a good girl for mummy ect

I agree but i think most do get LO to call them by first name sometimes it is hard as some have BC so the FC copy the BC. Mine were 3 at placement and had started nurserie and had asked FC why they could not call her mummy like the other children , she managed to explain to ours why but I think if they had been In FC any longer they would of called her mummy anyway

My understanding is that it's common, and understandable, in babies/toddlers who call all women Mummy and/or hear birth children say Mummy, and also some school age children who don't use the terms at the FC home, just with those outside the family, so as not to seem unusual.

My 2 had lovely previous carers who we are still in touch with - with YD we have transitioned to 'Aunty X' instead of 'mama X' because she needs to understand that 'mummy' is forever and just applies to me. With ED, who understands the different roles and because of a good early start also understands permanence better, she just carries on with 'mama X'.But I am glad that YD felt she had a mama when she was with X, she desperately needed to learn the difference between a mama and her big sister, who had been acting as a parent. Their previous carer did a lot of good work with her on that issue.