James’s Blog: The Love and Pain of Starting a New School.

So this week Parker started secondary school. I’ve been anxious about this moment for a while, not because I’m having trouble adapting to my children getting older but because – as long time readers of this blog will know – Parker is autistic. Covid-19 has thrown the normal school transition process out of the window, and if any of our children needed the chance to get acquainted with a new school, it was Parker. On the plus side, Covid restrictions mean that he’ll probably spend all his time with the same people in the same classroom. That’s a plus.

As it happens, day one went well. That helps a lot, and day two is a lot easier with that success behind us, but there’s still a way to go before both dad and child feel confident and comfortable with this new era.

Obviously, he’s the one facing the big changes and the new situation, but I’m anxious about his anxiety. I’m the the parent in charge of the school run, so the responsibility for managing his meltdowns falls on me. I’m not good at it. Ruth is so much better at this kind of thing. She’s much better at parenting generally – and coping with stress.

Part of the problem is my that own autistic tendencies don’t help. My experiences allow me to empathise with Parker and his struggles, as the things that cause him stress are the same kind of things that cause me stress, but in reality it just means that I can see the trouble coming. It doesn’t mean I can do anything about it, or even help Parker navigate it.

I can look back on my own childhood with the wisdom of age, and I can see how I worried about things needlessly, and how I could have much better managed the things that I did need to worry about. But have you ever tried to use your wisdom to override a child’s experience in the moment? It doesn’t often work, so I mostly just get to experience his stress without having the having the power to influence it. His stress becomes my stress, and then we’re both just stressed.

It’s the universe’s cruelest joke, to make you care for another but unable to live their life for them – to have to suffer vicariously. Love unlocks new ways of pain. It’s one thing to suffer yourself, to suffer as a result of your own choices. It’s another thing to see someone you care about suffer, to share their pain, and to know that they don’t have to suffer. If they were just able to see the world the way you see it for a moment…but instead you’re both left with the suffering.

But that’s how it’s supposed to work, loving your children and carrying their burdens even though it doesn’t really benefit you at all. That’s the example that we’ve been set. It blows my mind that God had a choice, and that this is what He chose for Himself.