I wrote the last post in the early hours of the morning, before any of it had happened. Before he walked in. This is what came after.
He was apprehensive at first. That was expected (build-up’s aren’t walys the easiest thing to navigate with him). But we had agreed on just a few hours, on his terms, nothing more. We walked into the classroom together. His new teacher had laid out some children’s newspapers on his desk. She’d done her homework. She knew he liked to read them.
My wife and I introduced ourselves, and introduced him (he wasn’t ready to stand in front of everyone just yet). After a few minutes, we told him we’d be upstairs on the teachers’ floor, doing some work, if he needed us. Just upstairs. And we left him to get acquainted with his teacher and his twelve new classmates.
For two hours, my wife and I sat upstairs pretending to work, wishing we could be a fly on the wall.
Two hours later, he walked in beaming. His teacher beside him.
“I think I’m going to like it here, dad.”
My vision got a mini-flood. I’m not going to pretend otherwise.
That sense of belonging he’s been expressing over the past year or so, not directly, never directly, but in his roundabout way, is now being negotiated. On his own terms. In a room that made space for him before he even arrived.
Neurodivergence means taking a different path. And that path is genuinely unbeaten, because no two neurodivergent paths are the same. It isn’t a walk in the park. But it is a rewarding one. When, as a parent, you begin to see the world through your child’s eyes. And ears. And heart.
There’s another sensing organ in there too, one that’s harder to name and perhaps the most important one. And it’s also the one most easily neglected with neurodivergent kids. I’m not saying I’ve figured it out. God, I feel like I’m getting it wrong most of the time. But I know I’m getting incrementally better. And some days, that has to be enough.
Today was one of the good ones.
Grateful Dad. 
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