Between Flights and Milestones: Absorbing Impact Through Life’s Transitions

Exploring how continuity, scaffolding, and collaborative caregiving shape a neurodivergent child’s development

Opening Reflection

When a child is forced through repeated transitions, who absorbs the impact so the child doesn’t fracture?

I am writing this on the eve of another transition. Tomorrow, she boards a plane to visit her mother for two weeks. She has taken this flight many times before, yet it still carries fear. Transitions do not become neutral through repetition; they are rehearsed, not erased.

Early Transitions and Family Support

She entered a series of transitions before I ever arrived in her life. Her parents were divorced, and she had a baby sister who remained with her mother. Shared custody existed on paper, but her mother’s move to another province, soon after my stepdaughter was six, reshaped everything. The separation from her sister was abrupt, and her father became the full-time parent, committed to providing stability and safety in the midst of disruption, with the support and help of his family, particularly his parents, who were instrumental in helping to raise her and providing continuity in ways that extended beyond his presence.

Her father’s dedication was unwavering. He accompanied her on flights, attended appointments, and ensured that she experienced continuity and comfort. Our roles were complementary: his responsibilities were grounded and consistent, while my more flexible schedule and background in neuroscience allowed me to observe, interpret, and act on her neurodevelopmental needs in real time, coordinating with teachers, therapists, and specialists. He trusted me to navigate this specialized work, even while fully engaged as her parent, allowing continuity and containment to function effectively across both our efforts.

My Role in Daily Life and Development

From those early years, I was deeply immersed in the daily labour of supporting her growth, often in ways that required sustained attention, flexibility, and specialized knowledge.

I guided her through homework and academic challenges, translated therapeutic recommendations into daily routines, and ensured she could access and apply the support she needed at home. I organized celebrations for milestones, helped her navigate her first period, and taught her practical life skills such as cooking, planning, and managing social interactions. I maintained connections with teachers, therapists, clinicians, and family friends, coordinating resources and supports across contexts to ensure her needs were consistently understood and met.

My role was hands-on, continuous, and adaptive, complementing her father’s protective presence and the support of his family, together creating a scaffolding of continuity that allowed her to thrive despite ongoing transitions.

Containment: Holding the Unseen Weight

The work of containment, holding what she could not yet process, was constant and deeply demanding. There were emotions she could not safely express to her mother, reactions that would not have been acceptable, confusions that needed a safe landing place. That safe landing place was usually me.

Often without words, sometimes without her awareness, I have absorbed the friction of repeated transitions, taking on the emotional load so she could continue to develop without fracture. This containment has required patience, presence, and sustained energy: regulating my own responses while holding space for hers, translating distress into understanding, and ensuring that overwhelm did not spill into chaos. It has been invisible work, uncelebrated, yet it shaped her ability to trust, learn, and grow.

After Her Father’s Passing

After her father passed, the responsibility for this containment and continuity fell more fully to me. The scaffolding had to evolve: daily routines, academic support, therapy implementation, and decision-making guidance now rested on my shoulders alone. Adolescence and early adulthood brought new challenges, and continuity remained critical, supporting her CEGEP studies, helping her manage social relationships, and preparing her to navigate the broader world while still providing the scaffolding she needed to thrive.

Tomorrow’s flight is a new step in that process: a deliberate loosening of protective scaffolding, a moment where she must carry more of the transition herself. Independence is a skill learned in small increments, often within the context of trust and containment that has been consistently provided over time.

Conceptual Reflection: Containment, Scaffolding, and Allostatic Load

Seen conceptually, this work exemplifies containment: one nervous system holding what another cannot yet regulate (Bion, 1962). It also reflects scaffolding: adaptive, evolving supports enabling development despite instability (Vygotsky, 1978).

For neurodivergent children, disrupted continuity carries disproportionate regulatory and cognitive load, producing allostatic stress if unsupported (McEwen, 1998).

Transitions are not neutral, and continuity is not optional. A child subjected to repeated transitions needs an adult who can absorb the impact, carrying the load externally until the child has capacity to integrate it. This labour, sustained, relational, nuanced, is rarely visible but shapes developmental trajectories profoundly.

Tomorrow, she will enter and navigate the airport independently and board a plane on her own, carrying some of the weight she has long relied on me and her father to hold. It is a small flight, yet it carries years of lessons in trust, safety, and self-efficacy. Continuity has not ended; it has transformed, allowing her to meet a threshold she could not have crossed alone years ago.

And as she lifts off, I am reminded once more: when transitions threaten a child, someone must absorb the impact…sometimes, it is the very person who loves her enough to let her go.

-- Anne TM Konkle

References

Bion, W. R. (1962). Learning from Experience. London: Heinemann.

McEwen BS. (1998). Protective and damaging effects of stress mediators. N Engl J Med. Jan 15;338(3):171-9. doi: 10.1056/NEJM199801153380307.

Vygotsky, L. S. (1978). Mind in Society: The Development of Higher Psychological Processes. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.