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It occurs to me that I have spent much of the past two decades removing myself from what I would consider potentially judgemental environments. I am rarely found amidst crowds and will generally shun gatherings of any but my most trusted companions.

While I have had occasional forays into group learning settings, my overriding habit since graduating from full time education has been avoidance. So much so, I suppose, that I have been content working remotely as a one-man team for over a decade.

Even on office-days, I’ve had no fixed workstation, setting up camp instead at any free desk not covered in detritus, even if that means sitting with an unrelated team. It seems I am happy to come and go mostly unseen, rather than to futilely attempt to provide a physical avatar to my virtual persona.

So it is that the coming of age of two teenagers in our midst comes as a shock to the system. This pair now position themselves as our harshest critics, always ready to denounce some practice or habit of ours, behaving exactly the same as the youngsters we last encountered during a testing youth.

So here we are, forever treading carefully, lest their unrelenting wrath be turned on us, as it sometimes is amidst a heated exchange. Most parents know that this is what they should expect as their beloved children enter adolescence, but nothing quite prepares us for its full force. We expected to become embarrassing for them, but didn’t quite anticipate the shock and awe.

Now is not the time to speak of any vulnerability, or admit to any longterm health condition, or speak of realities growing up with an undiagnosed syndrome, or its effect on all that followed. This is a time to attempt to minimise every trait, and to develop a thick skin whenever either of them centre in on one that once caused so much inner turmoil.

After twenty years utilising avoidance as a coping mechanism, it’s as if I am back where I started, unable to flee. In full time education, it was the daily encounter with peers always prepared with some piercing invective, to vilify and demoralise at will. In the intervening years, I have fostered an attitude of indifference, embracing my inner nerd as my central identity, but that doesn’t make the stigmatisation any less cutting.

The difference this time around is that we know they will soon grow out of it, and will look back on this phase with embarrassment in a few years’ time. In the years to come, as they mature, they will carry their own regrets for moments like these, and may even strive to make amends.

Our job now is to provide guidance, without taking it personally, inviting them to become more compassionate individuals, emphatic towards those growing up in difficult circumstances.

The coming months, like the last, will be a testing period, as caring responsibilities for an elderly relative with an array of health issues takes centre stage. Sometimes our children redeem themselves, showing us just how kind and compassionate they can be. Sometimes the stresses of the competition for attention reveals the worst.

It may, therefore, even be a defining period for all us, as we adjust to our new reality, accommodating the more demanding needs of each other. After all these years, it turns out that avoidance is no longer a viable remedy. The time has come to confront everything.