In the Southern Hemisphere it's summer and the start of a new school year. For many children, attending school will be a new experience. While parents and children alike anticipate this forward step, it's often accompanied by mixed feelings.

Little ones are excited about going to school, and yet uncertain at being separated from their parents. Mums and dads, while appreciating how important schooling is, may feel apprehensive that their children are in someone else's care. Such conflicting thoughts and emotions can make this progressive time an unsettling one.

This is what a friend of mine and her small son found happening to them last year. Both were looking forward to the moment when he would join his older brother at the local primary school. On the big day when he and his mother said goodbye to each other at the classroom, they both felt good about it.

Several days later, though, he said that he didn't want to go there anymore. She reassured him that everything would be all right. He would grow to like learning with the other children. Nothing changed. Each time he came home from school the same thing happened. Finally one evening she sat down with her son and asked him why he didn't like school. Through tears he told her it was because she wasn't there with him. He wanted to be at home with her. You can imagine how this mother felt. Seeing his distress, she wondered what she could do or say to make him feel loved and cared for when she wasn't with him.

During a conversation with a fellow church member about the matter, she was alerted to the fact that she could pray about the situation. Also that she could comfort her son with the truths of God's great love for him and everyone, which he was learning in Sunday School. She could remind him that God's loving presence is with him every moment—at home, at school, and in the playground. God is truly everyone's Father-Mother, and this child could expect to feel divine Love's mothering, tender care at all times.

That evening she shared these thoughts with him. She also told her little boy that while he was at school he could be assured that she would be thinking of him, and praying for him, too. He wasn't forgotten by God or her. When he thought of her he was to remember that this was an angel thought from God reminding him of how much she loved him. He therefore could feel happy, not sad.

Over the next few days, as they both cherished these ideas, the unhappiness faded. His thoughts were lifted above sadness. It became natural and normal for him to attend school each day.

In praying about the start of this new school year and recalling my friend's experience, I was reminded of this passage in Science and Health: "Parents should teach their children at the earliest possible period the truths of health and holiness. Children are more tractable than adults, and learn more readily to love the simple verities that will make them happy and good.

"Jesus loved little children because of their freedom from wrong and their receptiveness of right" (p. 236).

Starting school doesn't have to be accompanied by tears and fears. Caring parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, friends, or neighbors can pray at this time of year for all the children who are beginning or continuing their educational journey. Each one is safe in God's loving protection.