Churches and special needs kids

[Urbanredneck]

I am a parent of an autistic son and work with many other families of children with autism and other special needs.

One thing I've heard way too often is people basically being kicked out of there church because of their kid. Or at least not being allowed to put him in childrens ministries. That happened to us where we were going and we got tired of them always calling us to come get him because he was causing trouble.


Luckily we are in a church which goes out its way to help us and others.

 

[akmom]

I'm sorry to hear about your difficulties. Some kids require more maintenance than others. I have seen kids who require 100% of one adult's time just to keep them from hurting others, damaging property and interrupting to the extent that none of the lesson gets covered. A teacher cannot faciliate a Sunday school lesson, and other kids can't learn, if all their attention is monopolized by a single child. In most churches, Sunday school teachers are volunteers and there are not many of them. So they do not have the training to effectively handle special needs, or enough adults to individually shadow these children. Either the parents end up having to take their child for most of the service, or the Sunday school teacher gets burnt out and quits. This is unfortunate. My own mother loved teaching Sunday school when I was young, but there was one child in her class who was very violent and she was expected to handle him, but nothing she tried worked. So she quit. It was a shame, because as a result they had to combine classes and all the children suffered. The problem child's mother suffered too, because she was not able to participate in the women's Bible study when she kept getting called out to deal with her child.

I think the best thing you can do is find a church with parents in a similar situation, who can cater to these needs. I know the first church we attended when we moved had very few members with babies. Sometimes we were the only parents there who brought a baby. So when we came, one person was obligated to stay in the nursery with her, even though she was the only one. We didn't want to be that kind of burden, so we tried to keep her in the service with us, but most of the time we'd end up taking turns walking her in the hallway because she would cry. So we decided to move on to another church with other young families. There are three nurseries in our new church, because there are so many babies! It is much more efficient this way, and we are able to spend most Sundays listening the service, instead of tending to a crying baby. And when it is our turn in the nursery, there are always several babies. This makes our church a better fit. I'm glad to hear that you found a church that is a better fit for you.

Not every church can accommodate the needs of all possible demographics. All we really have to go by is "word of mouth." I know my brother is looking for a church that is good for young singles. It is hard for him to relate to people in Sunday school who all have families, or who are all retired, etc. I hope he is able to find a better fit too.

 

[hedrick]

I was on the other end of the problem. I teach junior high Sunday School. A few years ago I had an 8th grader with Asperger's. He is about a sweet a guy as you'd ever want to meet (and kind of a paradox -- an Aspie who is a strong extrovert), but at times he needed someone with him. I had a very mature high school student with me, who bore the brunt of it. One time he almost came to blows with another student. But what would I have done if he had been beyond our ability to handle? I don't know. Worked with his parents, perhaps? We've had kids with a couple of different kinds of special needs, but they've never been beyond what we could deal with fairly easily. Actually I have a 7th grader with PDD-NOS now, but it's sufficiently under control that it's not visible in class. I would certainly not want to see us turn anyone away, and our church would feel quite strongly about that. E.g. we installed a chair lift to because of an issue with one young adult. I'm pretty sure we'd be willing to assign a special aide if that would let us deal with it.

 

[eatenbylocusts]

Yes, those church school folks are volunteers that answered the call. Our church has a crying, nursing room with a one way mirror. I know someone whose grandchildren are autistic and were watched by the senior pastor's wife during the service. Our church has four different services spread out from Friday to Sunday which should give everyone a chance to hear the sermon at some point. This would be something to look for if you know your kid is going to need some extra attention.

 

[super mom]

i have special needs children aspergers adhd explosive disorder and pddnos my churc has accomodated very nicely but it took alot of time to get it organized most weeks it is the head pastors wife that sits with my 7 yro 5 yro and one other child my 8 yro goes upstairs with his buddy that he absolutley goes nuts if hes not there that day

 

[MaddieD]

I've been running into churches that are claiming to have a "special needs ministry", but finding out the hard way that they don't actually DO anything to assist those with the needs. They might think that these "ministries" make their churches look "equipped" or whatever, but what they are truly doing is dashing desperate people's hopes of finding a way to belong to a church - the one place that is supposed to accept you when others do not.

 

[hedrick]

It may be that some churches want to be accommodating but don't know how. I've taught a few students with various kinds of disabilities, as noted above. But as far as I know none of our staff or teachers have any training in handling special needs. I could handle the ones I saw, because they were all nice kids, and the only one who needed significant guidance was willing to accept it. But if I had a handicap where common sense wasn't good enough to let me deal with it, I wouldn't know what to do. If parents (or the person involved) could provide guidance or point to resources, I think we'd be happy to learn. At least I would.

I do agree that if a church advertises a special needs ministry, you'd expect them to have people with actual training to handle special needs. We don't advertise it.