Autism in the Church

[Pressing-On]

Originally Posted by drummerboy_dave

My son was just "bein' himself" the other night when someone asked me out of the blue if he was autistic. No one's ever done that to me before. I've been places and seen kids who I thought were on the spectrum, but I doubt I could just go ask that of their parents. I slowly said,"yeah, he's an aspie". We talked, and he said he had an aspie too. It was kinda cool. I wish we would have had more time to talk. It is difficult enough being a parent, but boy these kids can really put you through the ringer.

Thanks for sharing your experience. I hope that you will add more to educate us on how to help others.

[drummerboy_dave]

You know, it's a delicate thing. It's like asking the larger woman at the store when the baby is due. The risk is too great that you "guessed" wrong. I don't know if I'd recommend that approach, but it worked out in this case. Likely, he could identify with my child because he could see many of his own son's traits.

The thing is though, that there's such a variance in behaviour patterns that this was kind of a rare thing, I think. Has this happened to anyone else? I wonder...

[RandyWayne]

Originally Posted by drummerboy_dave

You know, it's a delicate thing. It's like asking the larger woman at the store when the baby is due. The risk is too great that you "guessed" wrong. I don't know if I'd recommend that approach, but it worked out in this case. Likely, he could identify with my child because he could see many of his own son's traits.

The thing is though, that there's such a variance in behaviour patterns that this was kind of a rare thing, I think. Has this happened to anyone else? I wonder...

And if your wrong, apparently the correct answer is to simply say "...thank you...".

[crakjak]

Originally Posted by Sherri

Now that doctors are saying one in every 150 children will have some sort of autism, how will our church's children's programs be affected? We have two little boys right now that are autistic that I know of, and possibly a few more. We have had to start a "special needs" ministry in the Children's Dept. with workers just for those boys. It's very hard, because they hit and yell, but they don't understand it as misbehaving. They are over-stimulated and don't know how to deal with it.

It's difficult for the parents of other kids, because sometimes they get attacked or hurt. But I feel so sorry for the parents of the autistic kids, because they are trying their best and I don't want them to feel that they are not welcome in our church.

We had another lady with a fifteen year old autistic son, who was in pretty bad shape, and she finally just decided to stay home because her son was way too big for the kid's department, but she could not possibly keep him in the sanctuary because he disrupted.

Has anyone else faced this in their churches? Any suggestions????

We're in the process of setting up a special needs ministry in our church. My wife is a consultant to the church staff in this area, since that is what she does at Coventry. She directed the staff to contact Joni and Friends, which a national organization providing services to all sorts of Special Needs programs. No use in recreating the wheel. They have a complete program for setting ups SN ministry in churches and the sometimes offer grants to assist with the setup. They have a book that out lines the process and they will assist in many ways. I suggest anyone planning to have a SN ministry to see if their help fits your need.