Autism and Church

I wonder if my other blog should shift from Autism and Public Schools, which many people advocate and talk about and research so much better than me, to Autism and Church.

I stumbled across this idea this evening... of a focus on Autism at a church service on February 8th. I wonder if my church might be open to it.

As part of it, I would be willing to --actually, relieved to -- speak and say that DB has autism and how that manifests itself in the way he acts and thinks at church. (Wonder if Husband would be open to that...)

There is another child at church with autism and other more severe disabilities as well, which might be eye-opening for our congregation to see the spectrum.

This was our experience today:

Toward the beginning of the service, DB said "Amen" after the Lord's Prayer, and I thought how funny it is that someone who overheard him might think he was saying "Amen" to the prayer. In fact, I know he was correcting the pronunciation -- most everyone near us said "ah-men" and he prefers "ay-men".

Then during the children's sermon, as usual he was unable to keep from blurting out the answers when the minister asks them all a question. (Someone has actually commented to Husband about this. Someone with a well-behaved, hand-raising child of course.)

At least he only eyed up the communion elements as he walked past and did not try to take any. Whew!

In his Sunday School class, DuckyBoy does well sometimes and other times not, and the teacher rotates so no one quite knows how to deal with him. They are wonderful moms with good hearts but the best they can do is tolerate him for the 30 minutes. I know he's disruptive, today I get the impression he was intractible. (He's been "off" the past few days anyway, and , I forgot his snack.) He also told me tonight a boy in class told him he was a baby, or playing with a baby toy, he described what he was playing with but I don't know what it was. On the upside, he reconnected with his old friend K., and they drew pictures for each other (the project was to draw for a secret pal in the class and give them the artwork, and apparently they picked each other.)

He flat-out tells the beautifully-voiced soprano who volunteers her time to sing with them that he doesn't like her, her voice, etc. *Sigh.*

DB also got us in an embarrassing situation today after church. Kids are allowed to play in the gym during coffee hour, but, well I'll admit it, they are supposed to be supervised by their parents. He has always been good about coming to get us when he needs us, but today he got a little hurt or something ( I still don't know if it was physical or his feelings that got hurt) and while one mom tried to comfort him, another came to get us.

And, well, she had a few patronizing words for us, too, about how we "might want to keep an eye on him" ... "because he likes to play with the bigger kids and yadda yadda" and "I try to keep an eye on him because my son is there too" and "I think he's hungry" and I think Husband wanted to strangle her. (Edited to add: Later on, Husband was grateful she'd come to get us.)

Anyway, today's experience made me look around a bit on the web. Preliminary search turns up a few drips and drabs -- like a good article from 2002 about a mom and her young child, a Dad's heartfelt post that rang true for me, and a decent-sounding book, Autism and Your Church, though it may be more for my children's ministry coordinator than me.

Since I said an hour ago I was going to go to bed and since tomorrow is The Grind Begins Again Day with the 6 AM alarm, I will cease research for the night. But it's not like I came up with anything that covers the topic extensively. I think there might be a place for me.