Church and Autism, Part 3

The church we have been attending (more on that wording later) has just released a newly revised set of guidelines for playing in the gym after church. They have published guidelines several times, and each time they get more restrictive in the name of safety.

Among them are:

• No more scooters.
• The trikes are for "kindergarten and younger."
• The gym will close at 1 pm.
• While no paid or volunteer personnel will be on hand to supervise, there will be a volunteer at the door to remind everyone of the rules.

1. If the trikes can be out, why not the scooters? Just asking.

2. While the trike age is a bit arbitrary - why K and not 1st grade? or why not use a weight or age guideline? - I do understand it on 2 levels. One, several of the the much-bigger boys (age 11 or so) like to commandeer the trikes and are a nuisance for the littlest kids in the room. Two, choosing K was probaly an easy call in that the weekday school those trikes are there for goes up to kindergarten.

Unfortunately, though, one of the main things DB likes about the gym is riding the trikes and scooters.

And, as Husband pointed out, using the age of the school as the rule inverts the way the relationship between the school and the church is supposed to be: The school is supposed to support the church, not vice-versa.

3. Closing at 1 is probably because the paid church staff is supposed to be able to lock up and go home at 1. (That's my theory anyway.) Last week was a lovely February day so people lingered until after 2 in the outdoor playground. So deputize one of the parents to lock up!

4. If someone can be there to police the rules at the door, um... why can't there be someone there? The wording was odd on that anyway--"staff and church school volunteers will no longer be available..." As far as I know there never was anyone scheduled to be there. When DB would go to the gym before we had finished speaking with people at coffee hour, I knew he was there "at his own risk," as it were.

Frankly, the main reason I'm not going to service this week is because I don't want to break the rules, again, on the first day they are announced. If safety is really the primary concern, just don't even open the gym.

I don't want DB to be the exception, the one first-grader on the trikes. And I don't want to have to pick between 2 separate after-church events:

1. Coffee hour for those without children and those whose children want to sit at the child tables and have a child-approved snack. (Children are not allowed to take the food from the "adult" coffee hour tables; DB almost had his wrist slapped by the paid church staffer who sets up coffee hour, and she is is entirely unapologetic about shooing the kids from that food. They are given goldfish and animal crackers and that is good enough for them.)
2. And an after-church open play in the gym for parents of Those Other Children who need to run around. No food, no coffee.
   

I don't say "our church" since our distance from the physical plant makes me feel like an outsider. Husband said the only way to change this situation would probably be to get all the parents together and figure out some other way to handle the concerns -- rotate volunteers in the gym, offer to lock up ourselves, or whatever.

But we're too far away to spearhead the kind of meetings that requires. We're also not part of the local-school crowd. It's going to be harder for us to make friends with the other parents because we have less in common. (Now that I think of it, you'd think that raising our kids as Christians would be a common factor, right? Not a lot of openness there about issues like that.)

Frankly, we only came back to this church because we wanted to be somewhere, and haven't found one closer to home yet. But this isn't the way to be family friendly. (And, I'm sure it's parents, church members, who keep revising these rules!)

I know churches aren't perfect. We just need one where the 3 of us can all live with the imperfections.