Study: U.S. Churches Exclude Children with Autism, ADD/ADHD

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I have some comments to make, I am pretty wrecked by this story and these statistics. For the moment though, I would like to share the following from my Church’s ministry website Transfiguration.com

http://www.transfiguration.com/ministries/alphabetical-list/faith-and-light/
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Faith and Light is an international, ecumenical group of families and friends that welcomes, accompanies, and celebrates those with developmental disabilities. The group meets once each month for prayer, sharing and celebrating the gift of each person. Families with children with disabilities as well as friends participate. And we LOVE to have Friends join us!!! If you are looking for inspiration, come to the Faith and Light gathering and be amazed by those who “shine in the world like bright stars.”

Sunday, July 26, 12:30 pm Inclusion & ADA anniversary Mass w/Bishop Tally @ St Ann’s Catholic Church, all are welcome!

September 12; 11 am - 1 pm in LaSalette Hall, St Ann’s; joint community picnic
October 3 - FLC– Family Life Center @ Transfiguration; 10am - Celebrate the Recognition of our community into the International Faith & Light Community
November 7 - FLC; 10am
December 5 - joint Christmas Celebration at Transfiguration FLC; 10am
January 9, 2016 - Adult Lounge; 10am
February 13, 2016 - FLC; 10am
March 5, 2016 - FLC; 10am
April 9, 2016 - FLC; 10am
May 7, 2016 - Adult Lounge; 10am
June 4, 2016 - FLC; 10am

A Fiesta with light refreshments will be served to close our gathering. Please bring a snack to share.
 
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I noticed that this study was related to Christian churches in general. I don’t know if it is just regional, but every diocese I have lived in in the US promotes the attendance of children with autism, ADD/ADHD etc.at Mass. They often created a small supports group within the each and all attended Mass together. I’ve been to a few masses where the priest condemned behavior which drives special needs children and their parents from the Church. I, myself, have severe ADHD and suffered from depression and an anxiety disorder as a child. I never felt unwelcome in any of my parishes when we were moving around as a child for my dad’s work. One of the aspects of the seminary programs in the United States is classes in psychology and pastoral ministry (which almost always addresses the pastoral needs of different groups of parishoners which the priest will encounter, including developmental disorders).
 
In every case, it isn’t always that the Church is unsupportive. The members just don’t understand what is going on. My son, isn’t really verbal, but babbles and makes noises constantly. It is impossible to keep him quiet at mass.

We have a cry room, but then it is impossible for me to participate in the mass, and it’s so loud in there that it freaks him out. So, my husband stands outside with him while I and the other kid stay in mass… or they stay home and I go by myself. I’m the one coming into the church not my husband.
 
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I feel there isn’t enough information in this article to draw many conclusions about the nature of this problem. There is no doubt that it is harder for parents to bring children with behavioral issues to Mass, but does that really mean the children aren’t welcome? And one of the parents cited in this article made it sound like it was the church daycare that couldn’t accommodate her child’s special needs. That doesn’t really pertain to Catholics, since we are supposed to bring our kids to Mass and not put them in a daycare. On the other hand, many Catholic schools will unabashedly tell you that they have no services for children with special needs and kids with autism and ADD can’t be served there. Others will give it a try but the teacher often lack the training to be successful. We actually have a Catholic school specifically for children with autism in our area, but we’re a large city. I can also see children with special needs being excluded from things like PSR, retreats, VBS, etc. What I would find really strange is children with special needs being literally unwelcome at Mass. I didn’t think things were THAT bad!
 
Unfortunately I have witnessed a mother being asked to leave Mass by a group of several long time parishioners because her teenage daughter was deemed disruptive by them. I do not know what disability her daughter has, but she certainly was NOT disruptive. She was singing with the choir and had occasional ”noises” that coincided with responses. As she was non verbal she was participating in the only way she knew how. It was NOT disruptive. I was sitting right behind them. At the sign of peace, several parishioners told mom that in ”cases like hers” it is best for everyone that mom and daughter don’t attend Mass. She was then asked to leave. It broke my heart watching this mom walk out. I followed right behind her, hugged her, and let her know she was not at fault. That was the last time I ever went to Mass at that parish. I had been a parishioner for two years at that time. I did bring it up to Father and explained it was why I was transferring to another parish for Mass. He said it didn’t surprise him, he had seen it before at parishes and sometimes it is even the priest that is impatient with differences or children. Father was very kind and loving. He did address it in his homily and reached out to the family that was treated wrong. I know this because the mom and I kept in touch for several years afterwards.

In a different parish I was teaching pre-k and k Sunday school. I am a teacher in public schools so many of the students were mine during the week as well. My husband took leave so we were out of town for two weeks. When I returned the co teacher told me that she kicked two boys (twins with developmental delays) out while I was gone. She said she was tired of dealing with them and asked the mother to remove them. It broke my heart again. I brought it to the attention of the coordinator but he sided with my co teacher. We were a parish in transition at the time being staffed by visiting priests as our priests were deployed. No one would go to bat for this mom. She removed all 5 of her children after from Sunday school. Her husband was deployed and she had so much to deal with. As a church we should have helped hold her up, not kicked her when she was down.

Thankfully these are the only two incidents I have witnessed. One is too many. Two is awful. But to put it into perspective, two incidents in 45 years, in two different countries, and several military moves within the US is a pretty good record. I think we should strive for zero incidents and not hide or downplay when something goes on. Being open and honest will keep us moving towards perfection.
 
Allegra said:
On the other hand, many Catholic schools will unabashedly tell you that they have no services for children with special needs and kids with autism and ADD can’t be served there. Others will give it a try but the teacher often lack the training to be successful.
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It’s absolutely true that some children on the autism spectrum (many? most? I don’t know the breakdown) need special services and an IEP (Individualized Education Plan, in my state – I’m sure there’s an equivalent for every state) that the local parochial school may not be able to provide. This isn’t (I hope) an instance of exclusion, but rather the school saying “Hey, we can’t do this – we don’t have the resources.” Unfortunate, but understandable.

I’ve never heard of special needs kids being excluded from Mass at any parish in my diocese.
 
My son is an ADD/sensory seeker. He can be quite wild at times, but he has has an amazing faith. He can be quite charming and is obviously quite intelligent. He has a hard time sitting still during kids time and was quite obnoxious at my niece’s baptism, fortunately it was private one. The sensory part means that he tends to seek strong (name removed by moderator)uts such as loud noise, running into things, running around, etc. Though occasionally he needs it very quiet and can’t deal with much noise, basically he experiences (name removed by moderator)uts at the extremes.

It’s hard as a few of you might have experienced. Everyone has an opinion. You are too much this or that, you are letting your child hide behind a diagnosis, back in my day a good swat on the butt solved the behavior. I tell my son constantly that his sensory diagnosis does not mean people will care or want to give you accommodation for it. Everyone has something to deal with, this is just his thing. We use the diagnosis to address how we raise him. Beating him up to quiet him down does little to help him deal with his future once he is outside the protection of his parents and school system. It’s really easy to judge and in, the context of church, annoyance is much less constructive that asking how you can be of help.
 
I’m not at all surprised by this study, and as a mom of two kids with autism and one with ADHD (and two neurotypical kids), who had lived in three states in the US and has driven back and forth across the US attending Mass visiting family I’ve found that while generally parishes and some staff at parishes are welcoming, the small number of people who are extremely hostile make me dread going to Mass every week (and I’m someone who before having kids and even when I had small children converted and attended daily Mass… I loved being there).

Yes many people are kind. But the vocal few who are cruel stand out so, so harshly.

I’ve literally had people with older children come into the cry room, which is pretty much where we’ve been banned because it’s very clear that the sounds my less verbal daughter makes cause distress to certain members of the parish (and the glares get exhausting) and swear and curse when they saw that she was in there, making her sounds which are very clearly the sounds of a child who is disabled.

When we tried to put my older daughter who has flourished in public school and only needed speech (she has ADHD and a speech delay and gross motor delay but has had zero behavioral problems and is at the top of her class) in the parish school at a parish we had attended for three and a half years we were told by the principal, after a long tangent about people with autism (like my other child) he knew who were violent that "he wished that we could be part of their parish community… but… " (basically he couldn’t take a chance on her). She went on to school to have zero behavioral or educational needs beyond speech, which children at the school receive.

But we never went back to that parish again, and I shed many, many tears in the months followed.

Even when we just leave the cry room at the parish we now attend (which is thankfully empty except our family at most Masses, and where I do work on teaching all our kids who to act during Mass, even with those noises…) to go forward to receive the Eucharist we pretty regularly have people who turn around and stare, in ways that are impossible to miss, even though she is pretty silent when we go forward. Her movements are not normal or natural and people look and usually some glare.

And it’s hard not to feel very alone and to wonder how I’m going to raise children in a Church where the community has so regularly glared, cursed at, and rejected them to their faces and expect them to stay. It really, really hurts my heart as a parent. So I teach them about the Eucharist and our beautiful faith and I pray that it will be enough.

I think it’s easy for people to say “our church isn’t like that.” But you don’t really know if your church is like that if you’ve never been in a position to be the ones who are ignored, or glared at, or cursed at, or rejected and literally told that you don’t belong. It’s exhausting and discouraging and if I didn’t believe in the Eucharist and that Jesus had established this Church I wouldn’t be clinging to it.

Sorry for writing a novel. Apparently I have a ton of feelings about this subject.
 
I am so sorry you had that experience.
I’ve found that even despite mainstreaming, so many neurotypical people really don’t know how to behave around the disabled.
I’ve also observed that the more “normal” a person looks, the more “normal” they are expected to behave. So for instance, a person with Down’s syndrome is given more latitude than a person with autism (who looks normal)
:pray:t2::pray:t2::pray:t2: For you and your darling kiddos
 
what do you think bothers parishes with members who have ADD/HD?
 
Thank you. I think that part of the problem is that my daughter looks perfectly normal, as long as she isn’t moving or making noise. Part of her yearly reevaluation for services says something along the lines of “it’s apparent to those observing her that she is disabled” (she has the verbal skills of about an 18 month old at the age of 8 and sort of flails about a lot of the time), but when she’s holding very still it isn’t apparent, so then when she moves, I think people are caught of guard. Sometimes you’ll see people realize and sort of get an understanding look, which is fine and good, or at least neutral. But other times they just keep glaring and being angry. It’s definitely made Mass, more emotionally challenging even though I always just kind of try to focus on Mass, and on getting her and her younger sister who was diagnosed this year, and the other kids through it.
 
We haven’t had a problem in Mass with our daughter.

We did have a problem in the first parish school we applied to and in that case I think it was that they didn’t want even the possibility of failure. They basically said there was a possibility she wouldn’t work out and if there was a possibility they didn’t really want to take a risk.

Which was a loss for them. They lost out on her and her two neurotypical brothers attending the school and our family attending the parish. And as I said, she’s at the top of her classes in the school she’s currently in with zero behavioral issues.

But honestly overall I haven’t seen a huge acceptance of people who are different in general. And kids with ADD/ADHD tend to be a little different. Sometimes they’re a little wilder when they’re small, or have a little bit of a hard time sitting still. Our daughter tended to be hyper focused in Mass because she was intensely interested in it.

But that would be my best guess.
 
Our archdiocese’s special needs Catechism program schedules special Masses for First Communions, confirmations, etc. where it’s fully expected that those in attendance may be a bit loud, etc.
Doesn’t help with week by week Sunday Mass though.
 
Yes, other people know when someone else is different. Some don’t know how to handle it, some just laugh at contrary behavior, etc. And part of it maybe is that other people are told ahead of time about a “different” person showing up. They are already labeled.
 
He’s not verbal (showing signs he might be eventually!), so I’m not sure how he feels. He babbles constantly, and is generally oblivious to what is going on around him. The last Sunday he was there several people turned around and looked at us. My husband took him outside for the second half of mass…
 
That’s awesome that there is a special needs catechism program! I’m not aware of one in my diocese. I’ll have to ask around.
 
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