Spiritual community search

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I'm new here. This seemed like a thoughtful, compassionate place to bring this up.

We had to leave our last spiritual community for several reasons, but the main one is that my aspie son (age 7) had trouble participating in the gathering and was acting as "a negative influence" on one family's 3-year-old son. So we are searching again, and we are on guard.

My question is for those aspies and families with aspies that are involved in a spiritual community, regardless of faith or denomination. What community values have been helpful for you? What does the community do that indicates you/your child is welcome and accepted for who you are - he/she is?

Any and all advice and stories are welcome. Thanks. -md

christian? buddhist? hindu? jewish? eco-pagan? what kind of community?

I am a Christian, and currently training for ministry, so my own 7 year old Aspie son has been involved in the life of the various churches I've been training/working in.

I haven't had any negative experiences. Some have been neutral and some have been very positive.

In terms of the neutral ones, they accepted my son and his behaviours - hand flapping, head banging, running in circles, lack of focus, endless talking and problems listening and participating with the group.

The positive ones were where people took the trouble to find out what was particularly good for my son. So for example, one of the Sunday Schools he attends have given him various tasks to carry out as they realise that he needs to be busy and active, and that helps him focus.

I would look for a faith community which is flexible and fairly informal in its worship. A place where people can move around during the service to a certain degree without being frowned upon, and which doesn't insist on things being done in a certain way. Somewhere that loves each person as an individual and understands and accepts differences in ways of worship and spirituality.

When you go along somewhere for the first time, look at the people who are there. Are they all very similar or do they seem more diverse? Are there people with obvious infirmities who are supported so that they can participate as best they can? Are people who are "different" able to participate in leading worship or serving in some other way?

Oh, and hi and welcome to Wrong Planet, darkmoses!

I'd look for a community that has an experienced practice of compassion... not just nice words about it, but active in the homeless, veteran, mental care communities. They'll have already had exposure and (hopefully) more acceptance of difference. If they actually include some of these individuals within their congregation, so much the better.

Also, I'd talk to the people involved with the children's education and activity programs about your son's difference, and just see how they react. You'll probably get a pretty good idea from that how they will deal with any problems that come up. You could even talk about what happened in your previous congregation and see if they start hemming and hawing.

And... going out on a limb here... but spiritual communities founded by societies rejected may welcome you with a lot of kindness and understanding. The gay and lesbian community has long had a policy of welcoming the physically handicapped, being one of the first to routinely have concerts signed for the hearing impaired. The African-American community can be very understanding about the dominant society's cruelty and offer refuge. Veteran focused communities... a lot of our veterans are returning with head injuries that require understanding, compassion and limits to behavior.

Don't limit yourself...

Long before we knew our son was AS, we hesitated taking him to church. He just could NOT sit still or quietly, and the situation was torture for him and everyone around. We are Catholic but had pretty much given up on finding something suitable within the Catholic community, given that the philosophy tends to be "all are welcome in church" and, so, there is no Sunday school. Nice philosophy if you can get that elderly neighbor giving you a cold stare to buy it, right?

So, we started looking for Sunday school programs and, amazingly, found a children's liturgy program right in the closest Catholic church, which who knows why we had never thought to adopt as our parish. Young children get to LEAVE church and do their own thing in another room. Yeah! THAT worked for my son. Even though the teachers rotate and are not professional, he got into it and behaved just fine.

From there we slowly transitioned him through the program and into church, and subscribed to a Catholic children's magazine that allows him to follow along in church with added explanations and activities. At 12 he goes to church and, while he fidgets and moves, he is perfectly quiet.

I like the idea of allowing our children to participate - or not participate - at their own pace. A little give and take from us, as parents, in what we ask our kids to do, and a little give and take from the faith community you attend. Ours really doesn't know my son is AS; we have no complaints and get no dirty looks, so there has been no reason to tell them. But we paced it all really carefully, his introduction was quite slow, and we only did what he was ready for when it came to participating in the parish community.

I've clearly found the right place to bring this up. Thanks for all your thoughts and stories!

Your words confirm my own instincts, that places where diversity and tolerance are manifest in concrete actions and not just mission statements are likely to be welcoming to aspie families as well. Folks who have been marginalized and succeeded in overcoming their pain with compassion have generally been among our friends and allies from the start - it's just a trick to identify where and how they gather in spiritual community.

We're taking the summer off to lick our own wounds, then will likely start looking in the fall. I anticipate we'll be relatively public in our advocacy for neurodiversity, so will probably have some findings to report. I'll blog about them at some point.

Thanks again!