Church & difficult children

[neednewtechnique]

I agree with other posters here, if the people in your congregation are not accepting of your difficult child, then you are in the wrong church!!! We attend services on a pretty weekly basis, and depending on the week, sometimes our difficult child is excited about going, and other weeks, she doesn't want anything to do with it.
Our Church is wonderful, and I especially like their position on parenting. They believe that as parents, God has placed HIS children in our care, and that since the church body itself should come together so closely, that it is very important that we ALL help each other whenever we can with our children. So in our church, the kids have all sort of been been "adopted" by EVERYONE. She attends youth group regularly, where the youth pastors (a husband and wife couple who have been wonderful for us and helping our difficult child adjust) have taken a special interest in her well being. Even the teenagers in her youth group, despite her problems, are very accepting of her and do what they can to make her "part of the group" and make her more comfortable.

So I guess that if I were to offer you advice on the church thing, for most difficult child's, this is the BEST place for them to be. psychiatrist's, Counselors, Mentors, Parents, and everyone else in the world can offer your difficult child advice and guidance, but ultimately, they NEED GOD. So as for how to make Church a more pleasant experience, you should be in a church where the people ARE accepting, when searching for a church, it is important to find a congregation that supports the same beliefs as you do, or to find a "non-denominational" church that does not spend time on "specifically touchy interpretations of doctrine". Go and sit through a service, and if you enjoyed it, make a point to meet with the pastor and his wife at some point after the service. Be sure to find out if the service you sat through was a "typical" Sunday service, and definitely ask about the Youth Group. If you are comfortable doing so, it may be a good idea to explain to the pastor what you have went through before with a church and the events that have led you to go searching for a new church. I know that after all you have been through, it may seem like a much better idea if you decide to make a fresh start, to keep all of that to yourself and just go in there and pretend that everything is okay and that you are a "normal" family without problems...but honestly, NO FAMILY IS NORMAL, and they all have their problems. And besides, your pastor and your church family should be a HUGE part of your support system, and it will do you a huge amount of good to find out sooner rather than later if the congregation will be supportive of your difficult child or not. Trust me when I tell you, because I DO have a supportive church family, your worship time at church if done in a very real way in a place with very real people, will intimtately connect you to those people, and it does a WORLD of good when you have people that closely connected to you that are praying for you and that you can pray with.

I hope this advice helps. Believe me when I say that I don't envy your situation, but I do wish you the best of luck and I WILL be praying for you and your difficult child, and if you DO make the decision to find a new church, I will pray that God leads you to a great place! Hugs!!!

 

[Marguerite]

I think the outcome of what we've been talking about here is this - for some of us, the church experience has been less than satisfactory. This, however, is not due to innate flaws in religions itself, only an indication of human frailty unchecked.

If you have a good experience at church then that is truly wonderful. You can get some great support and close friendship from others at church.

But if you don't - don't take it personally. All relationships need to be worked at, often from both sides. And sometimes I feel too tired to keep trying. I do have friends from our church even while there are others who have been very judgmental, often using doctrine as the excuse (which really annoys me). But I do feel that, although I would love to be assured of church support, I can live without it if I have to, and by guarding myself against this sort of rejection I can feel stronger. Church and faith are very different.

Some years ago a friend from church (no longer attending - similar reasons to our current drift away) got me to listen to a tape (album called "Some People") by Paul Aldritch, a Christian comedian from California. In one section he was talking about dysfunctional families, describing his own upbringing. He went on to describe various people in the Bible, and THEIR families. It was very apt, and very funny. "Now Jacob has two sons by two different women. And they all live in the same tent. is this dysfunctional, or what? Abraham takes his son Isaac up onto the mountain for a sacrifice. This isn't exactly the Beaver Cleaver family here, right? You can hear Isaac saying, 'golly, Dad, how come you don't take my brother Wally up onto the mountain and try to kill him, huh?'"
Jacob then has 12 sons, which Paul Aldritch reckons is almost automatically dysfunctional. "And they all live on the one big ranch, it's like the Ponderosa for this family. And the second youngest, 'little Jo-seph', is so popular with his co-dependent brothers that they toss him into a pit and sell him as a slave. This is dysfunctional, folks! And what do you think big Brother Hoss told Dad when they got back to the ranch?"
But then he goes on to explain how Jacob, called the Deceiver ("now there's a balanced guy, I wanna go live in HIS family") became Israel, Prince with God. "And Joseph rose through all kids of adversity to become a resource and rescuer to an entire nation."
And so on. But the end result of this line of thinking - God seems to choose dysfunctional families. It's almost as if he seeks them out. "Oh, they're too normal over there, I need these weird guys here," according to Paul Aldritch. he continues, "It's almost as if God favours dysfunctional families unfairly. So if ever you think you are too weird, or too strange then you're not. Chances are, in terms of service to God - you are overqualified."

husband & I have looked around at other churches. Because we live in an isolated place we really don't have a lot of choice. Also, in Australia church is not quite the same as in the US. It's far less a focus for life, although the Christian ethic pervades very deeply. The increasing fundamentalism means that those who continue church attendance are either those who are themselves very conservative in outlook, or who can tolerate the same conservatism without it getting to them. Many more liberal-minded Christians are simply not going to church any more. A big exception is the Roman Catholic church - they used to be considered conservative, but they haven't changed as much while others have. Now they seem radical by comparison. But I'm not quite ready to embrace Roman Catholicism yet! We went to their Christmas service, though, and loved it. No room in the inn - we had to peer through the window, it was so crowded.

But my thoughts often return to Paul Aldritch. difficult child 1 loves that tape. It helps him realise that God can use him, too. And he likes that. And knowing that helps him, and me, cope if ever we feel we're being treated as if we're an embarrassment, or we're in the way.

Marg

 

[LittleDudesMom]

If I had to kinda write a summary regarding my opinion on this topic and all the replies, I would probably begin with

"Being the parent of a difficult child is tough. Most places you go, when your difficult child is "acting up" you are the recipiant of rude stares and often rude comments. Most people do not understand what we deal with on a daily basis and tend to be judgmental regarding our parenting skills. This happens in parks, schools, stores, the mall, and church."

Basically, we cannot seperate out church from other places where people gather. Though we would like to think that church should be an enviornmnet free of judgement and full of acceptance, we have to remember that it is full of people. And many people of full of it!!

We seem to put more stock into being judged at church than being judged at the grocery store.

Faith is a sensative subject and perhaps that is why is matters so much. If I were to be judged and unaccepted by my church because of my difficult child, I would find another church. Just as if I were treated unfaily at a particular doctor's office I wouldn't go there anymore or if I were treated unfairly at a particular store I wouldn't go there anymore (financial sanctions are great).

It's like I told easy child one time when we were talking about boys. She was saying that this boy she liked was Christian, involved with the praise band at his church. I told her, kinda tongue and cheek, that just because he was a Christian, it didn't preclude him from having raging hormones.

Many an evil deed has been done in the name of religion. A house of worship doesn't always equal peace.

Sharon

 

[DDD]

My GFGmom was not welcome in the public school system or in the
church we used to attend weekly. She was never "bad" but she was
hyper and could not consistently keep her mouth shut. As a young
Mom it broke my heart that she could not be part of the CCC group
and prepare for the sacraments.

difficult child goes to Youth Group with the next door neighbors every Wed.
night for the past two years. Their church is fundamentalist
and mixed in with the love of God is a heck of alot of rules and
fears. It is not the right church for him. I know that is true.
BUT he so desperately needs to feel like he belongs to some group
that I send him off every Wed. and then I stay awake to make sure
he hasn't heard something that scares him. :rolleyes:

We have a zillion churches around here but husband and I do not have
the energy to track down one that will consistently be right for
him. Just like courting, engagement and marriage each phase takes time before you can really "know" the core. I wish it were
otherwise. DDD

 

[hearts and roses]

We seem to put more stock into being judged at church than being judged at the grocery store.

Many an evil deed has been done in the name of religion. A house of worship doesn't always equal peace.

Sharon

Amen Sharon!

 

[TerryJ2]

Good summaries, Sharon and Marg. Thank you! :smile: