Celtic Goddess might be right.
I got asked by one person in a thousand member church to not bring my autistic child to her Sunday School. I left, enraged, "If they don't want her, they don't want ME!" Many tears, much anguish. When I could be less emotional about it, I went to the Pastor, and told him of the incident. I said that my child behaved in ways that no one could handle, what should we do about it? The church gave enough budget to hire someone to run in a separate room what we called Sunday morning respite. Parents could leave their child there during church time and attend any church they wanted as long as we could reach them if there was a problem. I know another church that instituted a buddy system where an older teenager or young adult would become the the buddy of an autistic or other badly behaved person. They sat with with them in church as long as the autistic person could stand it, and then they would walk the halls with the autistic person. I know another church that instituted a special service on Wednesday night for those with kids who could not handle a regular service.
If you could arrange a brainstorming session with yourself, the pastor, the youth leader, and anybody else you think useful, and see if you can find out what the specific problem is and maybe find a workaround that is acceptable to the youth leader. You want to look calm and like a problem-solver, not a pushy mom who is going to shove the youth leader around. He may know something about the group dynamics of the youth that you do not. Or, he could just be scared. Or he could be prejudiced so badly the church needs to get a new youth leader. I don't know what the situation is other than the youth leader has some concern he was not willing to tell you for some reason and so he came up with the bogus reason. Is he afraid of you for some reason? Is he a coward and afraid of hurting your feelings? Maybe other parents told him they don't want your son in the group because they are afraid of....?
If you can find some way to frame this as an opportunity to minister that needs more thought than most ministries instead of as an accusation, and have group meetings rather than one on one he said she saids, your church might find a new ministry to get enthusiastic about.
I am not saying you are spouting accusations or being difficult to live with or that your child is an ogre. I am simply thinking out loud here about possibilities and how people react. I empathize with you so strongly that I am near tears and I want to bring you solace and an instant solution and I want to shoot all the bad people in the world who won't love our kids. yeah, well. If I come up with anything useful, I'll let you know.
31 May 2009, 8:17 pm
How invested in the group is your son? Does he have his heart set on moving up? I would have a talk with the Sunday School Super. Go in and have a face to face meeting and ask what is going on. Let him know that it's widely known kids move up in the 6th and it appears as if DS is being singled out. If they can't compromise and they insist the rule is for the child to be in 7th, calmly explain that *enter list of names of other children here* have all moved up before the 7th and DS will soon figure out for himself that he is not being included. THen ask THEM how they feel it should be handled. Put the ball back in their court. Just stay calm and go on a fact finding mission without jumping to conclusions. See what you can find out.
