Two Steps Forward, One Step Back

Behavior in church has always been an issue with my son. I've written up some of the things that have worked for us in the article "Worshiping With a Special-Needs Child," but as my boy has gotten older, he hasn't needed those tricks and techniques nearly so much. He's almost 15 now, and just within the past few months we've made a permanent move from the "cry room" in the back to an actual pew in the "big church."

His behavior there hasn't been what you'd expect of a teen, but within the boundary of what you can do without people giving you the stink-eye. A little disruptive, but not so disruptive I feel the need to remove him, or to threaten removal. He's trying, and generally doing, his best.

Yesterday, though, we had one of those days when you realize that although your child has come far, it is still possible to push your luck. I've dropped a lot of precautions I used to put in place for him, and yesterday was a good example of the way he can handle a little stress, or maybe a lot of stress, but it all accumulates until he's no longer able to handle any stress. Unfortunately, when that point came, we were sitting in an Ash Wednesday church service.

Our sort of perfect behavioral storm came with the pile-up of many things:

• It was a special day at school for which he had to dress up with shirt, tie, khakis, and dress shoes, which he wore all day.
• It was a special day at school, so the routine there was disrupted.
• He had book club after school.
• The end of book club was too early to go straight into church, but too late to go home and give him a break in between. So we sat in the car in the church parking lot for close to half an hour.
• We then went into church early, and had some idle quiet time before the service.

In the past, I would never have set him up that way for church misbehavior. We would have gone to a later service. We would have gone home and let him de-stress. If we had to sit in the car, I'd have brought games and amusements and maybe changed his shirt. But I've gotten spoiled. And the results were completely predictable, if disheartening.

On the plus side, his behavioral meltdown wasn't as severe as it would have been in the past; there was no rolling around in the pews or singing during the sermon. But it's also true that things like waving your hands over your head, picking your nose, ripping a pocket off your jacket, saying "No!" loudly and repeatedly, and laughing when a baby cries elsewhere in the room are a lot more noticeable and attention-grabbing when you're 14 and 5-foot-4.

We survived, anyway, skedaddling out of there as soon as our foreheads were ashed. But the whole thing adds a little extra weight to my worries about him going to high school next year. I've argued constantly that he still needs, even at his advanced age, somebody monitoring his stress level and running interference lest he get himself in serious trouble. And I know a lot of folks think I'm overreacting and overprotective. Maybe I can call yesterday a little experiment on whether he really needs that much structure and attention. Results: You betcha.