I know from reading conversations online that gifted and 2e children at church is often a big issue for Christian parents. I’m going to say up front I do not have the answers for this. More than any other post in this series I’m going to raise the questions and I’m sincerely hoping others will jump in in the comments and leave their thoughts because I know this is a tough one.

Before we go any further, let’s recap. If you haven’t read the previous posts in the series, please do. Otherwise you’ll be missing the context of this post.

• Raising Gifted Children in the Christian Faith
• Thinking about Gifted/2e from a Christian Perspective
• Disciplining Gifted and 2e Children in the Christian Faith

Now that you have the context of this series, let’s continue on.

Gifted and 2e Children In Church

So what does it look like when a gifted or 2e child goes to church (or another church-related setting such as AWANA, youth group, etc.)?

Here are numerous scenarios that play out depending on the level of giftedness, the number and type of intensities, and the age of the child.

• The child who asks deep theological questions some adults don’t even ask, but can’t seem to sit in a chair for more than twenty seconds and wanders around the Sunday School classroom.
• The child who announces at AWANA that he’s not sure if God even exists because (insert some deep theological reason here) and also can’t memorize a short Bible verse to save his life.
• The deeply compassionate girl who becomes overwhelmed by her intense emotions and has to abruptly shut down conversations who also can’t write a sentence.
• The child who repeatedly draws away from the group during AWANA to talk one-on-one with his favorite adult rather than play the loud games.
• The child who can tell you in amazing detail everything she has ever learned about (insert some significant topic here), but cannot keep up in a Sunday School class structured like a traditional classroom and feels humiliated when put on the spot and asked a basic question about the Bible lesson.
• The child who sits in the pew with his hands tightly over his ears, head down, when everyone else stands up to sing.
• The child who is traumatized by the meet and greet time during the service when everyone is talking loudly and trying to invade his personal space.

These are just a few examples of how gifted and 2e kids might act at church while trying to cope with their intensities. Unfortunately, if people aren’t familiar with the struggles of children who live with intensities, they may be quick to assume that the children are spoiled or undisciplined.

Parenting Guilt and Church Attendance

Nothing has caused me more parenting angst than the struggle to regularly attend worship services at church. I never in a million years would have pictured myself as a parent who would avoid attending church because it was just too hard, too draining, and too discouraging.

It started early when we didn’t put Caroline in the nursery the first winter (because she was bottle fed and it was flu season) and we were accused of making her an idol. With a few exceptions, it pretty much went downhill from there.

Except for a brief period of time at one church where Caroline was able to leave part of the service for junior church, I haven’t had the opportunity to actually sit and worship in a focused way in almost nine years.

People approach worship in different ways. My primary way of worshiping is with my mind. I’m a thinker. I don’t just sing the hymn. I dissect the words while I’m doing it. I don’t just listen to the prayer. I’m latching onto certain words. I take notes during the sermon. It’s how I’m wired.

I don’t get to do any of that any longer. I’ve been in and out of services with a little girl who is overwhelmed by the music. I’ve been in and out of services with a little girl who can’t sit still. I can’t focus on singing the hymns when the little girl sitting next to me has her hands over her ears and her head down because it is just too loud. I have to bite my tongue every time someone insinuates (or states) that my child is shy or rude because she doesn’t want to get up and shake hands with people she doesn’t know.

It’s too exhausting to negotiate it all. In the past, church would energize me to go forth for the week. Over the past nine years it has taken me a day just to recover and there was no energizing. For the most part, church has been something my child has endured.

The Questions We Ask About Church

Does some of this sound familiar? I’m sure it does. And I bet you are asking some of the same questions we’ve been asking ourselves the past several years. These are the questions we try to come to terms with as believers who want to raise our child in Christian community when the community doesn’t work for our kids.

• Should church be painful? Should it be scary and overwhelming? When it is literally physically or emotionally painful for a child to be in church, what do you do?
• Does God ask us to be miserable each week? Would you choose to go somewhere each week that literally made you ill? Should we ask that of our little ones?
• Do we want our gifted/2e children to equate the love of Jesus and worship with pain? With a desire to flee a situation that is overwhelming in various ways?
• What do you do when all the church options available to your family are either sensory overload or are so theologically divergent from your own beliefs that you feel you would have to compromise your conscience in order to attend?

We’re not the only one asking these questions. I’ve come across posts written by other moms with children who have significant struggles with church and Sunday School. The comments are even more eye opening. In some cases the children have very severe needs and in others they simply are children who don’t deal well with too much stimuli. But in each case, church is an ongoing struggle.

• When Church Hurts
• Why Does Sunday School Have to be School?
• Why Church Is a Burden for Special Needs Parents {And What You Can Do About It}

The Pat Answers People Give

And then there are the pat answers that people give. The ones that range from clueless to offensive to downright mean.

• Church isn’t about you. It’s about God. Stop making it about you.
• You aren’t supposed to forsake the assembling. You are sinning if you aren’t there every week.
• Children need to learn to do things that are unpleasant. Even if they don’t like being in church, they have to be there because it is what God demands.
• If you were a better parent, you would spank them into compliance so they would show up with a smile on their face and get over their selfish hangups.
• You should be here every week, but don’t expect the church to do anything to help you. No one owes you childcare each week.

So What Do We Do?

As I said, I don’t have the answer to these questions. Our situation partially resolved itself when I developed health issues that made attending church even more challenging. Between Caroline and me it became so overwhelming that we have not been attending church the past several months. We pray regularly that God will guide us in this area. It grieves me deeply that my child is growing up without a community of believers and friends. We pray that God will open the door to something that will work for all of us. In the meantime, we try to find Christian encouragement and fellowship wherever we can.

How are you handling this with your own gifted or 2e child?

This post is part of my larger collection of essays on raising gifted and 2e children as a Christian parent.

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