What if no one invites our family to church?
Social isolation helps explain the underrepresentation in church of families touched by mental illness - and represents a catalyst of our current mental health crisis.
A standard component of my diagnostic evaluations when I was a practicing child and adolescent psychiatrist was a detailed history of the interests and activities of each of my patients. I was especially interested in their capacity for and participation in age-appropriate extracurricular activities: sports, clubs at school, the performing arts (theater, music, dance), scouting and church participation/engagement. Along with those questions, I would typically ask parents about the interests and activities they engaged in as a family, explore with them how the challenges that led them to bring their child to our practice impacted their ability to pursue experiences they previously enjoyed together and discuss the impacts of their child’s issues on their marriage and their relationship with one another. Some themes that emerged from several thousand of these interviews over 35+ years included:
Kids with mental health issues were significantly less likely to be involved in the extracurricular activities common among families in our community and our region, and had far fewer friends compared to their peers.
Parents in our practice were much less likely to socialize with other parents compared to the typical couple in our community.
There are lots of other places in addition to church where it’s difficult for families to go if they have a child with a serious mental health condition. Taking a child on a shopping trip, to a swim club, an amusement park or a ballgame were more an ordeal than a pleasure for parents and siblings.
Parents often described feeling “spent” - physically, mentally and financially by the time and effort associated with parenting the child/children who were the focus of treatment.
The experience of raising a child with a significant emotional, behavioral or developmental disorder is often very socially isolating. Social isolation in turn can have profound impacts on how families are introduced to and explore churches they might attend as a family.
These findings may be a bit dated because of the explosion of online ministry resources resulting from COVID, but Pew Research published an extensive study in the summer of 2016 looking at how Americans of different faith backgrounds went about the process of finding a new church or place of worship. They emphasized that for most people looking for a church, personal contact is key:
More than eight-in-ten adults who have ever looked for a new house of worship say they attended a service during their search (85%). And roughly seven-in-ten talked to members of the congregation (69%) or to friends or colleagues (68%) about the house of worship they were considering. Upward of half of those searching for a new house of worship talked to a minister or clergy person (55%). Fewer say they looked for information online (37%) or made a phone call (19%) to a house of worship they were considering – although among adults under 30 who have looked for a congregation, about six-in-ten (59%) say they searched for information online.
Families raising kids with significant emotional and behavioral challenges are far less likely to find themselves in social contexts with families from your church who might speak of the church’s ministries for children and youth or invite them to a worship service or special event. A deeper dive into the factors behind their social isolation may spark ideas among church leaders for facilitating connection through providing services that meet important support needs. Among those factors are:
Availability of appropriate child care: Families of kids with significant emotional or behavioral disorders can’t just hire any bright, responsible 14 year-old neighbor to facilitate opportunities for “date nights” when couples can connect with friends or neighbors. Church-based opportunities for closely supervised social interaction for kids with emotional or behavioral challenges and their siblings that enable parents to enjoy time together (respite) often result in exploration of weekend worship experiences among families making use of the service.
Money: The out of pocket costs of mental health treatment and the other support services required to meet the needs of kids with significant emotional and behavioral disorders may limit the family’s ability to pay for child care, their discretionary income for social activity with other adults (golf, fitness, private clubs), and their resources for participation in private lessons and travel sports that bring them in regular contact with other families.
Access to Christian schools: Children with a broad range of disabilities, including mental health conditions are significantly less likely to attend Christian schools. A study reported that 95 percent of accredited “Christ-centered” schools in California don’t accept children with disabilities. Kids are deprived of peer groups who could help them assimilate at church, and parents are excluded from social networks composed of families with common interests in spiritual formation. Making Christian schools more accessible to kids in need of mental-health-related accommodations in states where school choice is adequately supported brings new families in contact with families who have established deep roots in the church.
Social isolation resulting from the child’s mental health condition itself. Kids with mental health conditions often rub peers the wrong way. The kid with ADHD too impatient to follow rules of a game or unable to manage his anger is less likely to be invited to playdates and birthday parties. Acquaintances of a young woman with social anxiety stop texting or calling after she declines too many invitations to parties, concerts, or large groups activities. Parents of children who don’t have friends never meet the parents of their son’s or daughter’s friends. When churches establish peer support groups for parents of kids with mental health challenges, parents from the community are invited into relationships with families in the church who can identify with their experiences and come alongside them as they assimilate.
In a culture in which loneliness has been declared a public health emergency, one of the most helpful resources churches can provide are opportunities for healthy social interaction. Social isolation is both a cause and a consequence of mental illness, and social connection is a critically important protective factor.
For families with mental health challenges, connecting with them may require a measure of strategic thinking, construction of appropriate social and behavioral “ramps” and creation of a culture in which the people of the church proactively seek out and invite friends, neighbors and coworkers impacted by these conditions who find themselves without a church to attend.