{"id":3216,"date":"2012-10-23T05:10:02","date_gmt":"2012-10-23T09:10:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/simplelife\/?p=3216"},"modified":"2012-10-23T22:16:23","modified_gmt":"2012-10-24T02:16:23","slug":"the-best-of-timesthe-worst-of-times-part-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/simplelife\/2012\/10\/the-best-of-timesthe-worst-of-times-part-2.html","title":{"rendered":"The Best of Times\/The Worst of Times Part 2"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/specialgathering.files.wordpress.com\/2008\/07\/turning-your-back.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft\" src=\"https:\/\/specialgathering.files.wordpress.com\/2008\/07\/turning-your-back.jpg?w=133&amp;h=300&amp;h=210\" alt=\"Turning your back on behavior may work\" width=\"106\" height=\"168\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>What do you do when\u00a0some of your members become agitated and cause confusion in your services?\u00a0 That is what we faced at The Special Gathering of Melbourne on Sunday morning.\u00a0 Special Gathering is a ministry within the mentally challenged community, doing evangelism and discipleship.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/specialgathering.files.wordpress.com\/2012\/10\/hand-on-back1.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright\" src=\"https:\/\/specialgathering.files.wordpress.com\/2012\/10\/hand-on-back1.jpg?w=510\" alt=\"\" width=\"268\" height=\"188\" \/><\/a>Over the past several weeks, Johnny has become increasingly agitated during the worship time.\u00a0 He is\u00a0on the autism\u00a0spectrum and mentally challenged; normally, there are no problems.\u00a0 He sits quietly rocking and humming.\u00a0 Yesterday was different.\u00a0 For some reason, he became\u00a0excited and confused.\u00a0 His humming was almost at the volume of yelling.<\/p>\n<p>In addition, it appears that another member,\u00a0Lawrence, is on a new behavioral program.\u00a0 He is also on the autism spectrum.\u00a0 His caregiver put him in the middle of the seating area and walked to the back of the room.\u00a0 The Lawrence and his caregiver have always sat together in the back of the room because of Lawrence\u2019s behaviors.<\/p>\n<p>About every five minutes Lawrence would stand up, talking in an agitated way to\u00a0no one in\u00a0paticular\u00a0and point repeatedly and\u00a0extravagantly to his companion.\u00a0 Like troopers, all the members ignored Lawrence\u2019s behaviors trying to concentrate on the sermon.<\/p>\n<p>At Special Gathering, we have several rules of thumb when dealing with disruptive behaviors.\u00a0 We aren\u2019t behaviorist and we don\u2019t claim to be but we have found certain techniques that seem to work.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>It is always wise to chose your battles.\u00a0 Decide what behaviors should be ignored and which ones should be confronted.\u00a0 When I first came to Special Gathering, I would always error on the side of confrontation.\u00a0 I believed that if behaviors were allowed, it would erode the authority I needed to establish for myself as the leader of the group.\u00a0 However, after years of losing battles, \u00a0I now prefer to error on the side of ignoring.\u00a0 As long as you are completely and totally\u00a0ignoring the person, it will be evident to everyone that you are choosing to not become a part of the scene.\u00a0 Because this was a totally new behavior for Larry, I chose the totally ignore him and so did our members<\/li>\n<li>Behaviors that are best ignored are those that are part of a person\u2019s disability.\u00a0 I would never stop Johnny\u2019s quiet humming and rocking.\u00a0 It gives him comfort; and he only does it on the days that he is deeply disturbed.\u00a0 When he becomes loud, there is one\u00a0volunteer who is able to calm him immediately, with only a gentle touch on the shoulder.\u00a0 She has trained herself to be acutely aware of his moods and\u00a0to move quietly to Johnny when the noise level gets to a certain point and gently touch his shoulder.<\/li>\n<li>I also find that our members monitor each other.\u00a0 As long as it is done without condemnation and in a polite and appropriate manner, allow the members of the class to do the correction.\u00a0 A simple \u201cthat\u2019s not appropriate behavior\u201d from a peer\u00a0is almost always enough to get someone who is acting out to cease.<\/li>\n<li>Try to determine if the behavior is an attention-getting devise.\u00a0 If\u00a0you believe it\u00a0is, then totally ignore\u00a0the person\u00a0or put the person in a place where they will not get the attention they crave.<\/li>\n<li>Asking the person to sit\u00a0in the back of the room may be the worst kind of<em>punishment<\/em>\u00a0for an attention-starved individual.\u00a0 Charles has starting echoing my sermons.\u00a0 Because it\u2019s his tenth year as a member and he has never done this before, I felt it was an attention-getting behavior.\u00a0 When I saw him looking at me, trying to get my attention, I knew that it was.<\/li>\n<li>Try giving the offending person a small amount of added attention.\u00a0 Charles loves sitting on the front row.\u00a0 Each week Charles and I have a short talk.\u00a0 \u201cCharles, if you are going to\u00a0repeat me during the devotions, you need to sit in the back of the room,\u201d\u00a0 I tell him.\u00a0 \u201cI\u2019ll be good\u201d is always his answer.\u00a0 I assume he just needs that few minutes on undivided attention to reassure him of his place in the program.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/specialgathering.files.wordpress.com\/2012\/10\/pairing-volunteer-and-member.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright\" src=\"https:\/\/specialgathering.files.wordpress.com\/2012\/10\/pairing-volunteer-and-member.jpg?w=300&amp;h=225\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" \/><\/a>Become sensitive to your volunteers. If there is one volunteer who seems to have a good repore with a certain member, casually pair them and encourage them to hang out together.\u00a0 This will help to eliminate some, if not most, of the concerns.<\/li>\n<li>Prayer\u00a0works wonders.\u00a0\u00a0After asking permission, you may\u00a0find it effective to gently lay your hands on the agitated person.\u00a0 If the person is autistic, ask him\/her if\u00a0s\/he would like to hold your hand.\u00a0 Hold your hand out in space but don\u2019t touch.\u00a0 Allow her\/him to reach over and\u00a0take your hand, don\u2019t initiate the touching.<\/li>\n<li>Should the situation really get out of hand and there appears to be danger, the volunteers must remove the members from the room or area of danger.\u00a0 You may also want to remove yourself from the room.\u00a0 Allow the person to work through his agitations and be sure the room is quiet before returning in to the room.\u00a0 Remember you can replace furniture.\u00a0 You can\u2019t replace a person.<\/li>\n<li>It is best to have one person (the person who holds\u00a0the highest position in the organization) deal with the problems while all the volunteers and staff offer assistance and comfort to the rest of the members.<\/li>\n<li>Calling 911 should be an option.\u00a0 Before a person is allowed to hurt someone or themselves, calling in professional help may save a broken bone.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Again, we aren\u2019t trained behaviorist; and we don\u2019t claim to be.\u00a0 However, these are some helpful techniques that we have found that work.\u00a0 What are some of the things that you have found which work to calm down a person who has become agitated?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>What do you do when\u00a0some of your members become agitated and cause confusion in your services?\u00a0 That is what we faced at The Special Gathering of Melbourne on Sunday morning.\u00a0 Special Gathering is a ministry within the mentally challenged community, doing evangelism and discipleship. Over the past several weeks, Johnny has become increasingly agitated during&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":387,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,20,3,40,186,49,16,8,4,41],"tags":[690,21,688,696,7,699,726,715,701,694,709,689,57,6,687,700],"class_list":["post-3216","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-christianity","category-church","category-developmental-disabilities","category-faith","category-hope","category-inspiration","category-intellectual-disability","category-mentally-challenged-community","category-simple-truths","category-spirituality","tag-autism-spectrum","tag-christian","tag-christianity","tag-church","tag-developmental-disabilities-2","tag-faith","tag-faiths","tag-hope","tag-inspiration","tag-intellectual-disability","tag-leadership","tag-mentally-challenged-community","tag-prayer","tag-simple-scriptural-truths","tag-simple-truths","tag-spirituality"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>The Best of Times\/The Worst of Times Part 2 - A Simple Life, a Childlike Faith<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, nofollow\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Best of Times\/The Worst of Times Part 2 - A Simple Life, a Childlike Faith\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"What do you do when\u00a0some of your members become agitated and cause confusion in your services?\u00a0 That is what we faced at The Special Gathering of Melbourne on Sunday morning.\u00a0 Special Gathering is a ministry within the mentally challenged community, doing evangelism and discipleship. Over the past several weeks, Johnny has become increasingly agitated during&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/simplelife\/2012\/10\/the-best-of-timesthe-worst-of-times-part-2.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"A Simple Life, a Childlike Faith\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2012-10-23T09:10:02+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2012-10-24T02:16:23+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/specialgathering.files.wordpress.com\/2008\/07\/turning-your-back.jpg?w=133&amp;h=300&amp;h=210\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Linda G. 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