Explorations of Nature and Neurospicy Childhoods: Moving from Inclusion to Justice in Spaces of Worship

Kiara Jorgenson

Worship finished and I stepped into the light-filled narthex. With the postlude still swelling in air, a parent caught me on the way out. “Weren’t the stars a great idea? My son never sits still and pays attention in worship, but he was happy to cut and paste shapes for an hour!” I nodded in agreement, and then wondered about her son. What is worship typically like for him, when he’s not flanking the altar with paper constellations to remind us of God’s covenant with Abraham?

To the extent that societal indicators tell us some things about the people in the pews, the church is an increasingly neurodiverse place. Our faith communities include many folx whose brains attend in unique ways, and research shows this is especially true among the young. Compared to their parents and grandparents, children and youth of Generations Alpha and Z are far more likely to identify with one or more of the diagnoses increasingly referred to as forms of neurodiversity.¹ They most commonly include autism spectrum disorder, dyslexia, dyspraxia, dyscalculia, nonverbal learning disorder, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, Tourette syndrome, and a variety of mood and personality disorders. 

With this in mind, how must Christian communities reimagine worship? Along with Erin Raffety, I believe today’s church is called to become not only a welcoming and inclusive community for all children, but a just one.² In this essay I explore one piece of what it takes to live into this vision—providing access to nature and natural elements in the context of child-attentive worship. Regular exposure to embodied and elemental experiences greatly benefit neurodivergent children. When churches commit to centering embodied and elemental practices, children who are frequently on the fringes can lead from their strengths and help the church experience the presence of God in new ways.

A Brief Word on Neurospiciness

Since sociologist Judy Singer coined the term in 1998, neurodivergence has been widely accepted in disabled communities and now generally refers to the unification of advocacy movements representing people with atypical neurological conditions like those mentioned above. In coining the term, Singer drew inspiration from the field of ecology and the concept of biodiversity. On earth, variety of life is critical. At the genetic, species, and ecosystems levels, life thrives under conditions of difference. When things get homogenized, too “typical,” biological systems destabilize, and needed ecological services cannot be performed. Likewise, Singer claims neurodiversity increases the resilience and efficacy of human communities. The more diversity of minds is recognized, respected, and facilitated into culture the more stable, adaptable, and sustainable that culture will be.

The lens of neurodiversity should therefore be understood as part of a wider trend away from obsessions with norms, pathologies, and cures toward an optimistic view of human difference based on potential strengths and questions of how to enhance flourishing. In the last two decades the field of psychology has shifted away from a medical model focused on deficits toward a strength-based model that considers optimal psychological functioning. The recent change is most evident in the subfields of positive psychology and positive youth development. Dr. Pamela Ebstyne King’s team at the Thrive Center of Fuller Seminary suggest youth be viewed as resources for ongoing development rather than problems to be solved. This sentiment provides a sharp contrast to the meaning of the term “mental health,” which defines psychological health by the absence of pathology (e.g., anxiety, depression) and reflects the traditional deficit bias within psychology. Consequently, psychological theory and research have expanded their focus from solely being problem-oriented towards being strength-based.³ Many within the autistic community see the ongoing shift from divergence as deficit to strength beginning with one of their own, Jim Sinclair. His 1993 essay “Don’t Mourn for Us” challenged dominant parent-centric narratives wherein autism was presented as a reality to grieve and a problem to mitigate. In his work Sinclair replaced such foci with first-person accounts from the autistic community, insisting that one’s neurological disability(ies) are never separate from one’s identity. “Autism isn’t something a person has, or a ‘shell’ that a person is trapped inside,” he asserts. “There’s no normal child hidden behind the autism. Autism is a way of being. It is pervasive; it colors every experience, every sensation, perception, thought, emotion, and encounter, every aspect of existence.”⁴

To lift up the ways exceptional minds enliven our communities, I often use the stand-in word “neurospicy,” a term of endearment increasingly common among neurodivergent social influencers.⁵ In this essay I do so from a position of strategic essentialism and accept the risks related thereto.⁶ I also use the term as a neurotypical mother of an autistic thirteen-year-old, well aware of the damaging effects of labels. “She’s so spirited,” some have said of my daughter. “What a little butterfly, here, there, and everywhere.” And, “You’ll have to curb the will of that one; she’s a pistol.” From libraries to grocery stores, parent groups to familiar congregational settings, strangers and friends offer these characterizations of my neurospicy child.⁷

This may be due in part to the cultural ways many U.S. citizens regard children. Developmental psychologist Alison Gopnik explains how most Americans view children as small persons en route to the destination of adulthood. Neurodivergence is therefore a roadblock of sorts. Gopnik and many who build upon her work within the child theology movement observe that when communities center adult experiences and perspectives, children’s agency, moral capacities, and experiences are called into question.⁸ Various forms of “adultism” reduce children to what they do rather than who they are and can therefore lead parents and caregivers to focus upon behavior with a critical eye for deficits. In The Kingdom of Children: A Liberation Theology, R. L. Stollar exposes this problematic mindset within the Christian tradition and demonstrates why so many “spirited” children are cast as subordinates, property, and even vipers to be controlled. Rather than seeing children as whom we wish them to be, Stollar argues we must understand children as image bearers here and now.⁹ Theologically, this resonates with most Christian baptismal and dedication liturgies, wherein even the smallest are welcomed as full disciples of Christ and fellow workers in the kingdom of God. In principle, Christians believe this. Consider the commitments we make to children when they are dedicated, baptized, and confirmed. At these thresholds in Catholic and Protestant liturgies, adults affirm children’s full membership in the body of Christ and promise to support them in their pursuit of God. In many cases pledges are made to not simply include children, but to also disciple them and for the adults themselves to grow as disciples by becoming more like children.

Naturally, plenty of alternatives to these problematic models of child-rearing exist.¹⁰ But in my experience even those who regard my neurospicy child’s will as something to respect rather than curtail injure us both with suspecting glances and pitying statements. “I can’t imagine how hard it must be to be her mom; I’ll pray for you and for her,” or “I’m in awe of what you do for your daughter. You’re amazing.” As if I’m the valiant heroine while my daughter, the one constantly negotiating who she is to simply function in society, is the troublesome burden. These interactions are akin to what disabled scholar Amy Kenny calls “curative encounters” with “prayerful perpetrators.” Commenting on her own experience with these types of conversations, Kenny says, “It’s draining to endure, especially because the people who do this don’t intend to cause us harm. They just haven’t considered how the assumption that disability needs ‘fixing’ is dehumanizing.”¹¹ Perhaps this is why many within the disabled community invite the larger community to consider vulnerability as inevitable and disability as normative. The illuminating question isn’t whether a person is disabled. It’s when in some capacity they will become so, and the extent to which they’ll experience pressure to cope and conform to ableist expectations. 

The Church’s Mode: Inclusion through Accommodation

Christians worship a disabled God, and a disabled child-God at that.¹² Yet most of us remain wholly uncomfortable with the vulnerability that accompanies disability and the change of perspective it can bring. It’s no wonder the proud temple-goers of Mark 2 couldn’t abide the paralyzed man coming forth from the rooftop with his faithful friends in tow. The presence of his crip body prompted them to further examine their own vulnerability in the context of the worship.¹³ In many sacred spaces neurospicy children are metaphorically greeted at the front door rather than lowered through the roof; that is, they are included. This is notwithstanding the fact that churches remain exempt from the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) mandates and rarely have, let alone enact, formal accommodation processes. But as theologian Erin Raffety convincingly argues, inclusion isn’t justice, and accommodations don’t necessarily lead to belonging.¹⁴

Our Christian communities undertake many practices of inclusion through accommodation. We bring Holy Communion to homebound members, invest in better sound systems for the hearing impaired, and update spaces for greater mobility. And much more remains to be done, as scholars like Raffety and Kenny argue. The church also includes children through accommodation in the ways we worship with them (or perhaps more clearly the ways we don’t worship with them). In my experience as a rostered leader in the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America (ELCA) worshiping children are most often “accommodated” in three ways. 

First, children and youth are regularly removed from corporate worship in the name of “child-friendly” programming. In some contexts children experience an altogether separate worship service and various modes of catechized entertainment in a church basement or alternative space. In other settings children leave worship before the quiet, sit-still part of the service. In both cases functional theologies of worship are child-centric rather than child-attentive. They focus upon the needs of the child over and above the needs of the community, and they separate the apprenticing children from their teaching elders. This is unfortunate because children learn by observing and practicing in real time, and in the case of worship by receiving encouragement and affirmation from within the larger faith community.¹⁵

Another example of inclusion through accommodation is the kiddy bag phenomenom. Churches purchase and bag all sorts of gadgets, usually cheap and made of disposable plastic, to help children “make it through the service.” Most often the bags are not child-attentive; they don’t give children the resources they need to learn about worship or practice engaging in it, let alone the tools to creatively shape it. Kiddy bags distract. To the exasperated mother who caught me in the narthex I want to ask, is this a solution for your son, or is this simply kicking the can? Do we really expect so little when it comes to children’s experience in sacred spaces? 

Third, more congregations now dedicate space within sanctuaries as a play area, sometimes referred to as “praygrounds.” In these spaces children create, explore, and play in self-directed ways. Sometimes the “prayground” is curated with components linked to the service, such as Abraham’s stars in my congregational context. Thanks to busy, little hands the stars were as plentiful as the Patriarch’s descendants. Other praygrounds are spaces for children to playact the liturgy. I recently saw a progressive example of this in Linköping Cathedral, Sweden. Adjacent to the altar was an identical mini altar with felted Eucharist elements, a wee baptismal font, small albs, board-book hymnals, and dolls. As worship took place, children could mimic and make meaning from the community experience.¹⁶

All three of these practices seek to honor children. Whether by separating people or space, each attempts to include through accommodation. But, all three do so from a neurotypical perspective, and none seriously consider the role of nature in the spiritual questing of the child. First of all, each option provides children few opportunities to move in undirected ways. Yet studies show that all children, and especially the neurospicy, benefit from pedagogical elements like shared action, agency in movement, and elements of delight and surprise.¹⁷ Second, whether directly or indirectly, all three examples ask children to auditorily receive information from adults rather than be tapped as a source of it. It’s important to remember that receptive language is challenging for many neurospicies. To listen is to hear, understand, process, and interpret. For those who have underdeveloped theories of mind or brains that prioritize visual or tactile information, this form of engagement is tantamount to exclusion. Yet another problem with these models is the social rigidity they present. In the case of removing children from spaces of worship and placing them into settings like Sunday school classes, group selection is usually made by way of age or school grade rather than by learning style or needs. Rarely are children or their caregivers given a choice about these social groupings, and few opportunities are granted for mixed-age mentorship. Even in the latter two examples, where children can choose to participate, socialization isn’t fluid. Children cannot easily opt in or out in the moment, a kind of nimbleness required by many neurospicies. And for those desirous of social connection, preference should be given to one-on-one encounters and/or small groups, given that most neurospicy folx report increased anxiety in large-group gatherings.¹⁸ In the context of worship, we can move from inclusion to justice by granting children more agency in how and when they choose to group.

Why Nature? 

Incorporating nature and nature access into spaces of worship helps meet some of these needs. But what’s more, because nature access plays a critical role in the well-being of neurodivergent children, infusing nature and natural elements in worship builds belonging and empowers neurospices to shape liturgies in authentic ways.¹⁹ With Catherine Bell I affirm that the logic of ritual is always inscribed into the body. Liturgy must come from the body.²⁰ All bodies, typical and not. 

Our bodies need nature. This is not a new idea. Poets and philosophers of old understood this, and contemporary science supports the claim. All brains have what Richard Louv calls “nature neurons.” Our nervous systems are built to resonate with set points derived from the natural world.²¹ The late E.O. Wilson, champion of the Biophilia Hypothesis, saw humans’ innate and hereditary need to emotionally affiliate with other living organisms as a natural consequence of biocultural evolution; learning rules were inaugurated and fine-tuned by an adjustment of sensory thresholds. At the genetic level connection to the natural world, ranging from affects like attraction to aversion, enhances survival and reproductive fitness. Add to this humans’ strong tendency to translate feelings into narratives and all of the necessary conditions exist to showcase human need for nature in channels such as art, literature, and religion.

If this is true, why do so many humans spend less time outside than ever? Why have screens, for example, replaced nature in our homes, schools, and spaces of worship? Psychologist Paul Atchley suggests we’ve undergone a currency shift. Whereas throughout 99.9 percent of evolutionary history humans have thrived by deeply attending to place, today’s attention economy bombards our nervous systems. We can’t take in a fraction of the information presented to us.²² Atchley goes on to explain how most connections in our brains are inhibitory functions, little on-and-off switches to help us filter and focus on what’s important. As a species we process slowly; our directed attention is limited. When this precious resource is tapped, we burn up oxygenated glucose from the prefrontal cortex of the brain to fuel ongoing cognitive and physical performance. In this age of distraction our brains fatigue and require restoration. 

Emergent neuroscience also shows how the prefrontal cortex of neurodivergent brains usually differs in size and/or in function. For neurospicies this brings both benefits and challenges. On the upside, because most neurodivergent people experience overwhelm regularly, they tend to be more adept at recognizing it and leveraging strategies to address it. Ask most verbal neurospicy adults how they regulate and I can almost guarantee they’ll have a thoughtful answer for you. On the other hand, this biological reality usually makes neurospicies less pliable and therefore more likely to experience acute forms of mental exhaustion. For this reason, practices and techniques related to the Attention Restoration Theory (ART) are gaining more attention in neurodivergent communities. 

Popularized by University of Michigan scientists Rachel and Stephen Kaplan, the ART hypothesis builds upon Wilson’s Biophilia Hypothesis and submits that sustained access to nature restores cognitive performance and executive function.²³ Gradually, it is possible, with sustained access to nature, for fatigued brains to be restored. Roger Ulrich, the Kaplans’ student, added a dimension to this study. His Stress Reduction Theory (SRT) investigates how nature access immediately benefits people by lowering cortisol levels in the bloodstream, impacting not only cognition, but also emotional and physiological health. 

Studies related to ART and SRT are ongoing, and some show promise for how science might better support disabled communities. What is clear from existing literature are two things: (1) any amount of nature access aids neurospicy brains, whether five minutes of exposure or a multi-day immersion; and (2) nature access doesn’t have to include direct access to the real thing. While not a substitute for the real thing, indirect or perceived forms of nature such as nature images, recordings of birdsong, faux plants, and diffused indoor scents give the brain respite and can help atypical nervous systems recover and heal. 

So how might these scientific insights shape our spaces of worship and our practices within them? And specifically, how might access to nature and the incorporation of natural elements meet the needs of neurodivergent children? I’ll conclude with a brief menu of suggestions but encourage the reader to carefully consider context when applying any of these practices. Physical and social landscapes should be honored. What works in the boreal forests of Minnesota won’t necessarily work in the high desert of New Mexico and what works for some children won’t work for others. For example, a child with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder might greatly appreciate digging their hands through a sensory table full of dirt when a preaching passage focuses on the land, but such an opportunity could incite disgust in another child living within the autism spectrum. What’s key is that church leaders proactively create avenues for neurospicies and their families to share their experiential knowledge, needs, and ideas when it comes to what worship could be. 

Practical Suggestions toward Child-Attentive, Neurospicy-Positive Liturgies

Considerations Related to Worship Space 

• Wherever possible, blur the lines between outside and inside. In mild climates, consider ways an indoor worship space might open up to outdoor spaces. 
• Create “childlife corridors” by arranging seating in patterns that mimic nature (curves, circles, spirals, starbursts) and afford children easy spaces for entry and exit. For inspiration visit the Biomimicry Institute’s design website. 
• Provide opportunities for children to connect with Earth by sitting, laying, and sprawling out on the ground. Use mats, cushions, and pillows to create worship dens. Provide a variety of flex seating wooden/cloth chairs in the sanctuary (i.e., rocking chairs, arches, hammocks) to meet proprioception needs.
• Simplify visual information on bulletins and screens; replace with images of nature.
• Rotate sensory inputs according to community needs.
  – Play recordings of birdsong and water during parts of the service. Use local soundscapes as much as possible.
  – Include a sensory table filled with natural materials linked to the liturgical or textual elements of the service, such as grains, flour, beans, seeds, grass cuttings, water, and snow.
  – Make optional barefoot service normative; create a space for shoes outside of the sanctuary.
  – Have church quilters make some weighted blankets with natural fabrics and keep them in an accessible basket within the worship space.
  – Diffuse oils; consider liturgical foci when choosing scents.
• Welcome children to change paraments and to decorate the worship space with natural elements. Do this during the service itself, with local materials gathered by families.
• Replace seasonal plants like poinsettias and lilies with permanent ones! Over time welcome more plants into the space.²⁴ Regularly dedicate new plants as a part of the service and encourage watering as a part of Sunday morning rituals. Children can “plant parent” particular plants each week. This can be seasonal too, where original fast foods such as tomatoes, peas, and strawberries can easily be grown in pots. Invite children to harvest and eat during service.
• Add interactive running water to the worship space. Make a practice of children leading the congregation in a physical return to the water at certain times during the service.
• Keep a wonder bowl on or near the altar. Encourage children to bring things from the natural world (with some guidance on ethical collection), and physically include these artifacts when expressing gratitude in community prayers.
• Honor the presence of feast days in the Hebrew Bible by hosting congregational soup Sundays. Invite the congregation to contribute one simple vegetable during offering and give children space and tools to prepare ingredients (peel, cut, etc.) for a community meal immediately following worship.
• Take on occasional “Empty the Sanctuary” or “Elemental” Sundays. Take on an all-weather approach by providing the necessary gear (e.g., umbrellas, blankets, rainsuits for kids, etc.).

Considerations Related to Liturgical Patterns 

• Pray for creation with tactile opportunities for children to touch and hold items such as leaves, seeds, water, dirt, etc. 
• Emphasize the elemental in sacraments and ordinances. Invite families to fill the baptismal font with water from their homes or nearby creeks/waterways. Press/crush fruit from your region in a service and serve at communion. Invite bakers in your congregation to bring a loaf of bread and ask children to help cut and serve it at communion. 
• Use natural elements such as charcoal pencils, plant-based paints, fish scales, and wool in a worship playground. Welcome older youth to draw, paint, create what they imagine while listening to the sermon and share their art near the end of the service.
• Connect preaching/teaching themes or liturgical seasons with nature-based learning. For example, bring in a root viewer to better understand biblical tree metaphors or care for caterpillars/chrysalises and then release butterflies on Easter morning. 
• Hold services at different times (morning, late nights, etc.). Elements of surprise and newness will delight many neurospicies and afford everyone the opportunity to learn more about the place.
• Meet in alternative spaces within your biome. Ensuring accessibility for all, worship in prairies, forests, deserts and alongside lakes, rivers, and oceans. Spaces can be simple and near. Consider abandoned lots, nearby parks, or a parishioner’s backyard. Backyard worship could be done in dispersed small groups, taking place concurrently in many different locations. 
• Take the passing of the peace outside and allow for time needed. If this can’t happen regularly, dedicate time for this practice at particular times in the liturgical year.
• Connect children/youth education with seasonal worship planning. Regularly use children’s litanies, prayers, and songs in worship. Examples might include litanies for the insects in May when pollination is in full effect, or prayers for the rest/hibernation of creatures during Advent. 

Considerations beyond Worship Spaces

• If your congregation has land and outdoor play materials for children, do what you can to encourage neighboring families to access the land. Consider having some young families in your congregation lead monthly play-ins on your property. 
• Many families feel intimidated by camping because they don’t have the necessary gear and are unable to purchase it. Dedicate some organizational resources to camping gear swaps and/or outdoor gear share lists. Make it possible for families to borrow gear from the church.
• Much like occasional community dinners, plan simple camping trips at a nearby state park.
• If possible, consider the purchase of a shared cottage/getaway to be used by families for nature retreats. Endow the upkeep and cost of utilities.

This is just a sampling of practices. Clergy and worship leaders might consider curating a list with colleagues that are more specific to place and discerning with regards to context. In the work of shared ministry the take-away is this—Christian churches must move beyond merely including children through accommodating them. As full bearers of the image of God and siblings in Christ, children should be empowered to shape spaces of worship. Neurodivergent children will be more empowered to do so when granted greater access to nature and natural elements. For the church to become a radical place of belonging for all children, we must therefore learn to intentionally nurture our great need for nature. 

Notes

1. Recent studies show that 30 percent of Americans under the age of thirty identify as neurodivergent, compared to 6 percent of those over the age of sixty-five. For more insights see John Hopkins University’s https://imagine.jhu.edu/blog/2022/10/05/neurodivergence-at-a-glance/ (last accessed on December 1, 2024) and You Gov’s https://today.yougov.com/health/articles/50950-neurodiversity-neurodivergence-in-united-states-19-percent-americans-identify-neurodivergent-poll (last accessed on December 1, 2024). An equally enlightening resource is the public Neurodiversity Reddit community at https://www.reddit.com/r/neurodiversity/?rdt=64522 (last accessed on December 1, 2024).
2. Erin Raffety, From Inclusion to Justice: Disability, Ministry, and Congregational Leadership (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2022).
3. For additional insights see Joanna Leidenhag and Pamela Ebstyne King, “Neurodiversity and Thriving: A Case Study in Theology-Informed Psychology,” in Studies in Christian Ethics 36, no. 4 (2023): 827–843.
4. See Sinclair’s full essay at https://philosophy.ucsc.edu/SinclairDontMournForUs.pdf (last accessed December 1, 2024).
5. I first came to this riff on neurodivergence from Christian Instagramer and ADHD-identifying Mary Ann Geffen. See https://www.maryvangeffen.com/about (last accessed on December 1, 2024).
6. In the late 1980s Indian literary critic and theorist Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak championed the concept of strategic essentialism, which was later adopted by some feminist and postcolonial thinkers. Those who use the framework accept the risks of temporarily reducing or essentializing persons in terms of certain names or definitive qualities in order to accomplish some desired good. In her 2011 article “Attending to Children. Attending to God” (Journal of Childhood and Religion 2, no. 7 (November 2011): 1–38), Joyce Mercer outlines the risks of strategic essentialism well. The same concerns apply in this case, as the language of “divergent” or “spicy” can connote that ideas of physical, psychological, and cognitive sameness are desirable. To advocate for children who are not justly welcomed in mainstream worship environments, I accept the risks of an essentialist term like “neurospicy” and follow the lead of disabled scholars in its use.
7. Others have studied and documented the parental experience in ecclesial settings. To better understand the loneliness of many parents raising neurospicy children, see Laura MacGregor and Alan Jorgenson’s “Beyond Saints and Superheroes: A Phenomenological Study of the Spiritual Care Needs of Parents Raising Children with Disabilities,” in The Canadian Journal of Theology, Mental Health and Disability 3, no.1 (Spring 2023): 25–38.
8. For a good introduction to Gopnik’s work, see The Gardener and the Carpenter: What the New Science of Child Development Tells Us about the Relationship between Parents and Children (New York: Picador, 2016). For a recent, excellent primer on the child theology movement, see Marcia Bunge’s Child Theology: Diverse Methods and Global Perspectives (New York: Orbis, 2021). Many more resources are reviewed at https://childtheologymovement.org/resources-reviews/ (last accessed December 1, 2024).
9. R. L. Stollar, The Kingdom of Children: A Liberation Theology (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2023).
10. When my children were young, a favorite, respectful parenting resource was Janet Lansbury’s Unruffled podcast. Read more at https://www.janetlansbury.com/2015/08/respectful-parenting-podcasts-janet-lansbury-unruffled/ (last accessed December 1, 2024). A good collection of like-minded resources for parents guiding children across ages can be found at https://www.fertilegroundparenting.com/resources (last accessed December 1, 2024).
11. Amy Kenny, My Body Is Not a Prayer Request (Ada, MI: Brazos Press, 2022). Kenny, and other disability scholars like John Swinton, provides helpful overviews of the problematic associations many Christians hold in relation to disability. They include disability in association with sin (on the part of the person or their parents), concepts of virtuous suffering, negative and segregationalist views on disability and charity, oppressive readings of the healing miracles, and bias against disabled people receiving ordination. To read more on Swinton’s perspectives see Finding Jesus in the Storm: The Spiritual Lives of People with Mental Health Challenges (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2020) and “Who Is the God We Worship? Theologies of Disability; Challenges and New Possibilities” in International Journal of Pastoral Theology 14, 273–307.
12. Nancy Eisland’s seminal work in 1994, The Disabled God (Abingdon Press), first normalized such theological claims. Lisa Powell’s recent work, The Disabled God Revisited: Trinity, Christology, and Liberation (T&T Clark, 2023), is another important contribution within disability theologies. Neither work spends much time reflecting upon Jesus the child, but both articulate arguments that require such a christological view.
13. “Crip” is a shorthand, reclaimed term for the historically derogatory word “crippled.” It is celebrated and widely used by disabled scholars. To learn more visit the University of Minnesota’s Critical Disability Studies Collective at https://cdsc.umn.edu/cds/terms#:~:text=Crip:%20A%20term%20used%20historically,meet%20disabled%20bodies%20and%20minds.%22 (last accessed December 1, 2024).
14. In her lecture “From Inclusion to Justice: On Lamenting Injustice, Repenting from Abelism and Amplifying Disabled Flourishing” at the 2023 Institute on Theology and Disability, Raffety names this reality and makes helpful distinctions between polite gestures versus just accommodations.
15. Even secular parenting books are noting the need for children to learn alongside elders, not separate from them. In her best-selling book Hunt, Gather, Parent: What Ancient Cultures Can Teach Us About the Lost Art of Raising Happy, Helpful Little Humans (New York: Avid Readers, 2021), scientist and journalist Michaeleen Doucleff explains the difference between children receiving acknowledgment in a mainstream familial/communal environment versus receiving praise in a child-focused activity. “Acknowledgment from parents fuels the child’s interest in a task . . . it gives the child motivation to help more. A child sees that their contribution matters and they’re helping the family. That’s more powerful than any praise” (p. 113).
16. The spiritual benefits of playacting is carefully documented and superbly demonstrated in the work of the late child theology movement leader Jerome Berryman. Founder of Godly Play, Berryman’s writings and resources can be accessed free of charge on the Godly Play Foundation’s website: https://www.godlyplayfoundation.org/ (last accessed on December 1, 2024).
17. Audrey Rivers and Lyn Litchke’s “Spirituality, Friendship, and ADHD: Implications for Inclusion in Recreation,” in Journal of Childhood and Religion 7 (2017) provides greater insight into these important pedagogical elements. The aforementioned article by Joyce Mercer is also useful.
18. For greater insight into autistic learners in particular see Nola Norris’s “How Does My Student Learn? Neurodiversity and the Nature of Learning in Autism,” in International Journal of Christianity and Education 27, no. 1 (2023): 65–87.
19. A growing body of literature on the spirituality of the child is emergent. Lisa Miller’s work with Columbia University’s Teachers College and the Spirituality Mind Body Institute is especially valuable. In Miller’s award-winning The Spiritual Child: The New Science on Parenting for Health and Lifelong Thriving (Picador, 2015) speaks to the value of spiritual communities, and raises the important role of nature. “Children have a natural spiritual attunement with the world around them: they related to animals, trees, and the life that happens when adults are distracted by the demands of the day. We see their connection to nature in how they respond to the core elements of nature: the seasons, the cycle of renewal in the face of death, the urge for healing and rejuvenation. Engage them. Children meet nature as they find it” (p. 124).
       Psychiatrist Richard Sloan speaks to the particular importance of spiritual communities for neurodivergent children and youth. He suggests neurospicy children suffer disproportionately to their peers in ableist mainstream contexts and therefore present with greater needs of spiritual/religious connection and support. For a list of selected articles see https://www.columbiapsychiatry.org/profile/richard-p-sloan-phd (last accessed on December 1, 2024).
20. Catherine Bell, Ritual Theory, Ritual Practice (New York: Oxford Press, 1992).
21. Louv’s seminal argument is best accessed in Last Child in the Woods: Saving our Children from Nature Deficit Disorder (New York: Algonquin, 2006). An accessible introduction to many of these themes can also be found in Florence Williams’s The Nature Fix: Why Nature Makes Us Happier, Healthier, and More Creative (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2017).
22. Paul Atchley and Sean Lane, eds., Human Capacity in the Attention Economy (Washington, DC: American Psychological Association, 2020).
23. The term “executive function” refers to the cognitive management system for the brain. Collectively this function manifests in skills like self-control, motivation, time management, task initiation, organization, follow through, regulating emotions, and controlling impulses and social/emotional intelligence.
       For a good introduction to the Kaplans’ work see With People in Mind (Washington, DC: Island Press, 1998).
24. Spaces rich with plant life and water features have more negative ions, invisible and odorless molecules that when inhaled reach the bloodstream and increase serotonin.