Friendships
April 1, 2026
I was at one of our Church Bible camps checking in on our kids, hanging out, being part of the week long Bible Camp process last summer. I take a great deal of pleasure in just observing people and understanding the dynamics of groups at work. I noticed how our groups of kids interacted with other groups of kids, and how they interacted with each other, and how they met new kids and still maintained their friendships and everything else. I noticed a group of kids from the Twin Cities and a member of their group was clearly on the autistic spectrum and clearly had a great deal of anxiety about groups and being touched and many of the social norms that autistic children find invasive. I was amazed that she was there but also glad that she was there because she is part of the Kingdom too. But what I found was interesting about her group was that whenever it was too much for her one of her fellow youth group members would sit with her quietly until the anxiety or the crisis had passed. They actually took turns sitting with her.
At meal time you have several herds of excited kids getting funneled through a small space and grabbing food and then eating it in a rather rambunctious setting. It’s camp. It is not hard to imagine that that would be too much for this autistic girl yet one of her friends would simply go with her to a quiet corner, or a quiet place, and eat with her. I even saw a couple of times where they did a tag team, where the person sitting with her only sat for a couple of minutes and then another person came and sat and they took turns watching over this member of their group. During field games, which is always a variation og TAG, this was way too much for their friend. It always is this way that you get tagged and you must sit and beg for help and then someone will come to release you from being tagged. But, there’s always a but, in order to be released you must do something somewhat embarrassing. Sometimes I wonder if it’s preparing them for pledging a fraternity or a sorority later. It usually involves singing or dancing or something like that and that wasn’t going to happen with this young lady. So when she inevitably got tagged several of her friends got tagged with her and when it came time to do the embarrassing thing they made a circle around her and did the embarrassing thing and they were released even though their friend did nothing but stand in their midst like a statue.
I did the math in my head. I figured out how much time the ‘normal’ members of the youth group ‘lost’ in the ‘cost’ of having an autistic friend. I figure that they only got to enjoy 95% of camp. I figure that 5% of their time was taken up with keeping their friend safe. Realistically that’s not much.
In the movie The Breakfast Club, the administrator and the janitor are having a beer together talking about all of the deficiencies with today’s kids. The administrator even says to the janitor that it scares him that someday these kids will be having to take care of him. To which the janitor replies: “Maybe they won’t.” By all accounts I have lived 2/3 of my life and I am very close to that time when I will need people to take care of me. I hope it is one of those kids that I saw from that youth group. As a matter of fact, I hope that these kids become teachers and lawyers and doctors and nurses the police officers and clergy and politicians. I hope they become mothers and fathers and civic leaders.
Kids these days, huh?
