Question for parents of autistic kids, when to get baptized?
Note: autistic doesn’t automatically mean intellectually disability.
Note 2: if you’re ableist or judgmental please keep scrolling. I’m looking for input from people who have dealt with this or similar questions about baptism age vs disabilities.
Our son (turning 7) got diagnosed as autistic about 2 years ago, we’ve since realized we’re autistic too.
My wife recently asked me if we’d be getting him baptized when he turns 8 and I’m like “yeah why wouldn’t we?” (mostly because I hadn’t given it a second thought) and she then brought up some things about him that now I’m like “oh yeah, hmm well now I don’t know.”
- He gets restless in sacrament meeting so he has to wear Bluetooth headphones and just watch like YouTubeKids on a phone.
- he doesn’t cooperate/participate in family prayers, just sits there and sometimes we’ll have to shush him if he starts playing or talking while we pray.
- I don’t know if he is intellectually disabled or not. (Autism is a Neurodevelopmental disorder, not an intellectual disability, some autistic people are both and some aren’t) but he is delayed when it comes to milestones like learning to walk and talk, getting dressed and so on. He can’t talk as fast as kids his age or talk in as complicated thoughts/sentences as kids his age.
Sorry for the tmi but yeah, so to parents of kids who are either autistic and/or challenged in some fashion, did you wait or did you baptize them at 8?
On one hand I’m like wait till he seems more aware of spirituality and prayer etc. but on the other hand, if we’re waiting past 8 and [morbid thought, sorry] I know part of the point is to be washed clean and prepared to meet the Lord so if, heaven forbid, some accident befalls us/him after 8 but before baptism then he’d have to be baptized by proxy by someone in the temple, you know?