Self-Regulation Skills Help Make Church Feel Safe And Accessible

We talk about why emotions get more complex when disability affects processing, and how self-regulation support changes the way people experience church. We share practical tools and a real worship moment that shows why discernment matters if we want true gospel accessibility. 
• the disability gap in church attendance and what it reveals 
• elephant problem versus mouse problem as a simple way to size stress 
• self-regulation basics across sensory, emotional, and cognitive needs 
• why we slow down to find the root of a reaction 
• a camp worship story about misreading emotions 
• visual schedules and charts to reduce transition anxiety 
• sensory tools, heavy work, and social stories as supports 
• co-regulation, calm routines, and creating environments people want to return to 

If you want to dive deeper on your own, you can check out the indispensable-people blog or my books on Amazon called The Indispensable Kid or Gospel Accessibility and the Indispensable People.

Transcript

Welcome And The Disability Gap

SPEAKER_00 0:02

Hey, hey, my name is Tracy Coral and welcome to Indispensable People. I'm a pastor, a teacher, a missionary, a mom, a wife, and I believe that every person should have access to the gospel so that they can know Christ, grow in him, and serve him with the gifts that he has given. Over 65 million Americans have a disability. That's 15 to 20% of every community. And over 85% of those individuals do not attend church. 90% of pastors believe that they are a disability-friendly church, but only 20% of parents and families agree. Let's dive deep into hard topics, big questions, perceptions, stereotypes, and so much more.

Big Feelings With Added Complexity

SPEAKER_00 1:19

The other day I was having a discussion with my daughter and my son, and we were talking about emotions. And my son had expressed that like he's kind of struggling with dealing with all kinds of different emotions. And my daughter was like, it, well, I actually said it's it's okay to have emotions. It's normal to have emotions. And then my daughter said, it's just what you do with it. And so we kind of gave this, you know, round, round and round conversation about that kind of stuff. And the truth is, is that every person deals with emotions. However, when you add a disability diagnosis, an intellectual diagnosis, diagnosis that impacts processing and dealing with different pieces of information, you add another layer to it that it's not just as simple as, okay, I have this emotion, what do I do with it? Which really it's not that simple for anyone. But then you add the complexity of a disability diagnosis that impacts how you do what you do, how you think, how you understand. And as a mom, I have always worked with my children on the processing of information and emotions in thinking big problem, small problem, which seems kind of simple because okay, okay, here's the problem. Is it big or is it small? And when they were little, I would say is an elephant problem or a mouse problem. And an elephant problem was like somebody's bleeding, they're hurt, they're gonna die, like it's the end of the world. We have no options, as opposed to a small problem or a mouse problem, which is something you can work through, something you can figure out. It may not have the end results that you want. It doesn't mean it's easy, but it does mean you can deal with it. So those are all kind of typical everyday things.

The Three Parts Of Self-Regulation

SPEAKER_00 3:25

But we're gonna talk about self-regulation, which is the ability to monitor and manage your energy, your emotions, your behaviors in healthy ways. And for people with disabilities, differences in brain development or sensory processing, that's really important, can make this challenging. It can require different kinds of coping strategies, different environments that help people to be supported and to thrive. And so, what are the core pieces of self-regulation? They are tied to sensory, which is the ability to process and adapt to physical input like noise, light, touch, taste, smell. The then there is the core area of emotional, which is the capacity to identify big feelings and adaptively respond to the stress or the frustration that they cause. Another core area is the cognitive piece, which is the use of executive functioning skills like planning, attention, and flexible thinking to manage tasks. So those are the core pieces that self-regulation is going to impact. Then it's, you know, what does that look like? How does it come out? And it's gonna look very differently with other people. Some people, it could just be basic frustration, irritation, it could be a meltdown, it could be like I'm frozen, I can't move ahead because I don't know what to do with it. All of those different kinds, this is how it comes out, this is how it looks. And what does that have to do with ministry? How does that impact how we serve?

A Worship Moment Misread

SPEAKER_00 5:10

And how do we make the gospel accessible through those considerations? Well, in ministry, right, you have people. People cause emotions, people say things, people act things, people, if you go to younger kids, like you know, maybe they didn't share, maybe they took your turn. It could even be impacted by the things that are read in the Bible, which can be pretty intense that could cause emotions. It could be an altar experience, it could be worship where the spirit's moving and they don't understand the the feelings that they're having and they're processing. So, for example, I was serving at a camp and I was serving a young lady who her diagnosis was cerebopalsy. She was incredibly intelligent. She went even went on to graduate from college with a journalism degree. But one of the things that happened during worship, she would cry out. And when she would cry out, the other caregiver that I was working with interpreted that to be like, oh, you know, she's homesick or she's missing home or, you know, she's sad about something. We also have to be in tune with where the emotions come from because that's how we help process them. And I truly felt like the spirit was moving and that and her crying out was the response to that. Now, it would seem very simple to just ask her what's going on. However, we're in mid-worship, so it's difficult to have that conversation and add to that that her speech isn't clear and we've just met, so I haven't had a chance to adapt and understand her properly. So we're we're we're deep into worship, and the other caregiver is kind of like consoling and and rubbing her back and telling her, you know, it'll be okay. And so I kind of whispered in her ear, hey, I don't think it's that she's sad. I think that it's the spirit moving. And then I said that to the individual as well, and she shook her head, yes. So we have to understand and be sure, use our discernment to know where the emotion's coming from so that we can properly engage and adapt with it. So we just want to be cautious of that before we offer up the strategies for self-regulation that may or may not work because we need to understand the route. So,

Visual Supports And Sensory Tools

SPEAKER_00 7:56

what are some of those strategies that can be used for self-regulation? And the number one tool that I'm gonna tell people to use for a multitude of reasons is visual support. Visual schedules and charts help individuals predict transitions and understand expectations. That removes a large level of anxiety for what is to come. So, visual schedules, you can go online, you can find them for free, you can create them on your own. It is a very simple handling of creation. Pictures, here's what happens first, here's what happens next, that kind of thing. So easy, easy to do. Another tool or strategy are going to be sensory tools, noise canceling headphones, a weighted stuffed animal, a fidget toy, which again, I you've heard me say that it's not a fidget toy, it's a fidget tool, because a tool has a task and a toy is for entertainment. Some other things to do, and this might seem weird, is like heavy physical work, which might be like, hey, can you move those chairs for me? It's a good distraction, but also provides sensory input to help soothe the nervous system. Another tool to use are social stories, which are short narratives that explain situations and outline expected behaviors or coping methods. So it's basically an example of what they're going through and how they could deal with it shown through a story. Another thing are, you know, just talking things through, giving thing giving children or adults an outlet for those things. Teaching self-regulation helps people recognize their feelings early, right? We want to get catch this before things get too big and apply the coping strategies like we've just mentioned, or other things like deep breathing. We can do this by creating predictable routines, modeling calm behaviors, which is an example of co-regulating, right? Someone else is having an emotion and experience, and you walk it through with them, showing them how to handle that. That's co-regulating. And establishing calm environments also really help this. So we want to self-regulate so that we can receive information so that we can participate in the group, and also so that the individual feels calm

Calm Environments For Gospel Access

SPEAKER_00 10:44

and the church, the ministry environment becomes a place that they want to be, a place that they can experience. When I was teaching first grade, the way that I would set up my classroom was really intentional from the colors that I used to the amount of things that I put in my space. And people would walk in my classroom and they would say, it just feels so calm in here. And that is a feeling I wanted my students to feel. That's a feeling I wanted to feel as I worked in that classroom every day. We can foster environments that provide accessibility because when our defenses are down, when our barriers are down, when our anxiety is minimal, when we know what to expect and we know what's coming, then we're open to receive. And when we're open to receive, the gospel becomes accessible and Jesus can work more easily in the lives of people that we encounter. Now, is there a single barrier that Jesus can't get through? Absolutely not. And he can speak in the big situations, he can speak in the calm situations, he can speak in the small situations, but we can create an environment which is conducive and allowable and accessible for God to work more easily. And that is the goal of ministry. Self-regulation that leads to accessibility, that leads to a gospel that saves lives, changes lives, and makes an impact for eternity. We're gonna make the accessible gospel available to individuals with disabilities in our churches and in our communities so that every person has the opportunity to know Christ, to grow in him, and to serve him. If you want to dive deeper on your own, you can check out the indispensable people blog or my books on Amazon called The Indispensable Kid or Gospel Accessibility and the Indispensable People.