Allowed to be kids? No.
I remember my dad taking me out of the CA hall and telling me that if Armageddon came tomorrow, Jehovah would kill me for being a squirmy little boy. I must have been 8 or 9. The memory still haunts me to this day.
A year or so after that, I felt very depressed before a meeting. I told my mom that I'd been having suicidal thoughts.
No religion should do that to a kid...