Steve
Read what others are posting. They were traumatized. What else is there to say.
You have down-played the potential of spoken words to traumatize children, and thus side-stepped the vexed topic of the inspiration for the Paradise book; namely the brutal prophetic stories in the Hebrew Scriptures. You would be familiar with other fundamentalist religions - and some more mainstream ones too - that read out loud entire sections of the Bible - especially as warnings for all to hear. Funny that you don't comment about these sources of potential trauma on young listeners.
But I'm not talking about other religions. I'm talking specifically about the effect that WTS images of Armageddon had on young minds. Its a pretty specific question. I 100% agree that the accounts of destruction in the Old Testament were barbaric. While the WTS did publish images of these accounts they happened to otherpeople.
That other people part is very important. As humans we seem to have this inate ability to think bad things won't happen to me; the teen who thinks they won't get pregnant from unprotected sex - or get sick; I won't get cancer if I smoke; if I cycle or rollerblade without safety gear I won't get hurt when I fall. It happens to other people. not me. We all do it.
In terms of the effects of pictures and images on young children, you will be aware of the viciousness of many children's "fairy" stories handed down over the generations - and the story books that show (for example) Red Riding Hood being eaten alive. I must disclose that, while the paradise book never traumatized me, I became very anxious after listening to Jack and the Beanstalk on the radio. I'm lucky I suppose, because my JW mother was a very emotionally-attuned woman who would often spend lots of time talking to her children about their fears and anxieties and offer lots of reassurance.
When I visit my grandchildren I always sit and read stories to them. They choose the books. I read the stories. The last time I was there the favorite book was "Good Families don't. . . fart" by Munsch. It is scary and funny and they love it. But another favorite right now is the Three Little Pigs where the big bed wolf wants to eat the three little pigs. They love it. I can read the book without looking now because they weant to go over it again and again. (By the way Little Red Riding Hood doesn't get eaten in most of the stories I had seen. She gets saved before being eaten. Although I have read one version where she does get eaten but the axman chops her out of the wolf - I would never read that to them. Social researchers know that these affirm a just world view in children. They want to know that bad people/wolves/witches/etc get punished. Little children/pigs/princesses/etc. get saved. But they also know these stories aren't real. Wolves don't really talk. They can't blow houses down. It would hurt a lot of someone used your hair to climb up a tower (Rapunzel) It is fantasy. No treal and they ask for reassuarnces that these things are not real. BTW I never read these stories to my children. And they didn't watch cartoons. Their only exposure to violence came from the WT publications.
I'm glad you had a caring mother that reassured you when you were scared. Many kids didn't get that. Almost all kids raised in a JW home were told that those pictures in the books and magazines would really happen to bad people including them if they didn't listen. Is it any wonder so many find it hard to leave or follow rules like the blood ban thinking God will destroy them at Armageddon if they accept blood
My point is straightforward: if you suggest the JW pictures traumatize children, then to be fair, if you really care about children, you will acknowledge that there is a lot of stuff "out there" in life that can potentailly traumatize them - some of it uncomfortably closer to home such as the Bible itself. Ouch!
Good luck in making it seem that JW literature is unique in traumatizing children. I would have more tolerance for your allegations, if you acknowledged other more widespread sources of "literary" trauma.
I have no problem acknowledging that. But perhaps you should acknowledge that young children growing up in JW hoimes have little access to many of those images which is what this thread is really about. The images that children are told will happen soon to them if they aren't obedient