School teachers and jw parents

caves

Did anyone have problems with their parents and teachers butting heads on the jw 'rules' we as kids faced when going to school.

Extra circular activities, sitting out for birthdays and holidays... ect.

The jw that raised me was quite a vocal, loud, sometimes violent tempered person and there were many clashes with my teachers. Thank goodness the superintendent took me under his wing, his wife and him for a while. It helped. I guess lots of teachers stepped in for me in retrospect.

So anyone else have jw parent/teacher clashes with the school? How did it make you feel? It made me feel like a social outcast. I still struggle with that at times.

Addison0998

My sister had a sub once who forced her hand onto her heart to try to get her to say the pledge, not cool, especially since that sort of thing helps witnesses think they are the special people Jesus talks about being persecuted.

I never had any major ones, but school was always so awkward for me. Instead of being excited like other kids for holidays, holiday parties, watching holiday movies, doing fun celebrations, I was the weird religious kid that had to go to the library. I think my teachers probably felt very sorry for me, they were always a bit awkward towards me and I was never close with any of them. I think they wanted to distance themselves from me as a precaution not to do something to offend me. Idk

professor

I was not allowed to go to the 6th grade camp out at camp Chickagami until one of the sixth grade teachers talked my dad into letting me go. But when my high school vice-principle tried to talk him into letting me go to school dances the answer was no. I'm an elder's son (biologically at this point even though my father shook my hand and said we could be a family despite our religious differences, then went back on his word when the WT cracked the whip. Now he won't even speak to me or my sister.) I was allowed to be in after school sports until we moved to a different congregation where the need was great. Back then your eldership didn't go with you. You had to start over. So obviously he thought he'd have better chances moving up if I wasn't in sports so Dad said no. But I was allowed to be in the after school computer club for some reason (???) Well a year went by at the new congregation and Dad wasn't an MS yet so we moved back to the original congregation where he was again an elder and I was allowed to be in sports again. It was always about how things looked for him and his status in the organization. He got up to COBE but never got to be a CO like he wanted. One time I got in trouble and my dad said "Do you know what this means?" I replied "that I might have to talk to the elders?" He said "NO I mean how this is going to look for ME and my eldership!"

HiddlesWife

My mother, two (2) aunts and paternal grandmother asked all of the elementary and middle/junior high school teachers (mine, my siblings and my cousins) to inform them of the dates of all class trips and parties. When our teachers asked why, they came up with the excuses that "As JWs, we rather for our children to be with their family members and other congregants on those days, particularly since these trips and parties are not going to affect they're getting promoted to the next grade or graduated to the next school." As a result, not only did the teachers and administrators go along with our parents'/aunts' requests but we all were ushered into field service with them on those particular days! This idea was "suggested" by some elduhs and a CO. These ladies were really party-poopers, thanks to WT!

Searril

In my experience, although this was decades ago, the teachers all understood that these things were not of my doing and that I was held hostage by my parents' bad decision-making. To my knowledge, there were never any conflicts between my parents and school officials.