Question: refuse, or limit to collaborate with elder inquiry?

prologos

Should a teen, a child of a believing mother, cooperate in the fact-gathering of the elders into the waywardness (not sex related, hopefully) of some local teenagers? what scenarios can you see playing out? all teens to clam up? squealers later shunned, or innocents tarred and feathered by the congregation if the truth is hidden? thoughts please:

Designer Stubble

I would only cooperate if it regards matters that we need to be addressed in a non-JW setting. For exemple, something the school may wish to investigate. Otherwise, little good can come from this.

prologos

thank you, that would be an easy rule, but many issues, vandalism, under-age drinking, driving incidents, for example would span both spheres of interests, how about the secrecy, legal implications?

Anders Andersen

Elders should mind their own business.

Parents should mind their children.

If the teens are involved in (borderline) illegal acts, or hanging with bad people (bad as seen by worldly people, not as seen by JW), or similar potentially self destructive behaviour, probably the parents should be made aware.

If the teens are just not following all man-imposed JW rules, let them be.

Oh, did I mention elders should mind their own business?

prologos

A A: "--potentially self destructive behaviour, probably the parents should be made aware.--" good points. thanks. Could not the initiative of the elders be viewed as a valid, though thankless task to help parents to help their kids? getting conversations going where communications have stalled between the generations? as a valuable side-effect of the elders rule-based mentality?

Sabin

I think it depends on the situation, the parents & the elder in question. there are still some elders out there who are probably good men & only desire to help. Yep, most are ares holes i grant you, but how many ex elders do we have on the forum & i'm willing to bet some of them really had a care what happened to the young ones. Kept things confidential. As a parent though the main responsibility should fall on your shoulders. When it comes to grassing others up, most teens clam up, cause their lives are made miserable.

rebelfighter

Never a JW but trained to work with a youth group of young ladies between the ages of 10 and 20. We are Certified Adult Volunteers, we are trained to recognize all forms of emotional, physical and sexual abuse if we suspect it is coming from the home or is serious we immediately call authorities. If we suspect which far to often now a days we have parents who are not involved in their children's lives we will sit down with the parent and gently suggest that you might keep a closer eye on your child as we suspect she maybe getting involved in whatever behavior that maybe leading her down a wrong path. From what I have read on this forum that is far from the mission of any Elder body. We as adult leaders are there to guide these young ladies through good times as well as bad times AND young ladies have a lot of melt downs during their teen years and need that shoulder to cry on. And they can cry over the craziest things but that is part of growing up but we are there for them. Tell me that an Elder has that kind of patience, they just want to take action.

Vidiot

Hey, whatever it takes to "keep the congregation clean".

DesirousOfChange

When the elders called at my wife's home (when she was a teenager) to inquire about things going on with many of the teens in the Congo, my wife's unbelieving father told the elders very emphatically that they were overstepping their boundaries into his territory as the family head. He suggested that one-more-step would be a huge mistake. They left.

Of course, they knew damn well that his next statement would have caused them physical injury.

An unbeliever can be this bold knowing the elders cannot do a damn thing about it. Someone who is a baptized JW must season it with a bit of salt unless they are not afraid of ramifications based on their "brazen" attitude.

Doc

Giordano

If there is an unbelieving father he can screen his kid like the guy Doc just told us about.

Question: refuse, or limit to collaborate with elder inquiry?

Share this