You make some good points leavingwt -
The following quote is take from a book I wrote in 2002 called Opening the Door to Jehovah's Witnesses. I thought it was on topic.
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"Children of the Witnesses are forbidden access to many of the self-esteem enhancing activities that are open to other children. They are brought up to believe that they are different and separate from the world. They do not fully integrate with their schoolmates or teachers, due to their resistance to being fully involved with the education process, and their training to avoid forming friendships with worldly people.
More so than other children, their main security comes from winning the approval of their parents. They find that to win this approval they must do whatever the Society and their parents tell them will win Jehovah God’s approval.
I was told, by my own parents that if I ever left the religion they would never talk to me again. If I were to ever marry outside the religion the same penalty would apply. Although these threats are not always carried out, the Witness child grows up believing that the continuation of their whole world depends upon gaining their parents approval.
In addition to this pressure to conform, is the threat that God himself will kill the child, if he or she should go against their parent’s wishes. The child is also puzzled by the parent’s willingness to lose them in this way and often concludes that the parents do not love him or her. How can they threaten a child they love in this way, or say that the God they love may kill their child? As a child I concluded that I meant very little to my parents. Not all Witness parents act in this way. Those that do, say that they are practising a form of principled love for the child. Unfortunately children do not interpret threats of his kind as love. Nor as far as I know do most adults."