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I will admit that dealing with my bishop is complicated by the fact that I don’t like my bishop at all, so I have a hard time decided what is reasonable. So I am posing this situation to all of you for your thoughts. 1. Almost a year ago my husband and I had a long a detailed conversation with our bishop about appropriate interactions between adults and teenagers. As a part of that conversation we requested that no adult in ward leadership send any message to our teenagers without also sending a message us. If confidential communication is needed it should be done in person at the church. We explained our very specific reasons for the request, and the bishop agreed, and suggested that it be a ward policy.
2. The bishop continued to send my teenage daughters text messages without sending us a copy for 6 months, even after repeated reminders that we didn’t want him to, and he had agreed not to.
3. A member of the bishopric approached us about calling our daughter into a class presidency and requested since she would be in the class presidency that the bishop be allowed to text her without sending us a copy. We refused.
4. Our bishop sends text messages frequently. As far as we know he has stopped sending texts to our daughters completely, but he still frequently texts other YW in the ward.
5. Yesterday at church, the bishop asked our daughters to give him their email addresses.
What would you do in this situation?
I know that technology can be useful, but I would find an adult texting my child to be a little creepy. Sorry. I’m surprised none of the other parents are speaking up.
Is this normal behavior these days? It isn’t in our ward. Our bishop sends out an email after Bishop’s Youth Discussions (firesides) with notes about the topic and what was discussed. This email goes to the parents. So far as I know, he has no private communications with my children and any closed door conversations regarding callings or temple recommends occurs in a very traditional way in his office at church, with parents fully aware.
PS I would have your daughters provide YOUR email address.
This is strange & creepy. I like mercyngrace’s ps. I would make the “family” policy, we have (1) email address (or cell phone#) for communicating with adults outside of the family.
If the Bishop or anyone else doesn’t like it, then it’s time to be suspicious.
I have a hard time understanding why an adult won’t or can’t follow the instructions or wishes of a parent.
Especially one in authority like a Bishop. Unless they feel their authority superseeds a parents authority.
In my house, that would be a big problem.
Mike from Milton.
mercyngrace wrote:I know that technology can be useful, but I would find an adult texting my child to be a little creepy. Sorry.
I’m surprised none of the other parents are speaking up.
Is this normal behavior these days? It isn’t in our ward. Our bishop sends out an email after Bishop’s Youth Discussions (firesides) with notes about the topic and what was discussed. This email goes to the parents. So far as I know, he has no private communications with my children and any closed door conversations regarding callings or temple recommends occurs in a very traditional way in his office at church, with parents fully aware.
PS I would have your daughters provide YOUR email address.
This is normal behavior in certain “cultures”. Far normal say I places like the Philippines and other Asian countries. In the USA not so much except in certain spots. Although I like the idea of fast and efficient communication, it is almost like being “on call” which for a child can be a bit much.
Well, I never thought of this, but I’ve never been in a position to need to communicate with teenagers other than my own. I would first recognize the Bishop is probably just trying to get work done. He may be the type that prefers written communication rather than verbal communication. Years ago, I studied communication styles, and some “managers” prefer email/text, while others prefer phone and face to face. Part of managing upward is to consider your manager’s/leaders preferred communication style and adapt. The same goes for the managers/leaders. How would I handle this? If I disagreed as strongly as you do about his texting, then I would focus on what is within your control. Here is what is in your control:
a) change email addresses
b) instruct your daughter not to respond to his text messages
c) if there is a text message, pick up the phone and call the exec secretary and set and appointment to talk about the issue in the text.
We had a problem with the SS class my daughter was in. We dealt with it by going to another Ward or pulling my daughter out of the class and holding a separate class outside. It was visible to other leaders who eventually did something to really make a dent in the problems in the class, and the accompanying bullying. We also voted with our feet and stopped attending our Ward, along with another family who also had youth and were disturbed by the behavior of youth in that Sunday School Class. This raised alarm bells as well.
I’m not suggesting these specific practices — they are examples of doing what is within your direct control. It takes a bit longer but when verbal agreements have failed, then taking control of the situation in a non-offensive way can be effective, as it was in the paragraph above.
Good responses so far. I just will endorse the suggestion to use one text number and one e-mail address for the entire family for church-related communication. The text number should be a phone in a parent’s possession, and the e-mail address can be a distinct family one. Something like _______familychurchmail@_______.com would work and send the message you want communicated. Also, until recently it was against church policy for leaders to be texting the youth at all. That policy has been relaxed a bit lately, but it’s still a general concern – so you aren’t alone in your feelings.
Rebeccad, I don’t like your bishop either. He might be an innocent guy who’s sloppy with his communication, or there might be something more nefarious which is tripping your parent alarms. I would send him this email,
“Dear Bishop So-and-so,
As we have discussed on many occasions, it is inappropriate for you to text or email my daughters without copying me. Discontinue any attempts to communicate with my daughters without involving me.
Sincerely,
Rebeccad”
Copy the counseolrs, executive secretary, and stake president.
The utter embarrasment will get him to “avoid the appearance of evil” if he’s innocent or to back off if he’s less than.
There is nothing confidential that he should discuss with your daughters except their own personal issues and those should be handled in his office as others have said.
Thank you for validating my feelings. It is hard to tell sometimes what is reasonable, and what is just me being oversensitive. Quote:“Dear Bishop So-and-so,
As we have discussed on many occasions, it is inappropriate for you to text or email my daughters without copying me. Discontinue any attempts to communicate with my daughters without involving me.
Sincerely,
Rebeccad”
A very similar message has been sent to the bishop on more than one occasion. But sending a copy to the stake president is a great idea.
He already has our family email address and an email address for my husband and myself, I will inform him that our family email address is the best way to contact anyone in the family, and make sure my kids tell him the same.
I like the idea of one number or text for the whole family. That’s the winner. You might supplement it with a change in phone number or email address for the daughter so he can’t use it. I think the letter above is too formal, and as a Bishop I wouldn’t like it. If you go that route, I would reword it so it’s more conversational… Quote:
Bishop:I just wanted to mention again that we’d rather you didn’t text or email our daughter. This has happened a few times since we last spoke to you, so we thought we’d mention it again just to make sure you were sure what we meant. The best way to reach my daughter is via email at this family email address….so we’d appreciate it if you’d use that for all messages regarding our family, including our daughter. Her old phone and email address is no longer active so please use this one:
Thanks
I agree with SD. Tread as lightly as possible so it doesn’t blow up or get you and your family labeled. I am all for a family email address. There is nothing wrong with that. Your concerns are valid and I am surprised to hear this is even going on. I am sure your bishop is a great guy, but to set this precedent not knowing if someone in leadership down the road might not be so great could turn out to be a dangerous thing. There has already been the CES guy a couple of years ago out in UT. No adults should be engaging with the kids in this manner, male or female, in my opinion, without their parents full knowledge and consent. I agree as well … it seems a bit creepy to me. First of all, nobody should feel guilty about being too protective of their own children. The bishop should go along with your requests regarding communication with your children, no matter how unreasonable they might seem to him, no questions asked, period, end of discussion. On the other hand, it’s a new world out there, and I am a bit of a Luddite on these matters. So maybe I just don’t get where these people are coming from. I am amazed at how often my children receive “friend” facebook requests from adults in the stake with whom they have had only superficial contact, and with the requests I get from people of the opposite sex. It all seems so strange to me. Bottom line, no need to start imagining nefarious intent. It’s just a different culture, I guess.
Regarding rearranging your family’s cell and email contacts, I suppose that would be a workable solution, and you ought to pursue that if you are so inclined, but if it involves undue expense or inconvenience, you should feel no responsibility to conform to someone else’s idea of what constitutes acceptable communication with your children. They’re your children. The rest of the world can conform to your model.
I also think about the Bishop’s right to grant priviledges in the church. They are expansive. So, I usually try to not be offensive if I can help it. Who knows how they might attach anything you do that they don’t like to “not supporting leaders” and all that implies. I’m not saying we don’t assert ourselves, we assert ourselves gently, using the maxim “you should always be a little bit nicer than you think you should be”.
I don’t know guys. This has been going on for a year and the bishop and his counselor are actively trying to get their contact information and ignoring their parents’ requests. If you can be firm in a way that isn’t offensive, that’s great. I have a hard time doing both firm and not offensive.
I’m not saying that your bishop is dangerous, but too often in our society we ignore warning signs because we don’t want to offend someone or make anyone uncomfortable. As a parent, if you think something is inappropriate, it’s inappropriate.
Thanks everyone, I sent him this email from our family account.
Quote:
My daughters told me yesterday you had asked for their email addresses.The email I am sending this from is the family email address and it is the best way to contact anyone in our family as it goes to a computer that is used regularly by all family members.
As usual, we ask that any communication sent to our children be sent to us as well. Sending email to our family account simplifies that.
Thanks
+1 on all that’s been said. great advice. Creepy situation. Very creepy. Yes, I understand that bishops conduct ‘worthiness’ interviews. Yes, the bishop wants to communicate. But when you look at it from a detached, nominal point of view of what is really going on, it just looks bad: This would be the same guy that might be in a private room alone with a teenage girl asking about her sex and masturbating habits, and then is sending texts to her?
What about this seems normal?
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