With 8 year olds who don't understand the world of adults, having them in a worthiness interview may provide some interesting "confessions"

I remember my interview for baptism. I don't think I was asked any sex related questions. It was more of a general talk.

I think tithing, lying, swearing and stealing came up. Obeying parents etc.

Then the bishop said that covers the ten commandments. I kind of squirmed. He said you do follow the 10 commandments don't you?

I got real nervous. Then finally under his confused but watchful stare I blurted out. "I'm a murderer!"

The shock on his face was indescribable. "Like animals?" He asked.

"No. I can't be baptised because I killed my mother."

There was a long silence. Finally he asked what happened.

"My mother died because I was born. I broke her heart and the doctors couldn't fix it and she died."

The bishop had no idea my mother died shortly after my birth. He had no idea she died of heart complications. He had no idea my stepmother was not my birth mother.

As a child I lived with the guilt/belief that I was responsible for my mother's death. In those days such things as death during or after child birth were not uncommon.

Fortunately the bishop was able to piece things together and absolve me on behalf of the church of any responsibility of my mother's death.

My example is to point out that children have their own perspective on the world and it would take a very good, kind person to understand and help them. Something the church is far far far from capable of doing.

I was lucky. But I know other bishops would never have handled the situation as well as mine did.

kids should not be interviewed by anyone in my personal opinion, but by a strange man who hasn't a clue what they are dealing with.

I'm sorry they put you through that.

That is a really good observation. I remember sitting in a meeting with a school social worker. I knew that one of my students, a really sweet little boy, had been removed from his mother's home due to abuse. He was receiving expert counseling services from a trained and certified mental health counselor at our school. In addition, that counselor had access to a psychiatrist in case any medications were indicated.

In that meeting I learned something about his abuse, and it was so dark and so ugly that words cannot even begin to describe it. I gained new respect for social workers, who must deal with so much of life's ugliness.

I would not want to see an untrained individual asking intimate questions of a child in trauma. That individual could further damage such a child. I would consider it to be ecclesiastical malpractice.

I found your story strangely moving. At least that bishop was decent and kind enough to try and assuage your fears, and probably even did you a long term psychological favor. I suppose it's not unlikely the adults told you of your mother's death in a way that wasn't supposed to make you feel that way, but you interpreted it like that.

I think we often forget how small children actually think. One of the things that I often do is to think of myself at that kind of age as having similar levels of understanding and/or even being similar in size to what I am today. Neither of these are true of course. I still have school books from that period of my life, and they remind me just how different I was back then.

Eight year olds are quite articulate compared to say, five year olds, but they are also nowhere near as articulate as teenagers... I have read up a little recently on child psychology (long story), and one of the things I picked up on was how children will sometimes express their feelings indirectly - a child with anxiety will say that they have stomach pains, or may develop a facial tic, lazy eye or speech impediment if they go under severe stress. To pick up on that kind of thing, a simple list of questions won't suffice.