Seminary Dilemma

[_Turkey]

Greetings all,

I'm having a bit of a problem regarding my child, my wife, and early morning seminary. Any suggestions or advice would be appreciated.

My son has just begun high school, and my wife has decided that he must go to seminary every morning - seminary is extra curricular where we live - at quarter to six AM. He doesn't like going, and I feel he needs his sleep. But the wife is being so ferociously adamant that I am afraid to battle this one. "Do it for the Lord" she says. "The prophet wants all eligible students to be enrolled in seminary." "You will receive blessings. etc etc..."

A sure way to snuff the spirit of a wonderful child if you ask me.

Thanks.

Turk

[_Yoda]

Greetings all,

I'm having a bit of a problem regarding my child, my wife, and early morning seminary. Any suggestions or advice would be appreciated.

My son has just begun high school, and my wife has decided that he must go to seminary every morning - seminary is extra curricular where we live - at quarter to six AM. He doesn't like going, and I feel he needs his sleep. But the wife is being so ferociously adamant that I am afraid to battle this one. "Do it for the Lord" she says. "The prophet wants all eligible students to be enrolled in seminary." "You will receive blessings. etc etc..."

A sure way to snuff the spirit of a wonderful child if you ask me.

Thanks.

Turk

We had that early morning seminary in our area, too. It's brutal! Is your son involved in sports or other activities that are also keeping him out at night after school? If so, this can really be a dilemma.

My daughter was on the Varsity swim team, and her practices interfered with Seminary class. Since she would forfeit earning her letter if she didn't attend, she did home study seminary.

Would home study seminary be an option your wife would be open to? A lot of kids who have sports or other conflicting activities do this, and that way, they still get credit for attending seminary if they are interested in attending BYU or another Church school later.

Talk to whoever your seminary teacher is. I'm sure that he/she would be willing to work out something. Normally, it is just a series of booklets that the kids have to fill out. It's not really that terrible. My daughter just had reading assignments.

[_Buffalo]

I started attending seminary about halfway through high school, and that's also about the same time I started having some problems with depression. I credit seminary for that.

http://www.medpagetoday.com/Psychiatry/ ... ders/17766

Lack of Sleep Linked to Depression in Adolescents

Later parent-set bedtimes and correspondingly shorter sleep durations appear to be related to the development of depression in adolescents, a cross-sectional analysis showed.

In addition to depression, adolescents with later bedtimes also had a greater risk of having suicidal thoughts, James Gangwisch, PhD, of Columbia University in New York City, and colleagues reported in the Jan. 1 issue of Sleep.

The study "lends support to the idea that short sleep duration can be a risk factor for depression as opposed to simply being a symptom of depression," Gangwisch said in an interview.

If a "clinician comes into contact with an adolescent who does suffer from depression, that's an area that they would want to delve into -- is the adolescent getting adequate Action Points
Explain to interested patients that this cross-sectional study could not establish a causal relationship between lack of sleep and depression or suicidal ideation.
sleep." Action Points
Explain to interested patients that this cross-sectional study could not establish a causal relationship between lack of sleep and depression or suicidal ideation.

Gangwisch and his colleagues explored the relationship between parent-set bedtimes, sleep duration, and depression using data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health), which conducted in-home interviews with adolescents and their parents.

The analysis included a nationally representative sample of 15,659 children and teens in grades seven through 12.

The average sleep duration was just shy of eight hours, which is less than the nine hours previously estimated to be needed for adolescents, according to the researchers.

Shorter sleep durations were associated with progressively later average bedtimes set by the parents. School start times likely contributed to this phenomenon by limiting how long the participants could sleep in the morning, Gangwisch and his colleagues noted.

More than two-thirds (69.7%) of the students reported complying with their parents' set bedtimes. Two-thirds of those who didn't comply with their parents' wishes said they went to bed within an hour of the established bedtime.

Adolescents who had a set bedtime of midnight or later were at increased risks of depression (OR 1.24, 95% CI 1.04 to 1.49) and suicidal ideation (OR 1.20, 95% CI 1.01 to 1.41) compared with those with a bedtime of 10 p.m. or earlier after controlling for several factors.

However, after additional adjustment for sleep duration and the perception of getting enough sleep, the associations were no longer significant, as the researchers had hypothesized.

Those who said they thought they were getting enough sleep at night were less likely to suffer from depression (OR 0.35, 95% CI 0.28 to 0.43) and to have suicidal thoughts (OR 0.71, 95% CI 0.61 to 0.84).

"Later parental-set bedtimes therefore appear to result in shorter sleep durations and a higher likelihood of not getting enough sleep, which in turn are associated with depression and suicidal ideation," the researchers wrote.

Lack of sleep could lead to depression through a couple mechanisms, they said.

First, too little sleep might result in inappropriate modulation of the emotional brain responses to aversive stimuli, they said.

Second, moodiness resulting from not getting enough sleep could interfere with teens' ability to cope with daily stresses and impair interpersonal relationships, eventually leading to depression.

Lack of sleep could cause suicidal ideation by impairing judgment, concentration, and impulse control, they wrote.

"Behavioral interventions that involve educating adolescents and their parents about healthier sleep hygiene practices and helping them modify maladaptive sleep habits could serve as primary preventive measures against depression and suicidal ideation," the researchers concluded.

They listed some limitations of the study:
Parent-set bedtimes could be influenced by characteristics and behaviors of the child.
The cross-sectional nature of the analysis limits the ability to determine temporal relationships between bedtimes, sleep duration, and depression.
The data set did not include information on school start times.
Sleep duration was self-reported.

[_Jeneum]

I had the same dilemma in my family growing up. Dad didn't think it was necessary that I go to seminary (although he's super TBM) and mom did. I had rugby conditioning in the morning, and practice after school, so it was either seminary or rugby.

The compromise was home study. I did all of the work out of the seminary manual, and sent it, via e-mail, to the teacher, who would then send a test at the end of each unit. It was ridiculously easy. I still graduated seminary (ooooh) and I was even scripture master champion (those scripture stickers made it super easy to flip to the pages quickly).

In order for my mom to believe I was actually studying the material, she would ask me questions randomly throughout the day, so I would have to be "on my toes." She's crazy.

Maybe your son can try that?

[_LDSToronto]

Greetings all,

I'm having a bit of a problem regarding my child, my wife, and early morning seminary. Any suggestions or advice would be appreciated.

My son has just begun high school, and my wife has decided that he must go to seminary every morning - seminary is extra curricular where we live - at quarter to six AM. He doesn't like going, and I feel he needs his sleep. But the wife is being so ferociously adamant that I am afraid to battle this one. "Do it for the Lord" she says. "The prophet wants all eligible students to be enrolled in seminary." "You will receive blessings. etc etc..."

A sure way to snuff the spirit of a wonderful child if you ask me.

Thanks.

Turk

Some seminary secrets that not everyone knows about:

1. The criteria for passing seminary in places where it is extra-curricular is 80% attendance. Nothing else. If your son shows up and promptly falls asleep for the next 50 minutes, he still gets the attendance credit

2. Any kid who doesn't meet the requirement for 80% attendance is allowed to complete makeup work for the days missed. Makeup work is to do whatever chapter exercises are in the manual for the class missed. This is a little harder than fill in the blanks, but not terrible.

3. Kids have up to 1 year post seminary graduation to hand in makeup work for all 4 years. Ergo, he could do a few lessons a day in the summer, or on weekends, and be caught up.

The reason I tell you this is that some stake presidents are real pricks when it comes to seminary. In areas where CES is not integrated with the public school system, stake presidents have authority over the way seminary is implemented. Thus, it's their call as to whether home study is allowed or not. But, they can't bend the CES rules, which state that any student can submit makeup work for classes missed.

Thus, if you want to keep the peace at home, see if you can make a deal: Seminary in-class twice per week (tell junior to go right to sleep when he gets there), two makeup lessons, one day off, or something like that.

Or, have him do some type of activity at school that requires early arrival, like sports practice, band, or some type of club. That'll get mom off his case.

Ultimately, he's just going to fight you both in the morning. Once he does, just tell my wife that you don't think the stress is worth it. She'll let it go eventually.

H.

[_MrStakhanovite]

what is the point of graduating seminary?

[_LDSToronto]

what is the point of graduating seminary?

There is only one tangible benefit - it is a BYU admissions requirement for LDS students, or so I have heard - I am not 100% certain if this is truly the case, never having applied nor seen an application.

Other than that, there is absolutely no point to attending seminary.

H.

[_Blixa]

what is the point of graduating seminary?

I think LDST answers some of the tangible reasons, but there is also the social capital to take into consideration. Obviously, its not equivalent to going on/completing a mission, but there can be social fallout, especially intra-family and ward fallout for the parents.

I never graduated from seminary. I was kicked out. It was not a big deal for me because, frankly, my parents didn't want me to take it High School and by my senior year I wasn't attending church at all and had few close friends who were strict Mormons.

Had my family and social life been different it would have been a big deal.

[_LDSToronto]

what is the point of graduating seminary?

I think LDST answers some of the tangible reasons, but there is also the social capital to take into consideration. Obviously, its not equivalent to going on/completing a mission, but there can be social fallout, especially intra-family and ward fallout for the parents.

I never graduated from seminary. I was kicked out. It was not a big deal for me because, frankly, my parents didn't want me to take it High School and by my senior year I wasn't attending church at all and had few close friends who were strict Mormons.

Had my family and social life been different it would have been a big deal.

That's probably true in places with high LDS populations, Blixa. Out here in the far reaches of the mission field, where the spirit barely manages to reach, seminary doesn't hold the same cachet. Lot's of active families have kids who have low or zero attendance, and early morning seminary, at least out here, is as much a hassle for parents as it is for the kids. To the credit of the members in the stakes I've been in, there is very little judgment of families with less-active seminary kids.

H.

[_Dr. Shades]

Early morning seminary is held at some ward building, I imagine.

If so, may I suggest that he pass by the classroom, head straight for the couch in the foyer, and just sleep for an hour? I'm sure your wife will be none the wiser.