If, yes. In reality children aren't THAT weak-willed, and your parental options to enforce all that are limited,

No, they really are not.

Pre-teen children have no formal voice on where they go to school (nevermind whether...).
Pre-teen children have no formal voice on where they live (unless their biological parents happen to have divorced and they live in one of the world's more progressive jurisdictions).
Pre-teen children have no personal finances, nor any legal means of obtaining a regular income. Which in an urbanized society means that they have no independent legal means of obtaining food and shelter.

Pretending that those barriers to self-determination can be overcome by sufficient application of willpower is nothing short of delusional.

Of course there are excellent reasons for society to recognize certain parental prerogatives and deny certain choices to pre-teen children. But the fact that there are good reasons for the asymmetric power relationship to be tolerated doesn't change the fact that you are talking about an asymmetric power relationship.

Because efficient proselytising implies persuasion, not harassment.

You seem to have a very rosy view of both how durable the human mind is under sustained harassment and how the currently dominant religions became the dominant religions.

Indeed. That is the ethical position we expect from a doctor, and have a right to expect. And we can enforce it by sanctioning behaviour that disregards these responsibilities.

I sincerely wish that your experiences with the healthcare system continue to be so positive as to permit you to maintain that outlook.

In practice, it's hard enough to even nail doctors for sexually abusing their patients, nevermind emotionally abusing them.

I object to rules under the heading of limiting freedom of religion.

So if the dude who decides whether you get to eat tonight - or any night at all for the next six to twelve years - insists that you say grace over the food before you get to eat it, then that's not a problem for your religious freedom?

Or is it that children have no religious freedom?

Or is it just that you don't understand how freedom from religion is an indispensable part of freedom of religion?

I am afraid, I have an issue with your differentiation between legality and propriety. Propriety or moral are not political. Do you want to legally ban and sanction a certain behaviour? Or do you want to ape the politicians who lamented the use of "financial instruments" as improper that they had legalised? Well, if next they declare bicycle theft legal but improper, everyone is free to steal bicycles and that is all that counts. So the only question is what parents can do before you send out child welfare officers.

I disagree with the idea that society has no escalation points between cheap talk and sending in child protection.

The difference between banks and parents is that where parents enjoy the presumption that they are reasonable and responsible, banks should be regulated under the presumption that they are Ponzi merchants and three-card monte dealers.

- Jake

Friends come and go. Enemies accumulate.