Children as Head of Household

There is a family living in our ward boundaries whose parents attend a foreign language branch in another stake (the parents' records are kept in the same branch). The four children (ages 8-13), however, usually attend our ward and their records are kept here. The previous clerk designated each child as his own head of household.

I found the following information on the wiki:

"A unit may notice children under 18 who are their own households. These children should be associated with the appropriate household, if possible, such as an older sibling (any age), grandparents, or some other member (such as foster parents) that they live with. If you have two or three children who are members but no one else in the home is, the oldest can be the head of household."

My question: can/should the four children be grouped together as a single household (with the oldest child as the head of household)?

iamrkh wrote:There is a family living in our ward boundaries whose parents attend a foreign language branch in another stake (the parents' records are kept in the same branch). The four children (ages 8-13), however, usually attend our ward and their records are kept here. The previous clerk designated each child as his own head of household.
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My question: can/should the four children be grouped together as a single household (with the oldest child as the head of household)?

I would go to the MLS help file (Under "Head of House Definition"), or the MLS Software Manual, which says the same thing (on page A-6):

The head of a household should be the member to whom all the other household members are tied in the records. In MLS, the head of household is usually the husband or father, whether he is a member of the Church or not. In certain cases, the head of household may also be another member parent, a single member, or a member child whose parents are not members.

The essential elements in your case seem to be:

1. The last point clearly states that "a member child whose parents are not members" can be a head of household. In your particular case, the parents are members of the Church, but not members of the ward, and of course there is no way to split a single MLS household across multiple units, so this provision would seem to apply.
2. The first point says that "all the other household members are tied in the records" to the head of household. So that would seem to be a pretty strong argument against making all the children separate households. They should all be tied together.

Another thing to consider is how this household is home taught, since home teaching is organized and reported on a household basis. I would guess that the 4 children don't have 4 separate home teachers.

Another possible option might be to have the whole family's records in your ward, but list the parents as out-of-unit members in the foreign language branch. Your bishop and the branch president could consult on whether that might make sense in this case.

But the bottom line is that the bishop should be aware of the relevant policies, and then organize the households as he feels inspired to do for the benefit of all concerned, particularly the children. It is ultimately his call.

Alan_Brown wrote:Another possible option might be to have the whole family's records in your ward, but list the parents as out-of-unit members in the foreign language branch. Your bishop and the branch president could consult on whether that might make sense in this case.

Another viable option is to have the parents added as out of unit members in your ward with the father as the H of H.

Alan_Brown wrote:But the bottom line is that the bishop should be aware of the relevant policies, and then organize the households as he feels inspired to do for the benefit of all concerned, particularly the children. It is ultimately his call.

Well said.

It probably have been set up originally that the parents' records remained in YOUR ward and then added as "out-of-unit" members in the language ward...

The key question is home teaching and visiting teaching. We have a family where the husband attends a Spanish Branch and the mother and children attend our English speaking branch. We have split the records between the two units. The family is home taught by the Spanish branch and the visiting teaching is done by our ward. Advancements in priesthood for the children are handled in our ward.

This seems to work well, except our ward has the family unassigned for home teaching. I am not sure if putting the father into our unit and making an out of unit assignment would improve this.

arabe wrote:We have a family where the husband attends a Spanish Branch and the mother and children attend our English speaking branch.

His he serving the Spanish Branch? In that case, I'd think the proper thing is to have the records with his family and have the Spanish Branch create a out-of-unit record to put him in his calling.