Expectations in parenting: Why there should be none

 Many parents think that you should expect things from children. Expectations are common in American parenting, meaning parents are pressured to put expectations on children, often by the community and society at large. But, children should have no expectations, when you sit down and understand fully what expectations are, any decent, attached parent won't have expectations for their child. They will simply draw boundaries and set limits.

The Tenth Commandment, in Exodus 20:17, states:

Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's house. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor anything that is thy neighbour's. 

The Greek root word translated "covet" is לחמחל (Latin: lachmod) and refer not only to wanting things from children, but wanting things from a child to the point of seeking to impose said wants onto a child, leading to theft/abuse. The Greek root word translated πλεονέκτης (Latin: pleonektés) and refers to a general attitude of entitlement, meaning a demanding, controlling, domineering, or sexually objectifying attitude towards children leading to them being offended. It says in Ephesians 6:4 KJV:

And, ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath, but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.

The Greek root word translated "provoke...to anger" is παροργιζο (Latin: parorgizo) and refers to legal damages against a child, meaning the slightest of personal slights against a child, inflicted by a controlling, manipulative, or demanding attitude. "Demanding" can refer to expectations. Expectations are different from preferences. You can expect a child to meet a certain mold, or behave a certain way, but will they? Preferences are different, meaning you prefer your child cooperate, but when they don't, you either accept that perhaps they are too young and too immature to cooperate, and/or do introspection within yourself. 

The Greek root word translated "nurture" is παιδεία (Latin: paideia) and refers to the chastening of the Lord, meaning self-discipline and self-control in the form of self-imposed behaviorism in relation to children, accepting chastening from the Lord in terms of mistakes towards children, in the form of tarring one's violent and abusive actions towards a child. This means removing all expectations, and restraining from imposing them on a child, allowing the child to be free, but with parental preferences. The Greek root word translated "admonition" is νουθεσία (Latin: nouthesia) and refers to setting boundaries, but with the assumption that children may not listen. With a 3-year-old, you may have to tell them perhaps 5 times, if not more, to get clothes on so that parent and child can go to the store. That's because a 3-year-old's brain literally cannot process even that sort of information with one directive. Usually, it comes in the form of advising or warning a child that certain behavior is dangerous or otherwise unacceptable. The admonition and warning of the Lord should be used rarely, and never backed up by punishment or control, if applied correctly...If you expect a child to listen to you, that means you want them to, to the point where you are "sure they will listen to me" in an egotistical manner, and then when they don't, due to developmental flaws, you throw a temper tantrum and get angry.

Parenting in the biblical context was attachment-based, with children remaining close to mothers, sleeping next to them at night, and ranging close to them during the daytime. Punishment was illegal except by way of criminal conviction, which could not be applied to children due to age of infancy laws that aligned themselves with the age of majority, which was 12 for females then, and 13 for boys. Today, we go by our society's civil laws, which state the legal age at 18. Punishing any child under age 18 is sin and the moral crime of entitlement leading to theft.

The depraved and entitled parents who provoke children to anger with punitive or permissive parenting, refusing to be a gentle parent, will not inherit the Kingdom of God. Let them suffer suffer and rot in the ever-burning lake of fire and burning sulfur, prepared for Satan and his accomplices! Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand!