The biblical tradition of co-sleeping (where true respect comes from)

Many parents think respect is to be demanded by parents, with parents thinking controlling and punitive techniques such as spanking are what gets a child to respect parents. The fact of the matter is that parents in biblical times used co-sleeping as a parenting strategy. 

Most parents think co-sleeping makes a child dependent on sleeping next to mom and dad. This is not true. The way it works is that children sleep next to parents up until a certain age, and then they shake off their parents on their own. I used to sleep right next to my mother, right up until age 16. I have childhood bipolar disorder, and that includes separation anxiety. Medication prompted me to be more independent, and then I shook my mother off by weaning myself off. Yes, I support co-sleeping even for adult children who live with parents, as it is a time to bond with children, which is where true respect for parents comes from.

It says in Colossians 3:20-21 KJV:

Children, obey your parents in all things: for this is well pleasing unto the Lord. Fathers, provoke not your children to anger, lest they be discouraged.

The Greek root word translated "obey" is υπακουο (Latin: hupakouo) and refers to trust in parents, leading to respect. Replace "obey" with "trust" and you come to a roughly better translation of this word, with the accompanying verse written aside of minor children to parents. However, this trust was borne out of maternal warmth and sustenance, not fear of parents. Parents slept next to their children every night until adulthood, with children being swaddled in the nude next to mothers, with the child wrapped up in swaddling clothes even up until age 10 or even beyond. Children played freely, but ran to mothers especially as a "home base" of warmth and sustenance, with mothers treating children up to age 3 as infants, and nourishing them with breastfeeding, with breastfeeding being allowed everywhere in biblical times.

The Greek root word translated "provoke...to anger" is ερεθιζο (Latin: erethizo) and refers to provocations to anger, meaning any and all offenses against children, as defined as the slightest of offense perceived by a child. This commandment includes, by the intent of the inspired pen of the Apostle Paul, any punitive parenting, including physical or other forms of punishment, meaning any punishment and control in parenting. The Apostle Paul was convicting, with the delivery of this command, Greek Christians who held onto the idolatrous Hellenistic tradition of spanking children, which was seen as pagan according to Christian ordinance, and to be kept out of the church. The punishment of children was legally defensible under Roman law, but not Jewish law. Corporal punishment only existed in the Old Testament, but only as a summary punishment for a capital offense, in the form of judicial corporal punishment. This punishment applied to ADULT children, not children, with any mention of "child" in Proverbs referring to a young adult child in relation to a parent, and young adults could be charged with a crime. Minor children could not be charged with any criminal act or civil wrong, at all, under any circumstances, as parents were obligated to apologize for the damages caused by their child's mischief. Any parent that falsely defended their child in a court of law was charged as permissive to their children, but not a moment before then. Parenting in the Bible was attachment-based. A mother who refused to console her child with co-sleeping adamantly was seen as a provocation to anger when the child was aggrieved or offended by the refusal.

Sleeping next to your child was seen as a good thing. With girls in particular, co-sleeping lasted into adulthood. The first 12 years of her life involved closeness to mothers, except maybe in the Early Church, if she went with her father to learn a vocation as a church deacon or elder. Young women over age 12 slept next to their father at night until married off. Co-sleeping was a way for mothers in particular to win over respect for parents. The close bond that was nurtured lead to respect, and then listening to parents. Listening to parents in an attachment-based environment is a "tag along" experience for a child. I myself experienced both punitive and attachment parenting, and support attachment parenting through and through, and hate the punitive aspects of my upbringing through and through. My mother's only big mistake was time-out, and she'll admit she was simply following bad advice from the early 2000s children's rights movement. Co-sleeping is not traumatic, but invokes relaxing feelings next to mom when mentioned. I am an ardent supporter of attachment parenting, as done in the Bible, and I will never change my mind given the punitive parenting upbringing I had.

The depraved and entitled punitive and permissive parents who provoke children to anger will not inherit the Kingdom of God! Let them burn in the lake of fire and burning sulfur, which is the second death prepared for Satan and his accomplices! Let them suffer for all eternity in a Hell of fire and torment, enduring God's wrath forever and ever! Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand!