Pro-social friendship: Why (and how) a parent should be a child's best friend

Many parents think that they should be their child's parents, not their friends, separating the two roles. These parents usually cite the Bible as an excuse for their controlling stance towards their children. However, parents are to be a child's best friend, with parents having a secure parent-child bond with children, and vice versa.

Every single parent and adult is guilty in relation to children, and is deserving of DEATH and DESTRUCTION merely for existing in relation to children, with parents/adults being meek and shamefaced in relation to children, shut up in the Lord. Parents especially are to put children first, and parents last, to the point of dutiful and selfless submission to children and their every vulnerable need, expecting absolutely nothing in return, with children resting securely and safely in parents. See 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 secure, vulnerable rest in the love and grace of parents. This sort of surrender to parents is surrender in the loving arms of parents, with children feeling safe to share anything and everything under the sun with parents, expecting absolutely no punishment or reprisal in return for confessing things done wrong into parents. Parents are to listen to their children like a confessor hears the testimony of a penitent, taking a vow of secrecy and confidentiality when handling a child's information, only dispersing their child's information as the child sees fit. This ultimately refers to a secure parent-child bond, or a friendship between parent and children where the child confides into parents about their emotions, upsets, or frustration.

The Greek root word translated "provoke...to anger" is ερεθιζο (Latin: erethizo) and refers to damages, meaning the slightest of personal offenses perceived by the child, including the slightest of offensive touch or speech perceived by the child, which prohibits striking or punishing a child under any circumstances. The Apostle Paul here was lifting up the Law on punishing children, with the punishment of children in biblical times carrying severe penalties, meaning that punishing or striking a child for any reason was seen as deserving of death, even in the Early Church where the death penalty was abolished. The seven verses in Proverbs that refer to the rod of correction do not refer to spanking, but to a dated form of judicial corporal punishment conflated with the death penalty in ancient Israel - the 40 minus 1 lashes with the rod of correction, as a final warning to an ADULT child guilty of a capital offense. Minor children could not be charged with a criminal offense nor a civil wrong, due to youthful inexperience, meaning the defense of infancy.

The Bible, as a whole, calls for a secure parent-child bond in the family home, meaning parents are their child's best friend, and someone to lean on, and this was how parents were seen by their children in biblical times. Mothers were nurturers, providing nourishment and sustenance, meaning usually breastmilk and skin-to-skin closeness respectively, but sometimes ordinary food as they got older. Fathers simply befriended children on an equal level. Children were naked all the time, wherever they went, and this brought the level of attachment down to full equality, meaning Hebrew and Christian parents alike then "grew up" with their children. Fathers had connotational sexual attraction to their children that was on the surface, usually idealizing older daughters especially in their speech, putting them on a pedestal, interacting with them in a passive manner, like a human ragdoll being dragged about. Mothers were charged by society then in guarding their children against sexually predatory threats in the home, extending a stophand to the father of her children, halting him from engaging in sexually abusive behavior with their children. However, parent attraction was very common in Early Christian culture, and fathers could be intimidated quite a bit by the upsets of their daughters and sons alike, but especially their daughters, meaning fathers then listened to and validated children, while putting them on a pedestal. Mothers simply rolled their eyes at the dramatic, child worshipping statements coming from the father of her children. The parent attraction was due to the heavily egalitarian nature of the parenting then, which allowed for children to be naked everywhere they went.

Children in the Bible went completely naked everywhere they went, and there were two reasons for it. First off, the presence of naked children in a household lowers the level of attachment to the level of the child, and secondly, it makes for easy skin-to-skin closeness with parents. Forcing children not to wear clothing in the house is abuse, but allowing children birth nudity is not abuse, as children today should be allowed to wear clothing. But, a child growing up used to being naked will be accustomed to being naked wherever they can. I wouldn't recommend it in public (Rom. 13:1-4), but at home, why not? Traditionally, in ancient Hebrew and Christian cultures, children would wait until they were an adult to wear clothing, and that is because of the intimate nature of mother-child friendships in biblical times. Today, this can be applied, upon introducing a new home setup, by saying "you don't have to wear clothing", and chances are, they are going to take them off, and then adults are just going to have to deal with the sexual stimuli, because children have the right to be naked, even in public if it were allowed. Children snuggled next to their mothers, with mothers also being in the nude, and together, children and mother were in skin-to-skin closeness and intimacy. Some of this advice may be dated, but most of this context can be applied today, to the degree that it can be applied given your individual living situation

The depraved and entitled parents who provoke their 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 descend into the ever-burning Hell of fire and torment, suffering God's Wrath forever and ever! Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand!