How to teach obedience to children - without spanking or punishment

Many parents want their children to be obedient to authority. My own Christian theology is heavily based on obedience, meaning I as an adult believer must obey everyone around me. Children can learn to obey everyone around them, without punishment or any other controlling measures. I, for one, never credit my parents or my pro-spanking upbringing for my belief in obedience - I just obey, because my conservative Christian values tell me to do so. 

My religious understanding of obedience is that I must obey everybody, because I must love everybody, as love is obedience, and vice versa. The Greek root word denoting Christian love and obedience is αγαπαο (Latin: agapao) and refers to prioritizing your neighbor first, and yourself last, in a convicted way, leading to dutiful and selfless submission towards your neighbor. This means you have to listen to whatever everyone around you needs from you, putting their needs first, and your own last. Everyone around you, including your neighbor, is your superior. Higher authorities, in particular, deserve obedience from us, with such obedience being denoted by the Greek root word υποτασσο (Latin: hupotasso), which refers to loyalty to a higher authority leading to willful and intentional submission to said higher authority. This is a great lesson to teach to children, as there are rules and regulations everywhere you go in life, but it doesn't need to be taught using punishment or force. These values on obedience are my values, even if they aren't yours.

Teaching obedience starts with instilling obedience at home. Instilling obedience involves mutual submission between parent and child, meaning the parent has to fill the cup of the child in order to win over their obedience. 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. Children are to rest securely in the sacrifice of parents, just as parent believers are to rest securely in the Sacrifice of Jesus Christ. Parents are to ensure that children have a warm and loving upbringing, winning over their child's affection and respect. When attachment parenting is used to the fullest in Christian parenting, children listen to parents, automatically and out of instinct. Obedience, in the biblical tense, is not something forced upon a child, but instead is a willful choice to surrender to parents made by a child, in response to parents submitting dutifully and selflessly to the every vulnerable need of a child. When a child's cup is filled to the top with their every vulnerable need, they do not question the motives of parents, instead going along with parents in everything.

The Greek root word translated "provoke...to anger" is ερεθιζο (Latin: erethizo) and refers to damages or offenses, namely the slightest of personal offense perceived by the child, including, but not limited to, the slightest of offensive touch or speech perceived by the child, coming from entitlement. This commandment was intended by the Apostle Paul, and understood in its original context, as a moral statute prohibiting all forms of punitive parenting, including any punishment or controlling demeanor towards children. In the Old Testament, punitive parents were put to death by way of bloodletting, after punishing their children too many times, and after many warnings that their punitive parenting habits were in violation of the Law. Parents who punished their children were charged with kidnapping, with "kidnapping" being defined under the Law as the slightest of damage or offense stemming from hostage-taking - child punishment was seen as holding your child hostage merely for things they did wrong. Paul was lifting up the Law to a group of Greek Christian parents who brought their pagan custom of spanking and punishing children into the church. Paul, contrary to popular legend, was anti-spanking, and opposed any punishment of a child whatsoever. Paul, in writing his Epistle to the Colossians, was advocating on behalf of children in Greek and Roman Christian homes who were being punished and brutalized, usually with parents falsely citing Scripture as an excuse for abuse. There was no such custom or tradition in the Early Church for punitive parenting, as attachment parenting was the established norm in Christian churches in the 1st Century, as per church ordinance.

Mothers, in biblical times, were the adults primarily charged with the care and protection of children. Mothers then didn't use spanking or corporal punishment to gain cooperation from their children. Instead, mothers used skin-on-skin comforting strategies to gain cooperation from their children. Children never wore any clothing, at all, until they were adults. Mothers only wore clothing outside the home. Mothers and children snuggled with each other, and were co-mingled beside each other, by day. By night, children soaked up the rays of skin-on-skin co-sleeping next to mothers. 

The results? Children then respected their parents, but only out of this sort of closeness with mothers, which translated onto fathers. Children never left the side of mothers until age 6, and when they did, they never left the line of sight of parents. Children ranged beside mothers when not in close contact with her, and went everywhere she went in the house, with children being bonded closely with parents.

Obedience is not something beaten into a child. It is something a child naturally chooses in relation to parents, meaning children listen to parents automatically and out of instinct, trusting blindly what parents ask of them. With that trust, parents can point to children who to obey, and who not to obey, and children will trust them blindly. Children naturally relate to all of their attachments in life much like they relate to their parents, and thus can easily be instructed to either obey or avoid a certain person if raised in an attached manner. 

First, form the secure parent-child bond necessary to gain cooperation from children. Second, once you have such cooperation from children, instruct them on the value of obedience and tell them who to obey and who not to obey. If you have a secure bond with your child, this process will be easy. A secure parent-child bond is best formed in the first 6 years of a child's life, when the child's brain is still forming.

The depraved and entitled parents who provoke children to anger through punitive parenting will not inherit the Kingdom of God! Let them be cast forever into the lake of fire and burning sulfur, which is the second death prepared for Satan and his accomplices! Let them descend into the abyss which is the ever-burning Hell of fire and torment, suffering God's Wrath forever and ever! Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand!