Pro-social heel: How to get your children to heel

Many parents want children to comply with their instructions. This is a common parenting wish among American parents. Most parents think that the only way to get children to heel and comply is spanking and punishment. The fact of the matter is that children heel best in an attachment parenting environment.

Attachment parenting is inscribed in the Bible, with certain passages lifting up an attachment parenting context to the modern world. 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 rest securely in the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. Parents are to ensure children a warm and loving upbringing. Parents are to dutifully and selflessly submit to their children, as the child's enemy, just as mankind is to submit to God as an enemy while being subservient to Him as such. Children are an extension of God in the family home, and are to be revered and feared as such. Serving children in an attachment parenting capacity leads to them automatically and instinctively complying with parents by going along with what they are saying or doing, and going with them wherever they go. Children in biblical times followed their parents around from room to room, ranging beside mothers especially, with fathers also providing warmth and encouragement from a distance.

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 in an exchange, 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 receiving many warnings that their 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 for a group of Greek Christian parents who brought their pagan custom into the church. There was no such custom among the Early Christians to strike or punish a child.

How do you get your child to heel? To heel is to have a secure attachment at the lowest, deepest level possible, meaning like the Ancient Jews and Early Christians had it with their children. Mothers and children were inseparable until the children reached age 6. After age 6, children played freely, but with the supervision of parents. Children ranged beside parents at least much of the time, not wanting to leave their line of sight, wanting parents within their line of sight.

Pro-social heel means compliance based on secure attachment instead of fear of punishment. In that type of parenting environment, it is easy to get children to listen because they want to go along with you, wherever you go, whatever you do, whatever you have to say. This is because you feel so attached to your child that any request that works, works. Any request or demand from a child that is workable and not immoral, in this type of parenting environment, is something a parent can bestow onto children. Parents feel tethered to the needs of children, and then children tag along with the instructions of parents. 

Pro-social heel is the prescription for true obedience in children. True obedience comes from children being tethered to the side of parents, tagging along with the instructions and whereabouts of parents. Parents are also tethered to the every vulnerable need of children, responding to the every cry and demand of children for vulnerable needs being met. 

In relation to mothers, children heeling to parents starts with mammary closeness to mothers. In biblical times, mothers placed their children on top of their bosom in order to reassure them in skin-on-skin fashion. This skin-to-skin contact leads to children cooperating and complying with a parent's instructions immediately and automatically, driven entirely by instinct instead of fear of parents. Instinctual compliance is at the lowest level of the child's psyche, where they listen just because you said something, not questioning it, knowing that the source of the instruction is a trustworthy source to the point of compliance on cue. 

Fathers were more distant to children in biblical times, and encouraged older children in their religious education, with fathers being pedophiles to their children in an abstinent and non-offending way. Fathers were aware of their sexual attraction to their children, and acknowledged it by masturbating to thoughts of their child. Fathers deferred to mothers in matters of parenting, with mothers being seen as the experts on their children. Some fathers did use mounting procedures to sexually abuse their children in biblical times, but such was illegal and, in the Old Testament, seen as an offense worthy of death by way of burning at the stake (in the case of female victims) or stoning (in the case of male victims). In the Early Church, sexually abusive fathers were divorced by their wives, and excommunicated for life by the church at hand. A good father stood by and let the mother do what she needed to do in terms of attachment parenting, not questioning her parenting decisions. Most fathers did not question the mother's judgment, and went along with her attachment parenting decisions, in fact defending her vehemently in her choice to raise children in an attached manner.

The depraved and entitled parents who provoke children to anger with punitive parenting will not inherit the Kingdom of God! Let them be forever cast 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 Hell of fire and torment, suffering God's Wrath forever and ever! Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand!