Independence: How to teach your child to be as independent as possible

Many parents think that obedience is the goal of parenting. This is a common attitude amongst American parents. Most American parents think that the goal of parenting is to raise an obedient child. However, when confronted with independence being a goal, few parents will dispute that they want their children to become independent. However, in order to have healthy independence, you first need to foster a healthy dependence on you as a parent.

The concept of healthy dependence is part of the Christian doctrine of mutual submission. 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 submission of parents. Children are to rest in the sacrifice of parents, just as parent believers rest securely in the Sacrifice of Jesus Christ. This commandment was intended by the Apostle Paul to lift up the customary law that commands a secure attachment between parent and child in the family home. This secure attachment comes from parent submission, where parents are to submit to their children as their enemy, from beneath yet from above, expecting absolutely nothing in return.

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 a child, including, but not limited to, the slightest of offensive touch or speech perceived by a child, stemming 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, but not limited to, any punishments, reprimands, or other controlling demeanor towards children. In the Old Testament, punitive parents were put to death by way of bloodletting, after punishing their children one last time. Parents who punished their children were charged with kidnapping, with "kidnapping" being defined under the Law as the slightest of damages or offenses stemming from hostage-taking - child punishment was seen in biblical times as holding your child hostage merely for things that they did wrong, thereby treating your child as a quartered slave. Paul here was lifting up the Law in order to convict 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 and all punishment of a child in his secular writings. Indeed, the scourge of cords was used by Greco-Roman fathers on their children, but NOT the Christians among them - the Early Christians shunned the scourge of cords, and were gentle with their families.

Part of healthy independence is healthy dependence. For the first 6 years of a child's life, children were in constant closeness to mothers, meaning that wherever the mother went, so did the child. The Early Christians practiced birth nudity, where mother and child were in the nude next to each other, in skin-on-skin closeness and intimacy. Whenever a child cried or was upset, mothers cooed as they picked up the child in skin-on-skin closeness, then holding the child close to their bosom in mammary closeness, breastfeeding the child to sleep if milk-hungry. When out and about in public, mothers swaddled their young children next to their bosom in swaddling blankets. When children cried in public, it was usually a silent cry, and then mothers held the child swaddled in swaddling blankets closer, perhaps breastfeeding the child in public if the child was milk-hungry.

When children attained the age of 6, they usually started shaking off the comfort of their parents. Children, after checking in with mom, played outside freely, venturing farther and farther from home. Then, come nightfall, after a long day of activity, children retreated to the sustaining warmth of mothers in the form of co-sleeping. Children slept next to mothers, in most cases, until the child reached the onset of puberty. Once children reached the onset of puberty, they, in most cases, wanted their own place to sleep.

Independence is something that happens naturally in most children, at some point in their lives. If they aren't independent by the teen years, they must be struggling with some sort of mental health disorder. Autism, for one, involves arrested or delayed emotional or cognitive development. If your child has not been diagnosed, then perhaps you are being punitive on your child or were in the past - that stunts their growth as well.

The depraved and entitled parents who provoke their children to anger through 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 ever-burning Hell of fire and torment, suffering God's Wrath day and night forever and ever! Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand!