Public meltdowns: What to do about public meltdowns

Many parents, if not most, have had to deal with it. A crying child kicking and screaming in public. This is a common occurrence when children go out and about in public. Most parents think that the child is trying to make them look bad. The fact of the matter is there is a way to deal with public meltdowns without punishment or force.

Dealing with public meltdowns 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. This word refers to a secure attachment between parent and a child in the family home. This secure attachment comes from parent submission, where parents are to submit to children as they would to God, 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 damaged 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, 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 their children into the church. Paul, contrary to popular legend, was anti-spanking, and opposed to any and all punishment of a child in his secular writings. Paul may not have gotten along with the women of the church, but he sure loved children, and took in a few orphaned children in his time. Indeed, Greco-Roman fathers used the scourge of cords on their children in order to punish them, but NOT the Christians among them - the Early Christians were persecuted largely for being "too soft" on their children.

Public meltdowns were rare in biblical times. Most crying in public, with young children, came in the form of silent tears. This is because whenever mothers left the home, their children always left with them, swaddled up next to her bosom in swaddling blankets. 

Children under age 6 were wrapped up next to the their mothers, in swaddling blankets. The swaddling blankets were made of velvet, which was grown throughout the Ancient Middle East. Children, from there, were tucked underneath the loose-fitting, revealing dress of mothers that resembled an apron. The child was tied in the swaddling blankets with the blankets tied around the left breast, then across the dot to the right leg, or vice versa, or both in the case of twins. When children cried, mothers cooed at their children before holding them closer to their bosom while in the swaddling blankets. 

Breastfeeding in public was common in biblical times. Even today, breastfeeding in public is legal in all 50 states. Indeed, men may object to a mother breastfeeding in public, but the child has to eat, and why make a woman feed her child in the squalor of a public restroom. Children automatically latch on to the nipple of the mother when milk-hungry. When no longer milk-dependent, they will outright push away the nipple. When milk-dependent children cried, they were breastfed to sleep, and then rested while being swaddled in the mother's bosom.

The depraved and entitled parents who provoke their 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 day and night forever and ever! Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand!