Why children call the shots in Christian homes

Many parents think that they call the shots in Christian homes. This is a common attitude amongst American parents. Most American parents demand obedience from children. However, the Christian teaching is for children to call the shots in the family home.

Children calling the shots 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 ultimately refers to 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 just as they would to God, from beneath yet from above, expecting absolutely nothing in return. See also Matt. 22:35-40.

The Greek root word translated "provoke...to anger" is ερεθιζο (Latin: erethizo) and refers to damages or offenses, namely the slightest of personal offense, 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 holding a child hostage merely for things that they did wrong, thereby treating them 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. Paul may not have gotten along with the women of the church, but he sure loved children, and even took in a few orphaned children during his time as a deacon. 

Children, in Christian homes, are to call the shots. Children are to issue orders as to what they want/need, and parents are to obey the orders of children. Parents in the Early Church had to obey their children in most cases. The only exemptions from obeying your child were if the orders were unworkable and/or immoral. Even then, the word "no" had to be met with reassurance and validation, lest the word "no" cause offense in the child. When children cried at the hands of the word "no", parents were to reassure a child as a token of apology.

For the first 6 years of childhood in the Early Church, children cried in the form of a summonses for mothers to tend to them. Mothers obeyed the cries of children as a summonses that petitioned mothers for what they need/want. For the most part, the child got whatever they wanted, in biblical times. When they didn't get what they wanted, they usually cried, and mothers reassured them through the word "no". 

Children aged 6 on up issued righteous demands on parents in the Early Church, usually in the form of orders directed towards parents. Older children in biblical times treated their parents to the morning breath treatment. Parents obeyed the orders of their children in most cases, except when the orders were unworkable and/or immoral. 

Children sometimes got into mischief, in which case parents laughed it off, then gently redirected their children. Even with things such as drawing on the wall or breaking a vase, parents found humor in it. Children never had to fear punishment from their children, even when they got into the messiest of messes. Parents then did not get angry with their children.

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!