Separation anxiety: Why children cry out of nowhere

Many parents have gone through this - a child crying out of nowhere. It usually happens during the first 6 years of childhood. This is a common childhood behavior that has a reason behind it. The fact of the matter is that when a child cries out of nowhere, they need YOU.

Tending to children struggling with separation anxiety is part of the Christian doctrine of mutual submission, with the burden of proof falling squarely onto parents. 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 here to a 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 dutifully and selflessly submit to children just as they would to God, from beneath yet from above, expecting absolutely nothing in return. See also Matt. 22:35-40, 25:31-46.

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 was 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. The parents who punished their children were charged with kidnapping, with "kidnapping" with "kidnapping" being defined 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. 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 sometimes cry for seemingly no reason at all. However, there is always a reason for a child crying. In biblical times, children cried out for their mother up until age 6. When children cried, they were morbidly afraid of mom "going away and never coming back". For the first 6 years of childhood, children were either held or else were attached to their mother at the hip.

The problem facing children today is that format are forced to hide their separation anxiety. In contrast, children growing up in the Early Church were allowed to experience all of their emotions, including separation anxiety, with mothers soothing their children especially when they cried out for her presence, in skin-on-skin closeness. Today, most children instead suffer from, in most cases, separation discomfort.

In biblical times, separation anxiety came in the form of a deathly, screaming cry. The child did not stop crying until the mother responded to the cries coming from a child. Usually, mothers soothed the child by reminding them of their presence, in skin-on-skin closeness. 

A secure attachment consists of a child crying, and then the mother cooed at the child. The main reason that children cried was to be reassured that mom wasn't going anywhere. A secure attachment involves a child feeling safe expressing any emotion in relation to a parent figure. 

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!