Temper tantrums: Why temper tantrums are not bad behavior in children

Many parents have to deal with it. A child kicking and screaming on the floor, crying out loud. This is a common and normal behavior for children to engage in. Most American parents think that children should not be tantrumming. However, the fact of the matter is that temper tantrums are not bad behavior.

Tending to the cries of children is part of the Christian doctrine of mutual submission, with the burden of proof falling squarely on 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 secure, vulnerable rest in the love and submission of parents. This highlighted 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 perform good works for their children, with children resting securely in the good works of parents. Good works here refers to doing good things for children, meeting the every need of children, 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 here 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 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" 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. 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 deacon.

Temper tantrums in the form of kicking and screaming on the ground were not common in the Early Church. Instead, children growing up in the Early Church simply cried out loud, crying a deathly, screeching cry that no loving mother could ignore. Christian mothers in the Early Church responded to the every cry of their child, cooing before picking up the child, and from there, mom diagnosed the need of the child before meeting that need. Children then simply cried instead of throwing a kicking and screaming temper tantrum, and that is because they feel heard from the moment the temper tantrum started. Children only kick and scream when they don't feel heard, and only after trying to keep it together for entirety of the day out of fear of punishment. 

Cooing is a primal vocalization on the part of mothers especially, intended by God to reassure children that they are heard and that what they need matters. When mothers cooed at children, the child's cries were pacified, with mothers then seeking to diagnose the child's needs. 

Children always cry for a reason. There exists five main categories of childhood needs; food, water, shelter, transportation, and attachment - and the greatest of these needs is attachment! Whenever children cried in the Early Church, Christian parents scrambled as to what the child's exact needs are. The most common and normal need for children - then and now - was time in with mom, usually in the form of mammary closeness. The first thing a mother of a milk-dependent child checked for was milk-hunger. If the child cried when being breastfed, the mother knew that the cry was petitioning other needs. When children under age 6 were weaned, mothers tended to the every cry of the child with children being held next to the bosom of mothers in mammary closeness, and if that didn't work, mothers learned through trial and error what pleases their child. The purpose of crying in children is to break down the parent, and continue to break down the parents, until the child's every need was met.

Children today throw explosive temper tantrums because they aren't allowed even to feel. They learn to hide things from parents, including how they feel, out of fear of punishment. However, Christian parents in the Early Church did not punish their child at all simply for feeling big emotions. Children growing up in the Early Church were never punished for anything, and so they could easily just cry as comes naturally, and expect a response from mom.

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!