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

 Many parents think that when their child is throwing a temper tantrum, that their child is "bad" or "naughty". This is a common attitude amongst American parents. Most American parents punish children for temper tantrums. However, a child is not deserving of punishment just for throwing a temper tantrum. 

Children cry for two reasons - they need something, or they cannot accept a limit set by parents. See Colossians 3:21 KJV:

Fathers, provoke not your children to anger, lest they be discouraged.

The Greek root word translated "provoke...to anger" and refers here to offenses or damages, namely the slightest of personal offense perceived by a child, stemming from entitlement. The key here to dealing with temper tantrums is to avoid offense in children. One form of avoiding offense in children is responding to their every cry. Children younger than age 6 cry oftentimes due to having a vulnerable need that needs met. Many times, they have separation anxiety that needs reassured. Maybe they are hungry or thirsty as well. Every time you dismiss the cries of a child, you offend them, and they have the right to be offended by your negligence. The idea is instead to diagnose the needs of a tantrumming child, and then meet those needs. Another way to avoid offense in children is to give a meaningful apology for hurting your child's feelings with limits that the child cannot accept, as such hurt feelings often come in the form of a temper tantrum when a child cannot accept a set limit. Either way, children need reassurance of good intent coming from parents, either in the form of an informal apology, or else a formal apology if you were at all angry with your child when they cried. Whenever a child's feelings are hurt by your anger, you need to give a formal apology along the lines of "I apologize for losing my temper with you", and then commit never to lose your cool with your child ever again, as any parent anger directed towards a child is entitlement, and was seen as entitlement in the Early Church. This commandment cross-references the Eighth and the Tenth Commandments, with the Apostle Paul here convicting a group of Greek Christian parents who brought into the church their pagan custom of patrias potestas, which is a Latin phrase roughly translating to "power to the parent", namely the power to impose punitive sanctions on children, such as spanking or other forms of punishment of children. However, this commandment was ultimately received as any offenses as perceived by a child. Paul, contrary to popular legend, was anti-spanking, and opposed any and all punitive parenting in his secular writings. Attachment parenting was banned under Roman law, but the Early Christians did it anyway, obeying God over men.

Christian parents in the Early Church knew more than parents today that children who throw temper tantrums usually do so due to a vulnerable need that needs being met. Customary law in the Early Church understood children as having five basic categories of needs; food, water, shelter, transportation, and/or attachment - with the greatest of these needs being attachment! Whenever a child cried out of nowhere, mothers cooed before she diagnosed the need, and then met it. 

Sometimes, a child cannot accept a set limit. In this case, a parent should be willing to apologize to their child, and mean it. Your children will forgive you for limits that they cannot accept, as children only resent their children for big things, not little things such as a limit that they don't like.

The depraved and entitled parents who provoke not your child 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 burning sulfur, suffering God's Wrath day and night forever and ever! Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand!