Paul twice mentions how children should act in a way underpinned by the honor all children owe their parents (Exodus 20:12, Leviticus 19:3, Deuteronomy 5:16, and more) right before mentioning how children should not be trampled upon by their parents. He touches on the ethical duty of children towards their parents in Ephesians 6:1-3 and Colossians 3:20 (also less emphatically in Romans 1:30) and on some of the inverse duties towards one's children in Ephesians 6:4 and Colossians 3:21. As with all things, a great deal of these passages could be misunderstood by those making assumptions. The obligations in both directions are vital, but what Paul says about those of the parents has been more prone to distortion among those I have interacted with.
Colossians 3:21—"Fathers, do not embitter your children, or they will become discouraged."
The phrase "in the Lord" in Ephesians 6:1 clarifies what would already have to be true anyway, that children do not have to do absolutely whatever their parents insist, as parents must direct their children to do that which is objectively morally required alone and not what is in accordance with the parents' own preferences; children only have the obligation to obey their parents when they are not being irrational or immoral, including by imposing their mere whims while thinking their status as parents legitimizes this. Otherwise, obedience to one's parents, at least as a young child, is a way of expressing them a mandatory level of baseline honor. The phrase "of the Lord" in Ephesians 6:4, as shown above, makes it clear that parents are to instruct their children only to fulfill actual obligations as grounded in the divine nature. Anything at all that a parent simply wishes their child to do or not do, such as not watch horror films, is entirely outside the scope of this logically and Biblically.
Even in administering proper guidance and instruction, though, no parent is permitted to do so in a manner that dehumanizes or as much as carelessly provokes their children. The fact that no such exact command is specified by God in the Old Testament does not mean that God later changed or that Paul is merely contriving a non sequitur conclusion. A baseless or emotionalistic harshness in parenting or in any other context is already inherently irrational no matter what the Bible says or whether its contents are true. And, in a variety of ways, the prescriptions involving criminal justice revealed in the Torah parallel the obligations parents have.
For instance, just as someone punished by a governing body must actually have done something wrong and not something an accuser or judge subjectively dislikes (Exodus 20:16, 23:1, 7, Deuteronomy 25:1, etc.), parents should not discipline their children for things that are not erroneous; just as there must be no overpunishment even of evildoers if their sin warrants a given legal penalty (Deuteronomy 25:3), there are inflexible limits to even legitimate verbal or physical discipline, which could certainly exasperate or embitter children in addition to being contrary to reason and punitive justice.
I have been using the word parents, and most translations of Ephesians 6:4 and Colossians 3:21, even the NIV with its conceptually accurate gender neutral phrasing in many verses, simply address fathers before bringing up exasperation or training. Besides all of the purely logical reasons why an obligation like this would have to be for men and women as I have repeatedly brought up in other cases, what in context points to Paul not denying any such thing?
The Greek term translated fathers in both verses can also reportedly refer to both parents. However, gender-specific parenting responsibilities would not even be consistent with the idea Paul just held up favorably in the first three verses of the same chapter of Ephesians or the preceding verse of Colossians, appealing to the binding universality of God's moral laws expressed in the supposedly sexist Torah's commands well before the New Testament era, for only fathers to have an obligation to teach or discipline their children. Fathers and mothers could not be equal as parents while having different ethical parenting responsibilities towards their children (nor, in an ultimate logical sense, could they be equal in standing as parents but not as spouses due to shared humanity and the necessary falsity of gender stereotypes). A host of purely logical reasons would render this false one way or another, while the Old Testament says nothing about gender-exclusive obligations in parenting. Nor does Paul.
Deuteronomy 21:18-21 is unflinching about acknowledging the strict mutuality of parenting obligations and the obligations of children towards their parents, including in the discipline of their child and serving as witnesses against their children in cases of capital sins. In fact, a father and mother serving as witnesses against a child who has resisted legitimate discipline from both parents is precisely what Deuteronomy 21:18-21 deals with. How could this entail only fathers chastising their sons and daughters or only fathers, not mothers, being obligated to not be arbitrary or oppressive in that chastisement? It could not, not while still being logically correct and morally just.
Nothing about the nature of a type of instruction or discipline changes with the gender of the parent carrying it out. And, aside from the Greek term seemingly encompassing both parents and not strictly fathers, Paul never says, "Fathers, do not exasperate your children, but instruct them in the Lord, for you must fulfill this role and not mothers." Yet this is exactly what some assume the actual Ephesians 6:4 means. This would contradict pure reason, a host of Old Testament verses like Deuteronomy 21:18-21, and the content and ramifications of New Testament verses like Ephesians 6:1-3 and Colossians 3:20.
It makes no difference whether someone is a father or a mother. He or she would err by treating their child, whether a son or daughter, in such a way as to deviate from reason and justice, including by sating a personal desire to exert control, by using unduly severe words, and so on. Not being harsh for the sake of harshness is among the moral duties parents have towards the children they are to raise to, hopefully like their parents, hold to truth and not arbitrary, unauthoritative impulses. Paul summarizes such things which, unmentioned in the Old Testament, logically stem from Yahweh's revealed moral laws.
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