Sounds like a good idea, sorta. So long as the kid is completely dependent on the parents, it makes sense that housing, healthcare, and educational decisions be made by the parents on the kid's behalf. It would be better that these decisions be made by someone who likely has an instinct to look out for the child, than that these decisions be made by an agency that is bound to treat the child like another number. But I don't think "property" is the right word to describe the rights that parents have over their children.
Property implies the right to deface or destroy. If children are their parents' property, then the parent has the right not just to curse and beat the child, but also to brand his forehead with a swastika and to harvest organs from him.
My friend did add that the child should be considered not just the parents' property, but the parents' body, and the rights over the child are limited in the same way an adult's rights over his own body are limited. Since we don't have a right to sell ourselves into slavery, we shouldn't have the right to make such drastic and permanent changes to our kids' bodies.
Though I accept that we shouldn't be allowed to sell ourselves into slavery, it isn't clear to me why this implies a prohibition against harvesting your own organs. And I definitely don't think your duties to your own body forbid you from modifying it. Your right to own yourself doesn't translate into a prohibition against getting a piercing or a tattoo. So if your kid is legally part of your own body, it seems you still have the right to brand your kids' face.
There's the other issue of emancipation. If a child is his parent's property, then the parent has the right to hide and lock away the child. So even if your kid wants to leave your house, you have every right to confine him and subject him to whatever treatment he was trying to flee. And since he is your property, you have the right to exclude others' use of him. No one would have the right to take your kid from you, even if you are obviously abusing him.
This holds even if your kid is legally part of your body, and not just your property. Other people's right to rescue your child cannot be translated from your duty to take care of your own body. If your duties to yourself excuse violent intervention into your life from others on your behalf, then other people have the right to kidnap you and force feed you if you go on a hunger strike. I doubt this is the implication we want. Your rights and responsibilities over your own body do not mean other people's right to force you to take care of yourself. If your kid is part of your body, then other people still don't have the right to protect your kid (who is your body) from your "self"-destructive actions.
Parental rights have to be different from property rights. Our traditional notion of parental rights are in the right direction: You have the right to do what you want for your kid, so long as your actions meet certain standards that outline the child's best interest. Property rights don't embody this. Property rights allow you to treat an object according to your interest, not the "object's" interest. How we discern these standards is a real big can of worms that I'll pry open in a future post.
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