I’d like to go back to the beginning today…and I hope you’ll bear with me! Many people have asked me what made me start Buzz in the first place, so I thought I’d try and answer that today…
We hear so many tales of how, as children grow and become more independent, there are countless different directions in which they are pulled, most of them not necessarily good. So what can we as parents do, to try and keep our kids on the path that we would like them to stay on?
If we make that path an intrinsic part of them, such that it would be so ingrained that ever if they were to sway here or there they would ultimately turn back, wouldn’t that be great? And it is for this purpose – to instil the love of Islam into every single cell of theirs by making every part of it, be it Eid or a Thursday evening, something to look forward to and enjoy – that Buzz was born, both the products and this forum here to encourage the sharing of ideas.
Going one step further however, in order for us as parents to effectively pass this on to our children, we need to have a solid connection with our children, especially as they grow. If we are spending our crucial resources (time and energy) re-acting rather than acting (and boy was I re-acting by the end of half-term!), chances are we’ll be too sapped to do any extras with them, or that anything we DO do will be lost in translation…
At different stages of our children’s lives, we come across different challenges, whether the challenges of the physically demanding early years, sibling rivalry, self-esteem, etc. Recently I’ve come across some wonderful resources, that have helped me immensely in dealing with some parenting issues that I’ve had, but that can be applied to many different situations. They have had such an impact on me that I would love to share them with you.
So Inshallah over the next few days I will be posting a few websites and books that I have read and that have helped me formed an ideal in my head which I am working towards (doubt I’ll ever get there but it gives me something to look up to at least! As a wise friend once said, “At least it will be conscious incompetence, which is one step ahead of unconscious incompetence!”) I pray and hope that they will be of help to you too – and if you have anything that you have come across, please DO share them here too.
Before I wrap up, I would just like to add that as well as deepening and strengthening our relationships with our children to help share our love with our faith with them, it will hopefully make our family life much more fulfilling and rewarding. In particular, I remember a particularly enlightening conversation with another wise friend, who said she felt it was her duty to Allah to raise her children to be the best that they could be and to reach their potential that Allah had blessed them with, as they are of course just an Amanah with us.
Inshallah may He bless us with the capability of exactly that… Ilahi Ameen!