And this is some great research to back up Islam’s take on no-dating! Teens who don’t date may be more well-adjusted and less depressed, new study find: https://abcnews.go.com/Health/teens-dont-date-adjusted-depressed-study-finds/story?id=65486471
A beautifully written article on the importance of fathers in raising children on the right path!
Excerpts:
– “What was most intriguing to me and stood out in my mind was that parental piety didn’t make up for a distant dad,”
– I once asked her how she and her siblings managed to resist the siren call of the peer culture around them while growing up, and she told me succinctly, “When you feel love in the house, you don’t look for it anywhere else.”
A beautiful beautiful article on helping our children through the effects of the horrific recent events…a must read!
‘“You should probably think about what you’re gonna say to kids when you go back to school on Monday,” I told my son Shaan this weekend.
He raised his eyebrows quizzically.
“About Paris … and Muslims.”
He suddenly looked irritated. “I’ve done the drill before. Every year of my high school life, I’ve had to deal with what to say and how to react. In freshman year, it was the attack on the US embassy in Benghazi. The next year, it was the Boston marathon bombing. Last year, it was Charlie Hebdo. Now I’m a senior and its 127 dead in Paris. I’m a pro at this now.”
He walked away, a signal that he didn’t want me to continue with further advice or suggestions. But before I could say anything more, he turned back to me and I saw the anger on his face replaced instead with sorrow. “Isn’t that sad, Mama? Isn’t it sad that I’ve become a pro?”’
Read the rest of the article here: http://muslimobserver.com/helping-our-children-find-the-light-in-dark-times/
Subhanallah, what an article!
It’s a little long, but well worth the read – the writer shares all the tips she has picked up on the way about raising children who are on the right path, sometimes despite the odds!
May He give us the tawfeeq to implement them, Inshallah 🙂
Here is an excerpt:
““Assalaamu alaikum,” I whispered to the warm bundle nestled against my chest, “I’m your mommy.” I stroked his face and then asked the rhetorical question that every mother has asked since time immemorial. “Now… how am I going to raise you?”
It’s a question that I have continued to ask since that first magical night in the maternity ward.
I’ve asked it of grandparents, parents, sons, and daughters. I’ve asked it of Pakistanis, Indians, Afghans, Arabs, Americans, Asians, and Africans. I’ve sat people down at parties, emailed friends’ parents, called up aunties on the telephone, and stopped uncles on their way out the door. Any family whose practice of Islam has impressed me, any child whose manners have stunned me, any teenager whose conduct with his or her sibling has given me reason for pause, any adult whose balance of deen (religion) and dunya (world) has wowed me, I have accosted and asked,
“What exactly did your parents do with you?!”
“How did you raise your children?!”
“I beg you, tell me the secret of bringing up Mu’mineen like the ones I see in your home!”
What I have found in my years of “field research” is that nearly all of these families have stumbled upon the same basic secrets to success. While many of them don’t necessarily know one another, time and time again they have given me the same advice, the same tips, the same rules. I would catalogue their stories in my head, thinking I could easily remember them later. So when I was recently approached with the request for an article on Muslim parenting tips, I jumped at the chance to put it all down in writing and thus preserve the valuable insights I have gathered over the course of the past twelve years or so.”
Read the whole article here: http://muslimmatters.org/2010/02/25/raising-children-with-deen-and-dunya/
As Muslims, our first focus should be akhlaaq – I like many of her tips here!
“By Hina Khan Mukhtar
I once asked a scholar for advice on what we should be teaching our children and he immediately responded, “Adab and akhlaq (manners and etiquettes). Parents don’t emphasize these enough anymore.” He went on to define “adab” as “the appropriate action, attitude, and response in any given situation”.
Another scholar once said, “Adab beautifies everything it touches. We have Muslims who know rules and rituals; we don’t have nearly enough Muslims who know how to have adab. Sell your misbaha (prayer beads) and go buy some adab instead.”
The Prophet Muhammad (salallaahu alaihi wasallam) stated, “I have only been sent to perfect good manners.”
It was at a friend’s house that I saw copies of the books “Islamic Manners” by Shaykh Abd al-Fattah Abu Ghuddah and “How to Raise a Gentleman” by Kay West lying side by side on a coffee table.
“What are these all about?” I asked, picking up one of the books and flipping through its pages.
“That? Oh, nothing,” the mother of four boys shrugged nonchalantly. “Just making sure nothing falls through the cracks is all.”
The concept fascinated me. A systematic way of making sure that our sons are learning the proper etiquettes and manners? Sign me up!
Pooling elders and friends, I asked around to find out what they thought are some basic adab and akhlaq concepts that all children should be learning while under our tutelage and here are just some pointers we came up with…”
Continue reading here: http://muslimobserver.com/19887/
