 In tonight's talk, there are a couple of ideas that I think are very important, and I'd like to start with a couple of ahadi that I think really set the stage for our discussion tonight. First and foremost, you may know and have heard many times the discussion about why it is that Allah SWT put us here on earth. You may have heard other scholars and other discussions that's being brought forth, and can someone tell me what is the answer to that question? Why are we here on earth? Yes. And what is the ayah? Yes. Thank you. Masha Allah. Beautiful. Wonderful. Sisters get a point. Exactly. Exactly. So Allah SWT says, I have not created mankind, nor the jinn, other than to worship Him. And I think this is a really important ayah because here we set the stage, and as the sisters who've heard me discuss before, I'd love to discuss this ayah. When people say, and that very famous question of why are we here on earth? What are humans doing here on earth? And that's the million dollar question, right, that everyone seems to be wanting to figure out the answer to. For us as Muslims, it's very simple. It's clear in the ayah, and everything boils down to that ayah, right? That really, there's no other purpose on being here on earth, other than to worship Allah SWT. And if that truly is the starting point that we begin our discussion, within anything dealing with parenting, goes right back to that point. That if the point of us being here is to worship Allah SWT, then by default, the point of having children and parenting and raising them is also to worship Allah SWT. Meaning our entire focus in parenting should be none other than to raise children, thank you, who will be worshiping Allah SWT. Now, the more tricky part is how, the how, the how you do that. And that is, inshallah, part of our discussion, right? So Allah SWT then goes on in a different part of actually answering that, the how. Can anyone think of an ayah that answers the how? Anything? The sisters are contemplating here, inshallah. We have some go-getters in the front, inshallah. How about, how about, I'll start it for you. That's two points, same sister, inshallah, exactly. Allah SWT says, I have placed on earth the Khalifa. And what does he mean? What is the term Khalifa translates? Sorry? Inshallah, inshallah. Beautiful, inshallah, inshallah. Representatives on earth, the Khalifa. So Allah SWT answers the how. Meaning that if you want to then be worshipers of Allah SWT, the how is becoming a Khalifa of Allah SWT, right? His representative. In order to be his representative, then we have to then be able to follow all the rules of the sharia that he brought down, right? Because that is how you represent him. So all of our actions then. And everything we aspire to goes back to worshiping Allah SWT and being his Khalifa on earth. So with that, it informs our entire discussion. It informs everything from choosing a spouse, who it is you marry. Because that won't form parenting. We don't begin the discussion once the child is here. We begin the discussion all the way back here with who do we choose as a spouse in the first place, right? And then the discussion goes further after that of thinking and really contemplating and timing when it is we bring children into this world. Inshallah, with the blessing of Allah SWT. And in that, there's a lot of discussion as well, but we don't have enough time to go through all of the details. In fact, this I should say by opening remarks are actually an introduction to a much longer course that I teach. That's called spiritual parent, the spiritual child raising for spiritual parenting. And in that discussion, we talk about the choosing the spouse. We talk about the when and how of having children. We talk about the woman's pregnancy and what she should be doing during the course of pregnancy to really prepare herself for giving birth to this Khalifa, right? We talk about labor, pregnancy, labor, delivery. We go through all of these stages before the child is even born. Because a woman and a man and a woman, husband and wife that do that, that have that concept from the very beginning, are really the couple who are able to then truly parent according to how Allah SWT ordained for us too. Inshallah. Now for all of us who already have children and are in the room going, oh dear, I miss those stages. Inshallah. Not to worry. You can always have more. Inshallah. Try again. I'm just kidding. Hello, you're welcome to you. And that's another hadith that the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam said and very famous that he talks about, where he says and talks about his own Ummah as being plentiful. Right? As saying, he's going to be on the day of judgment, he's going to be so proud of his Ummah because of their numbers. But then at the same time, there is the other hadith that balances that hadith out in terms of quantity. The other hadith that talks about quality. Right? And that hadith is when he was sitting with the companions and he says and he thought he used kind of foreshadowed what's to come. And he said to the companions that there will come a time where you'll be many. You'll be many. Right? Does anyone know this hadith? But what? But what? Yes. Exactly. Both sides one. Exactly. I heard foam, I heard ineffective, I heard. So you have quantity that the quality is problematic because there are so many of us. But it's like he describes this as being like the foam. Right? That's on the ocean. Right? When the waves come forward, the crest of the wave come forward, that foam that comes, that's really nothing. You can just blow it away. It really has no substance to it. And so he says, and in that hadith we understand the importance of quality over quantity. Right? And so they say why? Out of sultana, why? Will we be weak even though we're many? And he says because you'll be like foam. Right? So anyhow, going back to our discussion here, these two hadith also inform this whole idea of haditha. So quantity, yes, but quality is more important. And here we talk about what it is and how it is we get to really make sure that we're parenting properly from the very beginning. So let's talk about stages. So I'll just kind of lay the ground in trouble for stages before I hand it over to Hiba. Let's talk about the four very important concepts. You find these concepts in the books of the soul, the books that are talking about the spiritual upbringing of a human being. Imam al-Basadi very famously discusses these four aspects. And inshallah I'd like to focus and give you just a couple of points on each of them. The first is fitra. And what does fitra mean? How do we translate fitra? I see lips. Yes? Natural tendencies. What else? Basic. Basic nature. Basic nature. Fitra is actually very difficult word to translate. And interestingly enough when you look it up in Arabic dictionaries, like when you look it up in Lissal al-Adha which is the most famous Arabic dictionary for Arabic words, for fitra it actually just says yani fitra. It is so basic that they don't even attempt to translate it. So anyhow, back to what it means, there's so many words we can use to describe fitra in translating it. You get the point when we say your basic tendencies, your nature, what's inherent to you, etc. So this idea of fitra, an Islamic explanation, is that the child, and Allah teaches us that all of us are born on the fitra. And that fitra is something that is already, we are inclined, that's a good word, inclined to worship Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. And that children, how they were already born from the very beginning, is a longing and an understanding that there is actually something greater than them. This is the fitra that every child is born on. So then comes in the other famous hadith that you all know, insha'Allah, right? Where we say, every child is born on the fitra. And then what's the continuation of that hadith? Exactly, then his, so every child is starting, and every child is born on the fitra until his parents, basically, his parents either make them a Christian, a Jew, or a Majus, which were the fire worshipers, right? So meaning that all of every child is born on that fitra state. But at some point, the parents begin to inoculate the child with whatever it is they believe in. So the child takes on those tendencies. Either it keeps them on the fitra, which is the Deen of Islam and our belief, or it moves them away from the fitra. In this case here, there comes another hadith that explains when this happens, because many people wonder, when does this start to happen? So the Prophet ﷺ says this process of going away from the fitra starts to happen around the age of two. And the explanation for that, I actually used to say what the actual hadith is, he goes, until the child is able to start talking. And the reason that's roughly around two, roughly, and the reason for that, the reason for the explanation of that hadith, is what we call in our fields of psychology and psychiatry, is the socialization factor. Once the child starts to become socialized, meaning you're able to speak to them and they're able to respond back to you. See, when that starts to happen a year and a half or two years, the child is now able to learn and take from whatever, whoever is inculculating them, whoever is teaching them, and move away from the fitra state, potentially, or stay on the fitra state. So here we realize, wow, that means it's really early on. Look at a little year and a half child or a two-year-old child and we think, ah, they're just a little kid, big deal. No, Subhanallah, this is the stage it starts from very early on. And definitely by that age, that if we're not kind of keeping them on the straight fitra all the way through, they have the potential to start moving away from it. And then you say to yourself and you say to yourself, what's happening at two? What can possibly go wrong at two? Subhanallah. Well, that's what the longer course is for, the longer discussion that we have, where I break down every single stage in every single age and talk about the, basically how to help them, but also the fears and the harms that may come in each and every stage. And so see here, you realize then the fitra becomes a very important thing that we have to talk about. And to remind us all that Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala took an oath that we took an oath to believe in Him. And what am I talking about? What am I talking about here? And at what point did we all take this oath? Yes, right? Before we were even born, before we were even on earth, right? Where Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala created us before we were actually here, we were up, right? Like you're translated as our spirits, right? We were actually created, and Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala says, said to us what? What is it? Am I not your Lord? And all of us responded and said, Bada, right? Yes, you are. So we took an oath to believe in Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala. Meaning again, with that fitra state we all have it, and we've all taken that oath. So here is the whole discussion of continuing on that fitra state as best as possible, insha'Allah. So that is the concept of fitra. The second one I want to introduce is the concept called an Arabic vote. Vote. Vote, if you do a rough translation, is to taste something, right? Taste. Here we're talking about experiential tasting of what? A vote of actually having this experience of connecting with Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala. So they talk about the many experiences of a good translation would be to the wonder, the wonderment a child may have in longing for this figure creator. Meaning what? Think about, put your mind, think about if you've had a child yourself or if you know or work with children. Think about the age group between three, four, five. What is the most characteristic part of this age group? Yes, questions. Someone said, they're so curious, everything. They're so curious, what's this and why is that? I have a child, one of my children is in this age group right now. And every day, he asks me every day something or the other and says, Mama, where did these chicken nuggets come from? And so we go through the whole story. It came from the chicken, right? And he takes it all the way back and then he has to recount the whole story to me. He says, Allah created the chickens, then the chickens were on the farm, then we slaughtered the chickens, then we put up the chicken, then we put the breading, then we put the chicken nuggets, then we packed it in the boxes. They shipped it to the store and we bought it. People stick up through every single step. And they're so curious, they have to know exactly what's going on. And they ask you all the time and they catch you by surprise with all these different questions. All kinds of curiosity, right, is what this stage is very characteristic of this stage. They're just filled with wonder and here Imam al-Azadi would say, this concept is called filled. Being able to instill this in a child is very important because then you're able to have the type of child that when they do experience something like, ah, the light bulb goes off, that's where the chicken nuggets came from, right? They're able then to tie it back to the Creator. So at that young, they can actually learn subhanAllah, they can learn the term, subhanAllah, right? Instead of just wow, right? But they can learn that this goes back to Allah, subhanAllah. That's keeping them on the fitra stage, right? We tie it back, this beautiful rainbow, the clouds, the sky and the sea, the little birdie, you know, the little ant that's in the backyard, right? Every little thing it ties back to and when you as an adult with subhanAllah and get down to their level, and yes, get down to their level, right? Then it instills and inculcates in them what the concept of subhanAllah and you continue on to the fitra. And that way, it's not as adults we go back and try to learn all the concepts of the subhanAllah. We have it from the very beginning. We already had it as in the fitra state and it's just continuing on and subhanAllah in the correct manner. So we talked about fitra, we talked about though, then though is the next concept and I'll do one more and then I'll hand it over to Hiba and subhanAllah. But though, here is the understanding this word is best translated as longing, having a longing for Allah subhanAllah for our Creator. And for the creation having a longing for the Creator. And here, this too, to have a child to actually longs, you see it more coming up in the further stages as we go along. And really the best stage where you really see this if you do all things right inshaAllah, is the teenage stage. Yes, those pesky teenagers subhanAllah. The scholars say that in that, by the way that term adolescence is actually made up term. It was ever there in history. You went from being a child to being an adult. There was no such thing as teens and adolescence. This is a created concept. Anyhow, that's another discussion for another time. But that age group has an amazing propensity for spirituality, for really connecting with Allah subhanAllah. I'll tell you something. Either they're going to throw themselves into something that is problematic or they're going to throw themselves into something that's full of khayt and full of good. Let me paint the picture a little bit more clearly here. Take a teenager. Let's talk about girls for a minute. I have a whole hundred, any Friday you come to MCC there's about a hundred girls running around in our various tahmahalakas. They're mentoring and teaching and so on. Mentoring those who then come back and mentor the girls who are younger than the mashallah. Let me tell you about this starting from the age of about essentially 13, 14, 15 onwards. In this age group there's such passion that happens in this age group that either that passion is channeled into boy crates and all the talk is about music and boys and their question and this guy and this actor and this kid in school and so forth. Not that boys don't do this either. I'm just talking about girls for the moment. It's channeled all of this passion that goes into that discussion and it's funny, us as the mentors teaching them, we're kind of like every generation that we've mentored it's like oh no, way back when it was how far back should we go backstreet boys or whoever it was way back when and then it was the Bieber fever or whoever and on and on and on this one and Zayn Malik and all the rest. This is a group that comes in and they do the same thing over and over and over again. There's something characteristic about this age group in terms of the passion they have. Turn that, take it and turn it a little bit and give them something better because the thing is with girls and you have to know with young people in general boys or girls that if they don't have another channel or another outlet it's going to end up in a Haram channel right? So here what is this channel, what Yvonne Lozatti talks about and our teachers talk about they talk about this stage of spiritual awakening this unmatched and any other stage. This is where if a child really goes through this you find them sitting in the messian doing their hips they'll put it on day and night, day and night, day and night they channel it into hip and there's a couple of us I have to say that in this age group that's what we were doing you know, our life our teen years were devoted into Quran. Now that's not necessarily for everybody but I just want to tell you those type of youth if they're properly trained from the beginning they have such a love for Quran and such a that's not so important this Bieber guy right? There really is a key difference. I'm not saying she's not going to have crushes, she will but it won't be that all of her passion and all of her energy is put into it. There's actually something much higher and loftier that she aspires to and that takes a lot of mentoring not just from parents but also from spiritual mentors and other discussion for another time too inshallah and I want to tell parents of teens that this is a natural spiritual time frame in their life where this is, it's natural that if it's done properly they'll naturally be inclined to all things played inshallah right? But if not they're going to do exactly what their peers do so that's another discussion and I know teens tend to bring up a lot of discussion but think about it think about a lot of our main scholars, for example, who are converts think about them, name them Shekhanza Yusuf Dr. Ahmad think about Shekhnur Keller all these different scholars that you've heard of and that you've read their books and that you really esteem they're really held in high esteem in your eyes almost every single one of them is converted when they were about 1718 is when they came to Islam and they were searching in their teen years until they came to Islam subhanallah so it's no accident that this is truly the age of true spiritual awakening for our youth so inshallah this idea of told is something that one day we'll revisit in more detail and then lastly the fourth concept is inshah and inshah means developing now the relationship with Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala through our Ibadah and through Moramina through worship and through our actual, our actions our interactions with other people and this is where it's important we bring in the topics of Fiqh and Aqidah and the rest because treatment of Allah, proper treatment of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and proper treatment of others so these four concepts really are the I would say the pillars of our discussion on parenting and inshallah in our center in our therapists who are undergoing principles of Islamic psychotherapy these are some of the principles that they're being trained in in addition to their professional training as therapists the Islamic concepts that they're tying in in their therapy inshallah so with that I will hand over the mic to sister Hibam then brother Javed then like I said we'll break for Aisha and come back for closing remarks and we'll get our discussion for tonight and open it up for Q&A sister Hibam thank you so much Dr. Manu for that wonderful segment the introduction so to get right into it just for the sake of time before we assume any role in our lives or take on any type of responsibility we have to first think about what perception we have of that role what pre-existing notions or perceptions do we have so as parents what is our preconceived notion of parenting can anybody help me in answering that question it's hard definitely anybody else our own parents are our role models okay sorry a lot of patience okay how about from the brother's side we hope it's not too much trial and error definitely so we are taught that before we assume the role of parenting that we come to the full realization that our children are not ours we do not possess them they are merely in our care we don't own them and often times as parents we have this sense of ownership over our children they belong to us how dare somebody insult them or how dare somebody hurt them or how dare somebody offend them or how can my friends say that about my daughter or how could she come and talk to me and tell me that my daughter did such and such and often times we get offended because we have this strong sense of ownership over our children are diluted sometimes into thinking that they're ours they belong to us where essentially they come through us but they do not belong to us they are only in our care for a certain period of time for a decreed period of time in which we equip them with the right tools and with the right knowledge emotionally psychologically, spiritually and physically in order for them to be successful adults and to face this world and it's darkness with resilience so that they don't shatter at the first sign of any sort of distress until Allah SWT decides that their time is up so with that perception we're able to always renew our perceptions just like we're able to renew our intentions and our commitments so at Hamdanah tonight could be a night in which all of us collectively renew our perception of parenting that I don't own my children so therefore I shouldn't invest so much emotion into into them as opposed to investing a lot of effort or exerting a lot of effort to fulfill my duty and Allah SWT every time he talks about gifting right or whenever he talks about prophets, peace be upon them and them having children he speaks of it in the context of a gift and a perfect example of that is in Surah Tashura ayah 49 in which Allah SWT states I have I have right so Allah gives whomever He wills with females and Allah and it's stated gifts right so it's always used in the context of gift that our children are a gift to us in order for us to care for them and it's sort of like a training round right before they are old enough to go out and face the world on their own so what are we commanded to do as parents you know what is our prime responsibility as leaders of our household or as parents support so support our children um any any other ideas guidance right so guiding them upon this path that Dr. Arnie was mentioning earlier right that we have to guide them on the correct path whenever we see them slipping or falling off or navigating off the path we bring them back on we help to bring them back on right can we always guarantee that they will come back on no and that is part of this realization that we don't own them so I'm merely doing my job right I'm doing my best to ensure that they stay on the path but I cannot guarantee so Allah's part of the time that states um oh you who believe save yourself and your family from the hellfire right so save yourself and your family from the hellfire what does that look like how can we save our families from the hellfire by instilling the seed of spirituality in our children from a very young age right so ensuring that we do not lead them or by any means or any shape or form that we don't inspire them in the wrong way that we're always trying to be a good example or a good model for them to follow in our path because for many years in the beginning four million years you are their only example you and the father or the guardians or the grandparents or whoever it is that are the caretakers of the children are the only examples for children right so if you're the only example that is a lot of pressure right but at the same time if you're aware of the responsibility and you're aware of what you're supposed to be doing it makes it a little easier because you expect it you understand it so sending sending one's child to a madrasa or on classes, Islamic school right weekend schools is all wonderful and it should be on the agenda right in addition to their academics but at the same time that may have worked for previous generations but we must it's a sobering wake up call that that technique or that strategy may no longer work with today's generations or the future generations right there's many different forces out there and there's the increase in technology and friends the struggle with friends it's a huge struggle who should my child be friend and so being very aware of these forces that are working against us at times as parents and then we cannot focus on instilling spirituality on our children if their very basic needs are not met so if love, acceptance and attention is not given to the children how can we expect them to be spiritual or pray or fast how can that expectation even be there and a lot of mothers you know you hear a lot of mothers say but I'm constantly around my kids on a housewife and my kids see me all the time so what do you mean I need to pay more attention to my child I don't know how more I can do that how can I possibly do that more than what I'm already doing and it's not just being around your children that will make the difference and a lot of research I always like to incorporate non-muslim perspectives to see what their standpoint is on the issue and to kind of define it it reaffirms what Allah has told us and that is all the research that I've come across and that I've read it states that it's not the amount of time that you spend with your children it really all goes back to the quality of time that you spend with them so a lot of parents say well I work and my spouse works and when we come home work right and then we them a quick like 5 minute bedtime story and then put them in bed so that they can wake up the next day ready for school but it's really even if it's just half an hour a full and divided attention no iPhones, no TVs, no cartoons, no shows no interruptions from anyone or anything and just giving them the space and the opportunity to connect with you as their parents and for them to share with you their frustrations their struggles right you tell them about your day and you'll find that they are very ready and willing to share with you what happened in their day this is a perfect opportunity to sort of share with them stories share with them your experiences and then allow them to share their stories and their experiences and their friends are and you get a sneak peek into their world and what their world looks like because it is very different than our adult world so ensuring that their basic needs are met is number one and then you start building upon that right and you start teaching them different aspects of spirituality now modeling spirituality as opposed to teaching it right spirituality is not a subject that can merely just be taught in a classroom setting because many many youth were taught in a formal way were instructed in a formal way in classrooms and yet they grow up and people in the community are shocked when they do certain things but they were in my Sunday school class or they were in my Islamic school or I knew them from the community right this is my friend's son or this is my friend's daughter how could they do something like that because maybe spirituality was not modeled at home it was only a drop off pick up thing right so I drop you off the class you learn the lesson and you come back and you should be spiritual you should be praying you should be fasting you should be doing all of these things but yet it's a difficult task and so it's much easier to just send them to a school to just send them to a class as opposed to and a lot of times I say this to parents that it's not just about us providing therapy to our children disciplining our children oftentimes our children are disciplining us right and because they keep us in check a lot of the time we don't sometimes see ourselves we don't see how we behave or how our day to day life is we think we know but we don't see it because we're within ourselves they see us and at times they may comment or they say you know why did you answer the phone that way or why didn't you say that why did you say this when you didn't really do it and so it really is a great reminder that it's not just you that's providing therapy and they are also providing you with therapy it goes both ways it's reciprocal so as I was growing up the sheikh that I grew up with he would always say this this statement to me and it really stuck with me till now and he would always say that children or people in general they hear you with their eyes so they don't hear you with their ears like they hear you but they may not be listening to they're really listening to you with their eyes because they hear what you say but if you're not authentic incredible as in if you're not doing what you're asking them to do then most often they may not follow whatever it is that you're instructing them to do so they will hear you with their eyes and if they see that whatever it is that you're asking them to do for yourself are you living that life that you are asking of them that you are asking them to live then they will follow because they now have you've proven to them that you're credible that you're real that you're not just asking them for something that you don't do yourself or that you're not following through with yourself so they are checking to see if the medicine that you're asking because spirituality isn't a way of medicine it keeps our souls in check because without spirituality we just follow our hawa and Allah has stated in the Quran we cannot live based on our desires because our desires will lead us to destruction but if you are basically taking this medicine yourself then you can ask of them to take it as well now parenting has been split up into three stages according to Ali he stayed to live and he was 7 and he was 7 so play with your child for the first 7 years of their life field trips outings, museums playdates all of that stuff galore guided, non-guided play they're basically picking up on the values of Islam through the way that you live your day-to-day life what is it that you refrain from and what is it that you engage in and they pick up and learn from observational learning second set of 7 years is formal instruction where you are formally putting them in schools in addition to modeling that spirituality within the home and then the last set of 7 years between the ages of 15 through 21 and this is something that's really hard for parents to do is to befriend your child only be a friend and what does a friend do can we ever really make our friends do anything or can we make decisions for them not really and often times when you try to be that forceful you may lose that friend even if they're on the wrong path so it's the same thing with our children you formally instructed them you played with them the first 7 years you built that foundation that love they have this love for you because they want to be around you you're lighthearted, you make things creative you make things fun and then the second set of 7 years you are formally instructing them you're actually teaching them and then the last set because insha'Allah you built the right foundation now they're they can go out into the world and they're teenagers or early adults and they're experiencing the world for how it is and they may not make the best decisions but as a friend or as a Khalid you are there to guide very subtly, very gently and advance and you draw from examples from your own life but you're not shoving it down their throat you're giving them some space to make mistakes and then we learn from our mistakes we have recap sessions so let's talk about what happened and giving them some a long time as well so that it's not always you know on your own watch you have to ensure that they're also ready to have that discussion now when al-as-panel italic gives us the 5 pillars of Islam we often look at them as requirements that these are 5 things that we have to do in order to attain jannah but in actuality the 5 pillars of Islam are actually a means of empowerment for us as Muslims they're not just a set of guidelines and requirements and what I mean by that is they are pillars in which we lean on whenever we're struggling whenever we're in a state of confusion whenever everything around us is going crazy and spiraling we use the 5 pillars to to bring us back to al-as-panel italic and if you think about it it comes from the word which means connection to al-as-panel italic remaining connected to the one who created us and knows us best and what does that give us that gives us peace of mind that gives us solace and that gives us a correct understanding of our purpose continuously connected to the one who created you most likely you won't waver too much off the path you will always somewhat come back to your foundation and then when we talk about so what age are children supposed to start praying 7 you're supposed to start introducing the concept of prayer at the age of 7 and start admonishing them if they're not praying by the age of 10 which gives you 3 years to help them establish the lasting connection to solace it's not all at once so first maybe they'll start praying with you when they turn 7 and then you gradually transition them to be able to pray on their own and it can't be forceful and it can't be through aggressive strategies and techniques they cannot be associating yelling, screaming, arguments fighting every time you tell them come let's pray and their mind will take them there because what happens is when they grow up as adults and I see this so often they stop praying completely altogether and they don't even want anyone to tell them come and pray because they automatically associate that word with all of these negative memories and experiences that they've had as a child so so they start praying at the age of 7 you start admonishing them at the age of 10 if they're not praying and then in order to get them to continue praying they cannot they cannot continue with something that they do not really understand so why don't we pray? we pray that so that we stay connected to our creator so that we stay connected to Allah's Parana but who is Allah and what purpose does He serve in our lives and yes you do have to break it down to that level so as they're growing ages 4, 5, 6, 7 you start introducing the 99 names of Allah Allah has given us attributes and characteristics of His some which are solely His we do not Allah has not instilled that some of those traits and attributes within us but some of them He has and so we start introducing who Allah is and what is Allah capable of and what are Allah's abilities what can Allah do right why should I stay connected to Him right and because our children cannot love that which they do not know the reason why we love Rasulullah Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam is because we know so many intimate details about his life his struggle his lifestyle and who his spouses and children were so we have developed an emotional connection with the Rasul that if they don't know anything about Allah and we're telling them here why aren't you praying you're going to go to Jahannah if you don't pray and you're constantly driving them or mobilizing them through guilt they're not going to pray they're not going to continue praying at Jahannah and on their own because they never develop that accurate understanding of who Allah is and there's this amazing website called creativemotivations.com and it has so many different activities using the 99 names of Allah that you can do with your children in order to introduce who Allah is and then embody and exemplify these 99 names in our lives how can I be merciful even with people who I may not be so fond of even with people who wrong me how should I really exemplify mercy because that's when it really shows your true colours when it's with someone who the exchange with is a little bit difficult or how do I exemplify patience and sometimes when you tell them about your day you describe incidents in which you have to be very patient or in which you have to be forbearing or you have to be generous right in order for them to start making that connection with Allah's 99 names and how they can how that can manifest in their own lives now in regards to wudu for example when they come to make wudu you start making a connection between when you wash your hands and your feet and you rinse your mouth where did your feet go today right what did your hands do today did you use your hands to write a note that hurt someone's feelings or did you kick someone right either intentionally or unintentionally yet you didn't apologise or you didn't take accountability for your actions right so you start making the connection between wudu which is a process of cleansing right and hygiene to maintain their own hygiene and cleanliness and also that they need to start taking accountability for everything that they're Allah or that they're you know limbs right that their limbs have done right that day and then also that wudu is an anger management tool because there's many hadith that state that what do you do when you're angry right and how do you diminish that rage that you feel whenever you feel angry you go on you make wudu right and it will be a coolness upon you um now moving on to zakah right zakah and salafah um and this is really important because often times um children are taught this is where entitlement comes from that you know I don't have to worry about being bored right I don't have to worry about property and malnourishment and the struggle of the less privileged because I'm not from that category right but it's really important to start introducing this concept that mom and dad's money is not really theirs we work hard for our risk and that's where um risk comes from risk is when you work hard for something and then you are rewarded for it whereas you know a hibah or a gift is given to those who are deserving and to those who are undeserving of it right you don't have to exert any effort to get a gift right so they need to start understanding that our money is not ours right it could be gone overnight right happens to many people and that we could use a portion of our money for our own selves and take care of our own needs but then who else can we share our risk with right who can we share our wealth with do you have a friend who needs something that you can buy for them or that you can express your love and appreciation for them that will make them happy um or remember that homeless man that we would always see in that parking lot maybe we can give him something right maybe we can buy him a care package or make him a care package and give it to him so always expanding and allowing them to entertain new ideas right that are not just about me myself and I right or about me and my siblings and my immediate family yeah it's a lot more than that and then also the end of giving that it's not you're not doing them a favor by giving them this money or helping them or giving them son of god or helping them with their problem you're not doing them a favor that people have a right over your wealth right if you have wealth to spend and that you know if you really a stressor or a burden often Muslim Allah will believe one of your burdens on the day of judgment so teaching them these concepts and that can be a form of sadaqah right um fasting fasting is an act is a deed that is only for the sake of Allah's primal time you refrain from halal food and drink only for the sake of Allah's primal time as a form of teaching yourself self discipline and also so that you feel the pain that the less privileged feel you can never possibly empathize with someone when you haven't even remotely felt what their struggle feels like right if you're constantly in the realm of the privileged which is like the one percent of the world if you're constantly in that bubble how can you possibly even think about helping them or thinking brainstorming solutions to help them if you've never felt their struggle you don't know what the pains of hunger feel like right and even though it's not on the same level because you have food at the end of the day right but at least you experienced it to an extent right and then that act of Hajj right taking your children if possible at an age in which if for them to experience what the concept of ummah means and brotherhood and sisterhood and how we're side by side and how it's very similar to the day of accountability right it gives them an image to go to every time they think about accountability right now reasons for disconnect why do we have why do we come across so many adults that are disconnected from spirituality today right and this falls under there's many reasons right some of them are that these grown adults were raised in homes in which the parents may have worshipped Allah they may have prayed and they may have fasted but they never shared their love for prayer or why they pray right that when you pray it creates a buffer between me and my trials right I'm more composed and more calm when things around me are all falling apart as opposed to someone who doesn't pray they tend to collapse more easily right they're not as stripped to be resilient or as emotionally resilient as someone who is constantly connected with their creator right so they may have grown up in a home in which parents did things on their own and they never really shared that love they never really allowed their children to have these experiences with them right or I also hear this one a lot too I don't really see a need for it right it's an inconvenience I'm an executive director I'm a doctor I miss I'm that and my work schedule doesn't really allow me to take a break to pray and they don't realize that if there's a will there's a way right because you also have the other end of the spectrum in which there are doctors and there are executive directors who do take two minutes here five minutes there to make sure that they're that prayer that they get that prayer in right because they're committed and because they understand why they're doing it and what purpose it serves in their life along with many other reasons now just like just like we celebrate lifelong commitments like marriage or embarking on a new career or celebrating an anniversary or attending plus year friendship with a friend the beginning of the commitment of Salah is something to be celebrated and this is part of the creativity you can have a Salah party for your children right and you can have something like a prayer book in which family friends and relatives and family can all write messages to your child about what purpose prayer served in their life as adults now that they're 50, 60, 40, 30 even right what purpose has Salah served so that when they're going through their lows and spirituality even years down the road they can always refer to this because it was written by adults right for them for their future selves and this is just one idea out of many that you can incorporate to celebrate this lifelong commitment that you can now, you're now at a mature age where you can actually talk to Allah swt directly right, you don't need any meat eaters you don't need anyone you can just talk to him directly now that you're 7 years old now you're at an age where you can connect to Allah swt and you can ask him for anything and he will understand and he will always be there for you as opposed to when is in a constant state of change right, friends move away new friends come teachers change people die, people are born they will automatically start to make the connection that everything around them is always changing except for Allah swt will never disappoint right and then I'll just end with this that one of the other research studies from the non-muslim perspective by van dyken EES the research study was actually about youth and how they were able to maintain their spirituality and they actually found something that's so amazing that is actually a recurring theme in the Quran and that is the concept of forgiveness that youth who were taught how to forgive were actually able to be spiritual were actually able to be better spiritually connected and this is a huge other topic of discussion because there's many family feuds there's many siblings who no longer talk to each other their cousins, relatives, friends but do you model can you model how you've forgiven someone who has greatly hurt you, insulted you, offended you or caused you pain and explaining to them that when I forgive them I take that power back by showing them that they no longer have that power to hurt me and ruin my life that I take that power and I now have that peace of mind I forgive them and I go to pass that if they want to be stuck in that that's up to them but I've let that go for my own peace of mind and for your own quality of life and you draw from examples of the prophets and how many times they were hurt at times, to which they were bleeding and how they forgave the story of thought is a perfect prime example in which the prophet they threw rocks and stones at him and he said no, do not destroy this city he told Jebedon do not destroy it lest there be one person who grows up to worship all those pyrotechnics from amongst them so having this spirit of forgiveness and carrying that with them it will serve them greatly as adults and I will end here Jebedon will continue with Jebedon with his portion of the presentation which was on resiliency we are aware that Aisha is coming in so Jebedon will start the presentation and then we will break for Aisha most likely and then we'll be coming back to continue his presentation and also our portion of the closing remarks and the Q&A people here who would like to do the Q&A the program is set to end at 9.30, inshallah so hopefully you all will be here for that and also for our further discussion about the Chalil Center, inshallah Dr. Ania and sister Hebel both segments were really beneficial just before we begin I think there's some sign-up sheets if we can get those, if it hasn't already been passed around inshallah it would be really beneficial so that everyone in the audience can stay in touch with Chalil Center after this program, inshallah to know what else activities and programs take place throughout the Bay Area so inshallah my segment is going to be on resiliency as Dr. Ania alluded to earlier so I know also we're a little tight on time, so forgive me if I seem like I'm going to zoom through this so follow along if you can see inshallah on the PowerPoint there so socially and emotionally conscious child-during towards producing psychological resilience so what is resilience, let's define that so first, resilience is creating or protecting the psychological state in your child so that they perhaps in the future are protected against distress both psychological and also that's spiritual so any types of things that happen we want to build that ability for them in the future to be able to protect themselves from any type of distress and this is the topic is very specific to children but this is kind of it can be applied to ourselves as well so where you can apply this inshallah to yourselves as well but the Islamic definition we can also look at it from a different perspective and we can call it Himmah many of us have heard or reused the word Himmah, like having Himmah but here the concept is and that's having a higher level of thinking a higher process, a higher level of this resilience and what is the definition of that in there's a definition that's given on and that is to consider everything other than your objective and insignificant this is the definition given in this one context to consider everything other than your objective as insignificant and Sheikh Hashir Mashallah was a very prominent scholar who currently lives in Pakistan but he was an American Convert to Islam, he recently had a seminar many of you who were from the Bay Area may have at least heard of this program it was a holistic health workshop and he gave an example of this Himmah specifically this Urdu-ul-Himmah where he said a cheetah when a cheetah is looking to hunt although there may be 30-40 different animals in the area, he'll focus on one he'll focus on one and no matter what happens around him he'll focus on that one so he gives this example with regards to Himmah so you continue inshallah with the power when getting into it human beings in general are getting smarter as the time moves forward and as the technology gets better and the education gets better human beings in general are getting better at least in academics for sure in academics human beings are getting much better in the educational world kids are getting a lot smarter for that same reason actually we cannot use intelligence testing equipment that was made 30 years ago on children today why? because the children today would look like geniuses if they took those tests right? and the muslim community however they are suffering and they are a lot more vulnerable to psychological and I would add spiritual distress right? like sister heba was mentioning some of the concepts of how to raise that child not to hate Islam how can you create a sense of religion of faith within your small children so that it permeates their heart so it's a natural occurring thing it's a normal thing not something that when you hear the name of it you immediately remember your father or mother screaming at you and yelling at you and taking out the belt you don't think of that you don't associate Islam to that so what are some of the issues that muslim youth are having specifically with regards to psychological and spiritual distress one of those things is being unable to read context clues or being unable to respond to social context for example when you're talking to a masjid what are the etiquettes of the masjid or when an elder walks into the room what is generally a person supposed to do being able to tell the appropriate behavior for that appropriate place there was a so here I'll skip that so let's see another example of this is for example when you're talking to someone and kind of like right now when you're talking to someone and you notice that they're really tired they're exhausted but you just keep going on and on and on and on being able to read these social clues so the next slide has the statistics if we can get the statistics up the third slide it has some data there are some muslim studies that were done which Khalil S.M. has a part of in some of it that talks about religious affiliation being at an all time low point right now being at an all time low point while psychological distress as in is at an all time high so depression, anxiety you're noticing more of these things although religion is a protective variable meaning it's something that does give us a sense of strength and it gives us the ability to create this psychological resilience this himma what else gives us that Islam gives us that our religion gives us that Chef Hashim he has a program called the Obudiyah model and what that is is it essentially it's changing a person's mind frame and mindset to be a godly model to be god conscious and what does that mean that he has this very specific concept called paradigm inversion now many of us have heard of the term paradigm shift when you have to change things but he says and he proposes that idea that we need a paradigm inversion outside now we need to start doing things not for goodness sake but for god's sake we need to have a god consciousness a god compass and if you just can see by these statistics they're pretty shocking statistics nearly 50% of college age muslim students are involved in premarital relations almost 50% of muslim youth in colleges are involved in drinking alcohol other information is there so what are some of the challenges facing the youth there are three main things that the youth are being faced with and challenged with right now and that is lack of social support acculturation and their beliefs and values in muslim identity a sense of where do I belong because that's very difficult you see all the things that's happening what the media is portraying about muslims I was very young when 9-11 happened the truth is I didn't even know what was happening until like 2-3 years later I had no idea and every time someone would say something about muslims I'm like what are you talking about muslims muslims are totally cool people we have really good food we're really loud we're cool people to hang out with what are you guys talking about I literally thought muslims the way the television was portraying it was a whole different species or some sort of creation so how do the muslim youth right now deal with that what is their belief what do they associate themselves with and Allah SWT mentions in the Quran that you are that we as muslims are the best people on the face of this earth that has been selected by Allah SWT for what reason to encourage people to do good and to prohibit people from doing evil and acts of obscenity and the cherry on top is that if you believe in Allah this makes us the greatest people on earth Alhamdulillah this is a great ni'at of Allah SWT we need to embrace that why is that such a great feeling so these are some of the challenges some of the youth are facing and what we'll do is we'll take a pause inshallah here I think this is a good point to take a break and we'll praise Allah SWT and we'll go ahead and get started with Salatu Bisha and we will continue right after inshallah Bismillah ar-Rahman ar-Raheem so we'll just read one quick hadith inshallah as part of the tradition of the masjid so on the third Jabri El-Yusafara who says that the messenger of Allah SAW came to us he came out to us once and he said why do you not stand in rows as the angels do before their love before Allah so he asked O messenger of Allah how do the angels stand in rows before their love before Allah how do the Malaika stand so the Prophet SAW responded they complete each row beginning with the first and they fill all the gaps this is a hadith narrated in Sahih Muslim may Allah grant us the ability to make amad on this and to try to get the first sub so we're going to start with this here we're going to move back and forth inshallah we're going to continue the brother Japanese talk there was a short interruption with his talk and then we'll do Q&A so for those who are rejoining us welcome back to our parenting discussion for tonight this is a discussion on instilling resiliency and nurturing spirituality I'm joining you from the Fadiah Foundation tonight and also sister Hiba and brother Jabid have been presenting for those who didn't catch the introductory remarks the Fadiah Center is a Muslim counseling center that has professionally trained therapists that are both trained in western therapeutic concepts and are licensed they're working towards licensure professionally in the state of California but in addition are being trained in Islamic psychotherapy concepts and also pursuing their own Islamic learning inshallah so that they can infuse that in with the therapy and we hope to make that therapy accessible to everybody I went through a financial model of how to seek out counseling and care and also kind of our goals in making sure that there's also educational opportunities for the entire Bay Area and we're very pleased to be here tonight for the first time and pleasant to that the MCC we've been to the other community centers for a while now and so as brother Jabid was mentioning before we broke for Aisha please do sign up your email on the Hadiah Center email list it's infrequent emails but when we do have community forums like this or panels or discussions that's what you will be receiving through email so if you hope to hear from the Hadiah Center again soon please do sign up and I have briefly mentioned that there's also a sign up sheet for consultation sessions that we see here since our site is all the way in Santa Clara and it's far from this community that we may have some staff members on site here from the Hadiah Center to do some counseling and consultation sessions so that is something of interest to you, your friends, your families etc. please do sign up not for specific slots but just for interest so we see if there really is that kind of interest from the community here, insha'Allah with that I'm going to turn the mic back over to David to continue his slides and then we will open the floor for Q. So insha'Allah continuing with the slide we won't waste any more time insha'Allah so as we were talking just right before we stopped we were talking about some of the challenges that Muslim youth face today now why is it important to build socially and emotionally strong Muslim youth and like I said in the beginning you can add this to yourself as well why is this important why is building resilience something important well interestingly enough you can predict you can actually predict better academic outcomes based on how socially and emotionally strong and healthy a person is a growing body of literature as you can see on the PowerPoint a growing body of literature suggests that children who are socially and emotionally stronger who have more social emotional wellness they have a higher probability of raising their grades and test scores bolstering their enthusiasm for learning reduced behavior problems and enhance the brain's cognitive functions and this is an interesting concept because the thing is is that if you have and I'll give you an example you have an extremely intelligent young child but that child lacks confidence or that child lacks this socially emotionally emotional wellness he lacks this ability to be for example confident or the ability to be able to interact and socialize and then you have a kid who is not so intelligent but he has all of these qualities it is likely that that child who has more of this social emotional wellness can do better on his examination can do actually better in his grades and actually if you look at the there's two extremes extremely rich and wealthy people and extremely extremely poor and poverty-stricken people right emotionally they're not actually doing so well but who is doing pretty good people who are right in the middle so people who are right in the middle are actually the ones who do a little bit better and then more interestingly enough is the people who are right above the poverty line just right above it they're actually doing the best they have more contentment in life and if you see also from the tradition of the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam who says the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam says that indeed I have only been said to perfect character human our social contact with one another and why is that important because again understanding how to interact with one another building a sense of community building a sense of brotherhood and sisterhood in Islam this is what the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam was sent for and we also learned that an example of this is what Abu Ghurayrah sallallahu alaihi wa sallam who is when you read the hadith usually read or most of the time you read Abu Ghurayrah Abu Ghurayrah mentioned this hadith Abu Ghurayrah did not have the strongest memory but Abu Ghurayrah sallallahu alaihi wa sallam had the story of the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam and he was with the Prophet so he learned all of these you know social and emotional skills how to be around people when something big happens to you how do you react do you just give up on the world or how he was observing the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam and in this this is an example for us how that can affect a person there are some studies as well that show that changes in academic achievement could better predict children's social competence children can actually do better based on their social emotional wellness in their grades as well like I mentioned in the beginning of the slide in academics this is evident and the last part of this actually there is an Islamic Muslim study that is done here I'm not sure if it's the last one there is one more this is done by Muslims on the effect of spirituality and how important that is to have a spiritual sense of connection with Allah s.w.t an interesting fact is that in the time of the Bedouin Arabs at the time of the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam why were the children of Quraish natural born leaders what was one quality that they had I mean this was common amongst Arabs at that time but in Quraish they were really emphatic about this they sent their children when they were young out into the deserts so that they can be raised amongst other children and people would teach them pedigree and they would grow and the children would interact they would have the opportunity to beat children but it was being shaped in a natural way to build character and interacting with other children not being restricted so that children are not able to be children because you're molding them into something else there was a great chef one time one of his students came when he brought his child and that child sat in front of him at this head down not moving so the chef said who is this? he goes this is my son this is not your son, this is an angel you brought an angel here this is not a kid kid runs around, kid has fun so allowing that so this was a noble quality of the children of Quraish so that they had this opportunity so that when they got older they were naturally able to lead a nation, able to lead a people and that's what you see today actually that you have youth camps and camps for young children to create that within them so the next slide has the benefits of being socially and emotionally strong it shows that resilient children are less likely to become depressed they are less likely to become hopeless and helpless and they're more likely to persist in problem solving they're willing to take risks they're more likely to reach appropriate milestones and what's a good example of that in our history Osama al-Bazeer was 17 years old who was sent to lead the army of the muslims he was 17 years old I mean if we think of a 17 year old today we really don't think that he's going to go lead a muslim army with the elder sahaba the other sahaba with him to go lead an army into shah so what are the benefits of it you have an example like that in our own Islamic tradition and then you have factors for the lack of resilience so children without this sense of himma and this resilience what does that create a generally sense of anxiety and low self esteem academic failure, ineffective coping strategies emotional dysregulation and poor social skills and environmentally the effects are that perhaps that child is growing up in a harsh and inconsistent environment with discipline within the family that changes for example the mother will tell the child one thing don't do this then the kid will go to his father you know just go ahead and do whatever you want it's inconsistent the child will not know who to listen to and if you see sometimes amongst the older generation you'll see that if the father figure said something that was it that was it his statement goes some of the other environmental harms are unclear boundaries children don't know to who we can say what and to act a certain way where exposure to violence or peer associations so what can we do to protect to create some protective factors some internal protective factors having optimism this is a great thing having emotional awareness having flexible thinking self-efficacy and esteem and empathy when the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam once he passed by a young boy and his brother had passed away so he said he comes up to him and he sees that he is distressed so he says just saying something sweet and kind to this young boy and at that time he could have easily said it's just a bird get over it and that's so common and it's not funny but the thing is you find that humor in the fact that it's so common that everyone knows of having done that or having experienced that from a child or to someone else and we just totally write it off and how do you think that little kid feels I mean it means something to them so through the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam we see that how he interacted that created a sense of optimism that created a sense of you're important in what you're going through is important so some environmental factors meaningful connection to an adult having that how much that can benefit you having someone you can go and speak to having expectations stable and consistent environment so then what happens though if a child is in a house where he sees marital discord and this is another issue parents fighting in front of their children so children with divorced or unstable parental figures score lower on their emotional behavioral social health and academic outcomes they rate lower they score lower and adults with divorced parents grow up so what happens to those children when they grow up they have less education generally speaking lower levels of psychological well-being they have problems and their own marriages and then eventually they can be led to they have the risk of encountering divorces as well right this is all the we are all a creation of our environment whatever environment we surround ourselves with that's how we become and that's also again the concept in Islam the whole concept of Sohbah and one of my psychology books in my undergraduate when I was in college I was reading it and I was talking about the different ways of learning something, anything how does a person learn something and there was like different things there one was studying in a classroom setting another one was experiential so just being like hands-on training and a few other things and then the last point that I thought was extremely interesting when I started jotting this down it said you don't need to do anything you just need to be with that person just spend time with someone and you will become like them and you will learn from them just the concept of Sohbah so now child self-esteem and self-efficacy what happens to that child what can we do to encourage that to create that in our youth having a good opinion that perhaps this kid has a need or is not just acting like this for the heck of it to drive you crazy because SubhanAllah children and human beings in general have a pre-wired tendency to know Allah to believe in Allah haddaki even evolutionary psychologists state that every human being have a God-conscious or a God concept naturally, innate me and then like earlier Dr. Ania was mentioning about the hadith that how important it is for the parents to raise their children in a good environment the hadith that she mentioned that every child is born upon the state of fitrah however you want to define that on the state of fitrah their natural order their natural tendencies and then their parents make that child a Christian or a Jew or a Christian or a Christian or a Jew or anyone of our and then use another example the parents then create this environment where the child becomes criminal where the child becomes educated or the child he wants to do great things or the child doesn't want to do many things it's the environment that shapes us in that regard and another interesting thing is that with small children this is a bad habit a lot of people do this where the kids are running a little bit crazy you know the kids are going around a little bit crazy what do they do? the parents they're exhausted they're tired they introduce their children to people like this is the shaitan you know this is my son shaitan and this is my other son this is that angel child they have these weird little nicknames this is the idiot this is the genius of the family we've all heard the state is similar to that eventually you hear that enough times you start to internalize that these little kids like they were saying earlier at a small young age these things start to affect them right? and we were talking in the previous slide about inconsistencies you tell your child this is so common parents come to the imam imam said what's going on with my child he's not listening to me he's not praying he's not wearing hijab he doesn't want to associate with Muslims I don't get it what's going on or you come to the therapist or you come to the psychiatrist or you come to the doctor what's wrong with my child perhaps that child saw something in you that you're telling your child to go pray salah but then at the time of salah and you're outside you don't pray what do you think that child is going to think? so wait this doesn't make sense you're telling me to pray but you're not doing it being an example for them so then social modeling and optimism the next slide is on us as human beings as being social creatures and inshallah I'll wrap this up in the next slide is that how we interpret the world is solely based on the way that we socialize and the messages that we receive and this is a very important slide brothers and sisters I encourage you to pay an additional percentage of attention to this slide sometimes with the youth you get comments like parents encourage their kids not to listen to music or to not watch TV because there's a lot of obscenity nowadays in the music and in the TV so they tell them you shouldn't watch it you shouldn't listen to it don't hang out with bad friends why? because it has an effect on you but then our youth oh well I'm strong I won't let it affect me it won't affect me it's not going to get to me that's wonderful right now you're young we have this saying in Farsi you're really Jewish right now you're hot-headed and you think you've got everything but you're still a human being and you can't close your ears unless you plug them so slowly over time you're hearing all these things and then they start repeating they play back in your mind they play back in your head and you get all these thoughts and you say oh therapist I don't get why I'm hearing all these things or I'm thinking of all these thoughts well you've been listening to all of these things they don't come out of nowhere you're not getting why these things are coming from your environment and we have a saying in Farsi that the company of the good people will keep you good you don't have to do anything it's the easiest just hang out with good people you'll become good this is the tradition of Islam the person will be amongst those who he loves but then the company of the bad people will make the person bad and there was a kid I hang out with my friends and they smoke so he said but I don't smoke so what do you do I just don't breathe I just don't inhale how practical is all this final slide inshallah so the cure some things that we can do is what happens when your child falls into some problems what do you do how do you help them there are some examples that are given here modeling positive self-talk teaching them optimistic thinking being there for them understanding that in life sometimes things just don't go the way that we plan them like sister Hibba was saying you have to acknowledge that and this comes so much in the Quran you know there can be something in minal khufi when jewery Allah is giving us a guarantee from the ghetto that this is a life that you will be tested in numerous things perhaps your test will be in hunger and someone else's test will be in you know in money, in finance Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala mentions in Surah An-Kabud Ahasib an-Nasu ayut raghuu ayyakulu because man can think that he can easily say I believe in Allah and that he won't get tested I mean subhanahu wa ta'ala in our own cordial relationships when people love each other they test each other's love and they say if you really love me you'll do this or they'll put each other in tests and so Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala has been testing us these tests exist so to encourage that and to nurture that in your children from the beginning this is very important and I'll end on this last point that one of my teachers is a very learned person and he also has masha'Allah about 5 children and he one day he was at the masjid and the Imam of the masjid requested him to give a short nasiha short advice to the people it was like 20 minutes and he sat there and he said you know I'm a parent, I have 5 children my oldest son is 13 now 13 years old is oldest son the youngest I think was like maybe a few months and he said I can't say that I'm a successful parent I don't know where the end result of my children will be but he said a litmus test for myself a test for myself is that and this is what other parents can use and this is just one test so please don't get upset with me, I'm not saying this is the only way to test if your children are kind of on the right path or headed in the right direction but this is again just something for you to use if you don't have any tools in your toolbox he said that to test to see inshallah if you're parenting your children good then what you can do is if you're child, if you're not at home one day you're always encouraging your children to pray to give salat to help people to do good you're always encouraging them you're always telling them you should do this and you're trying to be a model parent and you're seeing some results from your children when you're there but what happens when you're not there what do your children do when you're not there when mom and dad is not there and they have the opportunity I don't have my phone but when they're on their phones by themselves and I know there's a touchy subject but again the idea still stands what does your child do what do they view, what do they listen to and he said that do they come to salat al-Isha they come with you, masha'Allah many children pray salat al-Isha with us I'm sure their children are many of you and they're praying salat al-Isha with us because you're there with them but what happens when that child gets older he can drive, he has that freedom or she has that freedom but will they come on a random Friday night too, you could be doing a lot of things Friday night but will your child on a random Friday night in that random time of the year come for salat al-Isha on his own accord or on her own accord and this is just one test this is one test parents can use for themselves to gauge where their children are headed so I ask Allah SWT to conclude the whole program but to conclude my segment I ask sincerely insha'Allah that Allah SWT grants us all of this divine ability from him to kind of take benefit from all of this and I'm greatly and eternally thankful to the MCC board for having these live stream options in this YouTube option so that if you miss something or you have to tend to something on the phone or whatever that you miss the part of this play it again and share it again and listen to it again and take as much benefit as possible may Allah SWT accept may Allah reward all of you for attending insha'Allah and make some questions it looks like we'll start with the sister side and we hope to have questions from both sides we'll do as many questions as we're able to I just ask for sake of time that you keep your question concise and short insha'Allah and we'll do our best in answering it and if there are more questions of more personal nature please know that we are we also have a table at the back that you may talk to us not for a full therapy session of course but just a brief consultation if needed if it's on a more personal question type basis so I ask you to keep those for the back table insha'Allah with that we'll open for Q&A and then we'll conclude for a moment so like everybody else I'm one of my kids my older son especially to be involved with most of our kids so one of the things that we have encountered many times over kids are really smart, all kids are studying studious kids not being athlete or having music abilities because for some reason our community as they get after age 8 or 7 or 8 and they stop sending them to soccer or if they stop they don't want to be in the soccer team they still have to be in the soccer team so the parents are not forcing them you gotta keep trying yet if you're doing it because we're talking about resilience basically what you learn and if you're an athlete basically this is one of the things that they teach to be resilient my question is that so my kid my son doesn't want to be associated with most of the friends of course they're good people because he says that we don't have anything in common and so I like to see that being an athlete or being a musician and being part of it and being encouraged by the parents here so that other kids can relate to each other so the question my question is how can I get my kid to be more involved with other Muslims than except for one day or maybe all of the different of course Jazakullah, if I understand your question correctly you're asking how can your son become more associated or more tuned with other Muslim children basically that he maybe is more interested in music and soccer and maybe doesn't find Muslim kids that are something to that effect the part that I'll answer and kind of focus on and you're right it does tie back into the discussion of resiliency but we'll focus on this idea of one Muslim kids decide that they're really not so interested in this Muslim thing and they really don't want to associate so much because I can tell you very clearly that in this generation and how old is your son so teenager so we're seeing this with the teens but even starting earlier I would say middle school even seeping down into the elementary ages as well where you have this what I call the real challenge of parenting of this era which is saving our children from atheism saving them from not wanting Islam and not wanting to be associated with Islam and themselves questioning whether or not this is something is even worth it and worth pursuing so him not maybe we won't focus on your symbol just in general the children the youth today of not wanting to really associate with Islam is really coming from the inside of having trouble with the concepts of Islam itself so it may manifest as but he doesn't play soccer or he doesn't listen to the same music I listen to right but in reality what we find we start digging a little bit more is there's actually some real aqida questions going on inside that they're not actually sure if this is something is really for them and that's what I say is really the big challenge that's happening because brother Jabir was saying there were youth who lined up and prayed Aisha with us right now and the question he posed was what would they be here if it wasn't for the fact of appearance we're here but my question I'll ask a secondary question that's a very good question let's ask a second question how many of those who are praying and they're actually here on a Friday night in the message praying not just running around actually praying but are doing it because they actually understand what prayer is and there's a true belief in this thing called prayer that they're doing for the older kids I'm talking about the little ones we encourage them so they can grow but the older ones the teens and up because I can't tell you how many well I would say clients people that we see in therapy now whose parents have brought them forward or they themselves have come forward and they'll say I go with my father to the gym to the gym on or to Aisha every night we have one every night goes to Aisha prays side by side with his father but in confidence said to us but I don't believe I'm not even sure yeah you are coming to the message you are praying Aisha side by side with your father and inside of him he's rejected the faith this is the challenge of today back in my era I grew up here and earlier it was be careful make sure they don't date make sure they don't smoke make sure they don't use drugs this is the fear of the Suhba that was the bad companionship all that applies today with today's youth but in addition there's a real crisis of faith with our youth so by posing back about all of those who feel like they have children who are maybe kind of questioning it's a bad affesting as I don't want to associate with the Muslims or they do this thing very commonly they know all of these stories they supposedly wear hijab but they get to school and yank it off or maybe even more than that maybe they're not wearing hijab to begin with but they out of the house in one outfit been in school with a completely different one that was packed in their backpack or underneath what they were wearing which is problematic or to a more going on but on a deeper level what's really going on inside the struggles that are inside I really don't want this a sad thing and in that case there's a lot of work that has to happen in terms of actually building up the foundation of Al-Qaeda again because that's really we see here with the youth groups I was telling you about the girls youth groups that we run here at the MCC on Friday night girls from the entire spectrum from every edge of the Bay Area right from every social economic class and every ethnic group and every language group come here and they may have nothing in common but what's fostered through the youth group is a real sense of sisterhood and that's really the whole purpose of what we do here I've heard people say oh but you know it's not so important that they go to a youth group and I'm not saying you have to send your kid to youth group I'm just saying what it is we do here they go to Sunday school they go here they go there and that's enough look I've been to Sunday school you've been to Sunday school we've often been to Sunday schools and how did others say I'm component the knowledge component but not necessarily a sisterhood or brotherhood fostering component that love and that connection to other Muslim kids right other Muslim girls other Muslim boys has to happen and I prefer that it happen in the message environment and it happen in not a very didactic formal lecturing style because that sisterhood and that love gets lost in the writing on the board which has to happen because they have to learn but they also need bonds of sisterhood and brotherhood so here at the MCC I would say you all are blessed Masha'Allah your girls have from ages 4 through 18 plus and the women themselves have a halakha every age of girls has a halakha here and for the boys Alhamdulillah that's starting very soon insha'Allah within a couple weeks we're rolling out the boys halakha insha'Allah equivalent of what the girls have been doing so insha'Allah bring your sons forward because they'll find other softer buddies in that group and they'll find other question mark on the music buddies insha'Allah but the other buddies right and over time they really will develop these bonds of brotherhood insha'Allah but what really needs to be addressed through the fun and through the activities are questions about Lida and that's what we do here we don't lecture to the girls but through the sheed and through the activities and through everything there's some solid lessons they're getting in terms of being a Muslim and being proud to be a Muslim so I hope insha'Allah that helps in answering that question sorry sorry hello any one of the major crisis which is going on in a certain form especially the people living here the American American Muslim identity so have you what do you think do you have any definition of Muslim identity and have you agreed upon it remember and if yes have you seen any success model in a community where any Islamic center has implemented that Muslim identity for the kids the other question is how can we attract the youth to the Islamic centers to create that peer environment because I think just some Islamic centers have done some of the box kind of scenarios in which they have really worked hard to create those environments for their children especially in the Texas area I think do you think that is there any success model for that kind of environment for a community so I think the question was how to establish a Muslim identity first question, second question is there any successful models that have been implemented that actually work so I mean first the Muslim identity I can only speak from my own personal background and I take it for what it is you know, myself personally and the sister also I just kind of want to get her attention that myself personally I was born and raised here in the Bay Area in Fremont I grew up here as in the normal I guess you could say Muslim American lifestyle but the thing that really pulled me into Islam and pulled me into faith in general and that I know is different for every person because every person goes through different challenges and they have different things that they are dealing with right so it becomes difficult but to understand that you know who we are in that ayah that I read earlier where Allah swt referring to who Muslims are you're the best of people this is like a basala this is like some good news to letting you know who you are, what you stand for what you represent that as growing up in this country right around 9-11 right around 9-11 and having to deal with that it was very difficult because of the random comments that you would get for the faith that you believe in and that's why it's so important having this resiliency having that himmah because you need to understand your foundations first who you are where is your set of beliefs at where do you stand where are you grounded first and foremost so if your foundation is strong then the rest of that person's growth and chalem will also be strong but you have to also create that environment for that person so for myself, I mean hanging around the right company and the right people whatever was around this much of here for example if there's activities to bring your children and bring them here how that person or that group of people that that child can connect with who they feel connected to who they feel connected to and sometimes I mean the challenges is that you have people and this is a reality we have people bringing their kids to the masjid or to the masajid and we're saying why aren't they attracted to the masjid and what is the khatim talking about are they even relatable topics are they subjects that even have anything to do with what that kid is talking about what that kid is experiencing I know myself in the bay area I keep saying the bay area like I'm somewhere else like in the freemont where I'm originally from there are some masajids that only speak in one language whether it be Farsi or Urdu and they only speak in that language and sometimes the people that come there even if the speaker speaks at a high level of Urdu or Farsi the kids don't speak that high level of Urdu or Farsi so it's not easy for them to understand what he's saying or for example another thing that I found kind of funny is that the Imam his entire congregation is non-Arab and he'll say and he'll say and stand in the rows and strengthen the lines and this and that and then he talks about why are they so strange they don't even know what you just said to them that's kind of important right so same thing with the khatim I've been to numerous masajids where the youth in that masjid don't go to that masjid anymore they went when they were kids because they had to then when they got older you'd never see them again eat salat maybe juma if they're really good but why because that's one factor to consider why are they coming home do they even know what he's talking about or is it you know what is the subject what are the topics being discussed these are extremely relevant these are extremely important as to why some of the children won't come children's why some of the youth won't come to the masjid now that's one thing another thing is in environment some masajid and sometimes I mean I don't want to blame the masjid or anything like that but it just has this vibe to it where the youth are not welcome there doesn't need to be a gym inside of the masjid for the youth to come to the masjid but the idea stands that there should just still be an accepting or a welcoming environment in the masjid I've personally experienced personally when I was in my 100th graduate I went to a masjid and the people of the masjid told me what are you doing here I said well it's about lower time so I'm going to pray lower and he said and so he didn't think I was out again because I was wearing my west street clothing and so he started speaking in parts he said get this kid out of here, why is he here he's wasting time he's saying it to another guy and I just loved him I just wanted to pray lower so that environment exists and if that does exist perhaps that's another reason to why some people might not feel so comfortable and we've heard that you hear that all the time that's the implementation of some models that work so I'll hand it off to her also you asked about are there any models that work and I'll start by saying I'm very biased because I've created one a shovel but let me just say in that of thinking when I go elsewhere like in the next couple weeks I'll be in the Midwest doing a couple of different talks on behalf of Satan and every time I travel Midwest, East Coast, wherever it is that they have sent people have heard of the Rahmah Foundation's girls model wherever I go somehow they've heard of these and it happens right here here at MCC interestingly enough is the host of a lot of the girls Rahmah programming now interestingly enough what is it that captures their attention because I'm always amazed how people have heard of our model but what it is and maybe tune in just a little bit if you're not familiar and you can tune out if you are very familiar with it, Masha'a Allah spending you probably have your girls here into the model but and inshallah we hope to implement something for the boys as well but we start very, very early on we take the girls from age 4 I'll tell you the names of the groups so you can understand what we're doing here 4 and 5, they're the frogs and bunnies think of them as the preschool group what does frog and bunny do in the bunny puppet show when the play-doh when the reciting is put on and the fun things that they're playing in all the activities, essentially think of preschool but in addition to everything that's happening underneath there are moral lessons being learned frog and bunny are teaching moral lessons about lying cheating being good to your parents being good to your siblings etc through stories between the two characters without hitting or banging the kids over the head because that's not supposed to come till later right there's no discussion of home fire and jinn and scary things because that is not proper at that age at all so there's age-appropriate learning my teacher who taught me this model is really, it's amazing it's Arana Masha'a Allah but also someone who's well versed in Western educational models and so bring the educational models together with Islamic understanding and a very well thought out and creative model where you're actually instilling the sound from the early early stages but also letting them be kids and play in the preschool model go to the next level the rainbows, right, the 7, 8 and 9 year olds here, you're talking about the 7 colors of the rainbow you're talking about all different shades and colors of the muslim ummah and how even though we all are so different we all work together to fork something beautiful the rainbow, right and so there's a very well thought out pattern of how did they do this and so people will say, like I was saying earlier shouldn't there be more this is just play no, this is not just play this is a very specifically well thought out model of the kids to come in and they're so excited to be here I have parents every day Arana who's in the background here doing the coordinating of the programming we have kids who literally their parents run from so far away and they can't come one day or the parent is sick or the kid is sick or they can't come for some reason well luckily they tell us they're crying because they couldn't come here on Friday night to the message to hang out with their sisters their young little sister friends their sister and friends to play and to learn about Islam and they're singing and doing the sheet and doing crafts and all things related to this topic go to the next, right, the busybees they're learning again, you get the point now they're learning different models they love that we lose the octagon of the beehive how they are clean and they work together and they produce something beautiful that smells good, the honey now you're starting to learn and the girls are coming of age and they're starting to learn how to become proper young women with proper etiquette there are rose buds, as you hear the term buds, right, are now starting to blossom into young girls and all the topics that are this is middle school, all the topics that are touchy are now starting to be addressed hygiene issues, etc. because you need since girls, older girls models to actually to actually model this for them and then we have our high school group the point of me telling you about this series is because when I said earlier the girls yearn to come to the message, to come to this type of learning there is clear Islamic instruction happening but there's bonds of sisterhood being formed all while there's fun and all while there's games and all while there's all the rest that's happening too now the boy model is going to be slightly different but the same concept is happening it's called mentorship model so right now I have girls who are in as early as rose buds who are now coming back, they're now in college coming back and teaching the girl halakas and I think that's beautiful because you mentor them through knowing that they have our shoulder and our responsibility to then come back and mentor and give back we're hoping to do the same thing here at MCC with the boys we're to actually have them be mentored right with Iman Zahir, Shekrami etc they're going to be mentored through have their own halakas the way I give the girls their own halakas then they go out and teach the younger girls the same thing in shalla will happen and I think that's this is sort of out of the box to be honest not in a lot of places have this kind of programming but it really does bring and I hope you'll hear from the boys what we hear from the girls which is that they literally will you know cry and yell if they can't come here on a Friday night so I hope in shalla that speaks for itself and probably by wherever we go throughout the Bay Area and throughout the country people are really interested in hearing about this model so please make use of it it's right here in your own backyard a couple questions so I grew up in a strict environment and so that's all I know how to be and so and knowing that the strict environment didn't serve so well with my own kids now I'm kind of caught in the crossfire of how much do I restrict them without them rebelling and how much do I allow them without them succumbing to that and so I'm like confused with it because because I know myself where I grew up where I rebelled or I you know I did exactly the opposite that I was told not to do and slowly came back and now I'm you know completely different but now with my kids I worry well are they going to do the same thing because I you know if I put too much restriction like for instance just an example I used to listen to a lot of music but now I don't but my kids I know a lot of music and they'll start dancing they're all girls and so they'll start dancing and I'm like couldn't tell you but I'm like what do I do do I stop them because I know that trait you know or do I just let them do I allow certain things do I not allow how do I go about setting boundaries on that and then number two what if you have well it's kind of the same what if you have people in your house that you know don't really follow that rule and you know they're like they're okay with the music those certain things and you're not okay with it and you see that the kids kind of see okay this parent is okay with it and then this parent they know that this parent isn't okay with it how do you strike a balance with them so I taught youth group for a number of years and I've watched a lot of youth and I get that question a lot from parents you know how do I strike that balance do I prevent them 100% from listening to music or do I let them write do I give them that freedom and I think it's just wise for parents to be aware that we this time that we live in this age this asset is not the same as this as the asset that our parents or our generation was raising I felt like I feel like our parents had a lot more control over their kids and who their kids be friendly and what their kids were exposed to as opposed to our time in which social media has taken over and it's sort of slowly dragging them in right into this self-absorbed world where it's all about me, myself and I and about having fun and about being free and liberated right and if you were to prevent them 100% they're going to do it anyway behind your back right so there has to be you have to be able to allot some time in which they can have fun but yet the lyrics and you know and the amount of time that they spend investing into listening to music and how much impact to them that discussion only has to be had with them right why is music it can be a positive force in some ways and then it can also be negative depending on the type of music and that's a whole other discussion I think every family abides by a different ruling but there's a lot of controversy regarding to music but my point is that whenever I've seen that parents have completely prohibited it within the home it was always and it's done to an extreme level right in which it just becomes an obsession because they're prevented from doing it at home so allowing it to a certain extent within limits it's like okay you have half an hour free association you can do whatever you want right and hopefully they'll make good choices and if they choose to listen to music within moderation right you know there's also you know it also depends on what their friends are doing because they don't want to be the outcast and it's very difficult for them to feel like their friends have iPhones their friends are in Snapchat their friends are on Instagram and all of these things and yet they are they have a flip phone for example and that's too nerdy right that's only for geeks so how can you make them feel comfortable with being different and showing them the beauty and being different and not having to be the same as their friends in every single aspect right that when they're different they can stand out they can set another path they can set another example right and there's not much really for all the same right and Allah talks about the concept of ta'adu from the Quran because he has created us different he has not created us to be one and the same so teaching them that there's a lot of beauty in being different and you have a lot to contribute through that you know diversity and that not everything that your friends do right you must do as well and making them understand that everybody is out for their own self right at the end of the day when their friends may not necessarily lead them to the best path right at the end of the day their friends will do what is in their own benefit and if you know they you know they led your son or daughter towards the wrong path they're not going to take accountability for that so it's very important to teach your child how to take accountability for their own actions and that they are not their friend they are different, they're a different human being highlighting how they're different and how that's an amazing thing right how their differences can be beautiful and if they were one and the same there really wouldn't be much to contribute right if everybody was the same so within moderation and also going over why, how it can impact them and all the ways that it can be negative right and I hope that answers your question this last question, we'll take this written question as the last question it asks there are families who may hesitate to bring their kids to some programs because they may not focus on traditional Islamic ways but their kids instead may be spending time with non-Muslims or engaging in Qanon and what kind of advice may we give you know for this I would say actually just kind of going right to what right off of what Sister Hiba here has said that what's most important is that they come to Islamic programming right that they come to the master that they listen to the various Indians that are out there to be honest now here I'm not saying expose them to expose your children to everything that's out there but I do think that for example let's use the MCC since we're sitting in it there is definitely a board there's definitely a group of people who are conscious about who comes into the message to speak for example and to be honest a lot of I haven't heard everything obviously I haven't been to every single program here but I have to say that the lineup of speakers and scholars and so on and invited guests from out of town so on and so forth that have come here are typically people who are well respected their opinions are moderate et cetera and I think that you can even if you don't agree with every single thing that every single speaker says and you never will that there is enough faith and enough good and enough foresight on the people who invited them here that their opinions are middle of the way is down your children being exposed to that is incredibly important and much more important than if it is really crossing the T's and gotting the eyes of every single personal belief that you hold because later at home you can then bring up some things that you might have found to harsh or to problematic or to lax and then actually discuss that maybe even negotiate or discuss that with your children this is of course the older ones who are sitting and listening and comprehending what's being said because they may say later and I think this is what the worry stemming from they may say later but mom that she said such and such about music see and you're having a more hard liner stance on let's say music since we just talked about that then the person who was giving the talk what I think is important is the negotiation that happens between you and your children that is actually the golden the golden key there right there the fact that there was a discussion and negotiation and that is so much more powerful than keeping them away because you're right you're right they are going to turn to other outlets they will have other channels there's just no way around that and those other channels if they're not good and they're not hate they will be bad and they will be had on eventually right eventually so mashallah bring them discuss with them talk with them and remember that it's not all on your shoulders alone I always say this to any parenting talk it's not just mom and dad there is extended family and they play an important role my teacher would always say every family should have a grandmother figure and so many of us who came here especially our parents generation or maybe even grandparents or maybe your own generation that if you come here from a different country where you've left behind extended family you don't have the luxury of having grandparents here your children may not have that luxury and so what she would say is adopt a grandparent who becomes like a spiritual grandparent meaning an auntie or uncle in the community who becomes essentially their grandparent and helps to reinforce things for you the other thing that they would always suggest is this concept of the murabbi or the murabbiyah the key word there and the root is it up the person who does what who does terabiyah exactly that is also the same root word who helps in doing the terabiyah who helps in instilling or connecting a child to their up their lord and actually our mentorship program was talking about earlier with the youth groups the girls the young ladies who run the holocaust we call them murabbiahs because what are they doing they're connecting the younger girls to their up to their lord so that's the whole concept of mentorship here one mentors another mentors another mentors another so again the whole thing here I want to say again the most important thing we can say about parenting is that you don't do it alone you have the grandparent you have the murabbi figures even if they're spiritual grandparent it's not biological grandparent you have the murabbi figures they're like your youth group holocaust leaders they're the local spowers that are in the community youth group leaders etc who actually help reinforce what it is you're teaching them at home and that there are channels and outlets that are khayr and that haram and that's really what we're hoping to accomplish insha'Allah that it was an honor to be hosted here at the MCC for family night insha'Allah we hope to have a further working relationship with the MCC community in this tri valley area I ask you all to forgive us for any mistakes we may have said and to make du'at for us insha'Allah for the success and growth of this wonderful to have access to muslim therapists and muslim counselors is a wonderful thing I think a lot of people here truly benefit from so I ask for your du'as and success and that you please stay in touch with us again our booth is at the back Alhamdulillah peace be upon you Muhammad and his family peace be upon you