 Thank you so much for coming out. Masha'Allah for Family Night. It's such an honor to be invited. And I'm really excited to be discussing a topic that's very near and dear to my heart and very passionate about it as a mother, as a fellow Muslim, and also as a teacher to young children. So I'm just going to jump right into it. Chef Paraz Rabani, who many of you may know from Seeker's guidance website, he's the creator of that website. He's a prominent scholar in Canada. He once was visiting us here in Northern California and at University. And he asked him, what should we be teaching our children? What's the most important thing that you think we should be teaching our children? And his response was, adab and ahla, manners and etiquettes. Parents don't emphasize these enough anymore. And then he went on to define adab as the appropriate action, attitude, and response in any given situation. So once again, adab is the appropriate action, attitude, and response in any given situation. Another scholar once said, adab beautifies everything it touches. We have Muslims who know rules and rituals. We don't have nearly enough Muslims who know how to have adab. Sell your misbaha, prepare beads, and go buy some adab instead. Of course, he said that time achieved, but it was a deep point. Sell your misbaha, and go buy some adab instead. The Prophet Muhammad, so my name is enunciated, I have only been sent to perfect good manners. I have only been sent to perfect good manners. And the fact that he said that he had been sent to perfect good manners indicates that good manners are existed in the world. Different cultures, cultures, different religions, different peoples, all have good manners. But the Prophets of Islam is looking to perfect good manners. He came to bring it to the next level, Ashama. And another of these that he touches me is one who told Aishah of the Alamaha, showed, oh Aishah, show gentleness. For gentleness is found in anything, it beautifies it. And when it is taken out from anything, it damages it. My own son once asked a scholar, whose company he was sitting in, he said, tell me, give me some advice. What would you, he was like, I think, apologize, he's in high school actually. He asked the scholar, give me some advice. What do you think a young man of my age needs to know? It's a valuable piece of advice that he did. And the scholar said to him, have adab. That's it. Learn adab and have adab. And he said, we don't even need a lot of adab. He said, unfortunately, we're living in a time and age where if you have a little bit of adab, he said, you'll go far and high, and you'll go into the sparks. So I just wanted to share those quotes to emphasize the importance of adab, or religious tradition, and why we should be teaching it not only to ourselves, but to our children as well. So I was at a friend's house, sometimes my son's, and while I was at her house, I saw this book on one of the tables. And if you have a pen and paper or a pencil and paper, you should take notes. I will be giving the titles, but afterwards, those of you with smart phones can come up and take pictures of all the books that I have if you want to add them to your library. Anyway, this book is called, How to Raise a Gentleman. And it's by an author named K West, and the book is still available on Amazon. The last name is called W-A-P-S-T, the person who was trained for A-Y. How to raise a gentleman. And so I asked my friend, I said, what's this? And she said, oh, that's just something I'm going to to make sure that I can falsely practice all. And I was like, oh, that's interesting, a book that can help us learn what kind of adab we should be teaching our young men. That's my name. So I got the book and I went through it. Different people, different parents that use this book in different ways. Some give it to their children who are older to just read on their own. Some go through it as a family. Both parents go through it with their children. And some just read from it and decide to take out the points that they think are very important and teach it to their children. So I went through this book, and I'll just give an example. There's a shop here in here. And it's a great book because you may think you know what you want to teach your children. But there's lots of little, subtle things that we may forget that are included in this book. And she has a book about raising young women as well. It's called How to Raise a Lady. And I had ordered it for my talk tonight, but unfortunately Amazon says it's coming in one day at a standstill today. So How to Raise a Lady by Kay West, How to Raise a Gentleman by Kay West. Anyway, one of the chapters of this book covered what to do, how to be a good host and a good guest when you're out of sleepover, when you're spending the night at a friend's house or a relative's house. And so I went through that. And one of the points she covers and at the end of each chapter, she had a checklist for you to go through and make sure you covered all the points with your children. And one of the things she covered is what to do is you have a guest who's spending the night in your home and they went to bed in the middle of the night. And what that might feel like and how you as a host should respond. And I covered that with my sons and then forgot about it. I believe that a couple of months later they had a friend over spending the night and my situation happened with a friend having an accident. And along the line, that gives me what to do. I think exactly how to respond, how not to freak out, how to make the friend feel comfortable, how to take care of the situation discreetly. And it was something I would not have covered with them on my own. It's not something I would bother. So that's just an example of types of things that are covered in these books. So how to raise a gentleman, how to raise a lady by Kay West. Another book that I feel every Muslim should have in their library. Very, very important book to have. It's an excellent read, very easy to go through. This is again, a book you can go through as a family with your children or you can read it on your own. We went through this as a family, but then my sons also went through this with their Islamic studies teacher at the country. It's called Islamic Manners. It's by Shif Abdul-Fath Abdul-Fath. This is also available on Amazon. The last name is spelled A-B-U, space G-H-U-D-D-A-H. A-B-U, space G-H-U-D-D-A-H. And the book is called Islamic Manners. And this book covers everything from a Muslim perspective about how you should be when you are sitting with two people, how you should be when you're sitting with one person, how you should be when you're sitting with a group, how you should be a good host, how you should be a good guest, how you should be able to go with this when somebody gets bad news, how you should visit the sit. It goes to the other of eating and drinking. It goes to the other of one's parents. How to be with your teachers. Mashallah, it covers a lot. And as a parent, you will end up learning a lot for yourself as well. So Mashallah, good book to have. Another book, which, again, Amazon has not delivered to me yet, it's a book I lent out to somebody so I don't have it yet myself, but at home, it is called The Content of Character. And then, here, they already have it. It's a book written, it's a compilation of 40 Hadiths that are just about how to have a good character, the different elements of good character that we can listen to have. And the scholar who collected those 40 Hadiths, his last name, I believe, is called Fazri, M-A-Z-R-U-I. But what you need to know is that it was translated into English by Sheikh Hansel Yusuf Hansen. So we'll need to put it on Amazon, but The Content of Character, translated by Sheikh Hansel Yusuf Hansen. And that's a book we're going to view. This book is a book I love with my children that we used. It's called The Content of Character Copy Book, Sheikh Hansel Yusuf's sister, meaning of this. It's a workbook that has each of the Hadiths in it, in English. And then it's here in Arabic as well. So when we were homeschooling our children at home for dictation exercises, we would have them write the Hadiths in English and then they would practice it, practice writing here in Arabic. And then in the Islamic studies class later on, their teacher had them actually write a number of Hadiths. An example of one of these is the Messenger of God sitting around the house and he said, God does not regard your externals or your riches but rather your hearts and your deeds. So all the Messenger of God said the most rewarding visitation of the sit is the one that is appropriately briefed. Right, so when you go to visit people who are ill you just stay for a little while, wish them well, do the love for them and then move on. So the 40 of you see this book, The Content of Character will cover all the things you need to know about the photograph. Okay, and then this is a picture book that I loved when my kids were little. It's called My Mom is a Wonder and it's not mom, it's mom and you and me because it's published in India. It's by Michelle Massey. It's still available on Amazon. My Mom is a Wonder and I love this book because it's a picture book and a very sweet picture book of a little boy observing his mother throughout the day if he wakes up in the morning and sees that his mother's already up here to put on her prayer mat. And then it follows the mom throughout the day and the boy's different observations of how she takes care of him and how she serves the family, how she likes to guard him, how she goes to visit the sit, teaches him about his religion and whatnot. But the reason I wanted to bring up this book is because I remember recommending this book to a friend of mine, a mother that I really want to admire a lot She's raised her children and she liked the book but she said, yeah, I'm not going to be reading it to my children, yeah. And I was kind of surprised I was like, why didn't you want to read this book to your kids? It's a great book. And she said, because I don't embody the things in here that the mother does, so I would feel like a hypocrite reading it to my children and telling them that this is what we're supposed to be like and this is what a mother's supposed to be like but I'm not reading these things. She said, Inchela, I'm going to try and look too at the qualities of this mother and this book and once a child I have this and those things and then I'll start teaching about it. That is a very, very important point about them because many of us with our children pretend and I include myself in this. We tend to be, do as I say, not as I do, right? But as Estadaranya said, she said, children listen with their eyes. Children listen with their eyes. So they're like sponges and they are completely absorbed in what their parents are doing and what's going on around them and then when they're squeezed, that's what comes out of that. And so now that we've defined the other of the importance of it, probably the most important point is that learning other is a huge lesson is really for ourselves. And the most quote and Inchela, the most frequent that we're going to see in our lives is going to be Inchela when we're working on ourselves first and then our children will learn. Inchela. Okay, so I wrote an article for this column called Raising the Muslim Matters and the article is called Raising the Muslim with Matters and that's the article I'm going to cover today. So in that article, I wrote up the five different areas that I will write and hold the kind of report to cover with children and it can be really overwhelming as parents to think like, where do I start? Where do I pick it up? So we can break it into subcategories. I picked it up. I think these are the different ones that I'm going to mention and I'm sure that they can feel a little bit more managerial and a little bit more capable of that. So I wanted to make sure I covered that. Okay, so before I go into it, I wanted to, again, just remind ourselves about the Hibis. Are you looking about the Hibis? Or if you said about children, you said, play with them for the first seven years. So zero to seven. Play with them for the first seven years. Teach them for the second seven years. So seven to 14 years, teach them. And then be their friend for the third seven years. So 14 to 21, be their friend. We respect their opinion. They're not authoritarian in the end. Consult with them. We advise them. We respect their boundaries. We treat them up at hand. And then he said, after that, even though the children will be successful. And that advice, that because of Ali, maybe around her today, is completely in line with mental psychology. But people know about children. We get the experts now today about children. But the first seven years are really about just leaving them alone, letting them play, letting them just kind of absorb their surroundings around them. And see what each of them, and see what their nature is at home. But then seven to 14 years are the most crucial years. Those are the years to teach them everything you really want to get into them. So just fill their minds and fill their surroundings with what they want. So that your voice is in their head. So that after maybe the age of 14, they in turn will have your voice back in the background. Reminding them of the difference between right and wrong. My husband and I found that after the age of 14, it's really hard to start teaching everything you need. Start implementing everything you need. After age 14, you're really just maintaining whatever you've been teaching up until then. Or whatever changes the kids make in their lives, they make them because they want to do it. Because they're inspired by their teacher or a friend or being or whoever. But it's not because you use a parent or saying, okay, this is what we need to do now. After 14, it's very hard to just make these changes in their life. So those of you who have kids between seven and 14, use that time wisely. And if your kids are older than 14, don't be so good. You can never despair, you can never be so and a lot of us, a lot of us are one of these and charge others and I think more powerful than a parent's greatest. So you keep praying for your kids and you keep... Maya Angelou has a great quote. She said, when you know better, you do better. Right? When you know better, you do better. So when you learn something new or you know something better, you start doing it. And each other kids will see that you too are on this journey in life and continue. Okay, so, for this art of life, interviewed parents who are very, very successful with their children, but don't look like all of us with their children's out there, not sure why not. Kind of ask them what they thought were the most important things to cover with their kids. So the first thing that my parents talked about was personal viewing and hygiene. So teaching the kids about the health of personal viewing and hygiene. So one of the things we did in our home is that we made it a routine that on Fridays was the day that we cut our nails because that's the sooner of July anyway. And this way, if you have your kids in the routine and the habit of cutting their nails on Fridays, then you don't have to nag them, in case they're less to the time. Well, your nails are too long and why haven't you cut your nails? Your nails are dirty with that constant nagging that parents have to do with their kids. Friday, if it's part of the Friday routine, then in trauma, that's one thing that you get checked off. We also taught our children that angels are attractive to good sense, S-C-E-N-T-S, sense. And that for boys, obviously for women, it's a different ruling, but for boys, we told them that that's one thing they're not gonna be held accountable for. However, when we decided to stand up for friends and for all of these, we're not held accountable for that historically because good sense and good feelings on men, especially, is considered to be a sepata and it's a charity to people around you and so you're actually rewarded for it. We, when the kids were younger, it's really important to help set the kids up for success. So, we created for our kids grooming kits. So, we got them each their own little face and actually not such a little face, bigger face, but in that case, we put all of the travel-sized toiletries that we could do, toothpaste, mouthwash, wash, little open razor, nail cutters. They always have their own set of nail cutters so that they didn't have that excuse that I couldn't find any more cutters I didn't cut my pants. Deal with all the different things that you can get at Target and go to the pharmacies and we keep them in their grooming kits and so when they went to go spend the night at a friend's house and they had to go stay with brothers, all they had to do is just grab that grooming kit and go and they had everything that we needed. When the boys were older and as a girls obviously, I don't have daughters, but this is a really important task. It feels to know it's important to have the talk or the portfolio about personal grooming and hunting. If you're not comfortable with being in that talk, then it's important that you get somebody that you respect and trust. And if your children expect and trust, you can give them that talk about how they need to be taken care of, their personal behavior with the hygiene. And don't assume that your kids are gonna figure it out and figure it out or are gonna be able to do it. This is all stuff that they need to be taken care of. They need to be taught at the area. And Gemma also are obviously fresh clothes for Gemma. They bought new clothes to have, let's say, get for Gemma because it's a similar thing when you look at the clothes on Gemma. They can show that when they have their Friday prayers, they're not coming in for them much yet or maybe. This is all the other personal grooming and hunting. Also, when they're potty training them, along with teaching them the duos of entering and leaving the restroom, teaching them how to use these dungeon pants or the mist and shower, teaching them which hand to use for what and how to make sure they're not contaminating the laundry or the dirty hand, not washing themselves with the left hand or using the left hand to turn off the faucet or turning the boat off with that, teaching them which hand to use for what and what order. One little tip of that young lady told me that I thought was really nice. She said that her mother taught her siblings that when they're done using this dungeon pants, which I'm going to be looking at more about, it's the pants that we have next to the toilet or the water. She said that their mother taught them that after they're done using it, you fill it with water again and leave it for the next person. So that the next person who comes in and uses the restroom doesn't have to get up, it's just a considered ability to do so. I thought that was nice. Mothers obviously teaching their daughters how to dispose of them and hiding products and they'll just be at them. So I went back to, there's nothing embarrassing or disgusting about them. Okay, the second area that we covered was how to be a good guest. So what are the etiquettes of how to be a good guest or somebody else's home? So when your kids are going to visit somebody else and you're not wanting to be with them or what they're going to spend the night in someone's home and they're not going to be with them, it's important to go to the childless with them and just review what the other expectations are. Again, don't assume that they're going to know what to do or you'll figure it out. I want to keep your instructions short and simple so that they're not overwhelmed, but there are a few basic instructions that every child should know before they go to somebody else's home, especially if they're spending the night. Make your bed in the morning or hold up your bedding if you have to go out on a public to the best of your ability. It doesn't have to be perfect, but your host needs to see that you made it after to make it look like you didn't leave it on us. Close the toilet lid after you're done using it. Dye the counter after you're done using the restroom. One other, by the way, of the bathroom that a scholar told us is he told us that traditionally, the area where you did with me was separate from the area where you used to toilet, right? Traditionally, most of the plants, most of the bathrooms, those areas were separate, because what you do is consider it to be an active area, traditionally you wouldn't be in an area where you're in the bathroom. So now a lot of bathrooms, obviously the toilet is right here, the sink. So he said at the very minimum in order to have that above in your mind, close the toilet lid. So that's what you do when you do at least a toilet on this place. Either wash your dishes, put them in the dishwasher, or place them in the sink after you're done with your meal. Depending on whatever your host prefers, but do take care of your dishes once you're done eating. Don't just walk away from the table expecting others to pick up after you. Compliment the chef, even if it wasn't your favorite meal, you don't have to lie, but you can tell the chef that he would have been put in an empty bathroom for a feeding week. Clean up your games and toys after you're done throwing. Don't open, this is really important. Don't open closed doors, cabinets, closets, drawers. Ask for whatever you need. Don't go searching on your own. So there's a child spending the night at someone's home and they realize they forgot their toothpaste that they usually have in their toilet, toothpaste. They shouldn't be opening the doors in the person's back and identifying the toothpaste. They should just ask the person. Same goes with one of the people's private bedrooms, especially the parents' bedrooms. I still remember when my oldest son was little, he had a friend over and they were playing hide and seek. And they were running through the house and they were hiding and they were chasing each other. And my son ran into my bedroom to hide. And I still remember his friend came running out for him and he came screeching to a stop at my bedroom door like as if there was this invisible horse wheel that he had slammed into a stop. And he said, John, I need you to come outside and play in the lock. I'm not allowed to enter a parent's bedrooms. And I was very impressed. He was like a seven-year-old boy, which I'll ride. So that was something obviously his parents had taught him that you don't go into parents' bedrooms, especially if not without permission. Notice what chores your friends hug with and offer your assistance as soon as possible. So if you notice that your friend is responsible for clearing the table after dinner, you help with the table. If you notice that it's their job to unload the dishwasher, we better have them help unload the dishwasher. You don't just sit there on the couch waiting for your friend to be free to play with you. We better have them be a part of the family helping. All right. The third thing parents told me they covered with their kids is how do you eat gracious post? So when someone is visiting you, it is in your home. How do you take care of them? So one thing that's important to teach our children and kids don't learn this overnight. So if you feel that you've told your kids and told them lots, you've told them twice, you've told them three times and they're still not getting back to all of these hard. These, it's like, it's like when, you know, family grows, it's like this consistently dripping of water and then all of a sudden family grows overnight. That's what's gonna happen. It's like, you've been in your own center of kids' heads and then you'll be surprised that you didn't come out and they're all over the place. But it's our job as parents to consistently teach them and not give up. So one of the things we have to teach our kids is how to be Trump conversationalists, right? Like one time, I remember hearing one of my sons, I heard a couple of them talking to him and I overheard the conversation. And I heard that uncle Tosh would have been and he was asking my son questions about different things like do you like those, do you do that or whatever. And my son kept answering his questions politely but they were just yes or no responses. He'd just answer the question and they're done. Like he didn't leave like a window open for the conversation to go further. And so later I took the massage and I told him that uncle was trying to talk to you, he was trying to have a conversation with you. Hardly in the Trump conversationalist is the need to make the other person feel like you're interested in them. And so even if you can't think of what else to talk about after you've answered your question, people always feel honored and respected and show interest in them. So you don't have to be nosy, you don't have to ask a lot of nosy questions. But you can ask general questions like, you know, so uncle Henry went and how are you to have the weather here, what's the good thing to do, how are your kids, how are they like in school, whatever, you can ask questions about another person to show what you're interested in and to tell them. All right, so shyness and modesty are qualities that are beautiful. And they are qualities that we should respect and we should honor those qualities in our children. The prophets and others, some of them it's a shy and modest person. We live in a culture where it seems like the only people who are praised are the ones who have a lot of confidence and don't want to be in this hot light and speak up for everyone. But shyness and modesty are beautiful qualities that should be honored. Having said that, shyness and modesty should not extend so far that children cannot say so long. Right, so that should be a non-negotiable, that should be taught from a young age to our children. I understand you're shy, I understand you're modest. You don't have to hug people, you don't have to kiss people, that's not required of you. You don't have to shake hands. You're allowed to have your physical boundaries. However, as a Muslim, when somebody says so much to you, you're required as a Muslim to respond. So that means to be a non-negotiable that every parent should teach their children and should role model for them and should pack the same thing at home so that you're not in that uncomfortable situation in a public where you're begging your child to say so much to people on their own, right? So of course nobody's judging anybody because it's something that gradually children learn but as parents it's our job to teach our kids. Inshallah to just smile and say hi and say so long. The other thing that entails good other is that somebody says so long to say so long, you don't say hi, you don't say hey, hello or good morning, you say so long. Okay, some other tips that would be beautiful is when people are staying in your home, a good rule of thumb is to think about what a bellhop would do in a hotel for guests, right? How do the bellhop, so the cuts here just take care of guests in hotels, nice hotels. So that was kind of the litmus test that we tried to have for our children to learn how to treat our guests. Inshallah we get a lot of house guests here and they're gonna call for them. So some of those things are helping their guests to spring in their luggage, right? They don't carry their own bags in, making sure they have a glass of water by their bed, asking them if they need anything before they go to sleep. When it's time for them to leave, helping them with their luggage again, taking that out, asking them if they slept, if they're enjoying their stay. These are all parts of being little tips that think of their posts. And probably the most important one, when you're sitting in company, put away your laptop, put away your phone, put away your iPad, whatever device you have that takes you away from the people in front of you and give your guests your full attention. If you need to respond to a text or an email, make it clear to your guests that you're aware you're taking time away from them. So do you mind if I just respond to this text? It's time sensitive or please excuse me for a moment while I return this email that I need to take care of today. And then come back, put your device away and give your guests your full attention. If you need to be on your devices, distract it and step away from the week. Don't you do that in the company with people. This is basic, basic, that all children and adults ourselves as well as we do. One adult, and again, like I said in the beginning, we're all learning, right? As adults, we're all learning. One adult that I didn't know, I wasn't aware of and that I learned a lot of three years ago is we have a family here in San Amor who one thing, he's been raised beautifully, Masha'Allah, in practices. It feels like practice is all this and this. And one thing I noticed about Thomas any time we visited him, I'm sure most people here probably do this but unfortunately we did not used to do this in my family, any time we visited him and he left, whether it was me alone, whether it was me and my child, whether it was our entire family, he always made a point of walking us to our car. If it was me by myself, we would walk to my car with his wife. If it was me, my children, we would grab his children at the same ages and walk with them to the car. And when it was our whole family, they would be by himself or have a small family but they would always walk us to our car. And I did not know that that's based on a hadith. That there's a hadith where the prophets and the others on said walk your guests to their writing bases, right? At that time camels and doggies and horses. But now it's cars and bicycles and motorcycles, whatever, however, the Uber, whatever your guests came in, how they're leaving, a good guest or a good Muslim guest walks their guests to their transport or to their mode of transportation. We used to walk our guests to the door, thank them for coming, get them a warm goodbye, say salams, stand at the door while they left and then close the door and put them inside. Now that actually feels horrible. They put on it, that's what we used to do. Now we don't wear shoes in our home but we keep a pair of shoes by the front door and one of us, not all of us, walks our guests to their car. We don't know. And that's a similar thing. So if you have the attention that you're doing this here, Charlie could be a part of the world, everybody. Okay, the fourth category that parents talk to their kids is about how to be a kind and considerate friend. So as parents, it's our job to teach our kids how to be a good friend and how to fulfill the rights that their friends actually have over them. It's a big responsibility to be a friend. And that's why there are many people I know who don't take on too many close friends because they know friends have a lot of rights over them and they can be overwhelmed to fulfill all those rights. So we want it to be a good job as a friend, taking care of one another. So part of learning manners and etiquettes is knowing that you're not allowed to backbite your buddies. Backbiting would be saying in their absence that which they wouldn't like to hear in their absence, that you must always return any items you borrowed and exactly the condition you receive them in. And if you break something and lose something, you either replace it or compensate for it, right? So kids should know that they should know the use of credit cards to borrow something from somebody. And that you must be willing to pick up the phone all with your congratulations. If someone dear to you will see it's good news and with your congratulations when someone close to you is dealing with bad news. A few years ago we had a health scare with one of our sons and we were waiting on some test results from the doctor and we were pretty stressed out. We were worried about what those test results would reveal. I'll hum the love, hum the love. I was gonna go and spare this and he's fine. However, a few of my close friends and close family friends knew what we were going through. I remember being very, very touched with my son's friend, the son of one of my friends. He was also my son's friend. He was young and he was young at the time and he made a point of calling my son, asking him how he was doing, telling him that he was doing well for him and reassuring him that he could find each other and telling him my whole family was doing well for him. That was a beautiful act of friendship and it's something that our children and children should see us doing for our friends and our children and children should also do continue to know relationships. And then I know of somebody who told me she was very touched when her son got into a very prestigious university and we were really excited and her son's friend called and talked to everybody in the family congratulated all of them, congratulated the parents, congratulated the students and all of a sudden we got a little bit much joy at the university in Australia. Okay, so we have to teach our kids that love entails having a healthy, sensitive understanding of how people around you are feeling and then responding appropriately to their school. So one of our favorite quotes is from the author Jonathan Swift. Jonathan Swift is the author of the book, The Goldfish Travels. This is a great quote. A friend of mine liked it so much that she had it stitched on the cushion. Good manners is the art of making people comfortable. Whoever makes the fewest people uncomfortable as the best manners. Good manners is the art of making people comfortable. Whoever makes the fewest people uncomfortable as the best manners. All right, and then the last category to cover with our kids, inshallah, is being a model student. So I know a lot of our kids who went through ULTRI when some of them entered public high school, one of the things that really surprised the kids with the homeschooled or hominids or the children in front of the ULTRI home school. One of the things that surprised them in public high school was really the lack of other students, public teachers, backbite about teachers, making fun of teachers, interrupting them, not seeing their needs and responding to them at public teachers' period and seeing they had a happy bird. That was kind of surprising. So these are things as Muslims, our children should be taught from young age and there's many opportunities to teach them. First and foremost, foremost, Juma. When our kids come for Juma prayers, inshallah, with us, they should learn. And there's some subtle other tips in our view. One is they don't sit with your feet pointing towards the teacher or the hafi, right? If you should be either under you or across or folded, but not stretched out so that they're facing towards whoever is in the foot bar or the class or the lecture or the talk. Another thing is if you're coming to a lecture or to a talk, teaching your children to have a milk or a pen with them, so that the person who is taking the time out to speak feels like, okay, what I'm sharing has value. We're actually interested in what people are taking notes. So that's a good tip for students to learn. Reading elders first, not interrupting or talking. They're talking, waiting until the end to ask good questions. Let's see. Again, never joking or making fun, never joking in the expense of teachers in front of them or imitating them. Okay, so those are the five categories I wanted to cover. We just see if there's anything else. Oh, like I'll give you a little example. That same dad who I learned that we should always be walking our guests to your apartment. He was a military father. In one year at military, our student council, the students used to decide different events for the kids to get to do. And one year, the students did pajama day. And so everybody was really excited. And the kids came to school dressed in their pajamas and their leg gowns and their bathrobes. And some of us teachers did as well. And his dad, or my dad, and he was just, he was horrified, but then he saw everybody there in his pajamas and he took me aside and I saw the managers at the time. And he was like, who's ideal is this? And I was like, oh, it's something that you don't be doing in public schools. Some of the kids were excited. And they were like, what character day? Twins day and today's pajama day. So he very gently explained to me that coming to school with pajamas is like the ultimate bad, bad, above and towards education. And that education, the topic of the learning is a sacred topic. It's something that's so encouraged in our being and to wear the worst clothes, the clothes you don't want anyone in public to ever see in there, the clothes you wear when you're getting in your bed in the privacy room of the night. To wear that out in public when you're coming to school where you aren't, what message is that as a teacher or a children? And so Panela had never even thought of it without perspective and he's absolutely right. And so he discussed it with the kids and they understood, we understood, we all learned together. And then the pajama day was never 50 years ago, I'm sure, to the best of my knowledge. Some people take other to such a high level when it comes to learning that they are also, they are, well, some people don't want to fall to this because they think it's extreme. I'm not saying to do this. I'm just giving an example of how some people, how they, how, what level that is out when it comes to education. Some people won't even throw away pens. They won't throw them away, don't worry about it, because a less than a dollar's swear is by the pen. So out of other than knowledge and through the pen, they won't throw it at the garbage. So I, that's not me, I'm not there yet, unfortunately, but that's an example of what different levels of other can look like. So I want to end with, I want to leave you on the time for Q&A, but I just want to end with this conclusion. What I've found is that all the folks and all the discussions and all the checklists are pointless unless manners and etiquettes are actually actively being modeled for others. Like I said, for kids on expunges, they're soaking up everything around them. And when they're squeezed, whatever is inside comes rushing out. And there's a reason why people say his or her parents raised him or her well. Like they're commenting on something as beautiful as either of them. So it's up to us as parents to rise to the occasion and be whatever we want our kids to be in the genre. And in the process of trying to prepare the next generation to be more compassionate and more considerate than what the dominant nature around them is, then it's quite possible that we're going to keep our own limits as well. So the most growth and the most improvement that will come in our own lives is what we're kind of like. So that we can tell them and pass that on to our children. And those of us here who are connected to a different culture, a culture from back home, there's a lot to take from the culture of our parents that is beautiful that we should be passing on to our children because a lot of our unfortunate needs not here. There is a lot of good in the Western culture as well, like we find time and not littering and either being ethical about kinder bills and civic responsibilities. Those are all beautiful acts of unbearable that we should be taking that was taught in our religion as well and in our cultures and culture that we can have the same kind of act. But there's a lot of unbearable of our cultures back home that should be unbearable and taught to the next generation here as well. And Dr. Leonard Sanz, by the way, he's a child psychologist, who's written a lot of wonderful books about parents who are in different ways. He's lost things like SAX, Dr. Leonard Sanz, highly recommended of all these books. He said that if you speak another language, be sure to speak it to your children and to teach your children that language because the other languages from back home naturally have other ability to do that. We all know that, right? The difference in how to speak to elders and lecturers, that's an Spanish culture, that's an art culture, it's not home. But unfortunately, that's not here in the US. So okay, I'm gonna end there and if anybody has questions, suggestions, ideas, observations, would you love to hear them? And we'll see if I can repeat it because there are livestreams at the top and if everybody's watching online, I'll put up here questions as well. Questions out there or comments? How to install it? Okay, so the question is after the age of 14, how to install it for three minutes? I can only tell you what we said in our home, it was just, this is the time you need to be home. Like it wasn't an argument, it wasn't a discussion. If they wanted that privilege, it didn't have to go out and see their friends, whatever, if kids are not obeying or respecting what you're perceiving them, it's hard that they lose those privileges. It's as simple as that. There has to be an agreement between parent and child, right? How things are gonna run in the home, what the expectations are and what the news are. It's important to have those discussions with your kids, especially at the age of 14, one thing that we did for a while, that worked well is to have family meetings once a week and instead of nagging the kids all week about different things that need to get done or different things to expect with them, just making a note of the things you wanna cover and then having a family meeting where everybody is there because as the kids get older, everybody has busy schedules and they're running in different directions but making sure that family meeting time is a priority and sitting down and talking about what the expectations are, what the needs are, if there's certain chores that need to be taken care of and also some things like, oh, these are some fun plans that are coming up I wanna make sure you guys all know about it, put it on your calendar. So along with all the fun stuff, also talking about some of the hard stuff, but do we need to revisit it? Maybe our curfew is way too strict, let's talk about it, what is the type of roof you need and then you can see if that's reasonable or not, or where you're willing to end it but the parents are the authority figures as long as your children are living in the house, they really need to be paying the price there and you're the parents and so if you have a time limit that it should be expected that the kids are old, I'm sorry, I wasn't gonna help you with that, I'm sorry. Does anybody else, anybody else? Any other dads? Any other kids? Oh, we don't wrap up, nobody has anything to add? Come on, we can all learn from each other. I've been to this place and I've had a great deal of time with school, but sometimes it's hard to see that we've had it, we feel a little bit old for a few weeks and I get a little bit confused or like maybe a lot but it's just my favorite, to stick with her with you, that she thinks that she's kind of good and she's like, don't work with the parents eating or like, don't play with your relationship, because you know, all people are very bad and they're like all over the place, you know, they're hard friends, they're like, I don't know. So we want them to give that very statement at the same time, keep you know, like, you know, statement or like whatever it would be. Yeah. You can't go to school. Yeah. So the question is about how to navigate different relationships with people from other cultures and other religions that may not be in line with yours and how to stick to your own principles and be confident and apologetic as much as possible. Yeah, one thing that, so always of course all parents do this, they do a lot of work for your children to have wonderful, to be blessed with wonderful teachers and to be blessed with wonderful friends. So if they have good teachers and good friends from their religious tradition, and each other that will be their core group and they will learn a lot from them and then they'll be able to take that to the outside world. As far as their relationships with people from other cultures and other religions, one thing that we all know is nobody likes to be lectured, nobody likes to be proselytized to, we're like the electrical person trying to talk about your ways and better ways. What speaks volumes is just setting an example and daring to be different. So encouraging our children, like one thing I told my kids when they went to high school, two of my kids went to public high school, one went to a private Islamic school, private Islamic high school. What I told them is I'm not afraid of other children being a bad influence on you. I'm afraid that you won't get good influence on them. So the Prophet's alone is on everywhere he went, impacted people and influenced them for the better. And I hope that whatever circles we are entering in that people will be affected by your presence and will want to try to be better. Without lecturing, obviously, just by setting a good example, right? So making sure that kids know the responsibility of what it means to be a Muslim, but letting them know that you don't expect them to go around lecturing people and they feel bad, all you expect them to do is really to stick to their principles. And what I have seen is some kids may not get it, and some kids may even be kind of you, you know, as Muslims we're like the last religion standing that still hold onto our beliefs, right onto our principles. But there are people who do get affected. I've seen it again and again, even if they don't say it. And years later, they'll remember that Mr. Kitt that was in my class in my school, he was different from other children. I know one boy, one Muslim boy, he was going to a Wokau High School here. And he never lectured anybody. He never told them what's right and wrong. He just stuck to his own principles. And for new years, the guys and his group of friends were talking about what their new year's resolutions were going to be. And one kid said that my new year's resolution is going to be to stop passing, to stop swearing. And all the guys started laughing. They're like, you're not going to be able to do it. How are you going to give up passing? Nobody can give up passing. And he said, yeah, I can. He's all having to notice this kid. And he pointed to the Muslim kid. And he said, haven't you noticed him? He never cusses. So if he can get away with never cussing, why can't I? Which is really interesting because the kid, the Muslim kid who did it, because never told them don't cuss, never told them, I don't want to hear that bad language. He himself just never used that bad language. And there were some people who noticed and were inspired by it. So if we can just, Inshallah, instead of making our kids feel like we're afraid that we're going to get messed up, instead of turning it around and say, turn it into, I'm afraid you're not going to pass on this beautiful legacy that our prophets and their descendants taught us, right? You are from physical mind. And my worry is that you are going to bury that or you're going to hide it. Other people are not going to get to learn the more ight that we carry within them. They can learn how, of who they are, right? And what to do with your character, Inshallah. Okay, that's the problem. We have to, we need to learn that we don't have that confidence to share it because we feel that we don't know if we're feeling all particular. But yeah, that's going to have something to do with love or if we're going to be like, love is something that no one's going to be like. We need to start from this point of view and you need to be in that shape to make people like, yeah, okay, like how do you make people like that? We don't know if they're going to be like, you're going to see that you have that power to speak up. You know what? Most of the, yeah, most of them are like, scripty kids, you're going to see that, you know. It's hard. It's very hard and we have to have a lot of compassion for our children. A lot of compassion because it is hard being different and it's hard always standing out and it's hard always saying, I can't do this and I can't do that, but everybody else around you is doing it. And one of the things that's very powerful that is good to teach our children is where the prophets and learned this and said, Islam began as a strange religion and it will one day again become a strange religion that salams to the strangers, right? The prophets and learned this of them sent the salams on the strangers. And so they're the strangers. The strangers are the ones who are strange. They're different. They're not, you know, that had use was the things that inspired me to come out of the job because I was really struggling and I didn't want to stand out. I didn't want to be different. And somebody told me that had use and it really hit me because I was thinking all the women who work the job they think they're mostly the prophets and all the salams around them. But I'm not a stranger. I'm just sitting there with everybody, you know? That's how I took it upon myself. But yeah, just reminding our kids that we are the strangers. It's okay. It's okay. Everybody is becoming the same. We'll check it out. Somebody has to be willing to share that there's a different way of doing things. Things are changing so quickly. What used to be wrong is now right. What used to be halal is now halal. Everywhere in our culture here, you know? And it's constantly changing. Like my oldest son, the difference between him and my youngest son is seven years. And we went to the same high school here in San Ramon. My oldest son was saying the kids of his youngest brothers were at a completely different place in understanding of what his job was. Just in seven years, he could see such a big difference in what people think is okay, what's acceptable, what used to be considered unacceptable. So... So the question is about how to teach our children to be selfless because it's the nature of a lot of young people to be selfish. And it's true. That's just the age of life that puts an end. It's about me and myself and my friends. Me, myself, and I. And one, well, one thing I've seen, those children who have grandparents in the home, I've seen a big difference in the level of other. Children who have grandparents in the home and children who don't have grandparents. I, my siblings that I grew up in Southern California, my dad is one of 10 siblings, Mashallah, all of my cousins grew up in Pakistan. So they're one of those kids. And now all my cousins are in America. The level of my cousins from Pakistan have, compared to what my siblings and I have, it's night and day. And it's because I know that we're all grandparents and having to serve grandparents and take care of them. Those of us who don't have grandparents here to serve and take care of, help. Having our children think about how they can get back to the community. And they can decide how they want to do it. But there should definitely be one category of their week that is about giving back. We talk to our kids about how there's six different categories in the week that they should be touched upon. Otherwise, it's very easy to start with an unbalanced part. So one category is your education. You have to be working on your studies. One category is your education. For anyone who needs to be three-year-old or older or a pilot or in some pocket. Or if you need an internship or something for your future career. The third category is your health. So taking care of your health, making sure you're getting exercise according to the jail or doing something, running a sport, something. So that's three. So the fourth was something to do with your religion beyond the five prayers a day. So whether it's coming into the Friday night program that used to happen at FNCC or it's taking a fifth class or it's taking a C-Doc class or it used to be going to a meeting. Something, choosing something for your religion that's the rather than just the real prayers that you're going to put on. So where am I at right now? I'm at my fourth. So now we're on number five. Fifth was family. So you have to be getting time to the factory. Because as I said before, when kids start getting older, especially in the 10 years, it's really easy for everyone to just start running in different directions and you don't see each other for good spams of time. So making sure that you either have family dinner, or you do Sunday morning brunch, or I know one family where there are many siblings, the older sibling had to spend time babysitting the younger sibling, something where you're getting back to the family. And then the sixth category is community. Giving back to the community. And that's where service comes in. Maybe I'm just my family. So how can you get back to the community? There's all sorts of volunteer jobs and our different massages. There's, I know of an elderly couple that lived in San Ramon and one of the kids in the neighborhood, his job was to go help the elderly until file his paperwork. Because it was getting all the longer for them and he wasn't able to do it properly. So this man would go to his house and help him file his paperwork. But something where they're giving back and they're serving. And then they see that other people have to be explained. And then of course, if they see your parents, inshallah, you know, making meals for people who are sick or helping a mother who just had a baby or going to sort through donations at MCC or helping give blood at one of the blood banks. There's all sorts of volunteer opportunities that come up. But keeping an eye open for them and asking your kids, which volunteer opportunity do you want to adopt? But definitely there should be something that would be back to the community. That was a good question. Another question. Oh, the three parenting styles. So there's three styles of parenting. So everybody can take a moment and reflect on which style of parenting do I have. There's the style of parenting that is the authoritarian parenting, which is also called brick wall parenting. It's where the parent is like, it's my way or the highway, only my rules matter. You don't have to say, if you don't listen to me, you're going to get the back of my hand. You're going to get a step in her knee. That's authoritarian parenting. Second type of parenting is called permissive parenting. It's also called jellyfish parenting. It's where the parents don't have a backbone. They're just always whining and complaining and talking about how their kids don't listen to them. They don't know what to do. They're like, why don't you listen to me? And you know, they tell their kid a rule. They say they're not allowed to do that. At least the kid breaks the rule in front of them, right? They say, if you do that one more time, we're going to leave. If you do that one more time, we're going to leave. I'm telling you right now, if you do that one more time, we're going to leave. I mean, the kid does it one more time and the parent doesn't leave. They just sit there saying, what do I do with this child? We never listen to him. That's called permissive parenting, jellyfish parenting. And the third type of parenting, which is considered to be the best part of parenting, is called authoritative parenting. And that's also called backbone parenting. So there's brick wall, which is authoritarian jellyfish, which is permissive, and then there's backbone, which is authoritative parenting. And that's where the parent says what they mean and then they say they're respected as the authority figure in the hall. The kids may not read with all the parents' rules to be fuel-respected. They know how to talk so that the kids want to listen. Michelle, I don't think it's not always easy. And they listen so that the kids want to talk to Michelle, which also is not easy. So there's a really good book, again, by Dr. Leonard Sacks, which can teach you how to be an authoritative parent that's called the collapse of parenting. The collapse of parenting. So, and then there's another book called how to talk to your kids. How to talk so your kids will listen and listen so your kids will talk. That's another good book. I think the last one I wrote on here could have a spoiler if you want to read it again. How to talk so your kids will listen and how to listen so your kids will talk. So we are now at an hour. I was supposed to speak for a long time. So if there's no other questions, you can wrap it up about the basics that are fuel-respected. Thank you. We'll just end with one last hit. It's also an exciting lesson. Thank you very much. Please keep my camera moving in the back of the screen. Please keep us on guard for the rest.