 A couple years ago, I had published an article and it was during the time of the New Zealand shootings which was also a very difficult moment for the Muslim Ummah and terrible and so many people were also glued to the news at that point because unfortunately there was footage of the entire carnage that happened but also because many families had a hard time with how do you exactly talk to children about all of this. So the article at the time which Subhanallah, we've pulled it out so many times since, that's a lot of a lot, that was 2019. And the article is called on prophetic wisdom and speaking to children in times of distress and for those of you who are on the Zoom, I'm going to put this in the chat box for you and for those of you who are on our WhatsApp group, I'm going to also put it for you there in case you'd like to reference it later. I will start with that inshallah and then we have our experts here next to me who are going to talk both about Muslim children identity and also about how to cope and what to do and how to help inshallah ta'ala. I think though you'll find that a lot of what's being referenced today actually applies to all of us here too, not just our children, Subhanallah. So let's go ahead and talk a little bit about this article and what I wanted to share with you. For me when I think about how the Prophet, sallallahu alayhi wasallam, talked to everybody around him, there was this beautiful prophetic way in which he spoke and Subhanallah, our halakha was meant to be a description of the Prophet, sallallahu alayhi wasallam because we had started in Rabi'an awli before everything the most recent events had happened and we had to of course shift gears because this really is a time that requires intense dua and prayer. But back to the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam when you think about how it is that he spoke specifically to young people and especially to people in his family. You know there are many people who are very have, how do I say this and not get myself in trouble, they are known in their communities to be all mashallah, mashallah, mashallah, sisters or brothers but at home it's a completely different face and tone. The Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam, what you saw is what you got inside and out and whether it was his own child or whether it was his any one of his family members or whether it's his closest companions and friends or whether it was the broader community. What you saw was what you got and that's something very important and very special about him sallallahu alayhi wasallam and we take example from him, we take from his sunnah even in times of distress and difficulty and another thing that I wanted to share about him is he spoke when we talk about children to their level and I think that's really important today and part of the conversation we're going to have a little bit with our therapist as well is you know he was very keen on making sure that the person in front of him understood what he was saying and that they were not over burdened unnecessarily and this becomes really important about kind of age-appropriate milestones. Here at the Rahmah Foundation those of you who have grown in our holocausts here you'll know that one of the things that we really like pride ourselves on inshallah I hope it's accurate and true is that and we've been doing this for years is that the content that we teach in the different groups that you have your girls in right the frogs and bunnies and the rainbows and the busy bees and the rose buds right that they're age appropriate content that we're not talking to frogs and bunnies about very difficult things to understand in fact we're trying to break it down to their toddler level right the four and five and six year olds and when we get all the way to your busy bees your middle schoolers now we start to get into kind of like some conversation indefinitely by the high school right we're starting to get into heavy heavy conversations but it's age appropriate because what we find is that there are just like there are physical milestones right you know when your child starts walking and talking and eating like there's different milestones that you look out for right and same thing just like your physical milestones there's cognitive milestones what could be understood when because children subhanallah sometimes have very concrete thinking they don't understand a lot of nuance so when you try to read I'll give you an example we tend to start to reach teach Quran from because the 30th part right is the small surahs but it's also the surahs with a lot of heavy heavy references and a lot of metaphorical references and also things related to heaven and hell which are not metaphors those are real but it's hard for them to fully understand something they can't see directly in front of them and there's reference to jinn and reference to angels and reference to other things that they can't children can't quite see so it's a time for a lot of confusion actually and so interestingly enough a lot of our teachers say they may memorize them but when you come to explanation you're careful in what you say because otherwise you might actually teach them something that is not appropriate age wise right then and there for them but they they absolutely should and it will learn it but a little bit later right same concept here same concept here and so what I wanted to share with you and I think sister washma and doctors are both going to kind of pick up here from where I start with you whenever there is a really horrific tragedy that's unfolding in this case it's still unfolding in front of us it's very likely that at some point the young people around you are going to ask about this if they haven't already and when they do there's a decision to be made about what to say and when and to who I would say this I'm going to go through part of what the article talks about and then she'll you'll get to reference it but the most important thing that you can do is know that it starts with you it starts with us us the adults it starts with us because it depends on how we're doing somebody shared with me that their young child said to them why do you look so stressed out and that the mom said because there's all these difficult things happening and the daughter said then you shouldn't be reading the news mama so cute that's a lot of color but also they pick up it's amazing how much children pick up that they understand even if you don't say anything when you are stressed out they understand that something is off right and then they start picking up snippets of conversations if not full on you've taken them to a protest with you so they've seen everything with you subhanallah and every every family is a little bit different but it starts with us and how much we engage with our children and what's happening with us in real time so if we're glued constantly to the phone and not engaging with them there are a lot of questions that they're having and it's very confusing actually for them so what do you do part of it is preparing and this is why we're having this holoca today part of it is preparing as as best as you can it's not always perfect and with the preparing which we're doing tonight inshallah the next step from that comes inquiring actually asking them what they know or allowing them to come up to you and waiting for that and this depends on their age so let's kind of break this down a little bit for those of you that have that frogs and buddy age group I was talking about the three four five six year olds avoid sharing anything unnecessarily with this age group they're kind of in their la la land and they need to stay there as best as much as we can and only if we suspect that they know something or they say that they know something because maybe they have an older sibling that has said something to them or maybe they have heard something that you've said so at that point you can ask them what they've heard that's upsetting them and help them understand it a bit better which I'm going to leave to sister wajima to explain to us a bit more when we get to the age group that's after that so let's talk about your like your seven to 12 year olds this is where you want to wait and see wait and see if they come to you I want to ask these questions and I say this because every child is different you even might have several children yourself same parents same household but every child is different I have one child who's very in tune like I could be saying something in the other room and like how did you even hear that but and I have another child who's totally aloof la la la la la like totally aloof right and so and I'm like how did you not see that right it's upon a lot and so same household same family and so this is where you would wait and see if they ask us and in this age group of seven to 12 if they don't actually come up and ask you or initiate the conversation you may choose to just sort of let it be the way it is um it could be that they are not fully plugged into what's going on or it could be that they're not willing to yet fully tell you how heavy this is for them and this is where if it's not in words because sometimes young children don't have words to explain instead they show their distress in other ways well how do they show their distress well it could be forms of regression where they're kind of going backwards right and things that you're kind of like what's going on here like you you know you usually don't wake up in the middle of the night scared right or you usually are not scared to sleep with the lights off you know things those things like that where they're kind of going backwards from the milestones they've already um uh came up through um and so you might want to ask them at that point you know kind of sit with them and figure out what is it that they have seen or heard or understood and then process that with them which we'll talk about a little later how do you process your teenagers this is where you just assume that they know of course they have to have known right in fact if you've given them one of these things they absolutely have known and seen and may be very active maybe even more than you expect masha'Allah and it's really important that even at that point that you help fill in the blanks because there could be confusion and there could be also questions where there could be bullying that's been happening or harassment of different sorts and if they're not fully opening up to you um you don't expect at this stage that they'll come up and say anything it might require you to ask and kind of pull as much as you're able to and I also like to make sure that we don't do touch on it anybody who has children with disabilities I think this is important too to touch base on when you um this is where it really depends on what level of ability they have and their comprehension and level of understanding and it may not match necessarily physical age as you can imagine and so you will know your child best nobody knows the better than you do but I think it's also important that we don't just assume that they don't necessarily know what's happening or tapped in so I just want to make sure that you are um kind of aware of some of these the breakdown of some of this and I'll just share two more things before I hand this over the importance of listening and the importance of validating the listening becomes really important because so often as parents we do this thing called problem solving we go immediately into problem solving mode you know who said that to you what did they do immediately when actually and while you may need to take some steps to rectify what's happened the reality is you need to kind of like kind of pull the reins just a little bit and just hear them out because maybe it's something that they've dealt with or maybe they don't like you to deal with or whatever it may be but what they really want from you is to be heard right to be seen to be heard and the validating has a lot to do with whatever their emotions are including your own by the way validating your own emotions I've heard so many people in this week this past week say um I feel so terrible but that doesn't matter because what's happening to my sisters and brothers is beyond worse than what's going on to me my response to that is your emotions are what Allah gave you and your reality is what Allah gave you and their reality is what Allah gave them and it is very difficult to witness the reality is though Allah didn't ask you to erase your emotions does that make sense Allah's put us in a place where we have the running water and the electricity and the safety and the prosperity and all the rest of it and there are sisters and brothers across the ummah that don't have any of the above and it's hard Allah knows what he's doing and knows where he put each person and will ask each person accordingly and that's probably what scares me the most more than whether we have big emotions or small emotions what worries me the most is having all of this and then being asked by Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala because those who are in those situations the really horrific things that we're seeing they're not going to have the kind of hasab we're going to have do you know what I'm trying to say here and that's where we ask ourselves what can we do what should we be doing which will be part of our conversations inshallah ta'ala but I just wanted to say to validate don't don't shut down your emotions or their emotions whatever they may be even if you don't fully agree with them does that make sense so from here inshallah I'm going to pass the mic actually first to Dr. Zahra who Mashallah I want to introduce to you to her if you don't know her yet Dr. Zahra Murtaza is part of our family at the at madistan the nonprofit organization on muslim mental health which by the way we have our booth here and I hope you'll they're here specifically today because so many families and individuals have said we're having a really hard time and so are our kids so please in this conversation we'll share everything we can on the panel here but then I want you to please get some materials and tap in actually here at MCC we have a Maristan office in person it's actually right in that corner over there inshallah that you can come in person or virtual Dr. Zahra in particular works with our M.M.H.I. program it stands for muslim mental health initiative that happens on campuses college campuses so she works very directly with our college students in your case Dr. Zahra at Stanford so Mashallah we have a program M.M.H.I. that's at Stanford University and one that's at UC Berkeley Mashallah so um Dr. Zahra works on the Stanford uh with the Stanford group and Mashallah um we'll share with us a little bit about muslim identity what does it mean having that muslim identity for youth specifically and we'll take us on what happens if they're harassed bullied having a hard time before we pass over to sister Wajma. Thank you Dr. Zahra. It's an honor to have Dr. Rania fix my hijab Mashallah I can now say Dr. Rania has helped me with my hijab Mashallah so it is so nice to see all of you I like you I'm still experiencing all the emotions of this recent week or two or three I can't keep tracks upon Allah and it's just an honor to be back at M.C.C. this is actually my childhood must it's I'm seeing some familiar faces here it's so lovely to see all of you all the old and new faces. So as Dr. Rania mentioned I am a psychologist I work with Maristan I also work with Children's Health Council so I do work with children teams and young adults as well as their parents so I am pretty familiar with having difficult conversations when it comes to stress trauma dealing with difficult life transitions and thinking about what's going on really the only words I have are inna lillahi wa inna ilaihi rajeon verily to Allah we belong and to Him is our return. I wanted to start with that because in the face of tragedies we often don't know what to do what to say and this expression from our faith from our iman it's that expression of we're just going to trust in Allah's panodala and to say that truly it is to Him that we belong and to Him is our return and it's okay as Dr. Rania mentioned to acknowledge all of our emotions first and to take care of our emotions before we get in the caretaker role of our family as we say or as we hear when we get on the airplane put on your own oxygen mask before you put someone else's on and I know today sister Wajma is also going to get into self-care and strategies but I just also wanted to emphasize that so you're hearing that from all three of us so I speak to you today as a sister in faith fellow human being and as a family member who is grieving these terrible tragedies right now and I say tragedies because there are multiple complex tragedies happening all at once and I think that's what also adds to the pain and suffering across communities and what also makes the response with our children with ourselves with our co-workers with our schools really nuanced and sometimes it may be very difficult to know what to say when someone else is also hurting and suffering at the same time so whether we're talking about Palestine and Gaza directly whether we're talking about people killed in Israel we're talking about human rights we're talking about people's dignity to live right especially the children we're talking about children right you know we've talked about these topics a lot in our community unfortunately and a lot of us may be feeling that deja vu right now for those who have gone through those years after 9 11 or who have as Dr. Rania was saying seen and heard about other tragedies affecting our community so I guess I just want to start with that there are so many different layers of grief right now across communities and we're familiar with a lot of those things so it's important to start there when we talk about identity right now as Muslims we are seeing our brothers and sisters in Palestine going through the most atrocious of tragedies I mean no words I mean genocide plain and clear so that it hurts our Muslim faith our identity there it hurts our humanity as human beings for those of us here who are Arab or from Arab backgrounds or who are from Palestine there's that extra layer of like shared you know community and as we know from Muslims whether or not we're from Palestine holds a very special place in our hearts so there's that multiple layers of connection of identity here and it's okay to feel all of the emotions that come with the longing to those multiple identities there could be fear sadness anger rage confusion all of those emotions just not even knowing how we feel and that's also okay but just to validate that all of those identities that we belong to they are coming up not only as we grieve but also in our day to day spaces when we go to school when we go to work if we take public transportation even as you drive drive down the street you know you're like sometimes maybe aware of how you look if you're a visible Muslim I see you know many of you Michelle ring hijab right now some of you may also wear hijab outside so there's that visible aspect too so just starting with that I want to say that in the current climate it's important to think about those identities but also think about this word called backlash when someone who looks like us is told like they committed a crime right we know what happens in our society like the whole group gets the blame unfortunately we've seen it across communities we've seen in the Muslim community and subhan Allah as we also discussed Monday with that circle with Dr. Rania and everyone we are all grieving many of you may have heard about what happened with Wadiya I think that for many of us was our worst fear I mean we're thinking about how is our community going to experience how is our community going to be affected by what's happening far away but then coming over here so I just want to name those things I know they're obvious but I also think it's important to name where some of those emotions may be coming from with our identities with someone then who is from our community who was targeted and male arrest us all in peace I mean so again I want to acknowledge it's heavy it's the collective trauma we all are affected in some way by trauma we all have different experiences of course when we experience a stressor or know somebody who experiences that it may not be touching us all in the same way but it somehow does affect us we may know family in Raza or we may have a friend who has family there we're simply watching the news and just remembering our brothers and sisters the thing I've heard from a lot of teachers this week a lot of therapists and just humans is that sometimes you wonder why why are these emotions in me like why am I feeling all this and and or how and how do I cope with it just as a reminder if you feel these emotions it means you are alive your heart is alive your heart is a vessel from alas panadala and if it's hurting it means you care you're seeing the humanity of your brothers and sisters so it's about how do we use our heart that is hurting right now and how do we talk to our children and our families when we are hurting and they might be hurting as well and of course not to assume as Dr. Rania mentioned because they may have different levels of knowledge about what's happening so some of the tools that I want to share with you today they've been taken from National Child Traumatic Stress Network and there are also a lot of great resources online for parents so I encourage all of you to look at that website and also many other websites out there for parents that just have a lot of great coping tools like dealing with tragedy this article Dr. Rania shared is actually almost like half of my outline was actually exactly your article so I guess I should have just referenced your article so how can parents support their kids especially at this time first as Dr. Rania said acknowledging your own emotions acknowledge them and get that support I think all of you coming here right now it's a great just show of community and also you're holding space for yourself by allowing yourself to be taken care of by somebody I think in many of our roles as mothers family members if you're teachers even therapists in here you're taking care of somebody else it's a lot of work it's actually just laboring a lot of times right so just allow yourself to be taken care of by other people whether it is a friend a family member a spouse a therapist allow yourself to be taken care of this week and regularly inshallah so all of you coming here I see that as you are allowing yourself to get that support inshallah from sisterhood the other thing to keep in mind is when we are flooded or overwhelmed we're seeing a lot of things and the media right we may not be in a place where we can respond in a wise way okay I've seen a lot of this this week where we are in a motion mind something where you know we're responding through emotion so if your child who comes and talks to you or if something is happening just monitor where am I at right now am I in a sort of calm state of mind right now or am I have I just read a really disturbing article seen some really horrific things happening right just kind of assess the state of your mind and I see some young people in here mushel isn't and I'm guessing the very young people may not have kids yet so let's say if someone comes to talk to you about what's happening in Gaza or in the world and you're all riled up do you think it's going to be effective to relay your message right now I see a not a head shake right exactly so whoever you're giving the message to or talking to first just notice your own state of being right now and if you're not in a place where you can engage there's a really helpful framework that I did see on national child traumatic stress network and it's called pause rest and nourish and it's a helpful framework that first just says hey if you're overwhelmed right now take a pause actually want all of us right now to take a pause including me and just notice your emotions at this moment do a quick scan of your body and notice where is this emotion right now in your body sometimes we have mixed emotions and that's also okay especially in a very very conflicting and extremely difficult time like this the next thing once we notice our emotional state is to reset our emotional state and there could be a small thing we could do such as the good which we were doing doing some deep breaths just taking a quick walk or like getting out for fresh air for a minute if you're in an office or you're in your house throughout the day okay or if you've been scrolling and scrolling on your news feed right you can tell yourself you know I'm gonna get up right now off my phone and go drink some water and you know I'll come back to my desk later but it's just taking that quick reset the next is nourishing and that's basically filling your cup and this is something not only for all of us but also for our children and our families is to create routines in our daily life where we can actually reset all of our emotional energy so that could mean at the end of the day having a family dinner together it could be having a for on time or circles it could even be something simple like the drive into school checking in maybe you you sing a favorite song together recite some favorite to us together or just have a little ritual that you do for me personally this last week I realized I was not exercising as much as I like to and that was taking a toll on my body and I finally got out to my gym class and you know there was some of the like you know thank you we all need that positive reinforcement right but I think a part of it was also finding some safety again and going out in public spaces and I said I have to go I mean I need to go to my gym class and so I did and that was me helping myself find routine again we know with kids with trauma exposure getting back into routines is really really crucial so as Dr. Rania already beautifully said it's about when you're talking to kids asking in them what they already know and you know I want to also link this to the school setting when your kids are going to school and I think I'm going to focus more on the older than six because as we said with younger than six we're going to really limit the exposure that they have unless they bring it up or unless we're noticing some kind of clinical symptoms or regression so with the older kids simply ask them what do you know already if they bring it up and then deeply listen rather than trying to fix it rather than trying to problem solve and then ask them what questions do you have because if you just fill in all of the blanks they may just think hey you gave me way more information than I even needed or asked for right or or that may be happening so just asking them what would you like to know and one perspective I think that's really important as a Muslim but also just as a human being in this really confusing time stay humble because you may not know everything we we don't know everything we know there's so much misinformation out there with propaganda different news sources kind of telling your child and your teen in this world there's a lot of different opinions how can we work together to find answers let's you know do some research together and that can be a way that they also can you know as if they're a teen for example help support you and the family to share their research skills a little bit if they if they like that budding journalist maybe um no but actually it's just keeping the conversation open it's more about the process than actually what answer you give them some of you may be asking give me like the best thing I can do and unfortunately we don't have the one perfect answer for you today it's more of the process and it's your relationship with your child it's really about creating that secure attachment maintaining that attachment that hey you're safe to ask anything I'm here to listen I may not know all the answers but that's okay we're in it together so you're modeling as a family that you're there to keep your child safe and that adults in their life are supposed to keep them safe inshallah we we really want to exude that message and model that to our kids so dr rania also talked about warning signs with younger kids with elementary school kids i'm gonna mention also just excessive fear worry and sadness they may be bringing up that kids are commenting about you know israel and palestine or bringing up certain news in their classroom and just even asking them how did that make you feel or like okay what was that discussion like and just notice if you're seeing some strong emotional reactions from your child and see do you want to talk about that more with me they may just be noticing it but not having an emotional reaction so we also don't want to put it on them like oh why did your teacher say that or why did that kid say that to see what they kind of bring up first inshallah i also want to be mindful of time okay um also when hearing about what's going on there's a lot of misinformation and one-sidedness right now right i think that's where a lot of muslims and palestine supporters of course like are feeling like why is the palestinian voice silenced and your kids may be feeling that too in their schools so that's where i think reminding them there are so many opinions out there and a lot of times the media is distorted and you know we're gonna kind of work together on sharing resources with your teacher or finding comfortable ways to share that with their classroom i want to say that very carefully though because as we know there is hate out there and you want to be very careful in the environment your child is in so i think if we were sitting in a different state than california maybe there are other things we need to consider in our social and political context like alhamdulillah we're here in california in the bay area and still we know there there is racism out there there is islamophobia there even here but i guess i just want to say i can't give one answer but you knowing about your child's classroom the classroom culture the school culture having contacts at the school such as a personal connection with the school counselor principal you know administration i think that is a big strength in this time so that you know who to reach out to if needed so kind of on that note safety planning is something we do a lot as therapists and i also like to think of in these times what is a plan of safety if your child is going into school and there's a climate like this i think a just knowing who the safe adults are to talk to at their school so it could be a teacher it could be not even the principal but like their spanish teacher or something because they just have a good relationship with them and having that one-on-one conversation that like hey just so you know my kid is struggling a bit right now here's what we need right now to support them and if you are a teen in this group it's amazing to see you and i hope you can also reach out and just find some safe person to talk to at your school or outside of school inshallah i would also say with school culture a lot of people a lot of moms have been reaching out with statements or you know this response is one-sided keep up that work as long as you feel you can do it and don't feel like you have the burden to keep doing that there are also other parents right so stay connected with other parents who share those views and you can get community with um finally you know california law is very clear about anti-bullying and about you know this no discrimination policy and so if you ever feel that that is happening bullying harassment discrimination please reach out to care council on american islamic relations a lot of you may have heard of them they're very accessible i mean you give them a call and you just report hey something happened i don't know what that was but i'm not comfortable they can guide you in terms of what should you do what are your rights what are the options that you have to get help and sometimes even connecting with them and them reaching out to the person who did that like that just that's a very clear boundary that this is not okay um there are a lot more other things but i would just say channeling all of those emotions inshallah into you know practical things you can do that's one of the things in our control inshallah like educating ourselves and others advocacy and help donate write letters protest praying and doing vicar i also want to share with you kind of a nuanced idea that's very important your kids are going to be surrounded by very diverse views out there and so are you you're going to have neighbors who have maybe very different views about lesa and israel and palestine um you're going to have people on your facebook and social media and and they have very different views modeling to your kids listen this is our code of conduct as muslims and you know we don't respond to hate with being worse or you know we have a prophetic model for how to use our tongue and to use our character right and you know if if you're having a hard time with that reach out to people like dr rania and listen to all of the great talks right now by the she you and just remember that you know your kids are going to be faced with a lot of different views and reminding them all those different views those are from families that may have their own histories and cultures and may be hurting in their own ways and you know we have some different ways of looking at it and educate yourselves as a family so many books online about how to talk to your kids about palestine i don't want to go into all of them but you can even google this or children's books about palestine that if your kids are bringing it up then you can shall or read these with them so with that said may Allah make it easy for each and every one of us because we are shepherds of our families and it's an honor and it can also be a lot of um yeah a lot of energy that goes into it so sakhil al-khayr for being here and may Allah reward all of you i mean thank you appreciate you i'm just going to take this really quick inshallah thank you thank you um thank you dr zahra welcome mona mashallah who's joining us as well from madistan oh why don't you come in mashallah mona too thank you um all of these lovely ladies mashallah work at madistan so we're really excited to have them here and as a resource for all of you and also uh sister zunera sunam mashallah is our outreach coordinator for madistan so you have five different people who work with madistan here in the room all women yes all women mashallah alhamdulillah who are here as a resource for you and so after our discussion with the panel we'll stick around so that you guys if you have specific questions or needs please do come to us several of you are on our whatsapp threads um and i've just posted something in there that relates to care you mentioned care which is a council on islamic american islamic relations there we go which is a reporting guideline that if any of the children or yourselves are being harassed in this time is to do immediately a report now you might say i don't want to report with their names and my names but the reality is even if it's anonymous it's important because they're keeping track of what is actually happening for our communities at this time so i'm i'm actually encouraging you to please go ahead with the report and certainly if you need more help beyond just reporting they also are able to help you in that way another thing that i'm going to a couple of two more things that i haven't posted yet but will inshallah one is you mentioned very importantly that on monday we had with maristan a healing circle actually it was called a community circle on the topic of palestine and we have some of you might have been there some people were there mashallah may love bless you those who joined us and those who couldn't we have the recording i think the recording is essential to listen to you have dr hatan bazian who's an expert on palestine and islamophobia speaking on education points specific to this topic also right after him you had basim and khadra who is the care again same organization care for legal rights sacramento's executive director who was talking about how to take care of your legal rights and your rights for yourself and your family in this difficult and trying time after him we had dr just one nam who's over at ucsf who's a psychologist who was talking about your self-help care and tips of how to take care of yourself and and and by the way all of these panelists all of the speakers on that were actually palestinian background which is very helpful because it's like lived experience that they're bringing and centering after him was a sheikh tarik muslih was also palestinian therapist and sheikh both mashallah who gave kind of a spiritual perspective of self-care and then dr amir sunayman sheikh amir sunayman also subhanallah he was supposed to be live with us and he was sort of live but he was standing in chicago imagine this in front of the very masjid in which the janez of the funeral prayer for what was happening and he was recording a very important message actually which i hope all of you can listen to from right in front of there because he was he flew right literally he messaged me like on his way into chicago and said i'm going to have to do this kind of a by video um because i need to go and he went mashallah bless him and then of course the burial and so on and i think those words were powerful and very important and then of course a draw so that's a resource that i'll post for you the second resource before i hand the mic over to wajma is a resource that we developed in my lab actually and maristan has now made it public and available to everybody it's actually a mental health resource guide on palestine so it explains a lot of the emotions that many of you are feeling what is this thing called trauma what is this thing called vicarious trauma what is this thing called intergenerational trauma what are all these emotions and feelings that maybe you're experiencing and don't have the exact language to explain what it is or your kids are experiencing or maybe they're saying and you're like what is this it's a very good um manual that much of those much of the researchers may well bless them 12 of them and my lab worked literally day and night day and night trying to prepare this thing and now it's just free and available to everybody so please use it and kind of send it out as far as you can to everybody who needs it inshallah and may bless again maristan for being being able to take kind of very good academic work and make accessible to the public which is one of the main points of the organization with that inshallah i'm going to introduce to you wajma nasir and also monami danie both are as i mentioned part of madistan sister wajma mashallah is one of our therapists who's a marriage family associate marriage family therapist and someone one of the people that actually work in this very building mashallah and so i hope inshallah you get to hear from her a little bit about um about children specifically she's going to fill in some of the things we've been talking about and then sister mona mashallah is doing her phd in psychology at the paul alti university and also directs our clinic kind of runs our clinic mashallah so you have lots of great expertise in this room and lots of amazing woman with great knowledge please do tap in if you are loved ones need that support and help especially those of you locally or those of you in anywhere in the state of california maristan can help easily inshallah ta'ala and for those of you outside of the state because i know there's many people online ma'ala bless you all the website has some other resources inshallah for those who are out of state so with that i'm going to pass this over to wajma thank you so much wajma so i want to commend everyone um alhamdulillah that i'm here uh please forgive me if uh i had a very long day so if i say anything wrong just you know i know we're all here not judging anyone so um i would appreciate that i wish we were meeting under different circumstances um but alhamdulillah for the space that um we have here so we could all be here for each other and support each other in this very difficult time um everything that i wanted to say has already been shared so uh so uh by by dr rania and dr zahra but um i will i will share some some stuff i work with kids um as well i work with kids from um ages four five two grade five um and um one thing that i wanted to emphasize is that you know the kids look up to parents when it comes to emotional regulation so you guys are the role model for your kids they look up to you and see how you deal with your emotions and that's how they learn to deal with their own emotions so if we have you know like of course this is such a difficult time and we're all like almost glued to our tv's and and and um phones and you know if whatever page you open there's something that's very tragic and it's um you know we're human and they are our own loved brothers and um sisters and for some of us could be very close family members so it's very difficult for us as adults to be really not feeling those intense feelings that come with such um you know experiencing such major trauma and kids look up to you so how you deal with your emotions is how they will do it and especially the very young ones they they don't like to see their parents sad um so what they will do is if they see you not being able to deal with your own emotions they will turn inwards they're not going to talk about their own problems or issues and a lot of times some of them may know about what is going on some of them may not know but then they will see you you know dealing with a lot of different emotions and then they will hold on to whatever they have and for for these young very young kids you know a little thing that might look very trivial for us it's a big major thing for them and then for them not to be able to come to to their parents because they are so stressed out and they're like I don't want to go I don't want to burden my parents any further right then you know then we have really suppressed their feeling we we have really thought them that you know it's not okay for them to open up when they have difficult feelings so as much as possible as much as you can focus on how to um you know on how to be grounded how to be in the present right try to limit your exposure to to graphic content to the media and that would go the same with your kids that are you know monitor what they're watching what they're being told um you know whether we like it or not they're gonna hear it from the outside so why don't you be that source right you know why don't you make that environment create that environment for them where they can come to you you know you you know you can listen to them validate their feelings and also provide them with accurate information because they are getting a lot of inaccurate information from media you know you open instagram there's like you're bombarded with these different things that are not accurate and then they go to school right they go to school and they're exposed to a lot there and a lot of them feel very isolated in school it's very isolating you probably feel it in your own workplaces where you know our experiences are not validated and so that really feels this feel isolated and for kids that's like you know when they don't have an outlet to to safely discuss what they're feeling it is you know what they would do is they would suppress those feelings and then a lot of the time kids they don't have the the like especially younger ones the the verbal articulation to come and talk to you and say hey you know this is what they're just going to show you in different ways so you might see changes in sleep patterns you could you may you might see uh like behavioral issues you have you know like kids because they want to have control they want to have some sort of control in whatever is happening so maybe they will start to um didn't you know say I don't want to go to school they might develop like all of a sudden this anxiety they cannot let go of parents um so and then there's um you know the also there's the the fact that so it's my name um welcome back guys um so I was as I was talking about um ways to help kids feel validated and heard um you know I would emphasize to um continue to maintain a routine their normal routine as much as possible because that gives the kids a sense of control over the situation um and then um like I said before limit their exposure to media sometimes maybe for the with the older ones maybe you can wash the news together that way you can control um what they're watching and also you know correct any um you know anything that's not factual and another thing that I wanted to mention is that if your kid is old enough um to learn about um if they have learned about other genocides at school then this is it will be okay to have that conversation about the conflict this conflict about them and the history of that and going you know making it like as a as a almost like a research project where you go together with your child to uh you know trusting sources to help them understand the situation better the more they um you know it's it's clear for them and the more that they understand they can come to you when they have um difficult emotions the better they will be able to deal with the situation um other thing is that you know sometimes we um we're so worried that we're constantly maybe it's family member we constantly um look for the news or we're constantly calling people to make sure that family members are okay that um you know a lot of other symptoms may develop and you can see um in your youth that include like lack of sleep they're having difficulty um focusing in concentrating um they are having difficulty uh connecting with others so in these cases making sure that you as much as you can you you know surround yourself with supporting people so staying connected with your community um if there are kids right having that group like play dates whatever it is where you have other people that are like minded that are um you know supportive of your cause and you get together with them and allowing them that atmosphere to be able to be themselves and not feel like they're being judged not feel like what they're saying is wrong and that you know there's them against someone else but they're all you know we're all together just like over here you know we're here to support each other creating that kind of atmosphere for our kids so they feel validated so they feel supported and not isolated um some um I know we are very tight on time but one thing that I wanted to mention about very young ones sometimes they don't understand um you know because they are so young they don't understand how close they are to the conflict so it's very important that you know maybe um that you make that clarification for them for example you can actually bring out a map right and then tell them this is where we we live where we are and this is where their location is and for you know and that that could be you know for us it's not a big deal but for young kids you know it's about their safety they want to feel safe and if you are providing that for them you're uh you're basically allowing them giving them permission that to to feel it's okay to be afraid and you know staying away from um phrases like don't be sad because sadness is a very normal reaction to what is going on around us or don't be afraid these are you know these are emotions emotions Allah swt have created um He has created these for a reason and they're there for us to experience so we want to make sure that as parents we're allowing ourselves and our children to be able to express them in a in a in a you know in an adaptive way and kids they don't know how to you know channel their feelings but you can be that source for them you can create that safety for them they wear um you know they can work through their feelings you can do work art together create something together go for walks together um just sit down and sometimes just be with them right you know listen to them without passing any judgment um ask them open-ended questions um and try not to judge what they're saying and what they're bringing into uh the conversation um let them lead basically the conversation and just one other thing that you know sometimes for some kids who are already stressed out or are dealing with other mental health issues suicide could be a high risk at this time because this is a very stressful situation and this could be that one last thing that pushes them off the edge so really be being um you know watchful and really being there for your kids and making sure that they feel validated they're heard and um supported you can meditate together you can uh go like I said go for walks together color together um and just anything that would give them a sense that they're not alone it it's it's very like I sit down myself with my kids and we have like these big coloring pages and we just color and I find it very um you know relieving and it feels very calm and peaceful we're not even talking sometimes and we are just coloring and it's it's and it's a big bonding thing too right we're bonding with them and at the same time we're letting them know that this is one safe way to express your feelings and emotions um like I said everyone has covered everything that I have said but just just be careful be watchful if you see that your kid is um they're you know like maybe they're regressing like Dr. Rania said maybe they're becoming more aggressive if this is something that has these changes have lasted more than two weeks that this is where you need to be concerned reach out to someone in um you know to their doctors or mental health um clinicians so that way they can get the support that they need um as well like just like all of us we all need support so there's I just want to make sure that you understand that there's no shame in seeking that help thank you and we're putting some resources in the in the whatsapp and the chat box for either coloring books with children or books related to resources and also in that guide that I was telling you about earlier there's some links related to um other resources for you and for them in terms of how to talk about Palestine what is the history what is the work in case that they're trying to make sure that their facts are straight and your facts are straight in Shalata in a time where there's a whole lot of misinformation and a lack of correct facts send someone on Shalata and as I pass it on to Mona I just want to add one last thing that it's okay to tell your kids you don't know yes it's totally fine and that I think makes it more human and more you know something that they can uh connect with everyone um how did I took notes kind of as we went along and I just wanted to add like a few really um key points um so the first one was actually I'm just going to comment on a video that I watched in class this week and it was a little boy who was talking to his mom and he was telling his mom you know mom I was feeling angry today and my emotions and he was having this whole beautiful little like baby talk conversation with his mother about anger and if you're on tiktok you may have seen this video um so he tells her mom I was feeling you know and he's specifically talking about how he was feeling angry so as her mom I was feeling angry today and she's like that's okay and at the tail end of the video he tells me and mom did you love me when I was angry and she says yes of course and she hugs him and I think I can't normalize enough how much validation your your young young ones are gonna seek from you right now and I've got some points about your you know teenagers and your young adults but your young ones are really gonna look for is it okay for me to feel the way that I'm feeling right now and it Dr. Sister Wajima kind of touched on this right like don't tell them you can't be sad and don't tell them you can't be angry that this is not quite the time to kind of talk them through the different emotions and you want to make sure that your children is fostering is that your children are fostering a safe space to come and share with you how they're feeling when things are getting really difficult when things are getting really heavy um if your kid is only ever sharing with you mom I'm great mom I'm happy maybe ask yourself does my kid know how to feel sad um I cannot express to you how many of my clients don't know how to be sad don't know how to feel they tell me when I'm happy but you can't see it I'm like well you know when I'm angry and I'm like well I don't see anger right I see like numb I see someone who can't express emotion and then when I talk to them they tell me I was never allowed to express at home if I had a reaction my parents would tell me not now and I I'm telling you I have clients in their 60s who can't express some of these emotions so this is a lifelong um like journey for some and Sister Wajima touched on this as well and I'll build on it a little bit social learning theory your kids are looking at you to role model emotional regulation and expression right now they are looking at you and they will take from you because you are if you're a primary caregiver or an elder in the household they're watching you and they're watching how you respond across the board and if you suppress your emotions Dr. Rania talked about people saying right now well it's not as bad as it is for people over there right now for me here if that's the approach you're taking know that your kids will never feel like their issues are worth talking about and then you're going to bring them to Maristan inshallah and we're going to work with them for months this is not a I've had parents tell me can you fix my kid they're 14 okay where have you been for 14 years I told my kid that I didn't have time or I spent my work away from my children and there wasn't really that connection built therapy is great it takes time it's not going to be a fix overnight and so I really really really want to drive that message home to a lot of parents who have younger kids right now sit with your kids and process your emotions mommy are you feeling sad yes baby I'm feeling sad this is hard this feels heavy mommy where does it feel heavy it feels heavy in my chest it feels heavy in my shoulders mommy I'm not sleeping well I had a mother tell me today her kid who has not really who has been relatively okay in the dark mommy will you walk me into my room I'm scared someone's going to kidnap me and he's hugging her feet he's hugging her leg he's just I think he's about four mommy I'm scared someone's going to take me away in the dark and these are these are real and Alhamdulillah if your kid is able to verbalize those because some kids they experience something or they are witness to something and the words come later so Dr. Rania mentioned kind of keeping tabs on your child's behavior and and I want to be clear that this is not just for five days or when this is over some of this stuff we see when in a year and two sometimes three they're finding the words and now they're going to process that as a as young adults in whatever age group it comes to them they're going to start processing that in that time and so you're the the one thing I took back from inshallah many other things but the one thing that has always stuck out to me about working with adolescents is parents miss mental health issues in children adolescents because they say they're a teenager they're going to act out they're a teenager this is expected and we just let it go and then we see it's so detrimental and events like what we're seeing right now exacerbate already existing mental health issues that our teenagers are facing that your young kids are facing and honestly that adults are facing too it it is hard it is hard and it is heavy to continuously see this and process it but give yourself time to sit and process there's days where you're like the best I can do right now is make a meal say Alhamdulillah and congratulate yourself for making that meal because your family needed you and you needed that meal that's why Allah swt guided you gave you the energy to get up and make that meal and if that's all you got done Alhamdulillah Dr Zahra and I were at Stanford last week and we did a healing circle and there was a sister there from Gaza and she was really just feeling so helpless like I am here it is my first year here she's a first year PhD student at Stanford and she's like of all of the times that I was here now what is happening to my people and I looked at her and I said what do you do and she said I write and I told her write your story that's what you have that's why Allah put you here that's a skill that Allah swt has given you write the story right everybody is going to face different trials and tribulations across our lifetime it's not it's not just today and it's not just tomorrow so think of what has Allah swt gifted you with what are the blessings Allah swt has you know there's so many what are they and have channeled them into your families and channel them into your education it's been really hard for me to be a PhD student right now because I've got so much work and I have maybe the brain the bandwidth and the attention span of a very very small animal right now but I'm like okay Muna this is what Allah gave you you can you can show up and you can get through your work and you can get through your assignments because this is where I need to be right now and I trust that Allah put me here because I am able and I have the ability to turn around and support my community um one of the you know one of the other things I really wanted to touch on was um the brain's response to trauma I'll talk about it a little bit from a neurological perspective so that um so that we we kind of like learn what's happening I've had doctors I had a touched on you know maybe don't write an email when you're angry you know you you might write something and feel so in that moment this is truth this is exactly what I mean to say and you press send right um I can tell you on on our end uh at my university I've had to send emails all week and one of them took me a week to send because I would sit there and I read it and I read it again and I made sure it was respectful and professional but also in an honor of my community and in honor of the people who have lost their lives that's what they're you know they're losing their lives I can at least stick up for their lives here I can at least call out the injustice in a way that that keeps me inshallah steadfast in my education but also honors the community and that was really important how many people heard of fight or flight fight or great news okay so when we go into fight or flight what happens with our brain right our executive functioning right up here at the front our executive functioning is responsible for decision making this is where emotional regulation comes in when you toggle into fight or flight something has happened and I want you to keep in context not just you but also your children something has happened and your prefrontal cortex actually switches off your amygdala your fight or flight response response system toggles on they cannot be on at the same time one or the other if you are in fight or flight your executive functioning is off which means you are not to say you're not like thinking clearly but there is something that is more pressing for the brain right now and I need to address this immediate item your brain doesn't differentiate fear of a tiger okay the trauma of a tiger standing in front of you or a bear chasing you from a car accident it's considered trauma it's that is how it's understood in your brain so when you're in that fight or flight if you think of like your kids if they're seeing images right now and they're starting to get activated and they're in fight or flight I sincerely ask we don't tell them to calm down nobody ever calm down because somebody told them to calm down think about what's happening for them you might talk at them this is you're overreacting they're not hearing you they're reacting they're not hearing the words so what can we do one of the things that so I do like my emphasis at school is in trauma and one of the things I work through is kind of like treatment through like you know a trauma informed lens and one of the things that you can do is a grounding exercise it can be as simple as let's count to ten together one two three and so on how many if I have a lot of plants in my office how many plants are in the room you activate the other side of the brain you now are engaging the logical side count you know count the rooms count account the plants count the books anything and then that you'll see that that switch and then you're like okay and they're like okay yeah like I'm good you know um so I really want you to think about if you're seeing higher rates of anxiety around around kind of like your children or just like feelings of irritability like it's it's not coming from nowhere and everybody talked about validating that that experience and that emotion so until I won't touch on that but just really think about it and if you if you're not sure this is why this is happening right now consult with the people in your community who know consult with the people in your community who can guide you to the resources that your children need right saying I don't know is so important but find people who know and guide your children or guide yourself to that resource you know like I I really urge you don't sit on it and say inshallah it'll get better tomorrow you know it's inshallah today right now I'm kind of going out to do this um and so inshallah I'll end there I'm happy to kind of answer any questions later but I know that we wanted to also open the space um for everybody so inshallah jazak allah everyone thank you so much muna and wajma Dr. Zahra I appreciate you guys very much mashallah before I open up for Q&A and we have you know sometime a little bit inshallah for some discussion I wanted to say again quickly because I did mention or introduce some of you new and some of you already know about Maristan as the organization but I didn't specifically talk about the clinical part which relates to what to do if you feel like you do need to reach out to somebody to help with counseling for yourself or your kid or loved one or a neighbor or a friend um mashallah it's the the website and you can pick up one of the bookmarks that has there it's just maristan.org which by the way on the website is also directly where you download that resource guide on mental health for Palestine like from the mental health resources around the topic of Palestine so it's also on the web on the web page but just to quickly speak about the clinic for a minute and just say look inshallah it's accessible to everybody here because for those of you who have private insurances not Kaiser Kaiser does not play with anybody else I'm sorry guys but for everybody other for every other form of insurance inshallah we actually do take most of those in the clinic and then there is a sliding scale that is for those who can are paying cash pay based on your annual income and then there's a financial aid package that is specifically for those who would like to apply for it and alhamdulillah we've been successful in actually getting a lot of folks who need the assistance to get therapy for themselves or their children completely covered or partially covered with our financial aid package alhamdulillah so in that way you have a lot of different ways of accessing professional mental health care so please do consider it they're all Muslim alhamdulillah wonderful excellent people some of whom you've met tonight alhamdulillah and others of our team who are not here alhamdulillah it is a large team and the table is here for you to kind of talk with a little bit more now I realize that here that the Qiyam part has started so those who'd like to go for the prayer are welcome too and those who'd like to stay behind and ask for us some questions we're here to answer your questions inshallah what kind of questions do we have inshallah tonight no inshallah my love bless you my love bless you who would like to take on the question yes please wajma and just if you can repeat the question for those online to hear so the question was I will try to rephrase it as as much as I can so it was that is that okay for teens to say I had enough of this and you know I need a break now I would like to ask that from you I will turn that question to you is that okay for you to take a break and I you know this this is this is great that you you know one thing that I want to point out is that even even when you're in one family every everyone's responses individual everyone deals with things differently right and then I think it is totally normal for her to say that she wants to take a break I feel the same way myself sometimes it's just too overwhelming you cannot continue to function if you're being assimilated so much so it will be totally normal for her to say I need a break and for you as a mom to respect that right to say yeah okay sure whenever you're ready that you would like to talk about it I'm right here for you and then there you have given her permission that it's okay for her to come whenever she wants to come because imagine if she she's saying that and then you're pushing right it is it's almost the opposite of what you would like to happen right she feels cornered she feels pushed and really you know invalidated because she's sometimes unfortunately we we look at the kids differently but they are as much of a human as the rest of us right and they have needs and rights just the rest of us and you know I know in the communities that I have been raised in is just easy to say these are kids they're resilient they don't need it right go to your room you can take it right no they they need as much space as we do so thank you for bringing that question bringing up that question inshallah and thank you Ajman what a wonderful answer I'm going to take one of the questions online and then come back to the room inshallah the next question is I've recently come to the United States after living in a Muslim country and I'm a visible Muslim I feel scared to go outside especially alone in hijab is that normal and how do I get out of it yes I can take it all right so I hope all of you heard the question it was about fear as a visible Muslim going out as a hijabi and I and all of us here are wanting to validate those emotions and it is very normal to feel any kind of emotion especially sense of nervousness and fear when we hear about attacks or hate crimes and it just makes you a human to feel those and actually to say them in fact I will share I have felt that this week too and like I shared with my like gym example there is a source of self-care that I was feeling hesitant about accessing this week and I've heard from other sisters as well just wanting to recreate or find that sense of safety right now so you're not alone if you are feeling this and my advice would be trying to find safety little by little if that means you know coming to the masjid talking to other sisters just going to school just going to work and finding those safe people you would like to talk with maybe you're not talking with every single person and you know certain people maybe have very different views and you and you're like you know I just don't have the energy for that today that's okay so validate that for yourself and I think slowly inshallah you are going to get out there and find that safety again it's a process so don't rush that I I think if you're finding though that you're avoiding constantly and you know not leaving the house and hyper vigilant all the time that's when you know getting that support and professional help is important and required but I think it's natural for all of us right at some point we may feel that hyper vigilance and just we want to be safe and protected right so yeah and there are different solutions whether you have kids who are hijab or you are hijab like finding people to want to walk with if you want or finding allies who will be there for you finding safe people at school or work and that kind of thing I think it's a dialectic two things can be true at the same time have that healthy fear and also don't lean on the extreme of too much fear right no the believer is always kind of trying to find that balance inshallah very nice answer thank you so much Dr. Sada I couldn't agree more about this and somebody asked me about the this whole concept of you know if I've come more recently and it was after 9-11 didn't quite experience with aftermath in those especially those first couple of years that were really difficult for those of you who were here you probably remember this quite clearly what is what is this now compared to that how does that and you know my response was there are some similarities for sure but there's also some key differences these 20 years that have passed there has been a lot more visibility about hijab Muslim woman in particular Islam in general I would say as well and there is also kind of more of a an understanding not to say that this is not going to happen because we're seeing not only are we seeing harassment and hate crimes we just saw a witness a murder of a child right I mean like it's this is still very very real so safety is very key but I would also say that inshallah these are the lesser amounts compared to maybe in these 20 years there's been a lot more visibility and understanding and even people knowing what this is called I mean when we were going through school growing up and nobody knew what this thing was called right and now it's like over the summer this little girl we were in a in a you know place with the little kids and this little girl comes up to me in a completely different state and she goes I really like your hijab I was like wow they even knew that like the color is pretty and I was like wow that's a lot of color like how do you even know this word I mean it just it's a different generation and that doesn't make it perfect or necessarily super easy but I think it's somewhat different I would say than in previous times so just also know that and I love what you said there of like the believer or somebody who is you know Gaius and Fulton right they're they're very careful right and they learn from things so they're they're they have wisdom and they kind of act upon that as well inshallah other questions from the audience I just wanted to say with what Dr. Rania said with education there is a lot more awareness right now about what's going on in Gaza people who have never spoken up before about celebrities well-known people they're speaking up right now I mean it's unprecedented I'd say so the balance keep that in mind there are obviously going to be haters and trolls but we have a lot of allies as well and also just look at the masjid today mashallah the hope of our community coming together in times of crisis this is a beautiful silver lining and you know not to silver align unnecessarily I think it's the both and that we need to keep in mind inshallah yes we had a question right so the question was are there so I talked about kind of like having your child and then your child's 14 and you're starting to notice maybe some behavioral changes and the sister's question is well are there milestones along the way that we should kind of be thinking about are there normal behavioral responses and so I'll address that the first thing I'll also address is inshallah one day I will be a doctor I'm just one hour right now no I want to make sure to be honest with my community okay I think I'll I'll address parts of this and I would love to hear from others on the panel inshallah the first thing that came to mind when you talked is transitional periods so your kid will you know maybe go I don't know if everybody homeschools I know it's kind of very much on the rise but alhamdulillah the sister homeschool so there's something called adjustment disorder but so adjustment disorder is during times of life transitions we might see some different behaviors and this is very important now what I will say is in in some cases there might be an underlying mental health concern so say we have a teenager who's struggling with depression but has also just moved to another school the parent might say adjustment disorder on the clinical lens I say maybe maybe depression especially if they meet criteria but you really have to keep in mind those transitional periods so if when your child is transitioning from elementary school to middle school you know if they've left behind friends and now they're going into this new space where maybe only one of their friends is coming with them or they've lost all of their friends because they're going to a different school this is a very critical point for your child and I I really can't emphasize that enough if you're moving you've moved neighborhoods and the people that your kids have grown up with are no longer are no longer accessible to them that is you you just want to monitor behavior so think of any major life transition you've moved houses you moved states you've moved around it's not a lot I never saw people move around I born and raised in Canada I never saw people move around as much as the United States I lived in this state for a year and I actually moved back here and like for me I'm like her your kid's doing like you know are they okay so the first thing that comes to mind is life transitions I think the second thing is parental education on developmental developmental like kind of periods of kids so it is very natural your kids if you're there's so many funny videos on YouTube maybe they're not good they're funny to me but of kids fighting with their siblings and parents think like oh there's behavioral issues that's actually very normal they're gonna kind of fight you know like we've seen a lot of videos with like fighting over toys and siblings are going to kind of have this rivalry and it's part of how we how they kind of like express and identify their personality growing up so it's not to say that oh my kid is fighting with their sibling they're having serious behavioral issues in fact in a lot of child disorders we don't take one situation we might say we have to see this present at home and then in the school setting or in like if there is part of like a sports team we'll say we want to see in other settings as well because sometimes the home setting it's very normal we we fight with our siblings and there might be a little bit of a like a rough period with somebody at home there's more I can say but I imagine Dr. Zahra might actually have some some things so I'm putting you on the spot but I I know this is kind of right up your alley too you read my mind, it comes in back Tzatzakaloha Hermona and inshallah dr. almost inshallah I mean so this is a very expansive question and I don't think we can answer all of that but I would just say to familiarize yourself with the resources out there because anxiety can look different in different children there are criteria that we look for when diagnosing anxiety or anxiety disorders there are some common themes such as excessive worry the restlessness it is difficult to concentrate that can be a symptom as well sleep is a very big one so if you're noticing difficulties falling asleep waking up for night at night or waking up much earlier than expected appetite changes some of these are overlapping with anxiety depression sometimes with other mental disorders as well I would say too very big thing we look at is is this causing impairment in different settings so is your child not able to participate in school because they are so worried at school are they not able to do the normal activities they usually do so that's that or that's the point that parents usually come into our offices and say hey you know so-and-so has just not been able to play the sport or function at home or function at school and I'm like okay let's take a look there there's something that's probably going on but great resources online I'd say for child resources there's Child Mind Institute online there's also Children's Health Council where I work and they have lots of articles they have podcasts and things like that so lots of great resources online yeah and obviously check out Maristan as well if you're looking for therapy or support yeah one of the things I'll say is you know I'm gonna talk in the future with Maristan about if there's enough interest and you know parent support groups child support groups like come with your interest and if there's enough interest in something and enough of you are expressing that inshallah we'll put something together that that's my hope I hope it's okay to mention that but we're dreamers here that want to serve the community in just a minute yes fair my last class I'd have blessed you all it is a late night much a lot we've spent a lot of time with all of you I do know we've got through a lot of the questions from that even in the chat there's I'll answer the last one just very very quickly because we do have to wrap up inshallah but I'll just say this because the question is about switching off for those who feel very connected to everything that's happening this with the person asking this question says I feel glued to what's happening and guilty when I step away from the social media because I feel like my heart of mine needs to be there in Palestine but it's affecting my functioning at home and I think a lot of people are experiencing something very similar to this and what I would say to you I know it's really hard to say to somebody unplug completely but what I do think is think about what Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala asked us to do in the month of Ramadan eating is halal all year long all the time eating and drinking mashaAllah as long as that's halal stuff that's all it's fine but there comes a time in the year where Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says to us pause on the eating and the drinking because and that is takes a lot of self-discipline to do so and there's a reason there's actually a test there's there's a there's a benefit in that that sometimes we can't see right away so what I'm going to ask you to do is at least have short periods of time in your day in which you do fast literally from your social media and unplug like as though you were fasting but this time it's not from food and drink but it's from content right and then allow yourself to be able to check back in and see what's happening and then back again similar to you fast right part of the day and you eat part of the day in Ramadan have it be something similar to that in this period of time because I think if I were to tell you disconnect sisters that's completely not possible I mean you're not even going to you're going to be like that's cute and you're not going to be able to do any of it but if you are able to do it in doses and almost like micro dose right the content that you're getting it's much more possible that you can continue being in tune with what's happening and make the du'at that you need to make but also be able to serve your family this sister's asking about functioning at home it's affecting you in mental health our definition of one does something require counseling professional help how do you know it's reached a point where it needs extra help it's when it starts to bleed into your everyday functioning that's when you know it's gone into a level where it needs actual treatment and intervention so this is my first intervention if you can do it on your own Alhamdulillah if you feel like despite the steps and techniques that you're taking it's hard this might be time for professional care as well and with that inshallah we're going to close for tonight I'm going to do a short brief du'at to close this off inshallah and then for those who are still in the room with us um you're welcome to stop by the madistan table and we're going to be around for just a couple a couple some of us will be around for a couple of minutes to answer any other questions you might have barak allahu fikum I do hope that this was somewhat useful to all of you and my deep appreciation thanks at rahmah foundation deeply appreciates and thanks madistan's co-sponsorship in this particular halaka tonight with muna wajma and dr. zahra thank you all for being here and I know you worked long long days mashaAllah and long long day today to join us also until a late night program but really appreciated their voices right sisters mashaAllah please um join me in thanking them barak allahu fikum mashaAllah we ask you to shower your mercy down upon us yeah yeah allah most generous one yeah kareem we ask you to show us your generosity and show that generosity to our sisters and brothers across the umma who are suffering yeah kareem those who are living in fear and tyranny yeah by those who are oppressed yeah bring down their oppressors yeah we ask you yeah kareem for those who lack safety and security to grant them and then safety and security back again yeah kareem yeah we ask you for all those who raise their hands saying i'm hungry i'm thirsty and don't know where to shelter yeah bring them back all that they have lost and better yeah kareem and if not in this dunya then the akhira yeah kareem yeah yeah allah as we sit here in places of security and safety with running water and food and electricity ya rabbi please don't hold us accountable for these nam these blessings you've given us ya rabbi do not hold it against us ya rabbi alameen rather ya rabbi alameen allow us to take all the blessings you have given us and to channel it into kheid into goodness ya rabbi alameen ya rabbi allow us to use what you have given us to help others to help ourselves our families our communities and our umma ya rabbi allow us to be charitable people people who give in sadaqa not just their wealth but also their time and their energy and their knowledge ya rabbi alameen allow us to be in the service of our families first and foremost and in the service of our communities and in the service of humanity ya rabbi alameen ya allah we ask ya kareem to hold us hold us ya rabbi in these moments alleviate our fear leave calm our hearts grant us ya rabbi soothe us ya rabbi with the kind of tranquility that only you can soothe us with ya rabbi alameen protect us ya allah protect us ya kareem protect us here in this state in this place and protect our sisters and brothers across the umma ya kareem ya rabbi we raise our hands tonight for philistine ya rabbi raise our hands tonight for guzza ya rabbi we ask ya kareem to protect them from the falling bombs the arab being the oppression that's coming down on them ya kareem ya rabbi grant those who have died martyred and make them shuhada ya rabbi alameen that feel no pain and no difficulty and that we should not be sad for them ya kareem because they are with you ya rabbi alameen they are in the highest levels of jannah with our prophet muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam ya rabbi ya kareem make our hearts steadfast understanding ya kareem that what they have is better than what they have lost ya kareem what they're getting is better than what they have lost ya rabbi alameen ya allah ya kareem we ask you for all those and raise our hands for all those who have passed away in the recent natural disasters ya rabbi the earthquake in aghanistan ya rabbi the earthquakes that happened in morocco and in turkey and syria ya rabbi alameen the floods in libya ya kareem we ask you ya kareem for all the recent natural disasters to alleviate the pain and suffering of all those who are lost and all those who are left behind ya ilah ya rabbi also raise our hands remembering our sisters and brothers in all all other corners of the earth the genocide that continues to happen ya kareem with our weaker muslims ya kareem and sisters and brothers ya allah please ya kareem there multiple genocides happening against the muslims at this moment ya rabbi ease this ya rabbi ya rabbi ease this ya kareem make our du'a as worthy of hearing and answering ya rabbi alameen and allow it not to just be empty words but words that are followed by actions ya ilah ya rabbi ya kareem ya allah ya rabbi protect us and protect our families uplift us empower us make us from those who are true believers ya rabbi who do upon what they've learned and not from the hypocrites ya kareem ya ilah ya rabb honor us with this dean that you have given us and uplift us with it we ask ya rabbi to increase our love of you and love of our prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam and his sunnah the way he lived his life allow us to embody this ya kareem and to love it and to teach it to our children and their children and their children that they all that our progeny all of them until yawm ad-dina from the mu'minin amin amin amin and that the last of our words are the best of them and the last of our days are the best of them and that we end ya rabbi and hussn al-khitam the best of endings walhamdulillahi rabbi al-alameen wasallallahu alaihi mohammad wa ala alihi wa sahbihi wa sallam ajba'een wa ala liya tul qabool wa al-hidayi wa al-nasru salami fikul ni makan nesaluk ya rabbi besirri surat al-fatiha and for acceptance of this du'a please take a moment sisters and read surat al-fatiha amin amin amin wasallallahu alaihi mohammad wa ala alihi wa sahbihi wa sallam ajba'een baruk allahu fikun thank you again my dear sisters from madistan zunaira munna wajma tahtur zahra mashaAllah may Allah bless this whole entire effort and of course the rahmah foundation all of you have a good night inshaAllah and we'll see you all very soon walhamdulillahi rabbi al-alameen