 Welcome. Thank you for being here. I know Masha'Allah with the current weather situation a lot of people aren't really coming out and I totally understand my friends who have asthma or they're kids have other respiratory issues, so it's very difficult to be out, but thank you for being here. I also want to provide relief to all who are suffering. I miss unfortunately the prayer, but insha'Allah may Allah accept that prayer and hopefully we'll see some rain in the next few days, insha'Allah, some relief. For those who have not attended this before, this is the third workshop that we've done. Just so I get an idea, how many of you have actually maybe watched the other two that was posted or were here? Before we jump into, because this is the third session, I wanted to do a review of the previous session just to kind of bring everybody up to speed, so I'm going to go over some of those slides quickly and then we'll go ahead into the discussion, insha'Allah, for today. So last time we were here, we talked about, well here's the outline, closer, okay sure, alright, I'll actually sit a little closer. So here's the outline, but we'll just go ahead and get into it. So we first talked about spiritual principles and practices for every Muslim home, that we should all be doing our best to implement in our homes. And so we said right away, from the very first one here, is to love Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala wholeheartedly and practice daily gratitude to Him. So we differentiated between half-hearted love and whole-hearted love. What does that mean? If you are, for example, there's many mashallah in our community, many people who have obvious reverence for the book of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, right? They will put it on the highest bookshelves, they might even wrap it in really beautiful cloth. And that's a great sign of reverence and adab to Allah and for His book. However, if you're not reading from the book or acting from the book, then there is some disconnect there, right? You might be showing love in one case, but then you're not following through. So this would be a good example of half-hearted, okay, love of Allah. And a lot of times in our homes we might not be aware of how we're not fully sincere sometimes in the way that we show love. But we would never deny our love, right? Someone asked us, of course, we love Allah, we believe in Allah, we believe in His messengers, we believe in His book. But when it comes to action and follow-through, that is where the evidence of true love is, right? So whole-hearted love of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is really taking seriously what Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala's expectations are of us and really being obedient, right? Listening with full attention and presence. And so that obviously, when it comes to action, the very first thing that we're going to be asked about are our prayers. So making sure that in our homes we establish very clear rules about praying all five prayers on time and doing our best, inshaAllah, to do those prayers together as a family. And I obviously, as time permits, because when you're going during the day hours, if you're working or your kids are in school, that's not possible. However, the other prayers that you are able to do together as a family, the evening prayers, the early morning prayer before you go to school, and then obviously on the weekends, those are all opportunities that you should try to create again this sort of just, it's what you do in your home. You pray together as a family and being very seriously committed to that practice. And so that's, you know, again, we're talking about how to establish love of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and the problems that are set up in our homes. This is one great way to do that. Also love and recitation of the Qur'an. So if you, you know, we talked about this as well, it's very important to take our relationship with the Qur'an seriously. So a lot of parents are good about that for their children. You know, they may put them in Sunday school or have a private tutor or use an online program to get their kids to have a connection with Allah. But they might neglect that for themselves. They may not have ever taken a class, for example, on tajweed or, you know, ever studied, you know, anything, you know, even the seal or anything that really sort of broadens their relationship with the Book of Allah. They may have never committed to those studies. And so that is obviously going to impact, this is again another example of the wholehearted versus the halfhearted. If you yourself are not doing these things and if you recognize that you need to improve your relationship with the Qur'an, do it. Start with yourself. Look for teachers. And in this day and age, there's really no excuse. We have Mashallah, especially if you're in this community in the Bay Area, we are very, very blessed with ample opportunities, ample supply of teachers who are qualified to teach male and female, some privately, some in different masjids or institutions nearby, but also online. I mean, there's now so many different resources. So we have to, though, take it seriously and realize it is a far behind to know how to read the Book of Allah. So when you recognize that, then you don't just look at it for your children and then pressure them all the time, because parents will be very good at policing how much the Qur'an their kids have memorized if they know how to read Arabic. They're very good at that. But again, it starts with you. How are you? What's your relationship like with the Qur'an? So making sure that love of the Qur'an is there and also more specifically, I wrote here, love of recitation of the Qur'an. Because the Qur'an is beautiful and it's beautiful in meaning, it's beautiful in everything, in sound. That's why we have this beautiful art of Tajweed, of learning how to recite. So it's not just this book that we read from, but we actually engage in a very spiritual way when we recite. And so if you create that in your home, then you can, inshallah, practice either reciting together, but especially for young children. I mean, this is very important that we say their du'as over them. So instead of just reading a bedtime story at night, for example, that you spend a good 10, 15 minutes reading all of the protective surahs and du'as over them before they sleep and actually doing it in a beautiful voice. And then when you connect it back to the five daily prayers, that's also a really beautiful way to make the prayer beautiful. Instead of a rushed process or a very dry process where it's just like everybody just kind of stands there, does their mechanical actions. When you have a beautiful recitation, if you, inshallah, are working on it, or your children, everybody's working on it, then it makes the prayer really enjoyable. And so when you're done, everybody feels just like, wow, that was just a really nice experience. Instead of, again, it just being mechanical and outward, we can bring all that beauty out through connecting it with the recitation of the Qur'an. So these kind of can work together, these two things. And then obviously the daily dhikr that we do is very important. If we're not doing reminders on a daily basis, especially protective du'as, then we're just kind of setting ourselves up for problems. Because the dunya is a very difficult place, you know, we've talked about this. It's a place of trial, of tribulation, of sickness, of worry, of stress, of debt, of just anxiety. There's so many things that are just part and parcel of this dunya, of being here alive in this world. Therefore, we have to take whatever means we can to protect ourselves, protect our spiritual hearts from being affected by these things, right? It's like medicine for the soul. And those are daily awrad, because they actually have protective du'as, right? When you actually have a willed, which is a litany of prayers, all from the sunnah, the prophylaxis that you're committed to on a daily basis. You are seeking protection from Allah, from all the dangers and just the things that you might not even think about. But this should be a practice for your family. It's not just something, I think we've gotten to a place where spirituality is something very, very deep and personal, which it should be. But then as parents, we have to also create these things for our children so that they can carry them on. So we have to actually do things with the family as well. You can't just isolate yourself and do things only when you're by yourself, you know? If you're waking up, insha'Allah, for the hajjah, or when you add Isha, that's when you kind of just settle in and you record ahead. And it's just this deep, personal thing. Good for you, we should all do that, insha'Allah, in our time. But if you're not doing it with your family and you want your children, which we all do, we want our children to be insha'Allah believers. We want them to go out into the world, be productive and successful people. We can't expect them to succeed if we're not doing the work while they're young to plant those seeds for them. That's what this is about. So you actually have to be willing to do things as a family and to recognize the importance of making spiritual practice a family thing. It's not just an individual thing. And individually, insha'Allah, if you want to do things outside just for yourself, nobody's saying not to do that. But you shouldn't do it like it shouldn't be one or the other. They should try to do both, really make it, and this is where it's so important that both husband and wife are on the same page about this. And I definitely doubt with couples where the spouses are sort of spiritually on two different paths. And insha'Allah we have to come together for the common good of the children. So even if maybe you are not fully practicing maybe where you should be, it's okay to still try to create that culture for your family and not hold yourself like, oh well I'm not doing it, why should I say it to them? No, remind them. It's better that it comes from you because maybe by you reminding them repeatedly, let's say for example if you're missing some of your prayers but yet you still realize the manna of your duty as a parent and you want to remind your children to pray, you shouldn't stop yourself and say, well I'm not praying five times a day. Why am I going to tell them to pray five times a day? This is what's supposed to come from Shaitan. Don't do that because by being in that position and role as a parent, by reminding them, maybe by those frequent reminders at some point your heart flips and you realize, I need to start being more serious about my prayers, right? But if you just abandon it all together, you're leaving your children to themselves, you're no longer benefiting from the reminders and so what happens is just everything starts to trick or fall apart. So you kind of have to just say, no, as a parent it's my duty to make sure they're taking care of and they're doing what they should be doing and it's interesting because spiritually we may have these conflicts but then when it comes to other things, I don't think we think about it that way. For example, diet, right? I'm sure all parents regardless of how they eat, right? When it comes to parenting, we're always like, no, no, don't eat that, that's not healthy, right? It's too much sugar. It's too much, you know, whatever salt, whatever it is, but we're good about moderating and being moderate with our kids and keeping them on task when it comes to those issues, right? Or reading or, you know, education. We're good about those things and we don't really reflect our own, you know, commitment to those things when we're telling them because we recognize as parents it's our duty to make sure that they're, you know, safe and that they're eating well and that they're doing their work. But for some reason when it comes to spirituality, I think, and this is a clear sign for me anyhow, that this is what's supposed to be shaped on because he's trying to, you know, just divide and conquer, just kind of make everybody sort of independent and slowly kind of fall apart. Whereas, so the remedy to that is, no, let's keep each other accountable. Let's do things together. Let's try to pray together. Let's recite Quran together. Let's do our dhikr together, right? Doing these things together is the remedy because you're a united front against shaitan, right? Especially children, when they're so easily distracted by so many other things. It's a lot easier for them to want to pray if the whole family's praying. Then you're yelling from your room, go pray Hassan, go pray Duhad. And then every two seconds, did you pray? Oh, I forgot. You know, then now you get upset with them. Why not say let's pray together? Because we're stronger when we're together, right? So just having this understanding very from the beginning and applying it across the board will alleviate a lot of the stress that parents put on themselves. When you recognize the importance and the value of doing things in jamaat and together. Our deen is the deen of jamaat, right? We do everything together. For that reason, because Allah SWT knows when we're alone, we're weak. When we're doing things by ourselves, we're weak because our nus is weak. And then we have, like I said, all these other distractions and shaydanas right there. So it makes them harder, but trying to do things together is a lot easier. So as parents, keep this in mind that for my family, I'm not going to make spirituality something where I'm just barking orders at my kids and telling them what to do and I'm doing my own thing and there's just huge disconnect. But we're going to do this as a family. We have a spiritual family culture that we're creating. Yes, you have a question? Sorry, I can't. I get the whole doing it together. And you've probably often heard this where the mom is praying, the dad is not praying. And I come from a similar situation where my husband is not a regular five-time prayer person. But yet I've got all boys and there's no girls either besides me and I'm doing it. And where do you see this going in future? And I think you already probably have present-day situations where parents are coming. Oh, you know, they push, they bark, order, the mom did it all the time, all the time. What does that look like in like 10, 5, 10 years for my kids and for me in the house? Yeah, that's definitely a challenge. And I mentioned that there are going to be situations where the husband and wife are into this spiritual past. But I think ultimately the intention should always be to bring together the family in a beautiful way. If it's like, you know, resentful, like let's say if you want to pray and you have, I don't know if you have teenage boys. They're little. They're little. The oldest is nine years old. Okay, masha'Allah. Soon he'll be at the age where he can lead the prayer. But in the interim you can still lead them in prayer and teach them and kind of just, again, prepare them for this beautiful role of being the Imam. But also it's really good for you to honor your spouse's role in front of them. So even if your spouse isn't praying all five times a prayer, the prayers, if he, Alhamdulillah, knows how to pray and he recognizes the value of prayer, it would be really good, I would say, to honor him and just say, you know, masha'Allah, the father being the Imam of the family, it would be really nice if you could lead us in prayers. Why don't you? And tell your boys, go ask Baba, can you please lead us in prayer? Because you're the Imam of the house, you know. Sometimes men need to be reminded of their incredible role in the family, you know. And it's really good for them to hear that. And even if they're not doing all five prayers, just to have that support and recognition from the children, from you to honor him, to honor his place as the leader of the household, even in spiritual matters, even if he's, you know, personally weak in certain areas, you just keep reminding him, this is your role, Allah swt has given it to you. We recognize that we honor you. Do you see that, what that would do for him as being, because every father wants their children obviously to look at them in that way, right? To be the hero, right? Every father and mother, we all want that. But it's important sometimes to gently, tactfully, beautifully send those little reminders and not to say, you don't even pray, you know, when you come from that place of negativity, it's never going to work, right? I'm sure you don't do that. But a lot of times sometimes we can give in to our feelings in the moment, right? And it doesn't work. But trying the opposite, whenever you give anything to someone who, a reminder, packaging is so important. And I say this all the time, I'm a true believer and I've done it, I've seen it, I've been a witness to it for many years, that you can relay a message to anybody as long as you're very careful in how you package it. That's why words matter, tone matters, timing matters, you have to be considerate and being an empath is being so aware of the other persons, just who they are and we're going to kind of talk about that a little bit, that you can tailor whatever you want to say to them as opposed to just dropping them off, you know? And a lot of times sometimes there are communication styles like that. I feel something, I just need to drop it, you know, without giving any consideration. Is it going to be received the way you want it to be received? So I think in this situation just gently sort of beautifully reminding him of his role as the Imam, inviting him to lead the prayer one or two, you know, whichever prayer that you can, is a good start and just continuing to nurture that, you know, insha'Allah. And of course, yes. I have a question about, so in general, mostly in the message you see in man, so I'm curious if there is a recognition underway for men that they can pray, like go to the Masjid and pray alone versus staying at home and praying in congregation with their families? That's an excellent question. Or taking them to the Masjid altogether. Right, that's an excellent question, Mashallah. And I think, you know, I'm alive, I would say every prayer maybe would require its own, you know, response. Like if there's certain prayers that are easy for you to come to the Masjid and do the prayer that's facilitated for you, and it kind of works out, you know, that your family, you know, either is with you or is at home. But it's sort of easy. That's, that's, it would be recommended, obviously, to come to the Masjid as often as possible. But if you're, it's a hardship for you and you're kind of forcing yourself or it's like causing extra stress just to get to the Masjid, and then there's other duties at home that also need to be taken care of. And I remember a long time ago there was a situation where a sister would complain because she had little ones, you know, and they needed milk and they needed groceries, they needed stuff. But the husband was such a stickler about praying all the prayers at the Masjid that he was abandoning his duties at home to get, you know, to do that. And in that case, that would be blameworthy. Your rights, you have to fulfill your rights to your family. But if those things are met, inshallah, and then you're able to and it's not going to cause problems for, for your wife and for your family, inshallah, why not? Of course, it's best, especially for the brothers, we know the hadith. There's more reward, inshallah, for praying at the Masjid. So, yes, inshallah, I think that would be recommended then. So just a small whole question about your opinion. I see there's a big division in terms of bringing kids to the Masjid. Some people say, yeah, sure, it's great. And then some people say, almost it's wrong because they're very distracting. Right. So I'm just serious with you. Yeah, I mean, I, I love kids and I, you know, I, to me, that's, um, I feel like the Masjid, especially in this day and age, we have to do our, like, due diligence to create as many beautiful memories and bonds with the Masjid that we can. And that should start off, you know, when they're young. You know, people might disagree with me, but I think as long as you have, you know, speak to your children and teach them the adib of the Masjid, teach them that, you know, it's, there's certain spaces that might be okay to play around and be with your friends and, you know, have fun. But in other times, for example, as soon as the prayer starts, you know, have them pray with you. So hopefully that should resolve the distraction during the prayer time. Right. But being very clear about the rules, like when the prayer starts or if there's a speaker, if there's a program happening, you have to play quietly or go somewhere else, but not kind of having, I think, this just free attitude that, the Masjid's like a playground. I would say not to do that, but also not to say not to come, not to bring them at all. Those are two different extremes that I think we can, the medium is very simple. Inshallah, bring them because we want to create those bonds with them and, you know, and have them love the space. But at the same time, with their age, appropriately explaining to them the boundaries, what they can and they can't do. And if you find it's difficult, maybe they're too young. I would say not to fault them for that, because children are children and it's terrible that people get to this place of yelling at children and shaming children. Make us never do that. Because they're in the world of imagination. They're in the world of play and they're just being children. But we can, we can ourselves because we know our kids best, determine if maybe it's too soon and hold off and bring them to programs or prayers later. But not to have this fear of, oh, someone's going to scold me. No, the masjid is the house of Allah, Subh'anaHu Wa Ta'ala. Every single one of us have a haqq to it. It's your space as much as it is mine and nobody should ever make you feel like you're not welcome here, even if you bring your children. But I think you know how to adab, all of us should take into the consideration the other congregants and realize if our children may be, again, too young and too lively and re-abunctious, then maybe hold off until there, until later. Insha'Allah. So we're just, for those who are walking in, we're doing a quick review. This can manifest in a few different ways. A, obviously trying our best to know him and study him and study how he was so that we can emulate him, right? So we have to know the promise I sent him. It's hard to say we'll follow the promise I sent him if you don't have deep knowledge of what that means. What does that mean? It means to really look at how he conducted himself, how he lived, how he existed, how he treated other people, his mannerisms, his disposition, and try your best to emulate that as best as possible. On Friday, you know, we were here, I was here filling in for Dr. Rania and we took that time to talk about a very famous hadith that I personally love that I just feel is just summarized as so many things that we can all learn from. So I'll just go ahead and read that here for us as well, just for us to reflect on. So Sid Na'ali said that the promise I sent him, he said about the promise I sent him the following. He said he was always cheery of disposition, easygoing and compassionate. He was not boorish or coarse, ruckus or vulgar or critical. He did not over praise or jest and he would ignore that which he disliked. He would not dash the hopes of anyone who hoped for something from him and they would not be disappointed. He withheld from himself three things, debate, excess and that which did not concern him and he withheld from the people three things. He would never criticize or disparage anyone. He would not seek to shame anyone and he would not speak about anything unless he hoped to be rewarded by Allah for it. So this is again just a summary and you can get a pretty good image and picture of how the promise I sent him was. Just the easygoing, cheerful part first of all. As parents, think about that. How are you as a parent? Are you an easygoing, compassionate, cheerful parent? Or are you the opposite, boorish, vulgar, critical? Take yourself into account because if you think being, and I know it's praised a lot in this culture, there's good and bad in everything but the model that's gotten a lot of popularity is this tiger parenting model where it's just like being emotionally sort of cut off, very critical, high expectations, high standards and not to say there's anything wrong with having high expectations and high standards but I think even just the image of a tiger parent is to me a conflict because it's very aggressive to me. It's very harsh. It's not something that I would in any way associate with the parenting model that we're taught. The parenting model of the promise I sent him who was very gentle. And so I think we can take the good from all of these things that we might find. Okay, well I like this aspect of it but if it becomes a way in which we engage our children where we're just emotionally cut off and we don't ever recognize they're good even if they're doing amazing work where it's just never, if they get A minuses, why isn't it an A plus? That kind of attitude, I don't think that's in line with the prophetic model which is to be again easy going and compassionate understanding and to be balanced. So you kind of have to just take yourself into account what is my rapport with my children? They feel affection is very important. Are you affectionate with your children? Or are you just kind of, because it's not easy for you, it's not comfortable for you, maybe you were raised with an overly affectionate parent, so you're kind of just, everything's very minimal in that regard or maybe non-existent. These are all things we have to hold ourselves to account for, yes. So in living where we do, especially in the Bay Area, it's very competitive. To keep your kids at that high standard, while, we always try to give them that affection and that love and all that stuff, but it's hard sometimes to find that balance between keeping them up to par and also, can you elaborate on maybe how we do it? I agree with you. We are in a very highly competitive area and time. There's a lot of pressure on students, but I think checking in emotionally and just being available emotionally is the remedy of that. I don't think we should necessarily, like I said, lower the standards in terms of especially education. Ehsan is important and we talked about this. Having high standards as Muslims is important. We should be trying to always do our best in everything. So I don't think we need to compromise that, but it's a matter of the tone that I'm speaking about, right? So as long as we're emotionally still giving and loving and understanding, we shouldn't do well on something. Instead of immediately reacting to the disappointment of, you know, the grade that they received and blaming and shaming and getting angry, which I know a lot of parents do because they're in mode, they're just thinking immediately of the repercussions, right? A bad grade, a bad test score is going to affect GPA, it's going to affect college applications. It's just too much stress that we think about, right? So we immediately go to that negative place, but instead, really being emotionally connected to your child to say, wait a second, what happened? You know, maybe I need to support you more. You know, maybe your load is high, maybe you need a tutor, maybe you need something to really, but that type of persona done, right? And just being willing to be compassionate before you immediately get to that negative place, I think is the... How you're reacting, right? Yes, your reactions, your tone and pausing before you. I mean, I think the reaction is something that... We talked about temperaments, which we'll, Inshallah, go over quickly here, but it's helpful to know your own temperament and your children's temperament to kind of figure out the healthy rhythm, right? Because some children don't respond well to that critical, you know, hyper-critical parenting style, and you might actually shut them down, whereas others have high, you know, high achievers are kind of pushed by that almost. So it's really important to be well versed in this for yourself and your children to know what's the appropriate model or style for each child. You know, we talked about that too. Every child is different, and you have to be so in tune with your children based on their temperament, their personality type to know how to communicate things effectively for them. But the one-size-fits-all model of parenting or if I'm just, this is who I am and you have to accommodate, you know, that is, I think, what I'm trying to address. Like, it's negative. It causes problems in other areas. So, Inshallah, just being gentle. And that's why I think, again, when we're studying the process of this example and we're studying his Sida, it's very clear that in so many ways, I mean just reading through this, it's always about balance, right? For praise, that's really important too, because you don't want to be the opposite. Where your children are making huge mistakes, but then you're so afraid of not pushing them away that you gloss over everything and you look over everything and you give them passes. And a lot of parents do that too. They're so afraid that I'm going to lose my children and they're not going to love me anymore. So, they overlook everything. So, the balance is the important part here, right? Being and then trying to find that. Sure, of course. So, usually how it works in our family is like, you know, my husband is more of an authoritarian. He kind of gives them that a little bit of the hardness. And then I fall through with being a little bit more gentle with them and when I work with them, I'll kind of try to calm the way he is down, but that's his personality. He's a little stronger. And he loves his kids. He does his best to give them affection as well. Like, when he's in that mode, that's like how he is. He's very authoritative. So, when I, you know, he tells me then back to me and he's like, you know, can you work with them on something? So, I try to do it with more like, is that okay? Absolutely. And this is why when you do the study of personality typing even with your kids, it's so helpful. Because what you do is you actually explain that mommy's style is this way, Baba's this way, but what it does is just kind of, you know, it validates everybody's personality differences. And it also lets children know not to take things personally, right? Because if they feel like they're being targeted because, you know, Baba's so critical and then mommy's so, you know what I mean? It kind of gives them, I think, a false impression of what's really happening. It's not a personal attack on anybody, because that's when feelings get heard. And then there's all these miscommunications. It's a miscommunication, right? But when you explain the list and we're all very different and we have different styles, and that when Baba speaks this way too, it's because this is literally and then you kind of, I mean that's why I love, you know, encouraging families to do this together. Because you're giving, you're defining things that are kind of either misunderstood or just not really understood at all and you're giving words to it, right? So it's like when you see certain behaviors now you can identify that as, oh, like for example, I mean when we get to the temperance, I'll explain better, but like if you see a color temperament type is someone who's very reactive, right? And so if they have an intense reaction to something. So if your husband's, let's just say for the sake of this discussion, if he is a color of personality type then he would be very reactive and critical in heart, right? But if your children know that oh, okay, that's just a part of Baba's personality type that emerges when certain things happen, but internally he's also, these are all the other positive qualities that Baba has, right? Then it kind of helps them understand, again, it's just who he is and it's who, how he operates but I'm not going to sit here and think he's just being mean to me, right? Because this is unfortunately in the child's mind, if they don't understand they'll take it personally and then all of a sudden it can fracture their relationship with him and then that's where the imbalance comes with you because there's more expectations from you, right? To help them and so it can just cause kind of spirals, right? But when we define these things and actually give, you know, again, clarity it just helps children process things better. So I have, you know, people that I know, for example, if they see these personality types come out, they'll instead of labeling even the child or the individual, they'll, it's kind of like an identity that they, that are within them and they'll go, oh, so like, Mr. Colerick is coming out now, right? But it's just a way of, again, you know, kind of not teaching children that this is just part of how we, you know, things are. We have a design element to our personality type and if you see that it's okay, just kind of remember their good intentions. This is your father, obviously, who loves you and cares about you and, you know, don't take it so personally. He's like that with everybody. He's like that at work. He's like that with me and it's sort of like, oh, okay, I understand now, right? So that's why the typing of, or the temperament testing is so important and we talked about that the last one. So if you haven't had a chance to see the video that MCC posted, that's, inshallah, the process of following his some, following his ways first, that has to start with Sita, studying him, right? Studying his story, studying his life, studying everything about him. And so there's different resources we can do that with. We can actually study his, you know, Sita intact. We can study his attributes through the Shema'il, his physical attributes. We can study his characteristics, his qualities in other ways. Qadiyyad, you know, there's a text by Qadiyyad called Shifa. So there's different resources that actually give you real in-depth analysis of how he was. You can do that self-study or study with your family and just really bring everybody again to the same understanding of how he was and then start really taking yourself into account by how are we emulating his examples. So making that important and then the daily results that he's left for us, it's very important that we all do our jobs. From the morning when we wake up and we open our eyes, there's the ah, before we enter the restroom, before we get dressed for work or school, teaching our children all of these things is a good way again to connect our heart to the problems I set up because he left those jobs for us. So making sure again, this is part of how our family, what our family does, the routine, right, of our day. And then Friday should be a really special day. It's hard because many parents work, but for the parents that are at home or at least get to see their children during the day before, you know, the day is over, the entire, Thursday night until the evening of Friday is the day of Juma, right. During that time, there should be a celebratory sort of feel in the home because you know the Hadid, Friday is the Eid of the believer, right. So we should treat Friday as a special day and really try to do things together. So whether that's Sadawat on Thursday night some extra prayers or having you know, maybe a class on Sira going over a particular Hadid doing something that honors the Prophet's wife's son. These are really important practices that we can all encourage together again. And I hope the theme of doing things as a unit is really getting across because I want that to be clear. Everything we're talking about isn't just individual study or assignments you give to your kids. Where it's like here color this dome of the Prophet's wife's Masjid or work on this workbook or work on this worksheet. No, it's about sitting together as a family and actually having real in real time discussions and honoring the Prophet's wife's son that way. And then you know, these are other principles that we should all understand which again we're just doing a review. Ahsan and Nidhwan which are excellence right, spiritual excellence meticulousness and thoroughness. So making sure that when we are teaching our children about how to be, just how to exist that they understand this concept of Ahsan. To try to also always strive for spiritual excellence or excellence in everything. Excellence in their work. Excellence in how they take care of themselves. Hygiene, personal hygiene. They should be clean. Our children should be taught from a very young age to take their cleanliness serious right, to not walk around and when you see it all the time, kids with like dirty, long nails you know, or like just food all over their face and clothing we should teach our children to not be comfortable with that. It's not part of our tradition to do that. Cleanliness is very, very important but this is all from a young age you can teach this right. And then in their work, in their schoolwork, in anything they do, in their chores to not do things again, just half heartedly, not really wanting to do it, feeling it's a burden and they give you the bare minimum effort this is something we shouldn't stand for if they do something wrong, ask them to repeat it at a higher standard. If they don't know how, take the time to teach them. Because if you let these things go, you create habits that will affect their spiritual practice. If they become people or individuals that don't have a high standard for themselves, why would we expect them to be saintly in their prayers or have high achievements in terms of their spiritual efforts. They're going to fall short there too. Because they've never been pushed to try to achieve better. So, making sure they understand that. And at the Fakora Tadabur which is to reflect, to contemplate on the consequences of things we should teach them these words. So these words we should know them as vocabulary words from our Dean. And teach them the concepts to our children. To actually reflect is to go outside to look at, you know, Allah's creation. To think about what's happening in the world globally everything. Not just in your own bubble, but to think about the bigger picture and then to also weigh the consequences of things. To understand that every single action has a consequence to it. And when you teach your kids to do that thought process early, then you're building their conscience, right? You're helping them build their conscience which obviously we want them to have. As Muslims we want them to be able to really sit there and instead of us telling them right and wrong all the time that when we're not with them that they know what not to do. That they know what to do and what not to do. If we're not with them and they're hanging out with their friends, if you've built their conscience enough, inshallah if the prayer time comes in they're going to remember and even if they have to be that one that says hey guys, I got to stop playing football or soccer. We're on the court, we're having fun, but it's prayer time, right? If they have to be the one to do it, they will do it because you've wired them to build, to have this awareness, to reflect and to weigh consequences of things. So it's very important to do that at a young age. And then muraqaba, to meditate, right? To watch over your spiritual heart. To really just think about you know, whatever you need to do individually. And to teach your children some kids respond well to doing vikib, some kids like to pray, some kids like to read Quran, right? So whatever it is, yes. So I'm just hearing what you're saying and trying to do more things together. But I also hear like just as adults and parents in the household I really discuss the need about how everyone can mentor what we call home training. Yes. And raising our children, like that's just not it's not accidental. Absolutely. Not just as mostly, but the adults really unify Yes. We're looking just hard to do that. Right. It's not impossible, but you have that it has to be it has to be like, you know what I mean? Of course. Because I think for kids it sends me some messages and it's hard for them to understand you know, like one man it's okay to do this but with this other man it's not. I agree. Or you know, like gold makes a lot, but like what is the impact? If our children don't see the impact it's a lot on us. Right. You know, that's the best quote on quote seller. You know what I mean? Absolutely. Out of salat and then we're barking or we're doing whatever. We don't even apologize to our children when we're in the wrong. Right. You know, so things like that. So I'm here in terms of collective Yes. But also I think a collective mindset. Absolutely. No, Jezako kind of near 100% right. We need to and that's why parents need to be on the same page. Even if like I said, they're on spiritually different courses they have to see the common mutual benefit of being on the same page just to raising their children. And not to do that the whole thing where I was in, I don't know if you walked in a little late, but I addressed that if you're not doing what you need to be doing spiritually and you think that because of that you shouldn't have any part in the spiritual welfare of your children. That's not right. Even if you're weak in certain areas your priority should be to do the best by your children. Right. And not to say just like I said we don't do that whole thing like what it's a reflection. Right. So as parents, you need to come together and have a very serious conversation. Listen, wherever we are individually on our path that's between us and Allah. May Allah guide us to whatever which is best but when it comes to our children can we please have a united front can we please have a united way of parenting them when it comes to their spiritual practice and all of these things because we have to do right by them we have to give them the best. We have to give ourselves and our own souls that's on us but we shouldn't let that affect our way of parenting our children it's irresponsible to do that and I think that kind of also does take some pressure off even maybe secular parents or parents who are just not religious at all because they realize you know what fine for me myself unless they completely don't believe and you're really dealing with a different set of issues but if they are they're nominally or at least in practice in some areas they're Muslim but they have short you know comeings or they're weak in certain areas I hope that by having a really important discussion with a spouse who maybe is the more active one that they will see the benefit of just abandoning their own individual you know perspectives or opinions on certain things and just saying it's about the best for the children and whatever is the best for the children to pray 5 times a day I'm going to encourage them to pray 5 times a day I have friends who are you know married to people who are not Muslim but it's the non-Muslim parents who will tell their children go pray it's the non-Muslim parents who recognize the value for their children to be doing these things even though they don't do it themselves so this is really good this is the kind of mindset we should have and that's where I hope that by attending these types of programs together couples can come together with some mutually understood and accepted agreement about how to do this but you're right there's definitely a collective mindset in order for this to succeed and so that is the starting ground if you feel like your spouse might be it's going to be difficult for you then present this to them like listen I want to start doing things differently because our children's souls take care you know the world outside wants to devour literally our children's souls it's ready it's just everything's already in place you know from everything you see on social media and media in general and just the society outside the spiritual health of the child matters very little they're just consumers and that's all they are to the world outside so if you really recognize that and hopefully as parents you'll come together inshallah and see what can we do to protect our children and we need to have a united front so let's start implementing these different things and then you know pace yourself this can't be done overnight if you're not doing it it's not something that you can just instantly have everything a certain way it has to be done by priority and priority is the prayers are absolutely priority connecting with the problems life is absolutely priority these are things that's why thank you and so the last point here is mohasaba self inventory again taking yourself into account teaching your children to do this every day and this can be done as a dinner discussion you know where everybody kind of looks back at their day and says what was your high point what did you do today that was a good thing that you're proud of and is there anything that you did that you weren't proud of and seeing what what sharing you know happens communication is just so important you know I think I read something recently about children and how you know the different distractions they have whether it's television or social media and part of the study also accounted for the time that they spent having serious conversations with their parents and it was less than I think it was less than five minutes for sure maybe three minutes of actual conversation with their parents on a day to day basis as opposed to hours online playing video games watching TV socializing with their friends so if you're thinking like you think about what type of influence could you possibly have with your children if you're barely speaking to them for five minutes a day and then they have all these other influences so when you have these types of practices in place they force you to do things together they force you to look at each other to have conversations to actually connect emotionally with each other so that you're not just strangers that live in the same home right and eat the same meals but you actually are communicating about what's happening to you on a daily basis so that's why these are so important now just to kind of move quickly again because we have more content to cover so you know again two other concepts that felt really important is teaching our children how to protect their heart by A, being simple in their generosity because a lot of times children um they do have good natures and they can be very giving you know they want to be accepted by their peers they want friends they want everybody to love them so they might give too much of themselves of their whatever it is they have their possessions their money their wealth you see kids getting taken advantage of a lot so we have to teach our children obviously generosity is very important in our faith but to be you know prudent in our generosity to be wise and to not feel that you have to always please every single person and give every single thing to you know to everyone around you but to just kind of again so that this again practices and if you emulate that they can follow obviously your lead but just having them you know learn that and then also very important is to mind their own business I think a lot of kids especially when you reach a junior high and high school ages they get in trouble a lot because they're they haven't been wired to just be like I'm standing out of that you know because everything in this society is about wanting to know you know we live in a tabloid society where it's very gossip and like wanting to know everybody's business and now with like social media and like you know these instant videos and everybody's got quick little you know whether it's memes or whatever it is within two seconds when something happens it's just this need to know everything but you have to teach your children and you also have to again practice this yourself that I'm not going to care about things that don't have to do with me and I'm going to turn that just mechanism off like I'm just not interested and so when they're at school and if their friends are into something or something's happening there's a fight or whatever it is I mean kids you know they get riled up very easily but if they're again no like no no no that's trouble I don't want to be you know I don't want to go down that road then inshallah it'll protect them but these have to be things again you talk about as concepts because if you're just saying just saying it like mind your own business without connecting it to the spiritual like this are hadith you know the Prophet s.a.w. taught us these concepts why let's have a discussion about it why do you think he would explicitly tell us right minhus the Islam why would he tell us that the excellence part of the excellence of a person's Islam is might is leaving that which does not concern us what do you think what's the benefit of that right and then kind of letting that get into a family discussion letting it sink in so that again you're planting these ideas these seeds for them so that when they're in facing a situation hopefully inshallah we can only pray that it wakes them up you know and that's the thing is that we have to know we don't control outcomes we talked a lot about that during the first session we just can control what we do whatever happens is the will of Allah is upon that but what we can do as parents is do our best to protect them right so teaching them these concepts now and then we went over leadership basics in Islam which we're going to get to in a little bit I'm going to repeat this slide so and then we talked about the power of five so this is you know again something for all of us to just remember and to know well that there's this magic ratio according to experts called the five to one ratio and it's a ratio of positive to negative comments so if you can keep your positive to negative comment ratio of five to one this is a very healthy standard for any relationship whether it's your marriage or your relationship with your children but if you are more critical or more negative then you're you're setting yourself up for a lot of problems because it's going to build resentment and eventually it might just cause irreparable damage to your relationship so you really want to again hold yourself accountable as a parent how positive am I as a spouse when I come in home after a long day's work am I immediately negative and just why did I get this done why did I get that done do I hear that from my kids a lot that I'm always annoyed and cranky and upset or why am I so mad all the time or my spouse do I hear that if you're hearing that this is where you have to take yourself into account how can I change so just remember five to one hold yourself accountable and then we talked about the five love languages so again very important for all of us to study this is a book I can't remember if it's Chapman or John Gray I don't think it's John Gray I think it's baby is it Chapman I'll be Chapman thank you that he wrote this book on the five love languages and this is very helpful because you need to know how you love how you want to be loved that's your spouse first and foremost and then your children and also learn how they want to be loved because it's important not everybody loves the same we don't communicate exactly the same and this is why really getting in touch with yourself is so important in terms of knowing who you are what your needs are which is what the theme of our conversation will be today inshallah a little bit more on this so you know and then we talked about the temperaments the four temperaments in Islam we kind of went through this I'm just going to again go through this quickly because this is a lot of this content is available on the previous video you can go through it but we talked about this ancient science of the four temperaments that was founded by Hippocrates the father of modern medicine and then later developed by Galen another Greek philosopher and then Ibn Sina and they had this idea basically that human behavior can be determined based on different fluids and the balances of different fluids in the system and so if you take a test it'll help you determine what your temperament is and then it identifies different characteristics and qualities of each temperament I know the slides that are really small but the four temperaments are the first one is a choleric is an intense sort of personality type they're type A very high achieving people high standards very reactionary extroverted and so they have good positive and negative qualities but they like to have it their way and control so again you should know is this who I am does this kind of relate to me the type of person that really does like to have things that my way and it's hard for me to give up control to other people and if I'm reactionary you're likely a choleric excuse me then we have sanguine which is also an extroverted personality type but they're a little different they're reactionary but they're more of the bubbly life of the party very popular they just really like connecting with people they're chatty they're always you know just kind of always in a good mood it seems like and so again the popularity and being well known and well liked is really important for them so if you're a people pleaser, if you're just always eager and the one that says yes to everybody's requests and you're always available to help people then you're likely are a sanguine especially if you have that really cheerful disposition that we talked about earlier so again knowing this for yourself you need to figure out who everybody is in the family is also very helpful but there's actual tests you know we're just kind of going over and summarizing these things quickly but there are tests to help you determine what you are then we have phlegmatic these are more peace loving very calm energy people they just like you know harmony they're very relationship oriented they're not very reactionary at all they're kind of the more subdued passive personality type and it takes time for them to confront issues and problems they're not like the type that are going to take things on head on they need to process very thoughtful people and then the last one is the melancholic these are your introverted highly analytical very pragmatic black and white world it's right or wrong and they can be very critical and they're hard to kind of open up emotionally it's not easy for them so they can be an enigma it's very hard to figure them out so if you or your spouse is like that again it's good to know this because it can help you determine what areas you might need to work on because it's not to say that just because this is your temperament that's it you just accept it no every single one of us from a spiritual perspective has our own mujahidah our own struggle and our struggle individually is to better ourselves to make ourselves in line with the provisional setup whatever that means whether it's working on the diseases of the heart or working on again looking at the way that we engage with other people like we talked about this on Friday too but if you walk into a room and you have a heaviness and a constricting presence you're not warm and welcoming you can be cold and people might have told you that that you're very cold and you're just seeing you don't have that warmth this is something that you want to work on you shouldn't be like well it's just who I am no because it's not in line with the provisional setup's example and his example is what we're all supposed to try to come to meet wherever you are in this spectrum we all have something to work on and so we have to recognize where we are though first and then we can recognize where we have to go so this is very important to take these tests and you can find them online there's a book I recommended called The Temperament That God Gave You and you can look it up in the library there's copies of Barnes and Noble if you just want to skim through it first or purchase it right away from Amazon there are options are or you prefer but there's tests in that book and there's also online tests that you can take that help you determine your temperament and then help you with your children now this is a study that I would say don't just keep it to yourself you have to share it with your family have your spouse take the test have each child take the test yes even younger children can take the test you can help them take it it's just a questionnaire now I understand wow if I'm a choleric and everybody else is a melancholic for example wow that's pretty serious intense personality types that we all have in the home no wonder maybe sometimes our conversations are hard right or if you have you're a sanguine and you're just always chipper and happy and you're dealing with a spouse who's just very serious and not easy to connect with and you're like man I can't no matter what I do everybody loves me I love everybody but this can't get through to him or her then this again it helps for you to realize like you know what don't take it personally it's not that he doesn't or she doesn't love you it just might very well be that this is their personality type and that you have to now work with it and there are ways or areas where you can study further to figure out how can we work better when we have different conflicting or completely oppositional personality types so this is sort of a summary of again our last session now for today again because we're talking about you know that list that I kind of skimmed through before I want to go back to that real quick but before we get there in the very first session we talked about this hadith this is a Hadith very important that you know this hadith it's longer but the short of it is right there everyone of you is a shepherd and is responsible for his or her flock we talked about this because this hadith is in my opinion I'm sure many people would agree is I think the best analogy for parenting because it talks about shepherding the idea that what does the shepherd do what is their objective the shepherd's sole objective is to do three things to nurture to guide and to protect their flock is that not the objective of all of us as parents don't we want those three things to nurture, to guide and to protect our children so in every way when you look at the actions the tasks of a shepherd they're very similar to that of a parent and we kind of dissected this very thoroughly looking at just the way the shepherd walks his staff we kind of picked each part of the shepherd and went into what that means and we concluded that these objectives that he these things that the shepherd aims for to nurture, guide and protect he achieved only through or not only but through three key objectives which are what? control through education and skills so if you want to do if you want to nurture a guide and protect your children you need to establish control first you need to know what you're doing without knowing how animals behave without knowing how to feed them you need to acquire knowledge then reach through communication and creativity and then safety and that's done through planning and precautions so as parents we're going to talk about how what these three objectives mean so we're kind of in these first few sessions focusing on that first objective which is control establishing control all of us are here obviously because we want to be more effective in our parenting we're having these discussions because we want we're you know how to hold ourselves to a higher standard and learn how to do things better and so this is where education matters we have to start with education and learning about personality, human behavior, temperaments children how children behave, the needs of children and then also obviously from a spiritual perspective what our rights and obligations are we're trying to understand all of that and then we're looking at different parenting models and psychological tools that are out there so we're in the education phase right now so these workshops right now that's what we're doing and so for today I wanted to talk about this you know the slide that I had before about leadership basics in Islam so if we recognize right for effective parenting we need to understand I mean from again going back to education you can't be an effective parent if you're not an effective leader right if you don't know how to lead you're not going to be able to be a parent you're bleeding, that's what you're doing so one of the goals the ones that are underlined are what we're going to talk about today understanding our self well our own needs understanding the other people in our care well that includes your spouses and your children and then their needs so these four areas are where all of us should be right now especially if you're attending these sessions inshallah your objectives as a center clear so you should be in this mode of trying to figure out yourself first okay and I know when you think of parenting it's like immediately you want to jump into children yeah that's important but again it's so much related to us as individuals if we're not clear on who we are how do we possibly understand our children and then effectively lead them if we're neglecting ourselves we're not in tune with who we are so it has to start with the self and of course this is another you know maxim in our tradition whoever knows their their nefs well right their themselves well they'll know Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala well so if we want to spiritually develop and become better we have to start with self knowledge so let's just get into the discussion do you know what you need if I asked you what does any human being need to survive what would you say depends basic basic basic survival needs of a human are what food water shelter air right I mean air I mean we're feeling that right now are we not right we're in this situation I'm sure maybe it's been a long time since many of us made some serious shukr for clean air right right but that's something we take advantage of or we take for granted you know we do we we don't realize what a never is to have clean air but now that we're breathing through masks and coughing every two seconds we suddenly are aware of that right so these are very basic human these are pretty easy to figure out we all need shelter we all need food water air we need love right but what about thriving what does a human being need to thrive to become their best optimum self and is there a correlation I'm sorry sense of security a sense of security very good hamdallah yes absolutely and obviously from a spirit spiritual perspective I mean if you want to thrive or succeed you cannot do that without nurturing right your connection with Allah I mean that and that's for us it should be very clear the measure of success according to our tradition is right it starts and ends right there where are you with Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala right so if you want to see yourself reach your highest potential you can't do that if you're only focusing on material wealth and gain or other things right it has to be done through that process of I need to really work on my relationship with Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and if as long as I'm focused there and I'm committed there and I'm proving myself there inshallah that's the measure of success right that's the ultimate measure we should be clear on that so let's you know this is a quote from Maslow okay and I wanted to just read this quote so for the man who is extremely and dangerously hungry no other interests exist but food life itself tends to be defined in terms of eating anything else will be defined as unimportant freedom, love community feeling, respect philosophy may all be waived aside as fripperies which are useless since they fail the stomach such a man may fairly be said to live by bread alone but what happens to a man's desire when there is plenty of bread and when his belly is chronically filled at once other and higher needs emerge and these rather than physiological hungers dominate the organism and when these in turn are satisfied again new and still higher needs emerge and so on this is what we mean by saying that the basic human needs are organized into a hierarchy of relative propensity okay so what is this this is again in other words in order for human beings for us to achieve higher to aim higher to feel more motivated towards being better we have to make sure that our innate needs are first fulfilled okay and then so that's obvious the food shelter water and then that gives us once those are fulfilled it gives us energy to motivate ourselves to seek out higher things okay so why is this important because when it comes to parenting we have to see where are we in terms of this hierarchy what are we type what where are we in terms of providing this first for ourselves and then for our children okay so let's look so this is the hierarchy that he's outlined so he and it starts from the bottom so I wrote it in reverse but it goes up so physiological needs must be met first then safety love belonging esteem and then self-actualization and that's like the highest level when you've reached that place that's when you become your best version okay but in order to get there according to this theory or you know his his idea is that you have to meet all these other firsts so here's a visual for you so physiologically if we can meet our basic needs right then we're able to move past those needs and we can focus on the next set of needs which are security of employment right of resources family health prosperity property now I want you to think if you are having problems in your home in your marriage in your life at work do you see what happens is you get stuck because your needs aren't being fulfilled so when you're stuck it's hard to go to the next place and so I want every person and this is again in order to for us to you know see ourselves in this but also look at our homes look at the people in our lives that matter especially when it comes to marriage we should look at your spouse and see where are my versus where are they because if you're having marital issues and it's affecting your house and it's just causing a lot of problems issues what's happening why am I at some place and my spouse isn't there or vice versa right and so this kind of helps you understand that if you are in a place let's say you are in a place of you know self actualization where you're just wanting to really spiritually you have all these ambitions and goals you want to take classes you want to go on these incredible trips you want to make omari you want to do haji you know a lot of there's couples I've talked to several where it's like one is on that trajectory they just have such high aims and goals and then their spouse isn't quite there right and they're frustrated because it's like you know I want them to be there they're not listening they don't you know they don't they're not really there maybe if you understood where there are with their needs it might give you some understanding and perspective maybe your needs are met maybe you came from a family and an upbringing where you were loved right you had plenty of security growing up right we have to take these things into consideration if you come from a household where your parents were together and they were very affectionate and your siblings and everybody's just super lovey-dovey and then you never had to worry about your meals and you know everything was taken care of for you you had you know a lot of privilege and opportunity and then you know it obviously I mean look at this if you get all of these things it leads to the next level so if you have safety it leads to love and belonging so you have a lot of friends your family relationships are secure everything just sort of much a lot of beautiful and then that leads to what higher self-esteem you're more confident you're more you know maybe outgoing right you're more social because your confidence level has been facilitated with all these needs being met and so then that takes you to the next level where it's like okay kids are growing up now I want to develop myself I want to start taking classes I want to do this I want to find you know there's people who are like that they're in this place but then they look at their spouse spouse isn't quite there right spouses is still they're not you know they're spiritually there they're negative they're closed off emotionally there's some let's get to the root of it where's the disconnect have you figuring out are there needs being met so this is where you have to look at yourself are my needs being met do I feel you know safe and secure or am I worried about my home and having a roof over my head paycheck to paycheck I mean if you're living like that especially here in the Bay Area that's going to cause you a lot of stress is it not there's people who are literally struggling they don't know what if they're going to have a job at the end of the week or at the end of the month and then have to worry about bills and kids school and all the other stuff that payments and insurance and everything else that people really worry about so how is that going to affect again all these other areas and parts of you that you want to obviously develop and you want to become better and you want to improve on but if you're stuck because a need isn't being met do you see how it's going to prevent you from growth so it's important to understand where your needs are and then to see how can we remedy that what can we do because if you're just expecting sometimes I think we look at people not you know with really true understanding we just look at them as a whole and if we're not happy with the whole we're just not happy with the whole but when you actually start to understand the different you know looking at a person as being much more multifaceted you know and there's different things happening that are independent of you and not making everything about you then you increase your empathy for them you increase your understanding for them and you can maybe hopefully try to help them to realize like you know what maybe you're you know you're in this situation or you're not feeling you know motivated because this particular need isn't being met let's focus on that right so this is something that it's very important to study because we're going to talk about how this affects children as well so let's actually get to that slide so for children it's similar very similar but we should know this is what children need so as parents first work out your own needs determine what areas you need more of or what you need to work on and that's why you know I've talked about this in many previous sessions but if you are feeling emotionally depleted or there's just not there's something you know is wrong or you know that we all I think have a pretty good you know you know sort of just we know when something is off right so listen to yourself listen to that part of you that says you know you've been pretty down for a long time you've been unhappy you've been unsatisfied whether it's with your work or with your family and life or maybe there's a relationship that's very toxic and it's affecting you and it's affecting your own confidence your own just happiness all together just sitting in that and being you know defeated and not really having a plan of action obviously only exacerbates your problem because it's a vicious cycle you're going to stress and worry about it and that stress and worry causes other problems right physically mentally emotionally so just you know realize that you have to be in tune with yourself and realize if you're not happy about something there are ways to inshallah you know to get relief whether it's spiritual and you just are going to become there's something like if it's a health matter and you know you there's really no course may Allah give you of course we always have hope with Allah but if you're in a situation where you have a health problem that you just really don't have much you know a way of fixing or curing then your remedy could be just spiritually I'm just going to focus on my connection with Allah SWT and really try to to do whatever I need to get you know to just to strengthen that but if there's other things like if it's a relationship issue you know for there's so many now opportunities for you to get help there's so many opportunities for you to actually work on improving that relationship but actually feeling inclined to doing that instead of just saying well it is what it is I can't do anything about it a lot of people have that very complacent attitude about their problems like can't do anything about it just I just got to deal with it no that's a shape on he wants you to be in despair he wants you to be miserable but Subhanallah our Dean is not a Dean of hopelessness right we should never feel settled with being hopeless so if you have needs that need to be met you have to look around and say where are the resources that I can get help and be willing to be vulnerable be willing to share with people obviously professionals with people that are you know not saying to go out there and just complain about your problems to everybody but seek out help I think for some reason I you know in the work that I do I just feel like there's just this you know give it up people have just given up in so many different areas it is to their own detriment and so that's why it's so important again to have these conversations and to be self aware to realize that I shouldn't be settled if I'm not feeling happy I need to work on it I need to figure out what the solution is and actually be empowered to do something about it inshallah but if you're not aware of your needs and you just don't care and you're sleeping robotically and mechanically and your whole day is just going to work and coming back and eating and sleeping and there's just no deep connection then yeah that's just your existence and eventually you know you're just going to wither away and that's it that's it that's all that's the chapter of your life that's the story of your life you know just someone who was okay with misery and just didn't really want to do anything further no we have to push back against that and say no yes trials and tribulations are part of this dunya but we always have hope we always expect better to strive for better so meeting our needs first and then looking at our children's needs so children they need the same they need the physiological needs met first so making sure we're providing for them healthy obviously food sleep making sure their sleep is good and not you know especially if you have teens that no teenager has paid me to say this I really because I work with teens a lot and I remember I really remember my own struggle as a teenager we as parents have to be much more sympathetic to our teens because they're going through major physiological changes and sleep is a huge need I have literally done you know sessions with teens and I'm like what is the one thing that you if you can have the most of they're not talking about money and fame and well they will say sleep that's the first answer but I think a lot of parents you know especially if you again come from that highly critical parenting model it's just like stop being lazy and you're always barking at your children for wanting to sleep that's not fair they're going through major major changes and we have to be a little bit more understanding it's just like the infant the infant's brain is going through all these changes and we don't wake up an infant who needs to sleep for long stretches of time because they're changing we understand that they're going through the same process just years later so be more understanding about your teens need for sleep and try to accommodate if you want to nap we can nap before we have to go to this party why don't you go take a nap it's okay I'll do this I'll do you know just to help look at that be more something because it's a basic need and then you want them to go and you know write or work on projects for hours and hours on end and be up until one o'clock in the morning because you better not turn that in late and realize that we're not meeting their basic need but then we want them to achieve in this very intense high pressure competitive time it's too much is your hand different? please I'm sympathetic because I'm learning I realize as a parent you're an elementary teacher a middle school teacher and a high school teacher and your strength might be an elementary but you're a middle school but I also wonder my struggle just in terms of projects and teenagers what is 5 or 6 or even at the latest in a project and that kind of I know you need to sleep but also it's time for projects so just that struggle I'm glad you brought that up because it's important if you're waiting for your teens to become teens and then you expect them to pray fudger this is what I would say is a problem prayers need to start what are the age between 7 to 10 is when you start disciplining and teaching your children how to play by 10 they should be praying their 5 prayers so I think that's pre-adolescent what you're doing is you're creating habits for them before they reach the age of feeling like a log and bend they literally feel like they can't get up they've already accustomed their muscles to it their brains are wired for my son, Alhamdulillah, he's turning 10 next month but this year since Ramadan, Alhamdulillah he's been praying all the prayers with us and masha Allah may Allah protect and preserve it for him but he is our alarm clock half the time he wakes up way before us and he'll be the one who comes and wakes us up for Fajr because he's 9 years old but we started him for that reason and this is the wisdom of Islamic parenting because they tell you start early don't wait until they're 12 and 13 and now it's like well then you have to do it and you're intense and you're pressuring them and then you wonder why it's hard for them they haven't been habituated to it so I would say work early on establishing that practice for them but also be understanding that if you know look at their sleep because understand how sleep cycles work like I had to educate myself about sleep cycles because I didn't know if there's any physicians in the room correct me if I'm wrong but I believe like a full, good quality you know block of sleep it's about an hour and a half and this is how when you hit REM and you actually can feel if you wake up and you feel like a little bit refreshed it's because you've gotten your deep sleep and it takes about an hour and a half for a cycle so if you are not timing your sleep and Fajr so that you can hit those marks what's going to happen is you might wake them up in the middle of that one and a half hour block and that's when you get the ugh I can't get up right so we should educate ourselves like you know time your sleep so that by the time Fajr comes inshallah you will have you're not completely burdened and this all of us can learn from this if you have a hard time with Fajr I bet you it's because that's what's happening you're interrupting the middle of your sleep cycle and that's why it's so difficult because this whole you know you read different things and I get it there's different studies that are done but I think there's this feeling that sleep you have to get this number of sleep and everybody if you don't get a certain number of hours of sleep you're just you know you're going to be you can't function that's not the case for everybody many many people can function on very little sleep per night because they know how to time their sleep cycles accurately so that's why you know I mean in our tradition for example it's known you know the prophet said he did Fajr every night and many of the greatest they wouldn't they were known to sleep very little at night because their nights were meant for worshiping Allah but what did they do they compensated during the day they would take nafs even you know the prophet said it was to do the Qaylullah which is the afternoon nap right between Mahmoud and Asad or is it Asad and Mahmoud Asad and Mahmoud right so but you know to do those prayers during that time this is a practice but why because it's again wisdom it teaches us that sleep is like a nafs right if you indulge it and you become habituated to sleeping stretches of 10 hours don't think that that's just me I love to sleep I need to sleep that much no you've just you know accustomed your body to wanting that type of sleep because you've given in to this you know to this to this habit train yourself you know and start being smart in how you sleep it's not quantity it's quality so with your children do the same thing if they're having a hard time with certain prayers target that let's look at when you're sleeping and let's wake up at times that are going to not interrupt that cycle inshallah and then you know inshallah they can if they have time after they pray go back to bed get another little quick you know cat nap before they have to get up for school would be understanding is what I'm saying if on the weekends they don't want to go to every family party because they'd rather sleep don't be angry with them stop and say you know what okay it's okay you know your needs are also important because I think sometimes we put our own needs first they're going to get mad and they're going to have to answer to these people and they're not going to understand you know what maybe they need to understand maybe they need to understand that your children are over scheduled and overburdened and they're exhausted and they're human beings so you have to be the defenders sometimes of your children and not given to the pressure of I'm going to get you know y'all dad or someone's not going to like me you know what you can't cater to everybody and that's just we just have to stop doing things on those pretenses because we compromise our relationship with our children if you're willing to literally you know be you know have no sympathy for your child for the sake of someone else that you might see once a year I mean to me that's very strange you know why don't you tell that person I'm sorry they couldn't make it you know and let your child know I love you I know you're so exhausted you work so hard during the week may Allah bless you and give you the feeling all you do because I'm so proud of you you get to stay home just say it just rest you know there's food in the fridge enjoy your time I mean what kind of a relationship are you going to inculcate with your child if that's the kind of parenting model you have where you literally know their needs and you understand their needs and you don't dismiss their needs as being frivolous little teenage complaints and whininess and laziness and stuff like that but this is you know again being aware of our needs being aware of their needs this is why this education is so important because it connects you you know to them where they're at not where you're just standing and you're expecting them to meet you where you're at you know see where they're at you know build that understanding so again physiological needs are the most based then they need obviously safety and security and this is where as adult you know as adults and caretakers we have to make sure that their needs are met we have to be vigilant make sure that who they are around that they're safe you know around the people that we expose them to or leave them with so that's our duty in making sure that you know even when it comes to their health you know making sure they have adequate health care and they're obviously free from any type of abuse and neglect so if you have an abusive you know personality type where you you know are really hard on your kids you got to take yourself into account here you're not meeting their basic need of safety and security and you will not and you cannot expect them to become better and to become the better versions of themselves if they're living in fear you know they're living in fear because you're abusive you know unfortunately these are very common issues in our community where parents are very very you know abusive towards their kids and they don't realize that that type of there's no such thing as you know that whole tough love excuse no it's not tough love to be abusive to use mean names and nicknames or just be really hard on your children that's not any form of love and then we have also their social needs so the next you know once their safety and security is met then you need to make sure that they have obviously unconditional love from you but also other their peers and have interactions with people in their own peer group they have plenty of play we talked about young children especially before the age of seven they need play you have to give them room to play and not shush them quiet them stop it every two seconds that's not normal if you have a noise issue then just remove yourself but and I'm speaking as someone who as I'm getting older I'm noticing my sensitivity to noise more and more but I've had to also do that for myself and my husband Marshall he's the one who's like no just let them be they're wrestling they're you know they're loud we have you know it's a home but there's rooms that I could go to but sometimes I'm like oh I'm already settled into my space but I'll have to get up and go because I realize they need that outlet they need you know they need to play so we have to you know watch ourselves as adults and realize these are needs that I have to meet for them and then esteem you know making sure that we encourage them that they are protected if you know if your children are in a school setting where they've reported to you that they are being bullied and you're just like oh I had a conversation with a teacher and that's it no you have to make sure it's shut down because the child may not feel inclined to talk to you about it again because it's embarrassing right like and sometimes you'll just say well I don't hear anything I guess that means fine that's passive parenting you can't just wait for your children to always tell you everything there are usually signs to problems you know they're not speaking very much if they just seem a little more agitated, irritable and their school work you know is going down pay attention to your children sometimes parents because we're so overburdened and all you know we're doing so much it's like if there's no if there isn't a fire right in front of me I guess I don't really worry about it but there could be embers there could be sparks you know underneath and they're just waiting to ignite so how about being vigilant and if you you know it's being in touch with the teachers making sure that any type of bullying is absolutely eradicated from their life so that you you know they don't have that pressure if they keep complaining to you they don't want to go to schools every other day they're making excuses I'm sick I'm not feeling good that's probably a sign something's going on find out who it is talk to those parents if it's a you know if it's an Islamic school obviously you know you have more opportunity but even if it's in a public school talk to the teachers talk to the administration be that nagging parent do it for your children's sake because we are in a crisis we're in a time where children are and it's happening even in our own community this topic of suicide is not something that we can say it doesn't happen nope it happens and it has happened stuff for a while and children have expressed these very horrible ideas to people because that's where they're at they feel like they don't have any other you have to be your child's advocate this is a basic need making sure that they're protected from bullies and that they have you know safe and good companions to be around okay did I see a hand up and then obviously self-actualization this is what we all want for our children to be successful in every which way but this can be encouraged through looking at what their interests are hobbies really trying to connect with your children to figure out what their interests are instead of just giving them a list of things that you think are better for them if you're forcing your kids to take piano lessons and they tell you I hate it why? just because you can go brag to your family oh they play the piano it's crazy if they have no desire to do piano don't let them do the piano if they have no desire to be you know anything a sport if they don't if your boys are not athletic it's okay because not every boy has to be an athlete okay some boys are just not interested in running around all day in sweating they would actually rather go and maybe you know learn something and produce something they have you know more other build something so encourage that nurture that and don't hold them to these standards like oh this is you know how this is the only successful model of what it means to be a boy or a girl get out of that type of thinking and actually be in tune with your children listen to them ask them what do you want to do we have some extra money maybe for a budget for classes for you is there any particular subject that interests you is it art is it whatever philosophy I don't know whatever they're interested in poetry it could be many different things but find out from them then look around we have so many resources now whether it's going to a place or actually online but you can do that this is encouraging them what to become more defined people because they are defined they're individuals they're not just extensions of you and me and I think that's the the problem with a lot of parenting or parents is that they're stuck in this thought that children have to be little mini versions of them no they do not they belong to Allah SubhanAla we're responsible for them for a short period of time our charge again using the same model we used before is to make sure that they're nurtured, that they're guided and that they're protected but their individual facets that make them who they are are beautiful parts of who you know their individuality that we should nurture we should you know and even if we don't agree with it or we don't like it as long as it's not haram obviously and it's in line with our you know beliefs and values it shouldn't be a problem so just understanding these things now why is this important because characteristics of self actualizers so people who are self actualized this applies for all of us as well as what we should want for our children okay if you're a self actualized person obviously there's no such thing as a perfect person but this would be according to Maslow the highest you know your highest potential if you are self actualized these are the qualities or characteristics that you will possess so just I don't know if you can read it all I'm sorry for the small font but I wanted to put it all on one slide so they perceive reality efficiently and can tolerate uncertainty I mean if this isn't what we should want for ourselves and for our children right because uncertainty is part of life right if something god forbid happens but you're able to be okay right because you submit to the will of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala this is a huge benefit there's people who resist things all the time and they're very you know they can't handle things when it happens to them and they suffer for it but if you're a self actualized person you understand qalal qadad right like Allah swt does as he wills I have to accept if you become just you know subham I'll just be patient inshallah you understand there's wisdoms beyond our understanding in this world but maybe inshallah one day inshallah one day we will make you one of the most beautiful majestic places in God's creation and this is you the whole time you know so no you should look outside and experience what's happening and take joy let your eye take it in and I know even now I mean I've seen all these Facebook posts with you know the skyline the San Francisco skyline before and after the smoke subhanallah again something we take for granted right you can't go out there's no clear sky the skies are horrible to look at now they're so you know monkey you just they don't look beautiful and then you forgot I forgot what it looks like to look out and to see a clear beautiful sky and see blue and see clouds I don't I can't remember because it's been so long it's been over a week can't wait to see that but to teach our children to appreciate these things so even now with all this is going on teach your children you know look at Allah's creation subhanallah we're in this really difficult time now make daa inshallah when the rain comes and hopefully the next few days things clear make them go outside and say make shukr to Allah alhamdulillah you know that's really appreciating an experience you know establishing deep satisfying interpersonal relationships with a few people none of us need a lot of friends okay you don't need a lot of friends and if you think that's what makes you loved that's crazy it's not about quantity it's about the quality of your friendships having having a sister or a brother that you can rely on that you can call on for your needs for an emergency situations or that you can entrust with an mana or with anything that is there's nothing like that you know there's no compare having you know just even one of those is such a great benefit and hold on to that but teach your children the same that when they're in school they shouldn't be concerned with being the most popular person and having all these friends cause those friends are likely not going to last you know how many of us still maintain a relationship with people in high school and if you do maybe one or two but those are the types of friendships they shouldn't maintain right those deep real serious committed friendships but not to look at quantity peak experiences need for privacy so yeah you're a modesty right you're just a person who's not out and boasting about every single thing that you do and say and you're out there self actualized people are confident they don't need to do that to be open with every single thing so we should want this for ourselves for our children democratic attitudes obviously balance you know how we do things and then strong moral and ethical standards I mean so how well like I said these are all very prophetic qualities but this is the benefit of what this for our children meeting them their needs making sure that we understand what their needs are and working with them if there's an area that isn't but they're stuck at and that's why it's important to look at you know studies like for example children who again come from abusive or really toxic homes they manifest right they don't do well in their performance at school it's just there's a correlation abuse bullying all these things have an effect on their potential do you get it so if you have you can't you know expect them to thrive if you're not meeting the need for safety and security so again if you look at where your children are am I meeting their basic needs if there's an area that I'm failing in guess what it's going to affect them and as a parent what's my job it's to protect them right so now the behavior that leads to self actual actualization is also important to understand because it's you know I just thought the wording here was really important look at the first one experiencing life like a child with full absorption and concentration we really appreciate the mind of a child the children they learn with wonder and awe right and I think we talked about that possibly in the first session but if we've lost awe you know and we've lost the ability to look at the world with that sense of wonder then that should bother us a little bit you know because the world is a place full of wonder and we should you know subhan Allah you know when we do it like that it's not just like you know we have our blessed being but there should I mean that's you know if you're just trying to get to your goal I get it but there should be also times where you look for or just you know reflect right Muraqab we talked about before and you're reflecting on something and then subhan Allah you know like really deeply having that like amazement at at something but that's how children are even if they don't use those terms they're always like wowed by things aren't they oh wow wow wow you know it's so beautiful but if you want to be a self-actualized person try to inculcate that sense of wonder and awe more in yourself and absorb things you know that's why mindfulness is important being present you know if you're distracted if you're in a class and how did I don't see you know anybody doing it here but if you're in a class and you're on your phone you know that's not you know there with full presence right you know how much are you absorbing if you're like on Facebook and like snapping and actually you see that now too with experiences a lot of people are living so much through their lens they're not actually there and I'm almost always amazed my son was playing this morning and he was you know he had this really creative game and I was trying to videotape it because I was like you know this is so cute it's a memory that I want to keep I realize I don't have memories of him and he just turned seven so he's going to grow out of this play stage it just dawned on him like I don't have any memories of him playing it so I was trying to capture it and he caught me within first like two seconds he looked at me he knew I was videotaping and then I thought about it I was like how do these people do it like you know people who are very good at like you know posting videos of every event in their life because then they're professional I'm like I don't know was I too obvious but I was like just people are very good at capturing moments without people being aware of it but it's gotten to a point of like are you actually in the moment yourself you know and if you're not that's a huge problem so the need to constantly snap or you know put everything on a video is something we should control because we're missing out right so being trying to have you know presence there right with concentration trying new things instead of sticking into safe paths so kind of you know pushing yourself to try things you know out if you're very very comfortable in setting your ways and it's like no I don't want to try it I've never done it I don't like it that's really limiting yourself and especially if you're it's something that could also you know be for your family that you don't want to try you don't want to do maybe you've traveled to a certain place or trying to do adventure or trying to do activity as a family be a little bit more flexible and open as a parent because you want to open pathways you never know learning that could happen by just experience being a little bit more open about something right listening to your own feelings and evaluating experiences instead of voice of tradition authority or the majority so this is you know a good thing to just being in tune with yourself this is how I would read this because if you're just you know totally checked out and the only voice you hear is moms or dads or someone else's and that's all you ever think is how you were told to think and you don't really listen to yourself but I think it's caught it's just you're not being true and authentic whereas if you're listening to yourself you're connected to yourself you know you evaluate experiences and allow yourself to have your own perspectives you know instead of always just repeating whatever else you were always told or thought to think avoiding pretense, game playing and being honest so again if you want to self actualize please enough with the you know pretenses just be a transparent honest upfront person this is prophetic he did not wear masks with people he was the same he was very consistent in how he engaged with all people who he met whether it was friends, strangers dignitaries royalty it didn't matter he was just himself and that's who he was with other people if you are super duper you know one way with a certain group of people and then a different way with other group of people that's a problem you need to sit and talk with yourself about that you know why am I like that right and then being prepared to be unpopular in your views if your views do not coincide with those of the majority having values and sticking to them despite what everybody else thinks and says is very important as Muslims we know that we live in a time and place where being people of you know having faith and having values that don't always you know correlate with what everybody else is doing isn't always easy but you got to stick to your values this is important to me right we fast-drain it all on everybody else looks at us like we're crazy we don't you know our kids don't drink or you know go to clubs inshallah and do all this you know date and all this other stuff it's good for them to also have that same sort of backbone about it like you know what my principles my values I don't do those things right but not you know worrying about being popular that's the issue right it's just to be like you know people are not going to always like that you don't do certain things but it's okay because they might not like it because you're you know for their own personal reasons but you at least can be proud that you stood up for yourself you know that's respectable in anybody's book right that you're that defined and then trying to identify your defenses and having the courage to give them up so if you are a self-actualized person then maybe you know you're you're in touch with yourself enough to know where you are defensive about what and you know to have a little bit more willingness right to listen to critical feedback to not be so defensive about everything because you're humility right humility is a big part of this if you're humble enough to accept that you don't know everything that inshallah you are able to take people's feedback at whatever that may be alright so inshallah we're going to resume from our break for us so we're just talking about again behavior that leads to self-actualization and just looking first at ourselves because we want to be self-actualized people and then looking how we can encourage our children to be the same now one of the things because I want to you know we're about to end so before we when you leave home I wanted to kind of give you something to do so we came up with this concept actually that I read from another author her name is Mimi Doe and she holds a master's degree in education from Harvard University and herself is obviously a mother but she's appeared on Oprah she's written for a lot of different publications and she's written specifically on spiritual parenting and so she came up with this idea of having your children do their own coat of honor okay so I really like this idea and so you know just sitting with your kids and first of all I mean as they're younger you know as we talked about in our very first session the stories that we tell our children whether it's from the Cedar or otherwise you know they should be appropriate stories at different levels but virtues that we want to constant themes that should always come up are stories that have to do with virtues that we want them to eventually possess like honor nobility right chivalry appreciating silence you know that there is virtue in that you know gratitude fortitude modesty all of these things that are prophetic qualities but that they should recognize how to recognize and they should be able to know and then so if we're doing that as they're you know in their younger years that by the time they reach the age of understanding whether it's junior high or high school that age of more mature sort of thinking that they can start self-regulating right and looking at themselves and their own behavior so how do you do that you encourage them like what do you know what's your own code of honor right so encouraging your children to do that you know how do you want to behave or what do you think are virtues that you you know engage with other people and there's a certain way that you conduct yourself based on what and you know describe that for us like I will not do this sort of like my own set of rules that they live by that they you know hold themselves accountable to whether it has to do with themselves their treatment of other people their possessions or material you know whatever it is what they hold value and let that be an exercise to reveal first to the first time you do it it'll obviously give you as a parent something you know to see where your children are at what are their values do they hold is dear and important and then see if there's areas that you need to work with on them or they might surprise you and you might be like wow you know you you've been listening all this time you know and then that becomes something that they hold themselves to account because it's very different than us always telling them what to do you know which they're very used to when they're young but by the time they reach the teenage years we have to respect them more they need to feel respected and so this is now like I want to see what you produce you know you tell me what is your you know uh code of honor where your what are you what's what do you value and let them do that inshallah and then you know let that be another exercise you know that a family sort of group activity that really again brings the family together brings more mutual respect and understanding to one another these are the types of things that we should be aiming for and on everything that we talked about is is it going to promote love understanding respect I'm gonna do that whatever that is mutual it can't be just top down and I think a lot of parenting model is like you just you know you're the parent you're the authority figure and you're just always telling your children what to do at all times and that's what parenting is but you know that you know when you're younger they don't understand that's you know just a certain degree okay but as they grow older you have to see their growth and appreciate them for being individuals and you think you know like they're independent thinkers and also test your own parenting check check in see if they're learning things that you've taught them if they're not it's going to become apparent when you give them an exercise like this right so just something to do inshallah and then um this is just a quote that she also had in her book that I really liked it will end it on this accept your child as a beautiful and miraculous gift alone from God see the best in him for he will then see the best in himself or herself praise and encourage his or her positive qualities feed his spirit by making sure he knows that you love him flaws and all he is worthy just as he is how you see your child expands into how he sees himself okay so if you have a lot of just positive love admiration respect for your child they will see that in themselves but if you're hyper critical negative nothing's ever good enough and you're just not understanding of who they are in a dismissive when they express it opinion whatever you don't know you youth you know and you're just kind of like always dismissing them for not knowing or not being smart or not being you know whatever this is how then they might reflect themselves eventually so you really do we really do have a lot of power in that regard it's just no and that's why it's so important to see parenting as an amen right because we're going to be held accountable for the power you know are we aware of the impact of our words and our actions toward these children that Allah has entrusted us with or do we just take them for granted as little you know minions and extensions of ourselves that are just there to serve us where are you in that you know how do you see your children so inshallah on that note we'll go ahead and end are there any questions from any of you or any comments inshallah well thank you for attending inshallah the video will be up soon if you missed any part of it or if you would like to share it and then we'll resume inshallah next month for the fourth session we'll end on the dua we'll end on the dua we'll end on the dua we'll end on the dua we'll end on the dua thank you so much