 I said, I'm going to go and watch it for a while, but I can't do it. So, thank you for being here. Insha'Allah, we're going to go ahead and get started and expecting more people to join us, but we'll go ahead and begin. I wanted to first thank the NCC for the near, especially in the ways and all of the staff and volunteers for facilitating the events and also shout out to them. I'm going to end my dear friend who is the reason why we're here. She reached out actually, I think a couple months back and said, you know, have you thought of doing a parenting workshop? I had in the past, but Insha'Allah, I think with her, will imagine push. That's why we're here. And the aim really is to give us an opportunity to meet with each other, to learn from one another. You know, they say it takes a village. But unfortunately, because of our lifestyles, we're all very in our own worlds and sometimes we forget that there is a village outside. So, hopefully by having a space to dialogue, we can actually implement what that means, which is really leaning on each other, learning from one another. And just Insha'Allah, doing this together. Because as we know, we're Jema and we need each other, Insha'Allah. So, before we officially start, there's an outline you can see right there of what we're going to try to achieve today. Insha'Allah, you're welcome. So, my background, for those who don't know me, I am a very young and native. I pretty much raised here. I was a born here, but I was raised here. And then for about nine years, I actually left and I went to Southern California. And, Alhamdulillah, while I was there, I had my own children and I also started a preschool co-op for three years and I worked closely with young children. And before that, actually, I taught here in the Bay Area. I taught at different Islamic schools. So, Alhamdulillah, I have experience teaching and being around children. I love children. And so, this workshop really comes from my heart, because this is a heart work for me. Just anything that has to do with children. So, that's just my background. I also have a mental health advocate. I'm a writer. So, I do a few different things. I give presentations. I have talks here the second Thursday of every month and we do programs at Calvary with regarding women and, you know, for women, I should say. So, Alhamdulillah, that's pretty much my background. It's all like, really welcome. So, before we actually continue the presentation, I wanted to just ask you guys, and I like audience participation, by the way, so I want you to participate. So, let's talk about the ideals that we create about marriage, life, and parenting before we ever get married. What are some dreams that people have about what marriage life is going to be like and what your perfect, picture-perfect Muslim American family looks like? What do you think? Give me some answers. What do you think of yourself? I think that, you know, as an American Muslim, that you would be integrated into society as well as be able to retain your Islamic identity while navigating in society. So, having both sort of that balance, right? Alhamdulillah. And what about your actual life being married? What are the sort of, again, I want to talk about what we dream about, you know? Little girls or little boys, or maybe not little boys so little girls tend to dream about their weddings and what life is going to be like, right? But what are the constructs that we have about marriage life? For example, when it comes to your spouse, what do, in one line, what do women usually say? There's, you know, I want my spouse to be my, like, soulmate, very good with us. Women tend to want a particular quality in their spouse. I'm sorry about that. Back to going, we're here. Oftentimes, we hear that women want a best friend, right? They want to marry their best friend, right? I don't know if I hear those things out as much. I think for men, it's a little different, right? They might not necessarily want a spouse. They want a woman who they're happy with but also who has their approval of. Right? This family is special. I think that's an ideal partner, right, for a couple of girls is that they want someone who comes to balance that, right? And so what we do, we tend to dream up this perfect idea of what a Muslim family is supposed to look like, right? And when it comes to our children, they're everything, right? I mean, they're perfect. First of all, they're geniuses, right? And before that, of course, we all assume and actually believe that our kids are geniuses. Whether we say it or not, oh my gosh, you see that? And every moment is captured. And so they're, you know, a lot of children be gay. You know, that's what they are. But then we also have to set them up with a lot of expectations, right? We want them to have the best edad, with their elders especially, do their order of work on time, be their responsible queen, know to recycle, you know, be conscientious. We want all of these things. And we'll talk about it. We want them to go back to the end and pray. So we dream up all of these ideals which are a lot of our children. And you know, we imagine it again when you're thinking about your family life together, you're imagining, I'm sure, meals together, breaking fast together, praying together. When you're intending to start a family, inshallah, those are the things that you should be aspiring to, that you have a strong family unit and there's just much more, so much connection happening, right? And so, you know, there you go. And I chose these images, by the way, there are some to kind of go with my talk. I chose these images because they're, you know, they're animated. They're dreams. They're visions that we have. But they're not always necessarily true, right? Even if we have the best of intentions, our intentions, good intentions enough, right? Are they enough? And do things always go as we plan, not necessarily, right? And that's why more important than anything is how we respond, right? Because things might not go the way we want them to, but how we respond to what is happening to us, right? It really says a lot about whether or not we're going to have difficulty and challenges or we're going to, inshallah, have success. Because if we focus on our own responsibilities and our duties and leave the restaurants, we have to at least submit, inshallah. This is where we will find that just by letting go of this need to control outcomes because a lot of us, when we build up a dream and an ideal, we're stuck on the outcomes. And the outcomes is what we want. And so that can inform our parenting because it's like, I have this ideal of how everything is supposed to go. And if it doesn't go that way, there's something wrong. But if you're doing everything, inshallah, in your power correctly, the outcomes you leave to all of us are there, right? And this is a part of submission that we just realize we can't control everything, right? But we can definitely control our own selves. So the point here is that good intentions aren't enough. They're obviously important, right? We believe in them, but not even yet. We believe in this. But the problem is when we take again these good intentions and attach them to these dreams, and then we treat marriage like it's all right. Like it's something that I'm entirely free, right? That it's something that I deserve. And the reason why is because, you know, we live in a, you know, or there's systems around us where everything's based on, you know, it's a marriage system. So if I do it good, you know, I get this in return. And that's sort of how we think about even when it comes to our relationships. So when you walk into a relationship with that mindset or, you know, starting a family with this mindset, that if I do everything correctly, if things should go as planned, it kind of sets you up to have an entitled sort of, you know, mindset going into that. And that, right there, is also a problem. You can't be entitled to anything. Because marriage is not a right. It's a huge responsibility, right? And if you really think about, surprise a lot, marriage preparation. For example, how many people in this room are single, not married? I mean, we should see more of a single people here. Right? Because we take more time sometimes to engage with very interesting people. We take more time to prepare for travel for even like a meal, right? We'll look up recipes. We'll call people. We do research for things like that. When it comes to parenting, we often do it when it's too late. And by that I mean when you see, you know, two plus signs on a little, you know, stick to it. You know, I mean, then it's like, oh my God, I got to start working about parenting. And then even then our view is so limited because we're stuck on baby, right? Preparing for a baby. We're stuck on, oh my God, you know, cribs and like strollers and diapers and bottles. And we're stuck on that. It's kind of like, if you actually step back and say, is there a greater thing that a human being can do than to be responsible for a soul? Right? Is there a greater task that we have? So parenting is this incredible responsibility and yet we don't prepare for it enough. And that's why usually in parenting workshops you see parents who've already had their children and are not happy about it here. But I wish that we had singles and people who are just starting out they're married lots, you know, prior to even having children because that's responsibility. That's really looking at this like, this is a very good thing, right? And we have to, you know, Allah's front better reminds us again and again. You know, he says, حَسْبَ النَّسُوا اَنْ يَتْلَكُونَ اَنْ يَفُوُدُرْ أَمْنَا رَهُمْ لَهُمْ لَهُمْ لَهُمْ يُفْتَنُوا. Do people think that they will be left to say, we believe, and that you will not be tested? So this is why he's telling us this, that you're going to experience tests in your life and in order, with any test, right, you better prepare. And you can't prepare for those tests if you're just walking in with that dream, like with your mindset, you know, just caught up in a dream. And I think that's the problem with the society and the world that we live in, is they look at this, you know, marriage and family life and they idealize everything and romanticize everything to the point where it just becomes, you know, something that, it's like any goal, you know, that you just want it, you know, because of what it is, you know, but when you really step back and say, wait a second, this is, you know, it completes half of our being marriage, first of all. And Allah's front better also tells us, you know, in another life, and know that your possessions and your children are a test and that Allah is immense, and that with Allah is immense reward. This is, again, another reminder for us that these are things that we will be tested about. So don't just get caught up in the fantasy and the movies and the thrones and the songs and the picture, wedding albums and the pictures of what a family is going to look like. Actually take it very, very seriously and do the preparations beforehand. That's where we should be, right? And so, um, so what does that mean? It means that in order for us to really take parenting and really understand that it's a, have a serious sense of it, we have to first and foremost realize it's completely tied to how, to our relationship with Allah Almighty. You can't expect to be a successful parent or a successful really, anything if we're being honest without working on yourself, right? And Allah's front better in another ayah in Surah Baqara, he tells, this is an exchange, right? That's happening between the angels, Allah the angels, when he tells them that he's going to create Allah, he says, there's this beautiful conversation that happens and he says, So what is this? Muhammad mentioned when your Lord said to the angels, indeed I will make upon the earth a successive authority, a leader. And they said, will you place upon it one who causes corruption therein and sheds blood while we declare your praise and sanctify you? And Allah said, indeed I know that which you do not know. So this verse explains very clearly the purpose of our existence and our creation is that we do everything to work towards this goal of actually becoming leaders. So every one of us, not just the men, Allah said, I know that we have obviously roles for our families and our communities and our societies for men and women, but in this context this is applying to every one of us. All of us are leaders and this is what Allah is telling us that he's even telling the angels that you don't know what I know about my creation but they have the potential to be amazing. But if you don't see yourself as that and especially in the context of a family and marriage and you're just thinking, oh, I'm just going to go and it's just far alive, everybody gets married, everybody has kids and you're not looking at it like, no, no, no, no. You have to go there with the mindset that you are being held accountable and that you will be held accountable. Then you're going to set yourself up for failure. And then also, in addition to this ayah we also have to remember that we took a very serious oath with al-Husbandah, right? In the primordial realm when he asked us, al-Husbandah and we said, this is before the dunya started, when the souls were created and we were all gathered, we had this exchange. So this is again to remind us that he put a responsibility on us even then in that realm and we acknowledge that, yes, you are our Lord, we worship you, we obey you and part of al-Husbandah is taking these verses to heart and actually reflecting on that and seriously and again, just stripping the mind from this idea that because my parents want me to and because I want companionship I'm just going to get married for all these worldly reasons. It's an amenah and we're going to talk about that what that really means. So this is another hadith that is very powerful because it reinforces this idea that, there we go. The Baaz al-Islam said, Alla kullu qum r'ayn wa kullu qum masoolun an r'aynati What is this? Every one of you is a shepherd and is responsible for his flock. It's one of my favorite hadiths because if you really look at the description and it's such a beautiful analogy it's a beautiful text because that's just a part of it. He said, Every one of you is a shepherd and is responsible for his flock. The leader of the people is a guardian and is responsible for his subjects. A man is the guardian of his family and is responsible for them. A woman is the guardian for her husband's home and his children and she is responsible for them. And the servant of a man is the guardian of the property of his master and he is responsible for it. No doubt every one of you is a shepherd and is responsible for his flock. Now this is again, so crystal clear subhanallah. We are literally told to arise to the challenge and become leaders, right? Because when you think of a shepherd what is he doing for sheep? What do they do? What do you imagine them with? What are they holding in their hand? What's their purpose? To guide. To guide. To gather them in a certain way. Very good. Keep them safe. Very good. Masha'Allah. So what do they hold in their hand? What's that called? The staff. The staff, very good. So the shepherd has a staff or a flock. Now if you pay attention closely it has like a hook. What's the hook for? It's a long staff, right? It's multifunctional, but what's that for? So three different things that the shepherd does with his staff. A, he uses it as a long arm. If you're looking at obviously even in this image hundreds of animals and he just puts his hands out and goes over this way. The animals right in front of him are what you're going to see, right? So it's a way to have reach. Pay attention to the words I'm using. So he extends his arm to have reach. Then the crook is for animals that fall. Animals that go astray. Sometimes the sheep or goat for example fall into a bush or they fall over a cliff and they're injured or the baby goes away from its mother. So to wrangle an animal with your own physical force is difficult but that crook helps them pull by the neck, pull by the ankle and so that's part of it. So that gives them control. Reach, control and then it's also used as a walking stick to feel the terrain, right? Just imagine you're in charge of guiding groups, a large group of animals from one place to the other whether it's to feed or whatever. Your job is to make sure that the terrain with which they walk upon is safe. So they're also securing them. Not just safe from actual physical land what's going on with the ground but also from predators, right? So to be vigilant, to make sure that you know that the shepherd knows what animals and threats are out there. Also to know if those animals are present the shepherd needs to know how to protect so they have the rod. So they have a staff and then they have another it's like a club kind of that they usually hold and that club is if they need to kill a snake or if they need to push a predator away or intimidate them somehow they have that. So these are tools in their hand to know, right, to protect their herd. And so, again, this analogy is powerful because you can apply it to parenting so easily. We need to, as parents, make sure that we have reach with our children, right? We're going to talk about what that means. Basically open communication, right? If you can't reach your children because, hey, you're unavailable, you're too busy or you just don't know how to communicate with them effectively, right? They're going to wander off, right? And that's what so many parents are dealing with where there's a total block. They can't reach their children. Their children have no respect for them. They disregard them. And a lot of kids are doing this. They're lying. They're, you know, doing things behind their parents back if it's like that, whatever. And, you know, this is where we, as leaders, have to not blame the children. Look to ourselves. Did I do this? Did I, you know, extend my arms and let them know I'm here for them? Or did I just, you know, let them wander off and now I'm worried they're freaking out. And so a lot of parents find themselves in. So we need to make sure we have reach and then control. If they fall, what do you do? Right? If God forbid something happens, do you know what to do? And this is where, you know, in the next slide, we'll talk a little bit more detail. But that's why that crook is so dirty. If you don't have a way to pull them out of danger, right? If you don't have a way to control the situation, if it's get, you know, then what do you expect? You can't have these, you can't give them the next most important thing which is security, right? And that, so those three things are what a shepherd's aim is. To make sure they have reach, to make sure they have control, and to make sure they have security. And that's also why they walk, you know, ahead. And that's, I think, the point that I really want to drive home is being ahead, okay? You don't let the herd just go out and then you follow them. You as the shepherd have to be ahead. So when it comes to parenting, that's why doing an education before you're actually in it really matters. And so I took a little survey before some of you walked in. Are there any single people here? Like, who are not married? Really hoping for at least one. We'll make an example out of you, inshallah. But, you know, I was just saying that it's so important we do this type of education before. I mean, how do they ever hear? But that's what effective leadership is, that you recognize, this is a huge amenah from Allah, I'm going to be held accountable. I'm going to educate myself before I get into it and really focus on the right things, right? And so what does that mean? Well, to prepare for leadership and you have to understand yourself. You cannot, like, go into any role if you don't know who you are, right? And this is a core belief of our tradition. Whoever knows himself knows their Lord. So self-awareness, self-knowledge is very, very important. And what does that mean? Practically, you should know your personality type. Raise your hand if you've ever taken a personality test before. Good. And you should know that and that should be, you should be well versed in explaining your personality to the people in your life. Raise your hand if as a family you've ever taken a personality test before. Okay? So that's your homework, okay? Do that. Take personality tests with your family. Every single person in your house you should know their personality type. They should know your personality type. It is very important. Know your temper. What does that mean? There's an entire body of science that up until recently, educators and psychologists, psychologists, psychiatrists, people of mental health were used and was called before temperaments. And then, you know, there's been a clear sort of divide between tradition and science and so anything that even had a hint of religious tradition or anything like that is being moved out of scientific literature and science and stuff. But these are things that they were using not too long ago. So look up the four temperaments and there's tests seeking you online to determine what your temperament is. What is all this for? It's because, again, if you don't have self-knowledge and self-awareness, how do you possibly go and have the confidence to raise another human being? Or not just one, but two in some cases, three, four, five. Some of our moms are like, eight, 10. Like, oh my gosh, what a tax. You're going to try to raise eight to 10 children and you don't even know yourself well. And unfortunately, you know, self-knowledge wasn't a priority for most of, you know, our parents and the older generation because they'll survive it, right? The luxury is that they're taking personality tests, right? Like, it's slipping their coffee. They were like, I got to live, you know? So we're not in that position. That's why for us, it's honestly like, it's pretty like, if we're behind all these things, we have no excuse. And that's part of passive parenting which we're going to talk about. But knowing yourself, knowing your basic needs, okay, for example, and I don't like people joke about this, but it's actually really important. Raise your hand if you're somebody who absolutely gets hangry. Like, if you don't eat, like you get, it really affects you, right? Okay. So now I want you to think about this. If you know that about yourself and you skip breakfast and you lose your day and you haven't had any comfort as a crazy parent, right? You didn't fulfill your own need. You have to, it doesn't make you selfish. If you know that I need to eat at a certain time and I have to because otherwise, I suffer and I just kind of let go and then it just comes out in really wrong ways. Take care of your needs. There's nothing wrong with that, okay? And it's actually, you know, like they say on the airplane, the mask on first and say, worry about everything else. But it comes to parenting, you have to do that. You have to know your own needs, make sure you take care of those needs. So that's why it's important. Let me look at Maslow's hierarchy of needs to kind of see where you are. But the most important thing, when it comes to parenting and knowing yourself, you have got to know the diseases of your heart. If you don't, please look into getting this book because it's called Purification of the Heart and it's all about the diseases of the heart that every single one of us have. We are all infected, probably with all of them, to a certain degree, but some more than others. And again, as a leader, if you're not aware of your own diseases, right? If you're not aware of your own spiritual shortcomings and yet your task as a Muslim parent is to raise another human being and give them guidance, does it make any sense if you're totally oblivious to your own faults? So you have to be, this is what self-knowledge is. Being aware of your own diseases, being aware of your own limitations, right? And once you're taking care of your needs and you're working properly, so it's not like it's like, oh, okay, I resolved it. No, no, no. You have to be willing to continue that work. But once you're, not aware of yourself, at least you're asking these questions, then you need to look at, again, those in your care. What are their needs? Right? What are their needs? So for husbands, this is really important that you pay attention to the needs of your wives. Not in, you know, it's very natural it happens when we focus on our own needs first. But if you pay attention to your partner's needs first and they're doing the same, guess what? Everybody's needs get up in, right? But if you're paying attention to my needs and they're paying attention to their needs, nobody's needs are getting fulfilled. But that's usually what we end up doing, right? Where we just were like, oh, I love this and I used to do that and it's a lot of I, I, I. But really paying attention to the needs of your partner is important because it makes you a team, right? And you can't be offensive parents if you don't work together. It's just, it's not going to happen. You'll, something will fall apart eventually because children pay attention and you know, it's just, it's like picking and choosing and it just causes, but the, so you want to really take it seriously where you pay attention to those in your care and also have sense to your children looking at what their needs are and understanding the potential dangers and threats and talk a little bit about that earlier when you referenced the shepherd. The shepherd knows to look out and know what to look for. Do you know what's going on with your children? Maybe you have any idea what kids are exposed to for example online? You know, people need to know this and I know so many parents they admit that they don't know anything. I don't like social media, I'm not on it. We know what? Don't be on it for yourself. But if you don't know what's going on and you have a teenager you know, a few years, if you don't know in a few years they're going to come to you and say, I want Snap, I want Instagram or if they, it might be like over by one and they'll be a new app, right? So they turned over so quickly. But like at some point they're going to ask for these things and if you're a clueless and so many parents are, I have done parenting, workshops on social media and I can't tell you even afterwards how devastating it is how parents come up and say, I don't know what to do. My child is completely addicted. They know everything and I don't know. I think a lot of moms and dads were just, you know, maybe for language barriers or whatever. You know, they just don't know. They have these formal situations at home where their kids are exposed to everything. You know and they didn't know what to do. So you don't have to know what are the potential dangers and threats out there. What are my kids being exposed to? You just have to know sometimes life is going to throw you really difficult situations but you have to know hey, how can I prevent these things from happening, how can I protect them and what resources are out there, right? So seeking counsel when needed. There's so many parents and families that are suffering because they don't reach out. And this is why, you know, I've been doing mental advocacy and health advocacy for a long time because in our community we have a problem and this goes back to what what I talked about in the beginning. We're so stuck on the dream. We're so stuck on selling that perfect image that anything that breaks that up even if it means having a healthier family is just too intimidating. We don't want to know we have problems so we don't talk about anything. We hush hush or we try to self fix and I've seen things just spiral out of real control. I've had moms call me in panic over really, really terrifying things and I'm not exaggerating when I say this but what do I do when it's like wait, wait, wait this problem's been going on for how long? What? Over a year? Over two years? And now you're trying to do something? So we have to wake up and say part of being effective parents is we need to know A, what the, you know, what the dangers are but also seek counsel when it's needed. And then of course like I said before ultimately you have we have to rely on God and submit to His will. Outcomes we cannot control. You can do everything perfectly as a parent and the outcome might not be what you want. That's not on you. If you were effectively leaving and you were doing everything perfectly and something happened that's not on you. You don't have to look at yourself like you failed because if you were responsible and you were doing everything right and you talked about love and compassion and you, you know embrace them and show them the beauty of Islam the outcome is not on you. And so that takes a lot of pressure because I know a lot of parents especially of teens blame themselves. What did I do wrong? If you start, you know just leave the outcome to Allah so that obviously pray for the best ask for the best do everything in your power but don't focus on that because if that becomes your focus where it's like everything has to be perfect then you know again you're missing it. You have to focus on yourself. What are you doing? So, and then you know just to further emphasize before as a strong leader you have to know your responsibilities first and then your rights. So when it comes to your children first study the rights of children over the parents. Don't focus on, you know because bin al-Radi day is exploited in our cultures. It's not 100% exploited. So much spiritual abuse happens because parents use this, you know beautiful part of our faith to exploit their children, right? And it starts very early. Like you see, you know authoritative parenting models can be very toxic too. So leave them little children start barking orders at them you better obey me you better do this. I mean I have, you know again really horrible cases where parents have, you know abused their authority based on I have rights over you and the gen is under my foot you don't obey me you go to hell and it's like stop it all. That's what you say to a four or five year old child like what's going on? It's not effective parenting. And if you're doing any of that such stops like children are beautiful and they're pure and they don't need to hear harsh language like that. So, but if you're going in again with this construct that you know what I'm entitled to things, right? I'm entitled to my children listening to me they're a baby and you come with that attitude then that's all you care about and then what about their rights over you to even know what they are have you ever studied or taken a class there's classes on this material there's books written on this material but again this is you know where we as responsible leaders and parents it's our charge to do this work we have to be looking into this stuff and so, you know and then also just culture define your parenting model or does this matter be honest, right? If you're parenting based on what your cultural attitudes are expectations are and that means that you forego clear you know rules in Islam that is a huge problem I'll give you an example for example double standards okay? raise your hand if you I'm talking about women as you can see looking over here because this happens a lot in our cultures raise your hand if there were total double standards between the way you were treated and the way your brothers were treated in your household okay? like rules okay? for example chores right? do your brothers have to wash dishes and set up a table and like you know do things like that I mean if they did mashallah good parenting but a lot of our in our homes if you knew and I teach like my sister in law now a lot of them teaches me if you knew the way that we were raised like we were serving you know serving the boys you know when they come to the house like on a tray I never got that I walked in late after our work shift I was like go get your own food it was sort of me having so definitely double standards with things like that chores absolutely I don't think I ever in my life saw how I would do anything like like a like a domestic task I just really can't work like but we used to have to vacuum clean the bathrooms make arbors make hazmets so there's definitely double standards right in some of our cultures even with curfews right? curfews I mean I couldn't be outpasses from point of parents didn't care what the brothers were so this is cultural boys, girls and the same stuff what this that washes dishes they have to wash dishes fold laundry fold laundry take out the garbage take out the garbage cut the grass you know this division of labor based on gender is very odd because again it goes against the sun the problem is someone who still washes his own dishes he's done many of his own folks so are those two girly for boys to do things over and if those are the types of things that are going on in their home where there's definite you know separation based on gender you have to go back and say am I what am I doing am I creating maybe some resentment and entitlement am I creating am I planting seeds that are going to be really disastrous for my children as they grow up because my daughter is going to be resentful and I have a boy who's just like hey where's my tray of food you know or you know picking on his wife and expecting all these things I contributed to the cycle so you have to know again think about this this is really where you as a parent you have to be responsible and then being the guy who you want your children to follow you cannot you know the proper guy is but you can't they learn from imitation they learn from listening and observing so you can't say do as I say and how as I do it doesn't work it's like literally hypocrisy that is the spreading of effect but a lot of parents that's how they parent because I said so no break it down explain to your children the wisdoms of things and be fair and be equitable and don't be a hypocrite if you say something do it if you don't do something don't you know tell them how to do it that's how it should be don't do it don't tell them not to do it but you can't be doing it so be really sincere in terms of setting a good example and then this is you know the next point is really important we're going to get to that just tailored parenting tailored parenting is really accepting the idea that no two children are the same the one size fits all model may work when it comes to tools and just sort of setting sort of you know like house rules but not when it comes to one on one connection with parenting you have got to focus in and know who your children are okay and then you know we talked a little bit about earlier knowing the dangers that work and if we have time we'll try to get to the temperance but let's just quickly this is again the characteristics of an effective leader just to summarize for you these are things that you should ask yourself do I have do you have strong communication skills okay are you able to really communicate effectively do you know like how to articulate what you're feeling or is it a struggle for you and if it's a struggle for you that's not something that you can't work on sometimes people just say well I don't know I just have just a few words and that's it conversations end that way but you probably do have a lot to say it's just a matter of the medium so strong communication skills doesn't mean strong speaking skills necessarily maybe writing is more effective maybe you do need an arbitrator or mediator but that's effective communication if you even recognize that right that I need to work on maybe I can't get through my child or I don't know how but you have to know if these are skills you have are you passionate you know as a parent are you truly commitment or are you checked out just be honest because you can again solve something you know resolve issues if you're not willing really clear the other way if you're like yeah I'm not interested you know I'm in a mode where I want to do my own thing right now parenting is kind of a burden you know it's like oh too much I have to clean I have to help them with their homework I want to be honest about that that's saying that you right now in a place in your life where you need more right and honestly if it's you know it's a very subjective because every situation is different some people who have been sacrificing and sacrificing and sacrificing so they do get to that point where it's like yeah I had children I stayed home I did my work I put aside all my dreams I didn't go to school I didn't do anything and now at a point where I really want to focus on that it doesn't make you a bad parent okay it doesn't make you a bad parent because in Islam Alhamdulillah we're multifaceted and all parts of us should be celebrated just because you're a parent doesn't mean that you can't also be an entrepreneur an artist you don't have your own thing going on I think again culturally these are things that we're told like if you're a good mom you just sacrifice your life forever just die sort of your children and your husband of course don't do anything but right and if you're a father too if you're a good father your whole life should basically be like like you should be working until like before you enter the grade right and these are the cultural crazy ideas that we you know have that we perpetuate like am I an effective parent if I am checked out no so maybe I need to work on balance so that I can find the time to be committed to my children when I miss them but also pursue my passions this is self-awareness self-knowledge this is the type of stuff that you need to look at positivity and of course if you're happy and you're fulfilled you're going to be more positive innovation this is not the doubt okay so don't get me in trouble there's just a word like everybody creates that okay learning how to be creative with your children hiding you ideas and ways to teach them things that's you know part of effective parenting but if again if you're passive in your parenting you're not checked out you're too busy you know trying to figure your own self out or you're like really just overwhelmed maybe you're carrying burdens maybe your parents are older and you're working and you've just got a lot of responsibility it's going to be it's natural that these things aren't going to really you know come out but how do you fix it right and in collaboration so being you know looking at your family as a student it's very important that we kind of this authoritative model of parenting as I said before is kind of it's very top down right when you actually look at your family and you talk in a language that's collaborative especially if you have teenagers this is very healthy because they they feel like they're part of the team right and they're not just barking at them and telling them what to do or just respecting them they're actually like it's a success and so collaboration is really important okay any questions there are a few more slides but any questions at this point that's can you might even look at innovation? sure innovation is being created like yes coming up with like creative ideas of things to do with your children but this also takes you back to knowing your children's interests right if you're not paying attention and you're just like go to school do your chores you know do this and it's just kind of a lot of existence for them and there's no time where you can actually connect and say you know what what are you interested in let's go to this museum let's go try this class out let's try doing something you know then it becomes again very like you're not you're not in it whereas innovation requires you to be present requires you to be in it right it requires you to really pay attention to your children to base what you know on your own because it's a class yes so in that situation I know you said that there's some you try your best with Karen and then it's a little bit obviously great for her but how do you manage the relationship with the child at that point very good I mean they're still your children you know and even I've had people approach me through difficult situations and they don't know what to do because it's affected their heart towards their children they feel betrayed But just like we tell our converts, you know, to Islam, that, oh, you have to still review respectful and maintain those relationships, inshallah, we can't be perfect, we have to do the same thing. They're still our children, we still have to leave that door open with them, and just really look at them like, you know, it's difficult, and I know people who are going through this right now, but honestly, it's a matter of what's better for them, that you push them away, and you judge them, that you're critical of them, and you basically throw them right back into the arms of those who are willing to take them from you, or that you leave the door open, leave the lines of communication open, be understanding, be respectful, and show them that, you know, if you're thinking thin, I'm still mom, I'm still dad, right? Inshallah, maybe somewhere down home, maybe it won't be said, and maybe it won't be, you know, for a while, maybe it will be a long while, maybe they'll above all, you know, he's a, he's a, you know, he's a flipper of hearts, and the power and the law, the power and law of the parents is, you know, unmatched, so there's so much that we can do if we just step back and realize, outcomes, I'm not responsible for outcomes, right? I cannot control outcomes. If a wills something, he wills it. What I can control is what I do, and my, you know, response should be of compassion, of mercy, and of course, making the law and asking for it. So, the thing is, this conversation, sometimes it brings me, because I'm a immigrant, so I don't feel like if I was in that situation, I'm not going to bring them, I'm going to bring myself, I'm the one who brought them here. So, I don't know, I feel like, okay, it's so hard, how can you deal with it? Right. You are the one who put her in that situation. Well, it's your fault. You're in the moment of being in it, right? So, I was not going to judge you based on you making a constraint and coming to another country, you know, for me, I'm sure your intention was not to have your children have to go astray. Okay, you've done it in the beginning. Right. Yes, but there's dangers even in recent countries. Nowadays, if you do, if you look at the polls, there's huge numbers of people who are completely deflected from Islam coming out of most of the majority countries. So, Allah is the only one who got it. It's not necessarily the people you're around or where you are, you know, your location. It's a guidance that's from Allah. And that's why, again, your job as a parent, if you're following along, is to be that shepherd, right? So, yes, you bring that maybe to somewhere that there's more dangers, but if you're on top of those dangers, if you're ahead of those dangers, if you put things in, you know, like if you have things in motion or systems in place so that it prevents harm from coming, you're doing your due diligence, right? So, for example, bringing that shot loss in the message. This is a huge blessing that we have. So, there's so many people. Why is it that, when we talk about the dead ring of Allah, this is mentioned, that we have this influx of people who come and they sort of disappear, right? We have to be, we have to go out there, especially if you're a regular attendee, Alhamdulillah, you do come to the masjid. You have to encourage your family, take your children to the masjid. This place is not easy. The vineyard is not easy, you know, living in this time and day. It's not easy. The masjid will keep them insha'Allah grounded and I'm going to talk about that, you know, reflecting some statistics that are really insha'Allah hopeful, to just give us more encouragement, that there are things that we can do, making sure that the company they keep, that's why that friend, that sister of Gigi, the company she keeps is very important. As parents, we should absolutely know who your children's friends are. You should know who they talk to. If you don't know, oh, what's her name? Who are you talking to? Oh, okay. And that's the conversation that's, no, no, no. Who is she? What are her parents like? What does she do? You have to, you literally request them to buy a bag for every friend. You're really, like, of your, you have to because I can't, I mean, it's just proven. There's so much, like, research out there. They talk, talks about the enormous influence that, you know, peer-to-peer, you know, kids have over each other. So you're literally handing them to complete strangers if you don't know who they are. And then you expect them to, you know, to just come home and obey every single thing you teach them if you don't know who these people are. So these are the types of things that we have to do, right? And if you're doing, sometimes, I know you said be your child's friend. I agree with all of that. But sometimes when you give them choices, they sort of start leading you. Right. So I'm one of those parents who's very authoritative. I am my dad's child. So I just say it and it has to happen. Alhamdulillah, so far it has worked. Alhamdulillah. And I did advise a friend to try that with her kids because her kids do not want to come to them. Yeah, as mentioned. So now she kind of claims and I'm seeing her kids here. Alhamdulillah. Don't give them choices, right? Right. We probably don't get choices. So let that be the answer for them. Yes. It is like a ban. Eventually, if all the station and even first of all, it becomes the opposite. Yes. No, no, as far as the authoritative part, there's a time of place for it. Absolutely. But I think it's, when it becomes the only model of which you parent, that's an issue. And we'll talk about the why. Because the effects of that on every stage in childhood are lasting, right? And we're going to get to that. But if you know that these are the characters of an effective leader, then the next step is accepting again that parenting is 100% kind of model. OK? And if you see your children as just extensions of you, this is a real serious problem. They're not. They're not. They do not look like you. But they're not yours. The kids are not yours. We can't have this idea of do whatever I want. We can. Better belong to you. They belong to Alhamdulillah. Halas. He literally is giving them to us for an appointed time. And he will hold this account for how we took care of that model. When it's time to return them. So if you really, really believe in that, and you take things very different, you look at them very differently. But if you just think, oh, there's my little minion that I have to tell me to do all the time. And then you explain that. You abuse your authority. And it just becomes a very toxic environment. But if it's like, wait a second. This is almost how much property, right? Even though it came from my body and I helped create that, I I need to really, really be careful of what I do with this. It's fragile, right? It's fragile. The children are fragile. Then you parent with more presence. You actually hold yourself accountable. I mean, we just lost, you know, a child this past Friday, right? I'll let it come home. Alhamdulillah. He was only 13 years old. And according to everything that people have said about him, Alhamdulillah, he was like a little angel, a child, right? He was adab. He was beautiful, shy. He just had the most excellent manners. He was, they loved the Quran. Sweet. He just did everything right, inshallah. The parents were clearly doing everything right. But, you know, why did Allah's father take him? Because he can't. Allah's. They belong to him. He can take them, whatever he wills. And we can't question his will. And that's iman. Iman is believing that children are not ours. They are Allah's. Just like we belong to Allah. And we have to take that charge seriously. And the Prophet, peace and blessings of Allah be upon him, said, What does that mean? The signs of a hypocrite. Whenever he speaks, he tells a lie. Whatever he promises, he always breaks it. And if you trust him, he proves to be dishonest. So may Allah protect us from being part of this category. The trust he's given us, right? Children are out of trust. And the way that we prevent ourselves, again, from faltering and abusing this trust is by what? Fear Allah. And treat your children small or grown fairly with equal justice. We have to be fair. We have to have equal justice. There's a lot of favoritism. I know that happens with families. And if you're one of those parents where you do favor one over the other, you're going to be having problems for that. If one of your child is like prodigal and perfect and just sweet and you're just like, sure, you can have a screen of light. No, candy. And then the other one is like, maybe they're bratty and they did something that upset you early in the day. You can't have any. That's so wrong. Slap along. That's what we have parents do. They totally do their favorites with their children. And this is a direct command from Allah. Fear Allah. And treat your children small or grown fairly with equal justice. That's why what we talked about earlier, the double standards are so toxic and so harmful. Because a lot of children get mistreated because of double standards. So parents have to be careful. And then another hadith that really emphasizes how we're responsible for so much of what happens to them. No child is born except on al-Fitr. Every child is born on al-Fitr. And then the parents make him either Jewish, Christian, Magian, you know, that goes on. So what is this telling us? All of our children are born pure. Whatever they come out to, because of our negligence, right, is on us. But what I was saying earlier, if you're doing everything right, you don't blame yourself. It's when you're negligent, when you're failing, when you're not present, when you're completely letting the television set or their phone and the internet, you know, parent, your children. Yeah, you're going to be a coward. So that fear should strike you. Like stop for a while. I need to take this more seriously. I need to start doing stuff, right? And that's why, you know, knowing your children's rights and when they're mandated by God, children have rights. You have to give them their heart. So fathers, I mean, this is, you know, in the Quran, bearing the costs of their food, clothing, on equitable terms. So being fair with your children in terms of what you provide for them, their sustenance. You can't get your favorite child, the nineties, and then take your other child to like pay less, you know. It doesn't work though. Equitable terms. And the both of them said that one of the rights of children over their parents is being given a nice name. Okay. I mean, this is for those who are expecting, make sure that you give your children names that reflect what you want to see in them, inshallah. Not just what grandma wants. And you know, sometimes there's politics that people force people to do things, but you also have to think like, I want my child to reflect. For example, I had my second child. My first child is Yaseen. And so my second child, I wanted to name him Matin. Right. So original. So I was like, I see Matin how cute. And then I asked our, my teacher, I said, you know, is this a good name? And he said, no, don't name him Matin. Why? Because Matin is about might. It's a, it's a, you know, one of the attributes of Allah, but it describes like, like strength and might. And it's almost to be feared. And you don't want that to come out in your child. And so I was like, oh no, you're right. So, alhamdulillah. It was good Nasiha. That changed his name to something totally different. Ismail. Alhamdulillah. You know, and, you know, he was born literally smiling. Like he had a huge smile on his face when I first saw him. And Mashallah, he's a very smiley kid. I mean, not the Ismail, you know, it's a, it's a play on the word. But Mashallah, like he, he's a, he's treated his name in many ways, but that's just one of them. So naming your children is really important. And then having a good education, you have to provide for them. Make sure that they, you know, are, are learning good, learning well. And that doesn't mean just giving a top 10 school, or schools that have a top 10 rating, but it's actually looking at the character of the teacher, right, that is going to be teaching your child. Every single person that comes in contact with your children, you should get them and know who they are. If you allow them to have that access to your children's heart, especially young kids, right? If you, and I don't, you know, sometimes parents work and they have other obligations. It's just like, something that was not so until watch this person, so-and-so watch this person, you know, our kids. But you have to be careful. Every single person that comes in contact with your children, if they don't have that character that you want your children to eventually reflect you're exposing them to stuff. So this is just mindful parenting. You know, they're making sure that education is just, is not just beyond the classroom. It's really a matter of who's teaching your children. And anything, right? And being careful about that. And then back to the Taylor parenting. Again, I can't emphasize this even, I mean, there's research and research that shows that even identical twins in the same home, with the same exact parenting, eating the same exact food, doing everything, come out completely different, right? Because no two children are the same. So when we talk about Taylor parenting, this is what we're talking about. And these quotes from, I didn't even have to go over, really important because someone mentioned earlier, and we have to think about this. We all do it, right? We all eventually model parenting that are, you know, that was down to us, onto our children. One of them said, I'll turn it into my mom, turn it into my dad. Yeah. And things that we thought would never do end up doing, right? And this is a form of passive parenting, okay? Because very clearly, do not raise your children the way your parents raised you. They were born for a different time. And that doesn't mean across the board, like you can't take things that your parents taught you. It's a matter of really focusing on the nuances, on the differences that your children, with the environment, everything that's changing around that and making sure that you're, you know, as your parenting, you're sensitive to those things. You're aware of those things. Because if you're just, you know, modeling the same thing that was done to you 20 years ago plus, it's not going to be effective. And I've seen this happen, even in my own family, you know, where it's the same sort of, you know, again, model, but it's like it's not working with this generation of children. You have to do something different. And then, clear instructions here for us, and Pichala, we'll get to that, are, you know, how to look at your children as they go through different stages. So those first seven, stages, I'm sure we've all heard this, but we're going to talk about what this means. Play with them until they're seven. Discipline and teach them from seven to 14. And then be friendly to them at the age of 14. So whatever age you find yourself in, there's something in this for you. So let's look at spiritual audio in early childhood. So how many of you have children between ages of two and seven? Okay, so this is a very tender age. Okay. What do they need the most? They need love. They need safety. They need guidance. Right. So knowing those needs, right. Paying attention to what they need. Now what tools can you use? This, you need to inculcate a lot, a lot, a whole set of, in your children. At this age, storytelling. Okay. With animation, you have to be willing to be silly. Okay. I ran a preschool for three years. And one of the funny things that we noticed was, again, it comes back to, you know, we're just so worried about our image that some moms who like, they look at us like we're crazy. When we're like, ah, you know, we're dancing and we're like, you know, his face is, and we have pockets on our fingers. And I'm like, you know, I'm in the world with your children right now. I'm in like, play world. I'm an animation world. But they can't do that. They're like, I don't know how you do that. Like I just can't. I can't do that. I can't do those voices. I can't get, you know, down and do all the stuff. And I'm like, you know, that's sad because your children need that. And they're living in a totally exciting universe and you're not willing to go to their universe. But yet, you want them to do it perfectly, right? And, you know, we've put on our work. We don't make mistakes, you know. Say something to every single person. You know, so they have all these very strict rules that we want our children to follow because it all affects good on us. But we're not willing to meet them where they are at. And that's why story time is so important for children. This is my own advice, you know, but they have such an incredible imagination. So, stories of the prophets or stories from the seat of what happened in the Cave of Halo, right? But this is a really incredible story. If you actually think about it, and this is where innovation kind of comes into play, think about how can I tell, retell this story in a way where my children will get it, right? You don't have to get into this deep detail of the prophet was, you know, worried about the polytheism, that kind of like, you don't need to go from that angle. Just say, she used to go on a mountain because you wanted to get away from all the noise. It just, that, you know, life was just really just too busy and crowded, too many lights, not nice, but you know, there's too many sounds and you don't have to get away. So you want a mountain top and you'd go there for like 40 days, you know, and kind of really get to express that about how you tell this story. And then just describe what happens. Can you just imagine in a time and place when they don't have artificial lights or anything like that, that all of a sudden, this being of light enters this cave and it's almost blinding, you know, to the bulk of the setup, and then this whole exchange chat. This is how you tell a story to a child, that you bring them in to this magical world. Why do you think all these cartoons and movies, you know, CGI, why do you think it's so, why do they make millions and millions of colors over here? Because children love that type of wild, you know, magical sort of stories. They love those types of things. We have them and they're real and we don't tell them. It's not in their watch. I mean an animal that has wings, right? And I've done these, so I'm telling you like what you see, the children are like, they're just like, as you're describing what's happening, they're just in complete captivated mode. If you want to get a child's attention, you tell them really powerful stories. That's the problem that we have that. Or even other stories, you know, about animals that speak. It's all in the scene, you know. There's animals that spoke to the policy center and to profit. So they've done ants and, you know, camels. Animals that literally spoke. These stories that our children should know. Rocks, mountains, trees that spoke. Again, bringing that into that world of wonder, of awe. This is the age to do that stuff. Okay? Stories about Jenna. You should absolutely be talking about Jenna to your children. Any young age. Just get that one. And, you know, I lived at this funeral yesterday. Hunted in that. A friend of mine was sort of worried about whether or not she should take the kids. And I said, you should take your children. I take my children to females. Why? Why are we running away from females? No, no, no. Stuffed in a lot. Life and death. It's like a cycle. It's just part of what happens in this world. And we don't fear death. Death and it should not be something you teach your children to fear. Okay? That's very borrowed from like Western society. Death is a transition. It's a move from one dimension to another. And the first time in place for everything, you have to know your own children. But generally speaking, if you make death, you know, about going to Jenna and meeting Allah swt. It's not something that they're going to fear. Okay? But if you make it about going six feet under and having dirt running and worms eating your body and an angel is coming to Hannah, there's parents who talk to their kids about Shaitan and Jahannam when they're like four and three. See, no business talking to them about Jahannam and Shaitan and throwing, like, you know, threatening them. You know, like with, with like, do you want to burn in a fire? Like what is that? Like stuffed in a lot. But there's parents who use fear tactics to try to, you know, teach their children at that age, that's horrifying. Because just like their imagination can imagine all the amazing things, they can also imagine the monstrous things, things that are dark and just not, you know, stuck a lot. You have to stay away from those topics, you know. And even introducing concepts, like I remember Hashan, one of the best, the best I got from, from Shahadzah actually was not to introduce lying to your children at this age. Like if they tell you something and you go, are you lying? This is terrible because you're literally introducing to them a concept of deception which is a purposefully like evil act. They do not lie in that age. They're innocent. They're living in an imaginary world. So if they drop a glass and you say, did you drop that? And they say, that is not the same as deception. Because in their mind, they might have created a scenario where they truly don't think they do. Now are the facts, are those the facts? No. Maybe they just, you know, are created again a fantasy of you know, they were playing with an imaginary sentence and they're not really friends of it. You need to never know for you to introduce this concept of deception at an early age, it's ruining that myth that they have because you're actually blaming them for doing something that's intentional. Right? Do you get it? Is to deceive and to lie is intentional. You're purposefully doing that. But children don't do that. They're just in a different, they're in an optimal basically in that imaginative playbook. So that was really good in seeing that scenario. So don't introduce concepts like that or that is a sin. Because even sinning, like they don't understand what sinning is when they're young. Why do I want to talk about sinning? And that's different from like saying we don't do that. If you can say we don't, you know, eat pork. We don't do those things as Muslims. But to introduce the concept of sin when it's too early is might be useful. Any questions about that? I have a question. Yes. So when they when they brought something they say they didn't do it. So in that case you can, you know, again, ask them, say to them what happened. Let them explain. And you might get a really cool story out of it. And it might make you laugh and forget all about confidence that matters because it's like, wow, I was going to imagine it today. Right? But as long as you know that they're young and innocent mistakes happen and you have to be forgiving and compassionate and not like, how did you know if it was unintentional accidents happen? But let them explain to you what happened and just kind of go a little bit. I mean, I've had exchanges with my kids too. It's like, really, really, really good. But you know, you kind of just let go after a while and you realize that their intention is, maybe they are scared and they're trying to, you know, get a lot of punishment and even that it's innocence to that, right? But to actually blame them to purposely deceive you is not fair. Sometimes they like hide the truth because maybe it wasn't nothing that you're punishing for that. I don't think I'm conveying it. She wants to please you. So maybe she did something wrong. Yes. And then you ask her, do you do that? Yeah. She doesn't want to do it. She doesn't want to do it. So I feel sometimes something is going to happen. Well, you have to then at that point say, you can tell me the truth. And I'm like, you know, with our kids, my husband's here, we have a very clear rule with them. It's very clear that you will, you will, if you tell us the truth, it's better for you. Like, even if it's something that you're afraid of or you know, you think it's bad, it's better for you. Like, we will forgive more, like we're likely to forgive more if you tell us the truth. So you create that very safe environment for them because it's for her, it's a choice of, like I said, pleasing you or you know, misleading you. You have to say, don't mislead. Don't let that be an option ever. Tell me the truth. You know, tell me what happened. And it's okay. I'll, you know, we'll move to my state. You know, if it's a matter of seeing your disappointed girl and you scold her afterwards, right? That's what she doesn't want. Like, Mom was suddenly disappointed with me and now she thinks like, I should do this. And we tend to do that, right? It's natural. It's like, how can she, I shouldn't have done that. And now you're recommending, so she doesn't want to do that. So you just say, no, I'm going to tell you this, I don't want to do it anymore. Then you're telling them, tell them, good, I'm so proud of you for being honest. This is the way to encourage them. And shella, if you plant these seeds young, that by the time they're teenagers and they're in high school, that is set in some kind of imprinted in their mind that you're forgiving. That you're willing, that it's better to tell the truth, right? That in any way, like, whatever the case may be, there should be no option to not tell the truth. Like the only option is to tell the truth. But that's going to be much more, I mean, if you think for a high schooler or a teenager, there's so much opportunities to see the truth. Yeah. Don't you want them to feel like they're not an option? I have to tell them the truth, right? I have to tell my dad the truth. I have to, there's just no, that's what I would want. So I wanted to create that from a very young age. And that's why I'm trying to allow you to, again, encourage them not to see anything about their attention, just focus on, you know, correct them and maybe maybe leave them. But in that moment, let them just applaud them for the truth. Yeah! I think people want to ask about the concept of sting. Yeah. You said we should not introduce that to them. So, things like that, the example you mentioned, we don't, you know, she asked me, why we don't? So, because I'm not that good. Yes. So, what would happen to people who doesn't do that? So, a little bit angry? A little bit angry, yeah. That's almost, that's fine. A little bit unhappy. So, making a little happy and unhappy is fine. I think the concept of sting and reason why is it's so tied to morality. When we tie it to morality, then you have, you're opening up a can of water with a discussion that's going to get sort of confusing. For example, gender relations. If you introduce an idea that's too early for children, how do you justify why a woman can't wear, like if you say it's harmful, you're going to have to show my hair in front of another woman. What? What are you going to say? I'll ask that too. Okay, it will be on that. They keep probing. Wow. You see? Now it's like you have to explain philosophy and hayat, but what's the point? Because, I never mind. You know, like you're introducing concepts that are too early for that because not if they explain, what is what I'm saying, is that when you, when you say things from that language, it's going to make them want to know. But if you focus on the positive, like we do this because it makes Allah so kind of happy. Not because we do it because it's going to, you know, there's a sin attached to it. You see what I'm saying? Like you wear hijab because it makes Allah so happy. Not because it's wrong to show my hair. Do you get the difference? It's the way you present it. In the first example, you're presenting it as an act of duty and devotion, love for Allah, and that's it. And generally, it's simple. They get it. But when you say, we don't do it because this is wrong and it's a sin, see that language? Now they're curious. Well, why? And then you open the dialogue and you can get to a place where it's uncomfortable because you don't know where to go. How do I, you know, it's like, I don't know. I've got to say it. Not all things can be addressed the same positively. But sometimes one of them, why don't you talk to me? I'm a lover somehow. It's cool. It's cool. It's just a piece. What's your name? Oh, that's a great name to bring. You know, that's a really good example because a lot of songs, even in my movies, popular movies, they're all just like, love, love, love, talk. And children, we understand that life very clearly, right as adults, if a little girl's in love with someone, that means something to us. But does it mean the same thing to the child? No. No. So don't react like it means the same thing. Just be like, Oh, what is he? Then you go and you call your husband. Oh my God. He's going to go to school. I'm going to freak out. Because if we have a lot that we don't, it's like that's your reaction. And clearly, you're treating it like it means the same thing to you. For her, it might just be an innocent phrase that she heard so much in. It just means I love her. You know? I just asked him, so what do you mean? She said, I'm unhappy with him. I'm happy. I'm happy with him. I'm happy with him. But he's not over it. But he's not over it. Oh, oh, oh. Oh, oh. So I wonder what you said. How can they reply to that? And then he's telling me, okay, my friend is telling me, okay, I'm going to say, we don't want to show you what you're trying to do. I love you. So I'm going to say, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. No, no, no, no, no, no. They want that sweet rock. You know, but you don't want to sit there and make it to out to be something that's not. Because again, we're introducing ideas that unfortunately, in this society, they're already doing it. You know, they're already forcing this down our children's thoughts all over and out, the films and the songs. So we can't contribute to that by freaking out. And I think that's why our reactions are really important. And so when they say innocent things like that, you have to learn on the fly how to just spin it back to something innocent and not let that, you know, get carried away with it. So it's, yeah, it takes some creativity. So that's where the innovation work comes in. All right, so the next stage, right, is the middle childhood. And this is, you know, from 7 to 14, what do they need? What do they need? What do they need? Do they need love? They need respect. And they need reassurance. This is very, very important. Yes. So I think what you're trying to do with your story about the girl who's actually offered her job and she's very strong at the beginning of this class and the mother came to you and said, well, these kids do this and they start talking to people about any of the stories that they're talking about. What did you suggest and what was your advice? So, you know, it was a, I mean, obviously, I had told her as a dad, you know, I'm happy to speak to her. She's, because I knew her daughter. She used to come to our haraqas. And so we did, we actually had a conversation and part of the issue that she had was that she had actually a friend who was gay and the verses in the Quran that spoke about those things bothered her. So we addressed that topic. Alhamdulillah, it helped. And then I felt her in touch with other people that could, you know, that could help her further. Sort of, but I think it was helpful for her to hear that it wasn't just a black and white issue, which is what she was presented. But I have to choose this or, you know, or not choose it, but rather know there is actually, you know, don't, let's frame it in the correct way, because yes, even though it's something that we are very clear about in our tradition, individual people, we don't condemn, right? We can't do that. And I think that really helped her heart because she was just worried about her friend, you know, but, you know, it got into her, and it really affected her face. So this is why, again, as parents, we have to know, as I mentioned earlier, that when you're out of your, you know, a wheelhouse and you don't know what to do in terms of a situation, you have to know who to lean on. You have to know who to call on and know who are the mentors. Like, if you don't have, like, a person in your family or in circle that you can reach out to to for guidance on certain things, you should look for one, right? And there's much not a lot, especially in this community, we have a little center right there that can help with a lot of, you know, things, just the angst, you know, things that a lot of teenagers especially go through, peer pressure, all the stuff that we talked about. But even, you know, younger kids, if there's anything that comes up, there are all resources here, and then you have teachers here too, Masha'Allah, right? That can help. But anybody that you know who has experienced with children, just, and if they have their own children and they see them, Masha'Allah, they've successfully raised their children, those would be good people to just have in here, you know, speed down if you ever need to, Masha'Allah. But we're going to get to, to that, like demographic in a second. So this particular, the middle of childhood, it's really important that you again know what do they need, and you love specifications. And what they, the best way to reach, right? This age group is by storytelling, right? This is a good time. I think, and even our tradition is to teach them, start teaching them like fit and concepts that really make sense, right? Because their imagined sort of brain is now, they're going to reality, they kind of see things for what they are, they start to see things for what they are. So this is a good age to start breaking things down and actually giving them answers, going over, like they were memorizing, for example, surahs at a younger age. Now they may start to talk about the meanings, right? Because when they're younger, they won't get a lot of the concepts that are coming on the surahs. But when they start to think and reflect on the world around them and their own place in the world, this is developmentally what's happening to them, then it's, they can reach that, that part of them. You know, you can actually start breaking things down. So story time is very good. Stories from the planet here that display things that they also appear to, or appeal to, like valor and ability, courage, honesty, honor, bravery. These things appeal to kids in this age, right? So you want to look for stories from the sea that talk about that, like winning. Because there are a lot. Think about our world and their world, it's like, you know, when they're young kids, they're all playing together and then all of a sudden, you get into this, you know, middle school sort of age and it's definitely, you know, winners and losers. That's how everybody starts to see things. So that language, it's affecting them. They see, you know, yet they might give the underdog or they know kids they're being bullied or they know bullies. So when you speak to them about things that are, that they can relate to, it actually gets their interest. So speaking about stories about victory and overcoming hardships, those are really good ways to reach them. And then, like I said, you know, it's that, and, you know, explaining the wisdoms behind what we do, what we do. That's an important time to start doing that. And then practical rules and tips, life skills, to boost their confidence, you know, this is a very, very vulnerable age. And the more they can do that's unique and different, the better for them, right? So if you can teach them things or expose them to things that kind of set them apart from their peer groups, it boosts their confidence, right? So this is again where you have to get a little bit more creative and innovation really matters in terms of your parenting. And remember they're watching every single thing so you have to be authentic. And then the last group is the adolescence, right? And this is why, this is, you know, in the quote of, you know, he tells us, right, that this is the age where we have to be front of them. Why? Because they need love, respect, and empathy. This is where they're, you know, adulthood is, I mean, once they're about to embark on their own journeys of lives and they really need like someone to hold their hand and help them through that. So you can't, that opportunity of modeling of parenting is, is in my opinion, very destructive at this age. Here, it's not healthy to be broken orders and shouting and slamming doors and just arbitrarily throwing rules out to your children. You have to explain to them things. You have to respect them. You have to respect that they are adults from the asylum perspective. Unless your kid is puberty, they are adults. They're accountable to us for that. They have to identify time and day. They have to fast. They're adults. And that's why even, you know, historically, children of, you know, those ages, they got married. They were actually treated like adults. Some of, you know, they're, they're battles that were led by, I think, 11 or 12 year old boys, you know. So they were treated with a certain sense of respect. And we don't do that anymore. We, you know, we really unfortunately treat children who are under 18 like they're deficient. So, you know, they don't know anything. And we know better than them. When we talk down to them, that's why we have so much resentment in a lot of households from teenagers towards their parents because there's no respect. You don't respect their privacy. Their need for just being by themselves sometimes. Right? Even their physical needs. They know how we've talked about being of good leaders. You know your own needs, but you also know the needs of your children. Still to respect, for example, like there's articles about how they're popping out everywhere. So like, for example, children, especially teenagers, one of their primary basic physical needs is a lot. See, see. I can't tell you how many times I've personally witnessed parents really getting upset at their children and calling their names because they want to sleep. And they'll derive them in front of other people. Lazy, you know, sleeping, you know, sleeping in, just talking down to them as if that, you know, is not important. Like they're totally useless because they want to sleep in and actually really just enjoy sleeping. They need to sleep. There's a lot of things going on. And kind of I like it like, you know, the infant stage, infants sleep a lot because their brains are transforming, right? Their physical bodies are transforming so that sleep helps them. For teenage brains, it's the same. They are going through major physical, physiological changes and the brain needs sleep. But if you disrespect your teenager and make them feel like they're lazy because they want to sleep, how do you expect there to be any sense of you know, like you respect me or you know, I want to connect with you. That's why, you know, they'll just go to their room. You won't talk to them. They'll give you one of their answers. Maybe they don't feel like you really see them or who they are. They're just extensions of you. They're not perfect. There's something wrong with that. And then you get mad at them, right? And that's where that whole ideal that we create is so destructive and we have to stop that. They are in a manner. We are meant to do everything in our power to raise them to be decent human beings and inshallah excellent servants to Allah Subhanallah. That's our obligation. It's not so that they, you know, go to the best schools and that they're perfectly polished everywhere and they look amazing in every picture and I will take them around. There are trophies that we just sell, you know, carry around with us. But that's the kind of attitude a lot of parents have. So when you're, you know, child doesn't do what you want them to do and that you think they should do then it's just angered. It comes out. Right. But if you actually saw their individuality and learned about their personality and their differences you would see that they have different needs. I remember I gave a similar talk a while ago and this mom came up to me after and she was totally in tears. She was like a mess. And I said, what happened? And she said, and after listening to your talk I realized like, it's my fault that my, my, her second son that she has like a really bad relationship with him. She said, I, all I did was basically compare him to his older brother who was more extroverted, outgoing, athletic, you know, kind of had sort of, he just did more and he wasn't like that. He was shy and introverted. He was not into sports. He was more like a book sort of worm. And she thought he was like, there was something wrong with him. So she basically, you know, just labeled him you know, would fight with him often because he wasn't like his brother. And so she realized like, you know, she just, she didn't respect him and she didn't really see him for the view lots. It was like, you're not like this other child that I consider perfect, therefore something's wrong with you. And this is why we have to get out of that mindset. This age is so, so important that we really pay attention to who they are. So friendship, mentorship, it's really important. If you can't be that friend for your children in this age because of whatever reason, you're not available. You have to make sure that they have decent or appropriate mentors for them. Do it. Be active. There's no shot walk. You know, they have youth programs here. There's Tali. There's SRVIC. We have an abundance of programming. But it's just a matter of are you a passive parent or an active parent? Does it matter to you or does it not? So the matters to you, then you go out and look for people. Or when you look for individuals and you say, you know what? I really like you. Would you be willing to be like, you know, they're towards my son or my daughter? You know, that's what needs to happen. And some parents, honestly, it's better that they outsource that. And that's when, again, knowing when you're beyond, beyond, you know, it's your skill, knowing that you can rely on other people. That's that's part of, you know, effective leadership. Classes and experiences is a really good time to do things with your teenagers. So whether you have sons that are, you know, teens look for programs that are designed for fathers that experiences. This proves I'm really, really effective. And because you're saying, I see you and I care about you and I want to do things with you. Right? Yes. Yeah, we do that with our kids too. If someone needs it, we have three boys and a girl and our middle boy, gets really upset. Any time we take one of the other kids, but when it's his turn, he's okay with that. But when I say upset, like really, really, he goes up and we just stop right now. Oh, that's not a lot. I decided to just stop doing that and just do everything to get it. Is it because in your absence, there's something like that? Do the other kids pick on him? No. No, he's even good, but it's also because that happens. I don't know. I'll get into that. Actually, I was fooled for one. He's the one who forces everything on him. Everything. I'm sorry. He usually gets away with it, which I think if I have them all in Mexico. Yeah. And I think this is part of the reason why Mr. Hips is here. Because he's gotten away with it for so long. Yeah. And I see how it might have been for you to just make those really huge right now. But why don't we just decide to stop to come here with the new ones? What about doing one on one? Because I know two on one. That sounds great, but maybe it would be more effective if it's more challenging. No, it's actually my husband. I am him. Yeah, because he works a lot, so I make sure that he's going to start with the kids. Okay. So I told him, just so you can get to know them. Right. That's nice. So the day of the week, and just be with them. So if he wants these or Fridays, he takes one of them out and hangs out with them and has them with him by himself. But for some reason, we don't have to have a story. So maybe, well, you know, this would actually be a good exercise for you to empower him. Like, you know, and say, Mohammed, we realize that it really bothers you. And so we decided to stop this, but we want to work with you. Like, maybe we can talk about a setup that would help you. What do you think? Can you give us advice? Let him rise to solve the problem for you. Right. And see, maybe you might be creative and say, well, no, it would help you when you guys do do that. If you do that, why don't you see? And see if you can actually work. All right. This is where collaboration can really come through. Because we might say, well, okay, I'll deal with it and give me this. You know, it was worth it for you. That's what he did. It's a negotiation idea. It's a negotiation, but you know, that's okay. Again, it's his first thing to go, but I thought it really had your truth. Yeah. I think, you know, it's okay. And this is negotiation and teaching them how to negotiate fairly and honestly and, you know, being is good for life skills. It's good for him to learn that, you know. As long as you're happy with the conditions and he's happy and it's mutually respected, how good is that? But that's where you, you're teaching him respect to. There's needs. And the fact that this really bothers you is something that's important to me. I'm not going to be dismissive of you and tell you, well, what's wrong with you? Right. I'm not going to do that. I'm actually going to honor that, you know, maybe there's a, you have a psychosomatic response. It's a stress response. It makes you sick. You know, there's something happening here, but I want to, you know, we still want to do this, but how can we do it like you? So that's a conversation that might work in shock. I'm going to try that. So, you know, then that's where, you know, discussions and debates are also really healthy for this age group. To actually have discussions like, what do you think about this? What do you think about that? Just see what they say, because what that does is it tells them, I respect what you want to say. I'm actually interested in what you have to say. I'm not just, you know, I know it all. We're just a little kid doing the holy things, which is unfortunately how a lot of parents, you know, are with their teenagers. Like, you don't know anything. I have to teach you everything. You don't know. But that's not true. Our kids are very bright, inshallah. And they actually could teach us a lot if we listen. And sometimes just listening, I mean, I'm not even with my own young children. Sometimes they have literally blown my mind because they'll say something where I'm like, wow, I would have never thought of it that way. So we have to be willing to see them. I mean, as they grow, they always have perspectives that we can benefit from. So then, what are the data sets? This is again, part of being an effective leadership, we need to know what the threats are. Should I find enough first and foremost? We know this. I do a movie. Our own best is our own enemy. That's why purification of the heart just uses what matters to know the staff and teach it to your children. Bad company. Get rid of bad company. You don't need bad company. Chaotene can come in the food form and in the spiritual form. That is a fact. There are Chaotene amongst us. So people who take your children and basically try to, encourage them in the wrong path, get them away from your children. You have every right to praise them. Media and pop culture, you've got to be on it. You have to know what your kids are listening to. If your kids have iPhones or access to music and you're not reading the lyrics that they're listening to, that's very dangerous. The lyrics are demonic in many of these songs. Like literally demonic. And they're just like, oh, this is good. And all of these things are like demon verses. And you're just like, oh, it's okay. I give out words. No, it's not cool. See what they're doing. Pay attention. Internet and social media. I've talked about this, but you have to be on your game about this. There's websites like Common Sense Media. If your kids ever want to download an app or a movie or anything, you can go and quickly do a search and see if it's safe. See what other parents are saying. See what other kids are saying. Dead things before you go. Okay, that's fine. What I brought up here. Is it free? Okay. You know, the shadow across the room. That's what parents do, right? It's like so passive. And then you know, people need to know. Do I do the social media trainings? There are vaults of apps that parents are closed about. Thousands and thousands of vault apps. It's a app. It's an app that is a fake. It's basically like a calculator on your phone. And then you click on the calculator and guess what? It's actually a portal to something far more nefarious and dangerous. It gives you access to chats. It gives you access to show pictures and videos. You have to know. Please know that stuff. And what developers design them, like, what do you do? It's nothing. It's like they're just producing a mass production of how these visits appeals to kids. They know how to hide things from their parents. So there's people who are making a lot of money off of these apps. So you need to know this. So there's articles that talk about how to basically get ahead and know even what's going on. Not just on social media, but trends are happening in schools. You know, they have all these weird trends that they do, like a marshmallow thing. And they're like, you know, there's just weird pictures, like things that they have to do. What are the trends that are catching on in schools? And are your kids participating? Or are their friends participating? Kids have died because of their fall into, again, peer, you know, accepted behavior and they think, go, I'm going to make you cool and hard work if I do this. And next thing you know, they're in the emergency room facing the front line because they did something without proper judgment. And that's where, as a parent, you have to think for them and be off-head of those things. Let me see your phone. Make sure you have really good policies as far as social media is concerned in your home. They shouldn't have the phone in their rooms. They shouldn't be accessing things in the middle of the night. No, no, no. In all, like, computer access should be in common areas. So if they want to do homework, fine. The computer is right there in the middle of the kitchen area, space living room. Or if you can walk by it. There's no, like, you could try a screen town and I'm just like, no, what is that? So we have to have better rules when it comes to these states. And then, you know, no one knows what pressures are out there and what they're expected to conform to. I mean, we talked about this, but identity politics is a big thing right now in this, you know, country. And it's confusing a lot of teenagers who they don't know who to identify with, how to identify with, what gender am I? And now it's like, it's getting out of hand. So you need to know what's going on in society around you because when they go to public schools and they go to colleges and universities, these are the conversations that are taking over our classrooms. Not even about education anymore. So social justice policies and things like that. So if you don't know you're checked out, then good luck. You know, you're going to have issues. So they'll teach them the faith properly, how to protect themselves, model the behavior you want them to follow and power them with strong effective tools in their toolkits, right? Build their confidence encourage trust, communicating effectively, identifying their strength with weaknesses. And, you know, something that I don't know if we'll have time today maybe for our next session is the four temperance I actually didn't want to introduce that to you guys today, but it's a lot of information. But just to kind of give you some hope, you know, it's really important to know what's going on between teens or youth that are religious and identify religiously and those that don't. And this gives us some hope, Insha'Allah. Fifty-four percent of teens devoted to God say they are very happy while only 29 percent disengaged say they're very happy. So they're basically clear difference right there. Giving your child being at an early age and positively introducing things to them and really just doing it the correct way, Insha'Allah. They'll be happy children. That's what we all want you and our kids to be happy. Insha'Allah. Is that good? Alhamdulillah. So, you know, in addition to the staff, the shepherd also holds another tool which is called a rod or a club. So again, you have to think of yourself in these terms. I have to make sure I have reach control safety down. Now what can I do? The rod, the rod is there to literally ward off you know, any predators or anything that's dangerous. So please, if you see things that are clear and present risks for your children, you have to speak out. You can't just be passive and go I'm not sure if I should say anything, if I should do anything. You have to be of that mindset that I need to shut it down because, you know, if I give this any more time, it might turn into something worse. And I shared last time, for example, you know, there was a mother that I had met whose daughter who was a middle school aged girl and she was, she had made some friends who basically started making her doubt her own sexuality as a 12 year old girl or 11, you know, middle school. And I had, the mother asked me what I should, what she should do and my advice was very clear. I was like, you need to remove her, these people from her life. There's no, you know, question in my mind that as long as they remain in her life, she will continue to have problems because, you know, if you have friends like that, God forbid, who are putting all these thoughts in your mind that you, they're not, she didn't, you know, come up with them. They're, you know, planting these seeds, like, well, how do you know that you really are straight unless you experiment, stuck for a while, with someone else? That's the only way you can definitively know. These are the types of thoughts that this poor girl was exposed to, which obviously caused her a lot of confusion. Now imagine if the mother just maintained those friendships or allowed her to continue to, you know, hang out with those people, you don't think that it's going to spiral into even worse things, you know, more experimentation with drugs, alcohol, God knows what else. So you as the parents have to know how to immediately shut things down that you know are dangerous for your, for your children. Yes. Is it, why are you going to set up? Right. Right. So, I mean, I think every, you know, in this situation, it was the schooling environments that her daughter was in. So that, I mean, that's a logistical issue that, you know, if you really as parents that they don't think like, you know what, if the environment is like this and there's a, this is common practice, maybe we need to consider just pulling her out of that school. Right. So it's kind of an easy fix. Every situation is going to require that sort of, you know, you know, tailored response. So it's hard to kind of give across the blanket because if it's family, it's obviously going to be closer and it's going to cause more problems. Or if it's someone in the community. So you have to really, you know, be thoughtful about how you approach these things and maybe seek counsel. But I think having this sort of, you know, I don't know if I should do anything because of a fear of a consequence. I think it's far more dangerous because the consequences should be very clear. Like allowing your children to continue to be exposed to these types of threats is far worse than any fallout from actually, you know, stopping them. And it's because their soul is at stake, right? I mean, people, stuff for all nowadays, you know, like I said, this is such a common thing now. It's these are topics that are very, you know, talked about loosely in, you know, amongst our children. And so if you allow them to, to be exposed to this more and more, that's exactly what Shaitan wants. He wants to normalize all of these things, make it not a big deal. And a stuff for a lot, it just starts to chip away at their, their heart, their, their faith. And so that's why it's sort of like, no, I have to shut it down. Because the more they're in that environment, the more, you know, there's risk for them losing their soul, literally, from a, from an Islamic perspective, right? So I would say again, it's going to require different response, persuasion, but just to be, be as, as thoughtful as process, I mean, as possible. So then we talked about, Bismillah. You know, so once you see yourself again, that parenting isn't just this dream that I live, you know, that I dream up and that I, I imagine, and it's all going to go exactly like this script that I want, because I am who I am, and my wife is who she is, or my husband is who he is. And we have the du'a of all these amazing people. Those are all great, but the responsibility is still on every single one of us. And when you see that, then we look at, well, okay, now that I see myself as this leader, and I have to protect the people that are under my care, how do I do that? You need to know your responsibilities first, and then you're right. So you need to know what are the rights of children over the parents, because that informs you what your responsibilities are, right? If you know what the children's rights are, then you know what you have to do as a parent. Then what are the rights of the parents over the child? Unfortunately, the script is totally opposite now. All parents go into parenting knowing very well what their rights are over their children, and so that's all they repeat to them. You know, you have to obey me, you have to listen to me, Jenna's under my foot, and we're just like constantly using, you know, scripture to tell children to put them in their place and let them know clearly that we have all these huck over them, but we need to also be very informed beforehand what our rights are over them. And then also we talked about, you know, does culture define your parenting model or does Islam? Because if you come from a specific cultural understanding of parenting and there's a conflict there with Islam, you have a decision to make. What's it going to be, right? And we talked specifically about double standards and the danger of double standards because in many cultures, this is common, right, that there's double standards for the way boys are treated versus the way girls are treated. And people don't realize that these are not fair, and when you have things that are imbalanced and unfair, they have consequences to that. So if you, you know, prefer your sons and you're always letting them get away with everything and you're treating them like they basically do no wrong, and then you're hyper critical over your daughters and her every move is analyzed, you're going to create real problems for them in their adult life. Your boy will grow up to be a man who is very entitled and he wants, you know, he has a lot of expectations from his wife and it's going to cause problems for him in that regard. And also your daughter might, you know, grow up very resentful because she was suppressed for all during her childhood, she wasn't allowed to do anything, you know, there were curfews imposed on her, there was always rules, she had to do more chores in the house, she was always like treated a different way than her son, then you don't think that's going to cause resentment, right? It will absolutely cause resentment and this is where, you know, she might also, you know, it just breaks things, the relationship down between parents and child. But if you abandon cultural, you know, standards and say, what is the standard of Islam? Then you see that it's just all the way across. Boys and girls are treated equally as children, they have the same, you know, obligations to their parents, they should participate in the household the same and men shouldn't, you know, boys should not be prevented from doing domestic work. This is not girls' work to wash plates and do fold laundry. It doesn't make your boy feminine. These are attitudes, unfortunately, that are very, very, you know, just damaging and wrong because it's completely against the Sunnah of the Prophet's life, Sunnah. The Prophet's life Sunnah washed his own dishes. He, he sort of, he's, you know, he was known to patch up his own clothing. So, As-Sagh-Allah, whose standards are we accepting? The greater society around us who really, you know, sort of, you know, poses boys and girls against each other and makes everything that's, that girls do low and just, you know, like, we don't want to, you know, participate in those things. And so, if boys are taught that, then they learn to disrespect women's work and they learn to see themselves above and better. But if it's like, no, this is the Sunnah of the Prophet's life Sunnah and we all practice it across the board, then it, again, brings that balance. And so, As-Sagh-Allah, you raise men and women who have respect for each other and who aren't being pitted against each other like the society wants, right? So always maintaining that balance. And we talked about the importance of, you know, being, you know, true to whatever you want your children to do, model it first. You can't expect that your children are going to raise, you know, grow up to be these model citizens and perfect, you know, in every which way, if you don't model that behavior for them. So it's very important to be, you know, to, if you want your children to be properly guided to, to know that they learn by imitating, listening to you, watching you, observing you. And so you need to check yourself and all the things that you want for yourself make sure that you're doing them as well. And we also talked about tailored parenting and making sure that we know that no two children, even if they're in the same household, even twins, are the same. And you have to know how to, again, when we talk about reach, control and security, it's going to be different, in some ways, per child, even in the same household. Communication styles for boys and girls, for example, are going to be different. And you have to do that research and do the reading to know how to talk about certain topics with each child differently. Right. But also, which we're going to get to, inshallah, knowing your children's temperament, knowing that, you know, how, how are children different? You know, in what ways and knowing and understanding how their personality types present themselves differently, but knowing, again, how to reach different personality types, which we'll get to, inshallah. And so then we talked about, you know, the five characteristics of an effective leader are strong communication, passion and commitment, positivity, being positive, not being this negative person, and then, you know, authoritative model of parenting, where you're just barking rules and orders constantly and you're always in a negative state, it's going to be very difficult for you to get the respect of your children if you're like that. They may fear you and you may get them to do what you want in the moment, but you won't have their respect. And if you do it with young children, just wait and see what happens to you when they get into their teenage years. If that's your model of parenting, where you're just angry and negative and yelling and it's just like, just constantly like that, don't expect anything but the same to be shown to you when they hit those teenage years and they're slamming doors in your face and they're just not responding to you anymore. Right? Because they're modeling what you've shown them. Right? That I'm just going to be negative and angry and I'm shutting you out and what I, you know, the conversations get shut down. It's going to all repeat itself. So positivity is really important to when you're parenting to really watch yourself and make sure your energy isn't down and negative all the time. Innovation to be creative. So a big responsibility, you know, and we talked about this too is we have to be willing to, you know, read and get creative in terms of, you know, all the things that we want from our children, whether they're really young and we want to teach them different things, but we have to do that. I think our problem is and it's just the, you know, circumstance that many of us live we're living in difficult times. It's especially Bay Area life. A lot of us work full time. So it's almost like we're in this constant, you know, rush or race and we don't have the time to do certain things. But if you can, you know, if you're always outsourcing everything that, when it comes to your children to other people and you're not taking certain things on your own, it's going to cause a problem. You won't have much because you're breaking down that relationship. They need you more than anybody else. So there's times, yes, where you need, you can rely on other people to, whether it's dropping them off, you know, to child care schools or Sunday school. But if you're not doing anything of your own that's unique for you and your child, then this is, you know, going to call, it's going to break down your relationship. So you got to start thinking innovatively about how can I make time for my children? How can I do certain things that are just me and them? And I'm not always, you know, just rushing from one event to the other or one thing to the other. And they're kind of, you know, we're like ships passing, you know, during the day or the night. And that's what families a lot of times happen. It's like, we're all over scheduled. We have too many things going on. But where is the innovation is where it's like, no, I have to do something. So I have friends, for example, who make it a point where, you know, once a year, for example, they will, you know, take a trip maybe, like a weekend trip or a day trip with each child, just separating, you know, the children. So it's not, it's to show that child that I see you, you matter to me. And our bond is really important. So just you and me, we're going to go, you know, for a day trip somewhere. And we're going to do whatever you want to do. And I'm going to bring you into my world or I'm going to go into your world. This is innovation. It's really thinking outside the box instead of, you know, always, like I said, just, you know, the default setting, which is just to do, you know, same routine every single weekend or every single week. Think creatively about how to reach your children, inshallah. And then collaboration. This is again, you know, knowing where, if you, if you do need help with certain things, knowing who your collaborators are and working with people, whether they're educators, whether they're other, you know, maybe mental health, people in the mental health field, people who know about children that you want to learn from, read from. There's people like Leonard Sacks. He's amazing. And he's come to the debate during several times. If next time, if he comes, I highly encourage you to attend his talks because he, even though he's not Muslim, he's, you know, still a moral, ethical person. He sees the dangers that are happening in the society at large and he's really trying to get parents back on track to take control again because we've, we've lost control, right. So he's someone who we should definitely look to his books. He's written amazing books. Look to his material. But there's people like that that we should know about, like, you know, whether they're, you know, get authors or educators or therapists outside in the, you know, or, or here in our communities, but make sure that we know who to rely on. So again, those are the five characteristics of an effective leader. And then reminding ourselves constantly that parenting is a trust from a lesson trying to find out that we will absolutely be asked about every single thing that we do. And when you weigh that constantly on your heart, then you don't look at your children as being little, you know, sort of servants that are just there to make your life easy, but you look at them like I have to do everything in my power to, to love them, to guide them, to, to give them the foundations that they need to take on this very, very dangerous world. And so it's all on us. It's, it's, it should weigh us down. It shouldn't be something that we just use to kind of justify exploiting our children, which unfortunately a lot of parents, you know, it's like that. I made them, I brought them into this world. I can do whatever I want with them. And we said, no, this is, that's totally, you have to reject that thinking a hundred percent. They belong to Allah, so how about that? And he gave them to us for an appointed time. We don't know how long, but if we accept that this is a huge weight on our shoulders, then we'll take this as seriously, right? It's not, we're not passively parenting. We're going to be actively parenting every day. Okay. And then, you know, that children's rights are mandated by God. So knowing what those are, the Prophet ﷺ said, sorry, hold on. Fear Allah and treat your children small or grown fairly with equal justice. So this again brings back, you know, what we talked about earlier is just making sure that you're really fair with your children and equal with them, not preferential treatment just because one child maybe really is sweet and very obedient and they always do what you say. Doesn't mean that they get more rights and more sort of, you know, give them, you know, more privileges just because, you know, you like them better. And it's true, you will have that it's just a reality of life that some children you will feel stronger bond with than your other children if you have multiple children. But you have to be fair and just when your parents are. If you're using, you know, them again, in this way where it's like, oh, because, you know, I like you better or you do more things for me. Therefore, you get this and this. You're setting a really dangerous precedent and you have to be for yourself. You know, you have to really be careful because Allah SWT will take you to account for that equal justice all the way across and be fair. So the the and these are from this is from the Qur'an So the Qur'an of the Prophet says, or excuse me, Allah SWT says that the father will bear the costs of their food and clothing on equitable terms. So this is just a reminder for the brothers that, you know, providing for your children is on you. This is, you know, one of their rights over you. And then another hadith, the Prophet said, one of the rights of children over their parents is being given a nice name and having a good education. You will be called out with your names and your father's names on the Day of Judgment. So give nice names to your children. So just making sure that their education who they're learning everything from is again, in line with your belief with your with what you want for them. And that is what active parenting is making sure you're, you know, if you have young children and they're in first grade, kindergarten, knowing what their teacher is going to be exposing them to. I think it was, I think it was Fremont, right? Recently, they had a vote where they were going to start introducing, you know, was it, there was, it was something about marriage, I can't remember, but they had a huge vote that they had to take with the school board because they were trying to introduce, you know, certain concepts to children at a very, very young age about different types of families, right? And so, Alhamdulah, you know, people showed up and they weren't able to shut it down, but some parents, the sisters that I knew were involved were very disappointed that more Muslims didn't show up. As we know, there's a very large population of Muslims in the Fremont School District, but they weren't probably even aware that this was being proposed. So this is the kind of stuff that we have to, as parents again, be a head up. No, what is, what are our kids being exposed to? That's a right. It's one of the rights of your children that their education is solid. So making sure that they, you know that. So yeah, we talked about this, but again, these, this is another reminder that there's no, you know, no two children of the same. And these are two beautiful quotes from Aliyah Ibn Abi-Qalib, Radhi-Lahan, who said, do not raise your children the way your parents raised you. They were born for a different time. And this is very important because a lot of our parenting is modeled after the way we were parented. But this is again a form of passive parenting because you're just repeating things that were done to you, even things that you didn't maybe even like as a child. You think, it worked for me because I turned out okay and I'll just repeat it to my kids, but we're living in very different times. And so being more active as a parent, you're looking at the world around, realizing children are totally different now than they were 10, 15, 20 years ago and basing your parenting on what needs to be done now. And then, you know, this is another hadith that a lot of our understanding about how to reach children and how to teach them, you know, from different stages is rooted from this quote of Ali, even if we thought of it again, really a lot. He said, play with your children till the age of seven. Discipline and teach them from the age of seven to 14 and befriend them at the age of 14. So, and then, you know, we went into the different stages and what we should, what our mindset should be. So in that early stage, between two and seven, play, everything should be play based. We should really be reaching our children with just, you know, their imagination. That they're in a world of imagination and we need to reach them there. So storytelling with animation, song, rhymes, and obviously modeling good behavior. These are ways that we can teach them, right, about Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala, you know, giving those, you know, or creating a connection with Allah in the public system. We have to be willing to meet them where they're at and they're in that imaginative state. So actually getting really well versed in how to teach children in that younger age, these are the things that you'll learn. Storytelling is huge, but not just, you know, reading a book because we're all very good at reading books. We can read and we're great at that. I'm talking about animating storytelling where you actually bring a story to life and really bring them into that age of wonder, right children. Why do we, they love cartoons and Pixar movies. It's because they tap into this, you know, love of wonder and magic and this world that's just beyond their, you know, imagination. And so when we create that in our storytelling and connect it to Allah in the Prophet's life said I'm, you're having the same effect. So when you tell stories from the seerah that are miraculous, bring it to life, right. Don't just say, oh, you know, Islam-e-Raj, the Prophet jumped on a horse and it had wings and it went, you know, like make it so dry and boring. Bring it to life, you know, bring that, just that, that, like that vision, that those visual effects into their mind so that they can actually imagine and if you can draw even better, you know, if you can actually draw things while you're telling that's amazing talent, why not use it but using that and then songs and rhymes being, you know, willing to just sing things to them, getting them like mashallah, you know, for the Mawlid that was here last night bringing them to places like that is really beneficial for their hearts. Children love songs, they love movements, they love all of those things. So exposing them to that is really important. Ta'alif, which is not too far from here, especially on a Sunday, it's about 20 minutes, I do that drive from Pleasanton in this area, they have weekly molans and it's a beautiful, if you've never been there, you should definitely attend because there's children everywhere and they're all, you know, they're a mashallah to praise the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam but they, you know, they love it and exposing your children to that is great. So those are things that we can do from a very early age to attach their hearts to the love of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam of course, modeling. That's for the younger age. For that middle, the school age children between seven and 14, we should be in the mode of teaching, okay, because now they can actually take instruction. Before seven, they're just in play mode, but at seven and beyond, they actually can, you know, think on a different level and actually, you know, you can reach them by teaching them and really breaking things down for them. So storytelling still works, metaphors, analogies, really kind of tapping into their more logical brain where they're, you know, thinking things on an abstract level and they're able to think things differently than when they're children. You know, just kind of, you know, again, looking at see it or put on whatever it is that you want to teach them, but doing it, having that understanding that now they're open to these types of things, right? And then still, modeling is very important that we continue to model really good behavior. So also in this age, you know, teaching them concepts like thick, you know, and really bringing down, breaking down the why of what we do, right? Because in the beginning it's just, we're just teaching them what it is. They may know Quran, but they have no idea of the meanings. They might not know all of the different beliefs, you know, because they're too young to sort of get certain concepts. But once they're a little older, you start breaking things down, breaking, you know, this is why we do certain things. So thick. And then also, I encourage sharing stories that display things that appeal to this age, right? Stories that talk about valor, nobility, courage, honesty, bravery. A lot of kids in this age because they're dealing with their own insecurities, they might see bullying going around them. They might not have friends that are sort of, you know, being mistreated a certain way. It appeals to them to have stories that talk about, you know, about valor, about winning, you know, instead of always seeing things that are kind of in that negative light around them. So you want to expose them to that, you know, inshallah. And then, I also think it's really important at this stage to teach them practical rules and tips and life skills that boost their confidence. So I was actually telling my husband, you know, that I think middle school children should totally, parents should really look into putting them into classes for to boost their confidence that, you know, teach them public speaking skills. And so we're just having this conversation and then he attended, actually, there's a, have you heard of Toastmasters before? I mean, I've heard of Toastmasters, right? So a lot of professionals use this and people who, you know, are trying to obviously get their public speaking skill set. But he said he went to one and there was a man there who brought his young, like 12 or 11 year old kid and I was like, yes, that's a really smart parent because he's realizing if I give my, you know, middle schooler who's full of insecurity an opportunity to actually work and hone in on that skill set, it will boost their confidence in ways that you can imagine as they grow into the high school age and, you know, college and on, their professional careers just to be able to be comfortable speaking in front of people and, you know, having their voice and knowing how to do that effectively. Why not start early? So these types of life skill sets are really important or just anything that you, you know, a skill set, you know, if they're in a sport or something else that they can learn that kind of again is special, it's their own thing. You know, nurture that if they have an interest in something like that, nurture that because it does help boost their confidence in an age where they're, you know, Shaitan is just really tries to break their confidence down and I know because I work a lot with teens and this is, we all remember, right? Adolescence is a really difficult time for kids but if you give them things that, inshallah, can offset that it really helps but it also creates a nice bond because it came from mute. You saw a talent if they like to draw, put them in arts classes, if they like chess, give them, you know, play with them, let them get so good that they beat all the adults in the family. It's good, it's good for their confidence but because you did that, you see, what you're doing is you're, you're tightening your bond with your children. So this is innovative parenting. It's thinking, I need to, you know, look at where my kids are and the different unique talents that each has and I'm going to nurture each one in their own way as best as I can but I want to do that. I don't want a teacher or someone else to take that, right? I mean, it's, it's okay if, if those opportunities are there but it's much more special if it's coming from you as the parents but you have to think of these things. And then the teenagers, 14 and beyond, the theme really should be to be a friend. We have to befriend our children. Again, this is a time where unfortunately, you know, in the early age, stages or early years, parents are the main influencers over their children but there is a time where friends become the main influencers. So even, you know, like whoever your children's friends are, they can absolutely override you. You know, in your absence, this is where kids learn to be more deceptive and to lie and to start doing things behind their kid's parents' backs because maybe they were peer pressured or maybe, you know, they just listened to someone who gave them bad advice how does that happen? It's especially, and it's actually worse if you have this authoritative model where you have no personal or sort of friendly connection with your children and it's sort of like top down. Like I'm your parent, that's it, just follow my rules and I don't really, you know, want to engage with you on a more deeper, you know, level, it's just follow the rules and that's it. If you have that type of parenting style, then for sure, your kids are going to be under the influence of their friends more than you. But if you realize like, you know, the teenagers, this is where I really, really need to be close with my friends, then you'll take, you know, the time to start doing things more, you know, with you and them and you know, so for example, you know, I suggest taking classes and doing experiences together. So you and your children, if there's a class or something that you think would be good for them, doing it with them, not just dropping off and going, I'll see you in a couple of hours. No, going with them, accompanying them, sitting with them and learning the same thing and then using that as an opportunity to discuss, to dialogue, to debate, it's really good to encourage your teenagers into discussion because what you're saying when you're open to have discussions with your children or your teenagers is that I actually respect your point of view. I want to listen to your point of view even if you think they don't know what they're talking about and it's like internally, you're just like, oh, you're those teenagers going on about things they don't know. It's okay, let them get it out, let them feel that they're validated when they're talking to you. Because sometimes, again, we talk at our teens like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, you know. But this is very unhealthy and it's actually going to cause more division and more just distance. So the opposite of that is true, engaging them, having discussion, what do you think of this? What do you think of what's going on with the world or whatever it is, any news story that's going on but letting them know I respect you because this is one of their primary needs in this age that you respect them. So these are the different things per age group. And then we just kind of went over some statistics. So this is encouraging for parents who are really trying to raise and children who are rooted in their faith because there is clear difference between children who have strong faith and homes that faith is important whereas homes that are more secular and it's like, it's not really a big thing, you know, our primary thing that's talked about or relevant in the family. So here, 54% of teens devoted to God say they are happy while only 29% are disengaged. 47% of religious teens think about the meaning of life so if you plant these seeds early on you get your teenagers actually to think about life seriously to weigh the consequences of their decisions, you know, to have this sort of, you know, mindset will prevent and protect them inshallah from what the culture outside is telling them, right, which is YOLO, FOMO, right, you only live once. These are the things that teens are getting bombarded with, like just, you know, do whatever you want, you only live once. And that's honestly the most, one of the most destructive messages, but everybody, all the, you know, the people in media, the, you know, the icons that a lot of teens look up to, whether it's social media or musicians or artists or whatever, this is their way of life, you know, it's promoting this attitude to just live in the moment, feed your nuffs, basically, do whatever you want. So you have to think, how can I offset that is giving your children a really strong foundation early about God, about their relationship with Allah SWT and the numbers speak for themselves. When you do that, it does inshallah protect them, right, they say here, 95% of devoted teens feel it is important to wait until marriage for sex. I mean, that's really big and that's to our advantage because they're, you know, you're giving them those things early on that by the time the topic becomes something that they're again, you know, confronted with that they, Alhamdulillah, have, you know, their conscience is clear and they know exactly that it's not something for them. And then as far as the last statistic here, according to the Journal of Adolescents, findings demonstrate that religiosity measured as perceived importance of religion, attendance in worship services and participation. Oh, I'm sorry, you're not reading the same slide. Pardon me, here we go. The one in the yellow. So findings demonstrate that religiosity measured as perceived importance of religion, attendance in worship services and participation in a religious youth group significantly contributed to explaining variation in six youth risk behaviors, smoking, alcohol use, truancy, sexual activity, marijuana use, and depression. So to bring them to the masjid, to attend those classes with them, to constantly remind them again of the importance of religion and having a connection with Allah, it's going to protect your children in Shatla Qadah from a lot of the stuff that are plaguing teen culture. So it's good news for us, in Shatla, as long as we do what we're doing. So now this was a summary because I wanted you to follow the conversation for those of you who weren't here for the last time, a summary of what we talked about the first session. Now part two, the outline is a little different and we're going to try to get to as much as possible, but let's go ahead and jump in here. So spiritual principles and practices for every Muslim home, every Muslim home should really think about where they are when it comes to these issues here. Number one, to love Allah SWT wholeheartedly and practice daily gratitude to Him. Okay. Now we obviously know, inshaAllah we know the importance the five daily prayers. This should be something set in stone in your home where Alhamdulillah, everybody prays their prayers and you should, you know, encourage this as much as possible in congregation. So obviously during daily hours or kids are in school, you're at work, it's difficult, but in the evening, if you can make Maghrib and Isha together and even Fajr before they go to school, that means you've done three prayers as a family together and two of the prayers are not done together. This is still huge and you should make this part of your family culture where it's just, this is what we do. We pray in Jama'at. We, this is the importance of prayer and not like everybody for yourself and oh, you know, you just kind of walk in and I got to pray real quickly and it's just disjointed and disconnected. It doesn't give your children the sense of how important prayer is if everything's rushed and nobody's really communicating about prayer, you know, or if it's just like, yeah, did you pray and you're just shouting from across, you know, the hall as reminders to each other about prayer, why not? Plus, it's time for prayer everybody together, right? It should be done as a family and it keeps you in check and it keeps them in check. Love of recitation of the Qur'an. This is really important. You know, I used to teach Qur'an to little kids and you know, I always remember that parents, some parents would come, you know, for a couple of weeks or a few weeks into the school year and they'd be very, very concerned about how many surahs their children was memorizing, you know, their child was memorizing. And as a Qur'an teacher, I would have to stop them and say, listen, this isn't a HIFS program, okay? If you want HIFS, put them in a HIFS program. We're teaching your child to love the Qur'an, okay? And so that is a process. It's not, you know, you know, like focusing on memorization alone isn't enough if you want your child to love the Qur'an. You have to, again, bring those stories to light. Make the Qur'an relevant to them. But in addition to that, teach, teaching the recitation of the Qur'an like an art form instead of the subject is a really beautiful way to make an enjoyable experience. So teaching them how to recite beautifully, teaching them to, you know, to find meanings or, you know, certain meanings of surahs that really speak to children's hearts, you know. There's so many things that you can do but it all takes, again, your, you know, some creativity on your part. But I would have to tell parents and I remember having to actually do like assembly sort of to just address this issue, like, listen, it's so important that we teach your children adab with the Qur'an to really know what the Qur'an is. This is the greatest treasure we have to know how to treat it, to know how to walk with it. I've seen kids, you know, in many spaces, you know, they're going maybe in Sunday school or whatever, they have no, they're just treating the Qur'an like it's another book. They just tuck it under their arm and they're walking around with it, sometimes dangling it, sakhrullah, by their side. This is unacceptable. We have to, as parents, teach them, this is the greatest thing that we have and you have to honor it. Hold it with two hands above your waist, make sure you're in a state of hulbu. Be very mindful and respectful when you're touching the Qur'an. And then when you recite it, you bring your all. You know, this is the Book of Allah's Panthana. You don't sit there distracted, looking at your phone while it's like, okay, you know, and it's like, this is what, unfortunately, again, what so many kids are forced into because their parents aren't really watching over them or they're just outsourcing this subject to other people and they're not really aware of what's going on. But walk, you know, go into certain spaces and you'll see, you know, really tragic things. I remember one of my friends, Allah, she was in a, in a masjid and she was working in a room adjacent to where the Qur'an teacher was teaching, you know, the students. And she was just listening to the banter that was going on before the, I mean during the class and when the Qur'an teacher was present, the kids were just frozen, you know, mottled. And they were listening because they were afraid, right? She said, one time in particular she said, the Qur'an teacher stepped out for a moment and as soon as he walked out, the kids started saying the worst thing. Like, I hate this, you know, and the Qur'an teacher used a curse word, class. What do my parents bring here? And they're all like angry and bitter because, you know, their parents are just maybe, you know, it's after hours, after school hours, it's like a convenient drop-off for them and they're just, you know, they think, like, oh, they're gonna go learn Qur'an. If your child expresses to you a disinterest in learning the Book of Allah or is frustrated every time you tell them to go learn, then you're not going about it correctly. There's a problem. There's a disconnect, they're not, if they're like, oh, you know, and that's their attitude to the Book of Allah, but you still force them to do it, what are you doing? You're creating a total negative association. I had a student once tell me that her friend stop for a while. I mean, this is what goes on in our community, but her friend began to cut herself because she'd been traumatized her whole life. And one of the main reasons was because her mother was so hard on her when it came to Qur'an that even as a young three, four year old, if she would make a single mistake, she would chase her around the house, meeting her, hitting her. So if you hit your children, stop for a while, yell at them, and force them to learn the Book of Allah and then, you know, guilt them the entire time. You're making terrible mistakes. Terrible mistakes because you're literally giving shaitan ammunition to make them, Astaghfirullah, hate the Book of Allah, Asfandallah. So if you're, please be mindful of who you, how you teach your children Qur'an and who you allow to teach your children Qur'an. Make sure that they're gentle and that they're loving and that they do it with beauty because it's the Book of, the most merciful of the merciful. You can't remove mercy when you teach the Book of Allah and compassion. So be very careful with that. But a big part of how you beautify the Qur'an is to again approach it not as just this subject that has, you know, it's all a numbers game. But rather, you know, make it a beautiful experience. Recite with them, teach them to recite and go easy on them. You know, it's, unless you're trying to produce the next, you know, don't look at just numbers because these verses will, will, they'll be responsible for them. Whatever they've memorized that they're not acting upon later in life. You know, they're going to be held accountable for it. So you have to be very careful with just trying to, you know, get to like, oh, I just want them to finish so that I can have like this big party for them and, you know, hold them up as a trophy in front of the community. Your priorities aren't right. It's very important that they love the book of Allah. So make sure that when you're teaching them Qur'an, that it's done in a really beautiful setting. And our teachers advise having some treats out for them, their favorite treats, always making really positive associations. You can do dates if they like dates. You can do cookies. You can give them candy, but like having that out as part of the experience, right? We're learning Qur'an and, you know, inshallah, this is what we will have to look forward to bringing stories to life. These are all tips. Okay. So, and then they get, you know, I'm, I've talked about this a lot, but it's very important that we do the protective du'as every single day. Okay. So, how many people here do awrad every day? Like you do a word as a family. Alhamdulillah. Good. So the awrad, there's different ones, but our teachers here, all of our teachers here, they all recommend that we do the word al-latif, which is the word of Imam al-Haddad. You can do a search for it. There's PDF files. It's all available to you for free, and there's YouTube videos. It's an 18 minute recording. Every single day, this should be part of your household, like, you know, experience. Well, in our household, for example, we do it at, I mean, excuse me in the morning while I'm making breakfast for the kids, we have a Bluetooth speaker, we play it, it's resonating in the whole house. Everybody hears it, and it's just 18 minutes, but it's protective gauze, and I promise you, if you get into the habit of this, you will see the blessings in your own life, but also your children, even of the younger ones, they will memorize it without even knowing they're memorizing it. They might not speak Arabic, they might not have any idea, they might not even be reciting along with it, but if they're hearing it every single day, you will ask them, you know, in a few months time to recite parts of it, they will know it. So this is beautiful for them and for you, because it's like, they can be coloring, they can be playing with their Legos, they can be eating breakfast, but it's just, inshallah, reminders, and it covers everything you can think about in terms of, you know, all the potential problems of your day, and it's asking Allah to protect your everything, you know, protect you from, from worry and depression, anxiety, protect you from debt, protect you from physical harm, protect you from every evil in His creation, and you're just, it's all from the sunnah. But these are things that we should make as a practice in our home, if we want to protect ourselves and our children from all the harms out there, we are empowered with these du'a, the Babilah Salaam left them for us for that exact reason. They're protective du'a's. So if you're worried about, oh my God, I'm worried about my children, but then you're not doing this, there's a, there's a problem, there's a disconnect. You, you can be with them all the time. You can't oversee their every movement, but by, it's kind of like putting them in this protective force field around them before you send them off to school or wherever they go, even if your kids are a little older and they work. Hamdulillah, put, make this a part of your culture in your home, in your, your family life that you, you do daily al-Raj every day. And to be honest, 20 minutes of your time is nothing. If you consider the peace of mind you have to know, and Hamdulillah, I've called on Allah to protect my children very specifically with very specific thought. And I, inshallah, I put my trust in him. Okay, so it's very important to do that. And then to be devoted to the provisional setup and committed to following his sunnah it's so important that we again model this behavior ourselves. So taking on the attributes and the characteristics of the provisional setup for ourselves and then teaching our children the importance of modeling that, being gentle, being self-spoken, just all the things that you associate with the provisional setup, being compassionate, speaking kind words, being generous, right? All these things that we love about him and that brings us to tears when we read about him, we are supposed to model it. It's not just that we look up to him and we're in awe of him and that's it. The objective is that we're doing it. So we follow his sunnah in every which way as much as possible. And this is for the brothers and the sisters, right? So, you know, and this is a direct command from Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala in Surah chapter 59 verse 7. He says which is and Allah says and whatsoever the provisional setup gives you, take it and whatsoever He forbids you abstain from it and fear Allah, verily Allah is severe in punishment. So following the sunnah of the Prophet is exactly that. Following his way and abstaining from what he prevented us from abstaining from. And then daily Sadawat, right? Very important again for us to realize how much we should be calling on or bringing in the Sadawat into our homes, making sure that our children are reminded of how important he is in our life. He's a central figure in our life. We should be remembering him. We should be seeking just that connection with him. But if we're not doing these things and then we're constantly saying again, when we're bringing him into our life and when we're trying to make him the central part of our family, we cannot do that if we don't realize that he and everything he did from the moment he woke up until the moment he slept, he gave us something to model. It's recorded for us. There's no other tradition you'll find that has as much detail of how the call of Sadawat lived. But if we're not doing these things and then we're saying, oh, he's important, it doesn't make sense, right? How convincing is that? If you're not doing anything or you're very minimally following his sunnah, when you wake up, you don't say the du'as that you're supposed to say. When you go change your clothing, there's du'a for everything, going to the restroom, leaving the restroom, eating food, finishing your food, leaving the home. If we're not putting these sunnahs in place, but then we're trying so hard to convince our children how important he is, how convincing is it, right? You're not, you can't sell something that you yourself don't even believe. So it's so important that if you want him to be followed and respected and loved, that you first emulate that in your own practice. So make sure that you're doing the things that are necessary for your children to say, okay, that they can follow you, but you have to create that. So that's where sadawef is very important, making sure that your children are doing it, but you are doing it as well. And there's actually a really, I can read a few of them, but here are some of the benefits of just doing sadawef on a daily basis. First of all, you're responding to the order of Allah swt commands that we do sadawef, right? And then you're also the angels, the angels do sadawef on the prophet's eye center. There's 10 blessings from Allah, for the one who evokes one blessing on the prophet's eye center. So there's immense reward in that. He who sends blessings upon the prophet's eye center, Allah raises him by 10 degrees. So your rank will literally be raised just by making this a regular practice. He's also written for him 10 good deeds. Erased from his record, 10 bad deeds. You receive intercession of the prophet's eye center. Okay, it's a means to have your sins forgiven, to have your worldly needs met. It's a means to draw near to the prophet's eye center on the day of resurrection. And it compensates for giving charity for those who are too poor to give it. So if you're not in a means to financially give much, just do sadawef, then almost half of it will give you that same rewards from Allah. It's a means of fulfilling one's needs. It's a means to receive the prophet's eye center's blessings, right? Especially on the day of jama, every time we recite sadawef on the day of jama specifically, he by his own tongue will respond sadawef back onto us individually by name. So just imagining the prophet's eye center will say your name and say your children's name, right? I mean, that should just blow our mind, but if we're not doing it together as a family, then again, we're not creating that, you know, that love for him. And it's all on us. It's our duty as parents to be doing these things and teaching our children to do them as well. It's a means of salvation from the horrors of the day of resurrection. It's a means for the prophet's eye center to return blessings. So we just said that. It's a means to remember something which has been forgotten. So if you've ever tried to remember something and you can't, this is the practice. Just do sadawef on the prophet's eye center. If, or if you've lost something, there's people who, if you lose something, they'll tell you just do sadawef on the prophet's eye center and you'll find it. I found in my own personal life and this is like, it's amazing how often this happens for me. If I'm ever in a parking lot and I need a space, especially like, you know, during like the Christmas shopping season was like almost impossible to find a parking spot or in a place where it's really difficult to panel up. And as soon as I begin sadawef, every single time without fail, not only do I get a space that opens up, it's usually amazing. It's like in a first row. So do it. It's amazing. You just see Allah just opens doors for you. And I've done this so many times where I know it's completely unopening from just doing the sadawef. But these are things that, you know, if you put it into practice, you realize that there's immense benefits that you'll feel in your children as well. They'll feel that. They'll experience that in their hearts and everything. It's just, you're opening so much but it gets your home. There's so many masha'Allah in this list. It refines the worshipers character and manner. So you'll just benefit by becoming better. You know, you'll emanate more Nur. You'll actually start emulating, you know, other qualities of his. Because if you're taking on the practice of doing sadawef and both sides of problems and your connection with him is stronger, then inshallah, naturally, you know, you're going to start following more and more of Sunnah and taking on more and more of his qualities. So it's like just all the way around is incredible benefit for you. But I would really recommend and I've written about this too, about, you know, giving children their own tespiy, making it a special, you know, sort of thing for them where they actually get to go and select their own. They get to pick the beads and this becomes something that they can have that's their own, but that you, you know, give them, encourage them through incentives to do their sadawef. You know, but inshallah, you should, you know, make this a regular practice. And then also Friday is, especially should be a really special day. It's, you know, the provost said it's the Eid for the believer. So really making it a fun day. My kids, for example, I don't give them devices regularly. We have a no device rule during the week. But on Fridays, select games that they really like. I will allow them for, because it's Friday and I want them to make those positive associations. And I tell them, this is because of jama. They'll get lollipops on Friday. They'll get ice cream, certain treats that they really like. But I always remind them, it's because it's Friday that you're getting these things. This is the blessing of the day of the provost why said it's the day he was born. And so we always try to, you know, I actually used it for Monday, but we always remind him, this is the day of, you know, said a lot for the provost why said it. So to remind him, to remind them that this is why it's such a special day. That's why you're getting these things. It's really good because you're making, again, positive associations with him. And with, with, with the day of jama. And then to understand these are principles that we should all definitely teach our children and understand them first foremost ourselves. The concepts of Ihsan and Iqan. Ihsan, which is to do things with spiritual excellence. Okay. And Iqan is to do it meticulously, but also thoroughly. So whatever, you know, when we do something, first of all, again, it goes back to us. We have to model this if we're going to be effective with teaching our children. But there are concepts that if you start applying it in your home and everybody falls online, it's just a benefit all the way around. So you know what? Let's just start doing things really well. So if we're going to do something, if we're going to cook a meal, we have really good ingredients and everybody's, you know, all hands on deck. We're all doing it as a family. We just, we're always mindful, we're present in the moment. And we're not, you know, short, you know, taking shortcuts here and there, but just making this just a part of how you conduct yourself in every which way. If you, you know, clean something, if you, like a chore, if your parents, or if you yourself are, are, you know, delegated to do a certain task, that you do it so well that it's impressive. And then that, you know, something that they'll model. So it's like, oh, if you're cleaning the bathroom, you know, do it really well. Show them, this is how I want it to be done. Make sure that everything is clean. It's not just like this, you know, quickly wipe down and you know, I'm out the door going back to my games sort of experience that a lot of kids, unfortunately, do, right. And then the parents walk in and of course, we're never really happy, but we're like, I will just take it. No, you should bring them back and say, what do you really think this was done with Ihsan? I can still see a big mess here. You didn't even touch this. You didn't do that, right. But remind them that they didn't really do a good job and make their standard better. And then, you know, the same for yourself have the same standard. But teaching them these concepts early will, inshallah, you know, benefit them in many ways, spiritually, but also in their work, in their school, because you're not, you're teaching them not to just, you know, be sort of, like, live in this sort of blasé, sort of mindset, because that's where our culture, nobody's doing things sincerely or really with wholeheartedness anymore. It's just like, limited effort possible because we're all spread thin, everybody's tired, exhausted, right. But it really does affect your spiritual state if that's just who you are and that's how you live. Where it's like, you're not really putting your, you know, your full effort into something. So try to teach that early on. And then tafakorin ta dabbur, this is to reflect and to think, right, to contemplate the consequences of things. So for young children, you know, just teaching them to think about things and when they make mistakes, if we're just focusing on the punishment and not really teaching them how to, you know, realize what, like, to dig deep, realize the source of why they did what they did, but also, to weigh consequences before they act, so preventative measures, right? When you teach them to, to do this, then they'll weigh the consequences of every act seriously and they'll think about, maybe twice about doing something they shouldn't do because you're teaching them that this is something we should do as Muslims. We should reflect on things and we should reflect on the consequences of things. So obviously, as they get older when certain topics come up, this is easier to do because you can kind of, as a family, have a discussion about certain things. But it's just important to, these terms, for them to know what they are and then to, for you to put them into practice. Murakaba, which is to meditate, okay, to watch over one's spiritual heart. This is also another very important thing that they should be learning, learning even at a young age, to really just, you know, think about their connection, you know, with Allah, to think about these things, to think about the, to know the diseases of the heart, for example, right? How many people here have the book, Purification of the Heart by Sheikh Hamza? This is a wonderful book that every family should have. And you should actually go through and look at the diseases of the heart and talk about that and say, you know, like how, you know, anger, anger is a big thing that a lot of kids struggle with. But really looking at that as a disease and talking about that, how that affects, you know, your spiritual heart and what, you know, what the remedies are from the sunnah of the false life center, how should we deal with anger? But like, you know, getting, giving them topics like this to really reflect on and identifying that as this is a process and our faith, we do this. We should do this. We should do muraqah. We should think about these things. And then muhassaba, which is self-inventory, very important to teach your young kids to look at their day every single day and figure out, you know, where they, what their high points were, what their low points were, where they, you know, need to improve, but making this like a daily sort of practice. And you can either do that as a, you know, as a family where you kind of talk about things, maybe over dinner, like have like a, you know, a sort of line of questioning like who wants to share, you know, maybe their high point of the day. And is there anything that, that you're not proud of that you did today? These could be very important family discussions, right? But it allows them to, again, learn this skill set that I need to take myself into account every day and to really think about my, you know, what I've done and make this a spiritual practice that they continue well into their teen years and adult years, inshallah. And then teaching them also because, you know, kids need to know the balance of how to be, to be generous, okay, with their time, with just who they are, without, you know, you know, without affecting their, their spiritual heart. So giving, being generous is very important in our tradition. We should know that. And, you know, you can teach them all of the hadith and the eyes that are related to generosity, but to be also mindful and wise about how much they give of themselves, of their time, of their money. You know, sometimes kids get taken advantage of, you know, because their hearts are so pure. So just teaching them to give with prudence, to not give everything right away, you know, that's important. And also, another very important concept that they need to learn early on is to mind their own business. Okay, this is a principle in our faith, you know, that we, you don't, nosiness and getting involved in things that are not for you to get involved in is not part of our tradition. And unfortunately, a lot of kids get pulled into very dangerous things because, you know, they're, they're either nosy or someone's pushing them into doing something. You know, a friend's especially, you know, they're getting involved into maybe another person's drama. Right. A lot of kids are peer pressured into getting involved in things that are not there, like that have nothing to do with them. Because maybe, you know, again, it's, it's something that's happening in their peer group with their friends. But just teach them that as a principle, we don't get involved in things that have nothing to do with us. And you shouldn't either. Okay. If you see something that's happening in school, it's a fight, people are fighting. It's not for you to go and see what's going on and like dig or, you know, something's happening with a friend for you to start calling up and what's going on, what's going on with her. Just mind your own business and live like that. You know, it protects you and it's just part of, again, our tradition. And this is, again, based on the Hadith, in Hussn-e-Islam, in Mar'ima, Tarqum al-Aya'ni, which is indeed among the excellence of a person's Islam, is that he leaves that which does not concern him. So, it's really a matter of, you know, for us too, as adults, I mean, if we're nosy and we're, you know, on social media, I mean, that's another big part of it, right? Like, within our friends and peer groups, one thing, but also if you're just looking into everybody's business and constantly wanting to know things and that's how you're living, then your things are going to follow. You know, if you're talking about other people and what they're doing and did you hear about so-and-so? Did you hear about so-and-so? It's like, you're modeling the worst qualities for them. So just mind your own business and teach them that you shouldn't be, you know, worried about what other people are doing. Focus on yourself. And if they have, like, is it social media accounts to really monitor what they're doing, why they're watching certain things, why they're following certain people, what's their main objective, but controlling that, because it's a very serious issue. Okay. So now, in the time that we have, inshallah, let me see here. So I wanted to talk about here. It's hard for you guys to see this, so I'm just going to go to the next slide. The power of buys, okay? So there's a couple of things that are relevant to what we're talking about here. Experts say that maintaining this magic ratio of five to one, it's a positive to negative comments is a really healthy model for all relationships. So going back to your parenting style, if your negative comments and whether it's with your spouse or with your children, if you're more negative, then you have to take yourself into account. Is it, you know, how off are you from this ratio? If it's more negative than positive, you're on a very destructive path for your marriage. It's not going to go well. And this is based on Dr. John Gottman. He's a leading psychologist, psychological researcher, and relationship expert. He basically studied 700 married couples and, you know, they, he watched, they were given prompts and then they were allowed to discuss things for about 15 minutes. And then they went back and they watched the tape of their interactions. And he was able to, with 94% accuracy, determine which couples were going to last and which ones were going to divorce. Just based on watching them for those 15 minutes, because they picked up on how many negative exchanges they had versus how many positive. So you in your marriage, with your marriage and with your children, you have to see where am I in this ratio? Do I, you know, am I very hyper critical parent or hyper critical spouse where all I'm doing is nitpicking and nagging and finding things to criticize? Or am I fair and balanced? Do I praise just as much as I criticize? But try to, this is the, the magic ratio they say, if you can stay within this, where you have five positive and then maybe you can be, you know, because we're, you also don't want to, you know, completely gloss over clear issues. You have to call things out if you see them and their problems. Being critical is important, but also, you know, being tactful, not being harsh, but still being constructive criticism is important. But keeping this ratio, five to one, it's just something to remember. And then the five love languages is also very important. How many of you have heard of this? The five love languages. Okay. So this is another really important, you can do a search and there's books, you know, John, Dr. John Gray. He, I think that's the author. He wrote this book that talks about basically every single person has different ways that they communicate love and that they receive love. So not only do we communicate it or we give love differently, but we also receive love differently. And you have to know your own love language and your partner's love language, but also your children's love language because children are different. So when we talk about tailor and parenting, this is part of it to really recognize that not all children receive love the same way. So the first love language is called words of affirmation. So if you're the type of person that really responds to words, like phrases, compliments, someone writes you a card or a letter or sends you a text message, your email, or it's just sending you a really love loving message. And that really means a lot to you. That's one of your love languages. It means that you need a lot of feedback. You need positive feedback. So if you, for the sisters, like for example, if you cook a meal, okay, this is one of my love languages. And I've set it out and my husband doesn't say anything. It instantly bothers me, right? Because I expect, I'm waiting for it. I'm waiting for him to go, oh, this is so delicious, right? So he knows that and he knows that I'm waiting for it. You better say something. So we're very clear on our communication, but this is for me. I told him I said, words matter to me. So I, I'm expecting certain things, you know, communicated. You can't just eat and then expect me to know that you liked it and tell me that you liked it. Tell me what you liked about it. And I'll know if he didn't like it because he either says very little or nothing at all. So, but this is one of my love languages. Another love language is acts of service. So if you really appreciate when your partner helps you with certain things, whether it's chores around the house or just, you know, different responsibilities and things where they're willing to always take care of certain things for you. And that matters a lot to you, then you can empower your partner and your children. Like, listen, I might not need compliments and don't like flower me with all that stuff. I need you to take care of stuff. So if I give you a responsibility to do it because that, I, you know, remove stress from my life, then now they know that this is the way that I can actually show, you know, show you love. Gifts, if gifts really matter and you're the type that mashallah, when you give a gift, you go all out and you're very thoughtful, you shop at specific stores, you package things beautifully. And there are people who are like that. They really are amazing at gift giving. Then this is likely your love language too. And you really appreciate when someone goes all out and gives you like an amazing personalized gift or just something that tells you that they were thinking of you. It might not even have to be anything expensive or anything like that. But just the fact that they went through that trouble, right, to go and get you something and thought of you in your absence. That means a lot to you, then that's your love language. Quality time. If none of those things really matter, you're not looking for compliments, you can do things on your own, gifts really, you don't have that much value for material things, but you really want to spend a lot of time together. And you want like physical, you know, proximity, like you don't even have to be sitting next to me, but just be in the house. You know, I need to see you. I need to feel your presence in my life. Don't be always leaving. Then that's probably your love language. And then physical touch. So if you're affectionate and you really respond to that, that's your love language. But all of these are so important to identify in ourselves. First, identify in our partners, and then in our children. So there's actual, you know, you can take, there's quizzes that can kind of help you determine what your love language is. I would definitely encourage you to do this with your children and you'll see what it does again, is it helps you to customize your, your, you know, parenting with your children better. You'll know, like some kids, they might want gifts more where as others want, you know, quality time. But it makes a big difference in your parenting style. So these are just, you know, the power of two little things that I thought were good takeaways for you to think about when considering your, again, parenting style. Okay. So any questions before we get to this? Because this is the topic that I've been waiting to get to, the temperaments. Any questions before we get here? Yes. Yes. Mashallah. You know, doing the bare minimum, which is what that hadith was, right? Isn't the same as saying that I'm not, because we're not talking about necessarily quantity. We're talking about quality. So if you're going to do the bare minimum, then you better be doing it really well. So if you're just going to do your father prayers, let's say, and you're not going to do sunnah, then you better be doing them with absolute khushu if you're going to use that hadith, right? Because you can't just use that hadith to say, well, I'm just doing the minimum because that's not the standard of the Prophet's lesson. The problem is I'm making it easy for people to say that you don't have to do beyond that quantitatively. But the quality, there's no argument there, right? You have to have khushu, you have to make sure you're present and mindful of all those things. So all those things, so that's where you, I would focus on, you know, because sometimes children, they can be very smart, right? And I think they've outsmarted you and they come with all these quick comebacks, but you have to also think like the mind of a child and say, I see what you're doing here. You're looking for a nice little shortcut out, but I'm going to remind you that the Prophet's lesson didn't give that, you know, that Hadith isn't related to us so that we can just use it to, you know, basically take the easiest route. It's actually made to simplify for people who have maybe challenges and difficulties, but the quality of standard is not compromised, right? And so remind them that you have to do whatever you're giving to pray a certain amount or fast a certain amount, whatever it is, just make sure it is 100% and that's a hasa, right? The quality is still there. That's a good question. Hallelujah. Okay, so the four temperaments is a topic that, you know, it's highly encouraged to study when it comes to again, individually for us to know ourselves really well, our spouses, but also our children. And so what is it? So it originated in ancient Egypt or Mesopotamia, many, many, many thousands of years ago and it's very, it's linked to the the science of the four elements, okay? And this is around 400 BC. So the four elements are earth, air, water and fire. And this was the, you know, Hippocrates, the father of modern medicine, he basically came up with this theory based on, you know, his just looking at different human behavior and emotions. And he said that based on either an excess of or a lack of certain bodily fluids, people behave differently, okay? And so he looked at blood, yellow bile, black bile and slim. And these are the four fluids that he was looking at different, again, people and saying if there was an excess or, or, you know, there was a shortage of these humors he called them, then people would behave differently. Now centuries later, Galen, who's another Greek physician, he came up with a typology of temperament based on the same science. And he said, he went to the next level and said, he classified human behavior as either hot, cold, dry or wet. Again, this is related to the four elements. But then he gave them names and he said, people based on, again, they're different levels of these fluids in their body, they behave differently. And their typographies are sanguine, choleric, melancholic and phlegmatic. So basically, based on where you are, where your fluids are, you're going to behave a certain way and it's going to fall in line into one of these four temperaments they called them. Now Ibn Sina, who we know as every, or every Chen or Ibn Sina is, you know, he's the greatest or one of the greatest, you know, physicians in Islamic history. He extended the theory of temperaments to encompass emotional aspects, mental capacity, moral attitudes, self-awareness, movements and dreams. So they're all kind of expanding on this science, right? And then later on, other Muslim physicians in addition to Ibn Sina are Abu Bakr Muhammad Zakaria Al-Razi, Ibn Qayyim Al-Jawziah and then Jalaluddin Suyuti. They all also commented on this science and used this science at the four temperaments. Okay, so this is a very big part of our history. So what are they? Here are the four temperaments again, the choleric, the sanguine, phlegmatic and melancholic. So every person, according to the science, falls into predominantly one of these temperaments. So all of us here, as we read the descriptions, you're gonna find, okay, that actually sounds like me. And you'll, once you get more well versed in this science, then you can study it for your children, too. It's very important to know your children's temperaments. So the first one is called the choleric, okay? So who are the cholerics? So, you know, the names are kind of difficult sometimes for people to remember. So just remember the animal that's associated with it. Yeah, the choleric animal is a lion, okay? And they are extroverts, okay? So if you're an extroverted person, you might be a choleric. They're reactionary. So very quick to react to things, fiery sort of energy. They're rational and not very emotionally expressive. So if you're not someone that's, you know, easily, or you just don't, you know, express yourself very well emotionally, you might be a choleric. Natural born leaders. So very strong, willed people. That's where that red fire energy is just, you see that again, the lion have all that imagery there. They're assertive and in charge. They tend to dominate whatever they do. So if you're ever working in a group setting, you will know the choleric very clearly. They're probably the one talking over everybody. They like things done their way. They're argumentative. They're kind of just really just strong, willed and strong headed people. And their motto is, we like to have it our way. So that's one of the, you know, controlling sort of personality type. So if you identify with this, you are likely a choleric. And this is again, for brothers and sisters. The next is a sanguine. Okay, this is represented. Represented by the animal, the golden retriever. Okay, so extroverts as well. So friendly, super, just their reactionary, but they're very, they're emotionally expressive. They love people in large groups. So they're kind of tend to be like the life of the party. They just, they're bubbly. Okay, that's where that yellow color just, it's just happy. They seem to be a little too happy. Maybe too chipper all the time. They're talkative and excitable. They're optimistic. They love to laugh and are usually again the life of the party. And their motto is, we like to be popular. So they're very well known. Okay, and they're always maybe just social, just very social people. Okay, so if you're a sanguine, then just keep this in mind. Again, that golden retriever, happy sort of personality type. Then we have the phlegmatic. Okay, so now we're into the introverted signs. So they're introverted and they're represented by the otter. Okay, they're non-reactionary. They're emotionally expressive. They love to analyze people. So they tend to just be a little bit more quiet, analytical. They're humble and calm. They have very calming nature. So they're not excitable. They don't, when they talk, they're not like loud and boisterous. They're just calm. You know, they're versatile. I mean, they're flexible. They're kind of go with the flow. They're great listeners. So if you have a phlegmatic in your life, they're the ones you can turn to and they're just very, very, just have that calming, healing presence. And their motto is, we like it peaceful and calm. And then the last one is the melancholic. Okay, they're introverts as well. They're non-reactionary. They're not emotionally expressive. So the melancholic is similar to the choleric in that way. But the difference is that one's reactionary, the other's not, right? They're serious and very analytical. So if you're a numbers kind of a person and you're just like, you like to just stay focused and on task and you're not like a dreamer, always thinking about things, but you're just very focused on what's happening in front of you. You're liking systematically done. You're like organization. You're likely a melancholic. Task oriented and natural problem solvers. They're very disciplined and organized and their motto is, we like it done the right way. Okay, so these four temperaments again, are all of us fall predominantly into one. There are blends, but you should by now know where you are. How many people feel like they identify with at least one? Yeah, okay, good. So once you know yourself really well, as I said, and there's a book. It's called the temperament that God gave you. It's a non-Muslim author. I can't remember the author, but you can find it even in libraries. If you don't want to buy it, you can just check it out. But it's a book that our teachers recommend reading because it does give you more context into the science, but also helps, as I said, with children or parenting, because you'll start to see your children's temperaments. You'll start to see if you have an extraverted child and an introverted child. You'll see that they're different for a reason. And the two primary things that really help to measure, this is pretty detailed, but just a quick way to assess what a person's temperament is, is how reactionary are they? Are they reactionary? And how long does that reaction last? So let's say if you have a conflict with someone or in a confrontational situation, the choleric, this person, they're going to fire right back. So it's like a hostile sort of exchange. They're not ones to back down from confrontation ever, and they will not forget. So a choleric personality type is not afraid or intimidated by confrontation and they'll likely cut you out. You're just done. I have no time for you. They're not very forgiving, so they'll hold that grudge for years. The sanguine, they might react in the moment because you're catching them off guard. So they might have a response right away, but then guilt will overtake them. So maybe 10 minutes later, they feel bad and they'll come to you and go, I'm so sorry. Can we forget about what happened, please? And a lot of times in marital situations is very common. One partner or the other will do something like hit below the belt, say something really mean, but then they'll just feel so bad for it a few minutes later and it kind of can throw people off. Like what, you know, so it's very common to have this dynamic, but a sanguine will want to fix it right away, even though they're reactionary. Now the phlegmatic, they're the type that if they're in a confrontation, they almost freeze. They don't know how to deal with it in the moment because it's completely like they just shut down. So they won't say something right then and there. They'll just stand there listening, observing, and then three, four days later, you'll get that text message or phone call. That says, you know, what you did was very offensive. I'm very hurt by what you said. And so they're non-reactionary, but they're forgiving. So they want to fix it because they're still emotionally invested in the care. So it's like, they don't react right away, but then they want to patch it up quickly. So they'll say, I still love you. I still, I forgive you. So they're quick to get over it and they won't hold a grudge. The melancholic is the toughest one to crack because this person is not reactionary at all. So they will, if it's a confrontation, they'll just again remain quiet and you won't hear anything from them from them for maybe years. Okay. So like, you won't even know half the time with the melancholic why they're upset at someone. They won't say anything until maybe years down the line and then they go, well, 10 years ago, you said this to me or you did this, you disrespected me. And you're like, what? You've been holding on to that for that long, but they are very capable of holding on to things for a very long time. So they hold on to grudges. They're not very easily forgiving and they're non-reactionary. So think about your children. Do you see, because you should see patterns already. You should see that child who's very unforgiving if you have one of those. If something happens and they're just like, brooding forever. I won't forgive you. I'm still mad at you. You know. And then you might have the other child who as soon as something happens they're just like, it's okay, it's not a big deal. And they're like, quick to forgive and move on. This is their temperament. It's revealing itself. But when you study it really in depth, it helps you to again know how to reach them better. Right. You're not just doing a one-size-fits-all parenting. You're actually tailoring it to their personalities. Like this is, you know, unique to you. You're unique in this way. Therefore I have to, you know, parent differently for you. And honestly, this science is, you know, it's been used for, for decades by educators, by psychologists. Unfortunately now, you know, it's not as common anymore. But you see it and even in the professional world, you know, there's companies that, that do personality typing and testing. Right. What for? It's because they know that if you actually, you know, figure people out and kind of see patterns of behavior, you're able to place them better in the company or give them assigned work and tasks to them that's more suitable for their temperament. For example, like, you know, a melancholic person is great for, you know, like accounting work or office work. Right. Because they're not very personable. So they're not somebody that you would put at the front end of the office to meet and greet people or, you know, in a business. Because their personality types, they don't have that disposition. They're serious, analytical, critical thinking people, great for doing things like in the back office. Right. And then a sanguine, right though, a sanguine would just wilt like a flower if you put them in an office or put them in a job where they're not interacting with people. They need to be in the front end. They need to be out talking to people because Allah, you know, gave them that personality where they can just really engage well with people. So if you know your children, then you can see their strengths. Right. And then help them to develop their strengths and also prevent them from doing things like I had, I remember I did a talk once and then afterwards one of the moms came up to me. She was totally devastated. I did a similar presentation where I talked about the temperaments. But she was just crying and I was trying to calm her down. She just felt horrible. She said that she realized that her two sons were very different. One was an extrovert and one was an introvert. But their whole life, basically, she measured her introverted son to her extroverted son. And he was never good enough and she always felt like he was lacking or just lagging behind because her extroverted was outgoing. He was just very successful. He was athletic. He did all these things that were just, you know, just really shy, you know. And her extroverted son was not that person. He was very timid, very quiet. If he went to a social gathering, he wanted to carry a book with him everywhere he went and he just find a corner. But she always felt like she was, and she did, after the talk, she realized that had she known this before, she would have just seen their individuality. But unfortunately, she, you know, really damaged her own words, her relationship with her second son because she made him feel always inferior. So, you know, it was a moment for her. But I, you know, this is why it's so important to study these things early. Because you won't do that, inshallah. You'll actually start to see your children for who they are and you'll start to tailor, again, you're parenting to them. But if you don't have this in your tool belt and you're just going to treat them all the same, then you're, you're not going to make those connections, which we talked about in the beginning, that reach, you're not going to have very much reach with your children. So this is what, why it's so important to really, you know, learn your children's personality types, be attentive to their differences and honor them and validate them. Because just like you're unique, I'm unique, we're all unique, so are your children. And even though we have ideals about how we want them to be, if we see them exclusively as extensions of ourselves, it's a total injustice. Because they're not, they're not extensions of us. We, you know, they're our children, but they're individuals and they might have sparks of us here and there, but you have to let them grow into their own person, still guide them, still, you know, show them the right way, but don't judge them so critically and harshly that just because they do things differently than you do, or that you think is, you know, is good or ideal, that you start looking down on them and then treating them harshly and using words like, oh, you're, you're a loser and you know, parents talk about, they can really damage their children. They're not aware of the harsh words that they say when they're critical, but it can be very, you know, these are lifelong, you know, issues that, that are, that happen when you talk to your children that way. They'll deal with that for their whole life. Yes. Absolutely. Because as we talked about the emotional expression, right, that's going to be a big, you know, sort of indicator of what a person's love language is, because emotionally expressive people do like, like the sanguine is absolutely going to love words of praise and affirmation, right, because that's their, their expressive, right, and it's like Maddox as well. Like Maddox love to connect, they love, they're very emotional people. They're just not as reactionary as a sanguine, but they're similar. So these two signs are similar, just as the melancholic and choleric are similar. They're not as emotionally expressive, but they might respond a lot to acts of service, for example, right, or quality time, because even though I don't need you to, you know, shower me with words, I still appreciate you allowing, right. So, yes, there's definitely a correlation there. And again, when you're learning these things together, you're going to start seeing patterns for yourself, your spouse, your children, everybody in your life, you're going to start to suddenly see them through their lens, instead of seeing them through your own subjective lens, which is usually not accurate, right. We don't always read people accurately, but we're, you know, unfortunately, because we only have our own selves to rely on, we think we've got it down. There's a lot of overconfident people who think they know people really well, but if they really don't know them, they're just applying projecting their own views onto that. But when you do things this way, you really are knowing people, because it's like, I've studied you, we've looked at this, we've looked at your love language, we've looked at your temperament, we now have, you know, something to help identify the nuances of your personality, and therefore, you know, we're becoming more fluent in reading each other. And if the whole family's doing it, the siblings know each other, it's like my children, they know their temperaments, we've talked about love languages, and it comes up. You know, they use it even for themselves. Like, oh, you know, if they're, you know, if they're having, you know, like an outburst, so they go, so Mr. Kolaric, you know, is coming out now, you know. But it's a good thing for them to use, because it prevents them from labeling and harming each other with language, you know, which is, children can do that, siblings do that with each other all the time, they start fighting. There's no understanding, right? It's just like, oh, they just, they're angry, because they don't understand their siblings' behavior, or words, or whatever, so then they just start taking over you personally. But if you actually frame it this way, and empower them to know that you're different than them, they operate differently than you, be respectful of how you engage with them, and you know, take these things into consideration, then everybody's validated, right? It just creates more empathy, which is what we want. We want to be more empathetic. We want, we should want our children to be more empathetic. These, these are all prophetic qualities. The Prophet said almost very, like he, when he was with people, he really took time and made them feel like they were completely seen and visible and heard. He really paid attention to people. We're, again, because of our distracted worlds and natures, we're all just sort of, you know, robotically moving through our worlds and our families and our home life is like that, but this requires you to actually be more present. So that's why it's very important that we study these sciences. Yes. Do you think so? Yes. Absolutely. Absolutely. Absolutely. Absolutely. And the objective here, yes, is to identify where you are, but to not just look at yourself like a, you know, this is who I am and that's it. You're a work in progress. And they say that, actually, in the, when you're saying the four temperaments, I'm not sure who came up with this, but that all of the four folafel are represented by one of each four. So you can see, and then they said the problem was something, he had perfect balance, right? So he's a perfect balance of everything. And our objective is to look at his model and you'll see that everything, all the negative qualities that go into each one are resolved when you get to the process. Because you don't see that there, right? He's just, he's the perfect representation of how we should be. But when you, yes, if you look at yourself again as a work in progress and you realize that my task, my spiritual task, is to, you know, to tend to all these things, whatever my negative qualities are or the things that I need to align with his way, I have to work on that. So if I have a problem being more, you know, if I'm not as affectionate, if I'm a melancholic or a choleric and I have an issue being affectionate with my children or my loved ones, this is not from, you know, this is not the pathetic way, right? There's Haditha, when he talks about that, about, you know, being more affectionate with your loved ones. So how am I going to work on that? I have to be deep, be more vulnerable, kind of find the words, if it's hard for me, work on that, right? But looking at yourself constantly as a work in progress and trying to bring more balance. Yes, right. Absolutely. Yes, you're bringing balance because the same one, what do you think, let's just talk about, for example, spiritual diseases. What do you think might be a spiritual disease that a single personality would fall into? From the diseases of the heart. Showing off, exactly. If I, if I, if you're a sanguine and Allah is giving you this ability to just be like, super friendly and talkative and you can, and you're outgoing and you can go out there and do anything, this is potentially going to be something that you have to work on, right? Or a risk for you, that you're probably going to, you know, because popularity is now, is what motivates you, that you're starting to do things just to be seen, just to be recognized, to be praised. So this is a disease of the heart potentially for you. So this is where, yes, you have to bring balance if you're always in the front, if you're always in the center of attention, maybe you're leaning too much on that and even now with social media, you know, this is unfortunately a big thing that social media promotes, to be seen, to be seen, to be seen. So even people who aren't necessarily sanguine are, you know, are afflicted with these, with this disease and so, it's definitely something to consider but each one of them like choleric, they're, they're one of their primary diseases that they have to work on is anger because they're very reactionary and fiery. And so if you're a choleric personality, you have to be true with yourself and say, yeah, I have to reign that in. I'm too intense and I can intimidate people. I'm, maybe I am scary. Maybe I need to be real with myself and just say, you know what? It's not that I'm a terrible person because the reason I love the science is it does really validate the fact that there is design in human personality and temperament and we're all just designed differently and uniquely but it's not that it's a blemish, you know? Because sometimes we, we, we break other people down or we break ourselves down and just attribute all these negative qualities and take it on like we're horrible human beings and especially when you're comparing it to the problems I said then you just feel like the worst, right? But if you actually sit there and say, Subhanallah, it's just design and that's why I love that, you know, that the four Khurafa are represented in each of these because you can see that like all modern we know he's, he's very Jalal, right? and he was very intimidating but he was also incredibly soft and he through his journey literally he transformed so there's hope to say that no matter where you are there's hope for positive transformation if you, like the brother was saying see yourself as you know, a work in progress like wherever your negative qualities are but when you empower your children with the science again it validates them you're not attributing them all these horrible qualities and just labeling them and like making them feel like they're, they're nothing you're saying this is just your personality type and these are the areas that you know, you need to work on and these are your strengths so masha'Allah you know Allah has given you this great ability and it's just it's a very, it's a much more positive way to help under, bring it more understanding inshallah yes right away I mean you can see him very early on oh yeah that's why that book the temperament that God gave you it's really like for parents and educators to look at for children so you'll see like yeah you can see the science very early on and people like I said well they can change yeah so it's not like it's you know set because as you grow and you know environmentally things happen you might shift or you might start taking on sort of a blend between two different and so there is a primary and a secondary so when you take the tests and they're online and even in the book you can not it'll determine for you what your primary is and what your secondary is and you'll see like a crossover so yeah it's very, very helpful tool I'm sorry oh yeah sorry yes so this is like matter you know aloha matter maybe because the poor temperaments is initially based on right the fluids so if you know we're really true to the science and there is a physiological sort of aspect there right and that's what the science is is that all of these different foods and you know it's it explains the variation of human behavior so yeah I'm sorry the other ones too yes England I know the text is very small but I can if you if you like to give me your email I can always send you like the more clear descriptions okay inshallah but any other questions about this yes sure right every single personality test out there is based on the four elements and that's why they're all very multiples of four you'll have 16 personalities so they're all based on this ancient science so that's why you know when you you look at it it's so fascinating I mean this has been around for millennia it's upon a lot right I'm gonna all right just like looking if there's no other questions inshallah I think we're right on time so we can end inshallah and draw just like looking so we'll finish and draw inshallah the next one will be in a month yeah we'll announce the day I don't I think the date is set on the website but I'm not sure do you know the day okay inshallah okay Alhamdulillah okay alright so and So Good day And thank you so much for coming. InshaAllah we'll see you next time and if you have any questions I don't have it written, but I can provide my email address to anybody and offline exchange more information. Thank you Welcome thank you for being here. I know Mashallah with the current weather situation a lot of people aren't really coming out and I totally understand my friends who have asthma or their kids have other issues so it's very difficult to be out but thank you for being here. Alhamdulillah we also provide relief to all who are suffering. I miss unfortunately in the prayer but inshaAllah we accept that prayer and hopefully we'll see some rain in the next few days inshaAllah some relief. For those who 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. Okay how did that great so you know before we jump into this 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 gonna go over some of those slides quickly and then we'll go ahead and into into the discussion inshaAllah for today. So last time we were here we talked about well here's the outline closer I'll be sure all right 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 that for every Muslim home that we should all be doing our best to implement in our homes and so we said right away from you know 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 wholehearted love what does that mean you know if you are for example you know 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 you know on the highest bookshelves they might even wrap it in really beautiful cloth and that's that's a great sign of reverence and adab for to Allah and for his book however if you're not reading from the book or acting from the book then there is some you know disconnected right you might be showing the 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 we don't we're not fully sincere sometimes in the way that we show love but we would never deny our love right if someone asked us of course we believe in Allah we believe in Allah we believe in his messengers we believe in his book in his book but when it comes to action and follow through that is where the evidence of true love is right so wholehearted love of Allah is really taking seriously the what Allah's expectations are of us and really being obedient right listening with full attention and and presence and so that obviously you know 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 in sha Allah to do those prayers together as a family and I obviously with you know as time permits because you're going to during the day hours if you're working or your kids are in school that's not possible however the other prayers that are able 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 making and being very seriously committed to that practice and so that's you know like again we're talking about how to how to establish love of Allah and the process of in our homes this is one great way to do that also love recitation of the plan so if you you know talked about this as well it's very important to take our relationship with the plan 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 that we or you know ever studied you know anything you know even the sea 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 again another example of the wholehearted versus the half-hearted if you yourself are not doing these things and you've if you recognize that you need to approve your relationship with the Quran do it start with yourself look for teachers in this day and age there's really no excuse we have much Allah especially here in this community in the Bay Area we are very very blessed with ample opportunities the supply of teachers who are qualified to teach male and female some privately some indifferent massages or institutions nearby but also online I mean there's now so many different resources so we have to go take it seriously and realize it is a photo buying to know how to read the book of Allah so when you recognize that thing not 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 Quran 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 Quran so making sure that love of the Quran is there and also more specifically I wrote here love of recitation of the Quran because the Quran is beautiful and it's beautiful and meaning it's beautiful and everything and 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 we say their do as over them you know 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 Suras and do 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 it a rushed process or a very dry process where it's just like you know everybody just kind of stands there you know 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 you know just like wow that was just a really nice experience instead of again it just being you know mechanical and outwardly we we can bring all that beauty out through connecting it with the recitation of the Quran so these kind of can work together these two things and then obviously the daily wicked that we do is very important if we're not doing reminders on a daily basis especially protective to us 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 video 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 our rod because they actually have protective do us right when you actually have a weird or it's a which is which is a litany of prayers all from the Sunnah that you're committed to on a daily basis you are seeking protection from Allah's from all the dangers and the 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 would not do a place where spirituality is something very very deep and personal which it should be but then as parents we have to also create you know these things for our children so that habits 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 and you know do things only when you're by yourself you know if you're waking up inshallah for the Hajj or when you at Isha that's when you kind of just settle in and you record ahead and it's just in this deep personal thing good for you we should all do that inshallah 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 inshallah 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 right 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 you know and individually mashallah 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 you know try to do both you know really make it and this is where it's so important that both husband and wife are on the same page about this you know and I definitely doubt with couples where they're you know the spouses are sort of spiritually on two different paths and mashallah you know we have to come together for the common good of the children so even if maybe you are not fully you know 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 you know why I'm not doing it why should I say to that no remind them it's better that you 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're you still realize that it's a manna of your you know 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 from Shaitan they don't do that because by remind by being that in that position and role as a parent reminding them maybe maybe by those frequent reminders at some point your heart flips and you realize how 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 their to themselves you're no longer benefiting from you know the reminders and so what happens it's just everything kind of starts to trick fall apart so you kind of have to just say no has a parent it's my duty to make sure they're taking care of and they're doing what they should be doing and they should you know 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 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 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 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 or 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 so but for some reason when it comes to spirituality I think then this is a clear sign for me anyhow that this is what's supposed to come shape on because he's trying to you know just divide and conquer just kind of make everybody sort of independent and slowly kind of go apart whereas so the remedy to that is no keep 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 ticket together right doing these things together is the remedy of 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 is praying then you're yelling from your room go pray go pray the hug 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 jama and together our dean is the dean of jama right we do everything together for that reason because Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala 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 you know like I said all these other distractions and shaitan is right there so it just 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 am 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'm quite a Nadia so I get the whole doing it together and you've probably often heard this where the mom is pregnant yes dad is not pregnant and you know and I come from the similar situation you know where my husband is not a regular five-time person but yet I've got you know all boys and you know there's no girls either besides me and I'm doing it and I where do you see this going in future and you know and I think you already probably have present-day situations where parents are coming oh you know we did push they barked orders 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 yeah that's definitely a challenge and I mentioned that there are going to be situations where the husband and wife are into a spiritual past but I think ultimately the intention should always be to 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 a teenage boys the oldest is nine years old okay much a lot 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 spouses are praying all five times a prayer prayers if he 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 that 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 in 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 this is a 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 I you know when you come from that place of negativity it's it's never gonna work right I'm sure you don't do that but a lot of times sometimes we can give into 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 empathic being an empath is being so aware of the other persons just who they are and we're gonna kind of talk about that a little bit that you can tailor whatever you want to say to them as opposed to just dropping of all you know a lot of times sometimes they're communication styles like that I feel something I just need to drop 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 inshallah yes that's an excellent question Marshall and I think you know I'm the live 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 and it'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 message 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 message 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 blame working 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 but 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 just a small whole question about your opinion I see there's a big division in terms of bringing your kids to the masjid some people say yeah sure it's great and some people say almost it's far on because they're very distracting right 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 and then people might disagree with me but I think as long as you have you know speak to your children and teach them the adab 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 message is like a play around 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 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 you know there's something that I 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 all the way a lot 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 weaken 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 message is the house of Allah Subh'ana every single one of us have a hub 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 add up all of us should take into the consideration of the other congregants and realize if our children may be again too young and too lively and reabunctious then maybe hold off until there until later inshallah so we're just for those who are walking and we're doing it quicker you know 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 said of you it's hard to say we'll follow the process of them if you don't have deep knowledge of what that means what does that mean right it just 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 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 so for us to reflect on so Sid Na'ali said with the Prophet he said about the promise I said in 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 okay so this is again just a summary and you can get a pretty good image and picture of how the promise I said of was right 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 you know and I know it's praised a lot in this culture there's you know good and bad and everything but the model that's gotten a lot of popularity this is tighter parenting you know model where it's just like being emotionally sort of cut off very critical high expectations high standards and not to say there's wrong 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 right it's very harsh it's a it's just it's not something that I would in any way associate with the parenting model that we're taught right the parenting model of the prophesies of him who was very gentle right 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 the way in which we engage our children where we're just can emotionally cut off and we don't ever recognize they're good even if they're doing amazing work where it's just never you know they get a minus as wise and then they plus you know that kind of attitude I don't I don't think that's in line with with the way with the prophetic model which is to be again easygoing and compassionate understanding and to be balanced right so you kind of just take yourself into account how what is my rapport with my children do they feel a do a affection is very important are you affectionate with your children or are you just kind of you know 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 you know yes you know you kind of everything's very very minimal in that regard or maybe non-existent these are all things we have to hold ourselves to account for yes so like living like where we do especially in the Bay Area I feel like everything is very competitive yes and to keep your kids at that high standard while I mean we always try to like you know give them that a suction and that love and that love and all that stuff but it's hard sometimes to find that balance between keeping them up to par right also like you know can you elaborate on the baby I'm sure no I agree with you that if we are in a very highly competitive area and time you know there's just that there's a lot of pressure on students but I think checking it 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 and you know that is important and we talked about this having high standards as Muslims is important we should be trying to always do our best and 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 like if your child didn't do well on something instead of immediately reacting to the disappointment of you know the great that they received and and blaming and shaming and getting angry which I know a lot of parents do because they're you know they're in mode they're just thinking immediately of the repercussions right a bad grade about test score is gonna affect GPA it's gonna affect college applications and it's 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 then right and just being willing to be compassionate before you immediately get to that negative place I think is the how you're reacting yes your reactions your tone the and pausing before you I mean I think the reaction is you know is something that we've talked about temperaments which will in shallow 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 hypercritical parenting style and you might actually shut them down whereas others have high you know they're high achievers they're high they kind of are 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 have a problem what I'm trying to address like it's negative it's it causes problems in other areas so inshallah just being gentle and that's why I think again when we're studying the process in this example and we're studying this theater it's very clear that in so many ways and just reading through this it's always about balance right he didn't over 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 of 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 gonna lose my children and I love me anymore so they overlook everything so the balance is the important part here right be and then try to find that sure of course like my husband is more authoritarian he kind of gives them that a little bit of the hardness yes and then I fall through with like being a little bit more gentle with them and when I work them all kind of you know you know try to like calm what he's what the way he is down right personality he's a little stronger right and he's he loves his kids he does his best to like you know give him affection as well but like when he's in that mode yes that's like how he is he's very authoritative and like so when I you know he tells me back them back to me he's like you know can you work with them on something right so I try to do it with more like is that okay like that absolutely this is why when you do this to 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 or and then mommy so you know I mean it kind of gives them I think a false impression of what's really happening it's not a target a personal attack on anybody because that's when feelings get heard and then there's all these miscommunication it's a miscommunication right but when you explain the listen we're all very different we have different styles and that when Baba speaking 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 we get to the temperance I'll explain better but like if you see a color to 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 personality type and he would be very reactive and critical in heart right but if your children know that oh okay that's just a part of like 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 that's just who he is and it's who how he operates but I'm not gonna 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 their relationship with him and then that's where they bounce comes with you because there's more expectations from you right to help them and so it could just cause it 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 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 human beings are we have a design element to our personality type and and if you see that it's okay just kind of remember the their good intentions this is your father obviously who loves you cares about you and you know don't don't take it so personally he's like that with everybody's like that at work it's like that with me on it's sort of like oh yeah I understand 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 the video that MCC posted that's in shall it should it show the process of following his some following his ways first then has to start with see it as studying him right studying his story setting his life setting everything about him and so there's different resources we can do that with we can actually study his you know see the intact we can study his attributes through the the shaman or his physical attributes we can study his characteristics his qualities in other ways I did you know there's a text called by honey I call that she fa 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 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 example so making that important and then the daily goss that he's left for us it's very important that we all do our goss for the morning when we wake up and we open our eyes there's no up 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 go out 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 you know I know 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 Jama'at 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 Salawat on Thursday night some extra prayers or having you know maybe a class on on Sita going over a particular Hadid doing something that honors the promo so I said these are really important practices that we can all encourage together again and I hope the theme that 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 that you give to your kids where it's like here you know color this dome of the promo so I said we'll 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 process I said that way and then you know these are other principles that we should all understand which again we're just doing a review and it's fine which are excellence right spiritual excellence meticulousness and thought 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 a son 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 I mean you see it all the times kids would like dirty long nails you know or like just food all over their face including we should teach our children to not be comfortable it's not part of our tradition to do that we 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 and 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 you know saintly in their prayers or have you know high sort of achievements in terms of their spiritual efforts there they're gonna fall short there too because they've never been you know pushed to try to achieve better okay so making sure they understand that I don't the fuck go to the double which is to reflect to contemplate all the consequences of things we should teach them these words so these words we should know we should know them as vocabulary words from our dean and teach them the concepts to their children our children to actually reflect is to go outside to look at you know those products 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 like really sit there and instead of us telling them right and wronged all the time that when we're not with them that they know what not to do but they know what to do and what not to do if we're not with them they're hanging out with their friends if you've built their conscience enough inshallah if the prayer time comes in they're gonna remember and even if they have to be that one that says hey guys I gotta 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 gauge and then Murahaba to meditate right to watch over and 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 the kids some kids like to pray some kids like to read or write so whatever it is yes so why can't you sit down? so I'm just hearing what you're saying and trying to do more things together yes but I also feel like just as adults and parents and a householder I really need the explicit need about how we're going to be committed to what we call home training raising our children like that's just not it's not absolutely I was mostly with the adults 100% unified yes looking at this part to do that right it's not impossible you have that that has to be like you know what I mean of course because I think for kids it sends me messages and it's hard for them to understand you know like one thing it's okay with this but with this other thing it's not I agree you know like go makes a lot but like what is it 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 it's a lot and then we're barking or we're doing whatever or as adults we don't even apologize to our children we're doing the wrong right you know so things like that but I'm so here and just you know in terms of collective yes but also I think a collective mindset absolutely as well you know absolutely no just like looking at your 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 spiritual different spiritually different courses they have to see the common mutual benefit of being on the same page when it comes to raising their children and not to do that the whole thing where it was you know I don't know if you walked into the plate 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 it that's not 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 you know as far as health or other areas of concern we don't do that whole thing like what it's a reflection right so as parents yeah you need to come together have a very serious conversation like 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 right and if we're going to short change ourselves on our own souls that's on us that you know 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 recognize that they're nominally or at least in practice in some areas but they have short you knowcomings or they're weak in certain areas I hope that by having a really important discussion with the 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 I'm going to support them praying five times a day I'm going to encourage them to pray five times a day or marry to people who are not Muslim but it's the non-Muslim parents who will tell that their children go pray right 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 needed collective mindset in order for this to succeed and so that is the starting ground if you feel like your spouse might just 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 are at stake here the world outside wants to devour our children's souls it's ready everything's already in place from everything you see in social media and just the society outside the spiritual health of the child matters very little they're just consumers and that's all they are it's in the world outside so if you really recognize that then hopefully as parents you'll come together what can we do to protect our children and we need to have 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 forms license absolutely these are things 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 as a dinner discussion 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 sharing communication is just so important I think I read something recently about children and how 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 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 to 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 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 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, masha Allah they do have good natures and they can be very giving, 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 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 everyone around you but to just kind of again so this again practices and if you emulate that then they can follow obviously your lead but just having them learn that and then also, very important is to mind their own business I think a lot of kids, especially when you reach junior high and high school ages, they get in trouble a lot because 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 all these instant videos and everybody's got quick little, you know, whether it's memes or whatever it is, up 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 I'm not interested so when they're at school and if their friends are getting 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, 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, you know just saying it like mind your own business without connecting it to the spiritual like these are hadith, you know the prophets have taught us these concepts why? Let's have a discussion about it why do you think he would explicitly tell us, right? why would he tell us that the excellence, part of the excellence of a person's Islam 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 facing a situation hopefully, inshallah, we can only pray that it wakes them up 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 SWT but what we can do as parents is do our best to protect them, right? So teaching them these concepts 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 and then we talked about the power of five so this is 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 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 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 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 and teach that to 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 will 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 a type A very high achieving people high standards very reactionary extroverted and so they have you know good positive and negative qualities but they like to have it their way they like control so again you should know is this who I am I'm kind of late to me and the type of person that really does like to have things set in 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 the bubbly life of the party very popular they just really like connecting with people they're chatty they're always you know just wasn't 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 and then trying to figure out who everybody is in the family but there's actual tests you know we're just kind of going over 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 you know issues and problems are 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 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, just accept it no, every single one of us from a spiritual perspective has our own Mujahidah our own struggle individually is to better ourselves to make ourselves in line with the Prophet's Law Center 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 if 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 I 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 Prophet's Law Center's example and his example is what we're all supposed to try to to meet wherever you are in this spectrum we all have something to work on 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 saw a skim through it first or purchase it right away from Amazon or whatever your options are or you prefer but there's tests in that book that will 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 but what that does is it gives you something to work with because now I understand wow, if I'm a choleric and everybody else is a melancholic for example pretty serious you know intense personality types that we all have in the home no wonder maybe sometimes our conversations are hard right or if you have a 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 that list that I kind of skimmed through the four 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 of the prophet 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 and I'm sure many people would agree is I think the best analogy for parenting because it talks about shepherding the idea that the shepherd what is the shepherd view what is their objective right the shepherd's soul objective is to nurture to guide and to protect their flock right 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 behavior 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 um excuse me these things that the shepherd aims for to nurture guide and protect can be 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 shepherd doesn't even walk out there without knowing how animals behave without knowing how to feed them how to you know protect them you need to acquire knowledge right then reach and this is done through communication and creativity and then safety and that's done through planning and 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 were having these discussions because we want we're you know we want to hold ourselves in shatla to a higher standard and learn how to do things better and so this is where education matters we have to start with education right and learning about personality human behavior temperaments child children how children behave right 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 different psychological 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 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 because parenting is literally leading that's what you're doing so what are 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 I said are 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 don't we're not in tune with who we are so it has to start with a self and of course you know this is another you know maximum our tradition whoever knows their their nefs well right their selves well they'll know also kind of that 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 survival needs of a human are what food water air we're feeling that right now we're in this situation maybe it's been a long time since many of us made some serious choco for clean air but that's something we take advantage of we take for granted we don't realize what a nemite is to have clean air but now that we're breathing through masks and coughing every two seconds we're suddenly aware of that so these are very basic now it's pretty easy to figure out we all need shelter we all need food water air we need love but what about thriving what does a human being need to thrive to become their best optimum self and is there a correlation a sense of security a sense of security very good absolutely and obviously from a spiritual perspective I mean if you want to thrive or succeed you cannot do that without nurturing your connection with Allah swt I mean 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 swt 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 needs right it has to be done through that process of I need to really work on my relationship with Allah swt 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 we should be clear on that so this is a quote from Maslow 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 always be waived aside as fripries which are useless since they fail to fill 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 so what is this 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 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 so why is this important because when it comes to parenting we have to see where are we in terms of this hierarchy where are we in terms of providing this first for ourselves and then for our children so let's look so this is the hierarchy that he's outlined so 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 but in order to get there according to this theory or his idea is that you have to meet all these other first so here's a visual for you so physiologically then we're able to move past those needs and we can focus on the next set of needs which are security of employment of resources family, health, property now I want you to think if you are having problems in your home in your marriage in your health at work do you see what happens is you get stuck 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 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 they where are my versus where are they because if you're having marital issues and it's affecting your house issues what's happening why am I at some place and my spouse isn't there or vice versa and so this kind of helps you understand that 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 you want to do hugs you know a lot of there's couples I've talked to several where it's like they don't have 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 I want them to be there they're not listening 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 because 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 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's just sort of beautiful and 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 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 spouse is still they're not you know they're spiritually there they're negative they're closed off emotionally there's something let's get to the root of it where where's the disconnect have you figured 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 you know 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 they have to worry about bills and kids school and all the other stuff that you know payments and insurance and everything else that people really you know 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's very important to study because and we're going to talk about how this affects children as well so let's actually look at 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 sort of just we know when something's 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 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 altogether 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 an 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 you're going to inshallah get you know to get relief whether it's spiritual and you just are going to become I don't know there's something like if it's a health matter and you know you there's really no course may Allah give you 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 way of fixing or curing then your remedy could be just usually I'm just going to focus on my connection with Allah and really try to do whatever I need to get to just to strengthen that but if there's other things like if it's a relationship 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 I can't do anything about it then a lot of people have that very complacent attitude about their problems I can't do anything about it 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 our deen is not a deen of hopelessness right we should never feel settled with being hopeless and 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 their problems to everybody but seek out help I think for some reason I in the work that I do I just feel like there's just this you know giving up people just giving 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 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 mechanically and your whole day is just going to work and coming back and eating and sleeping and there's no deep connection with your soul then yeah that's just your existence and eventually you know you're just going to wither away that's that's the chapter of your life you know that's I mean 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 doing yet but we always have hope we always expect better and we are always to strive for better right so meeting our needs first and then looking at our children's needs 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 you know is good and not you know especially if you have teens please and I am you know that no no teenagers has paid me to say this but 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 could 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 you know highly critical you know it's just like stop being easy 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 right and we don't wake up an infant who needs to sleep for long stretches of a time because they're changing we understand that adolescents will do the same process years later so be more understanding about your teens need for sleep and try to accommodate do 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 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 be up until one o'clock in the morning because you better not turn that in late and we're just so intense with that but then we don't realize that we're not meeting their basic need but then we want them to achieve you know in this very intense high pressure you know competitive time with you know it's just too much yes I think it is your hand please I'm sympathetic I'm learning I realize as a parent like an elementary teacher a middle school teacher and a high school teacher and your strength might be an elementary middle school but I also wonder my struggle just in terms of five and teenagers five or six even at the latest in a project and that got me I know we need to sleep but also you know what I mean 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 seven to ten is when you start disciplining and teaching your children how to play by ten they should be praying their five 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 like you know feeling like a log in bed and they can't they literally feel like they can't get up it's they're already accustomed their muscles to it they know their brains are wired you know my son he's turning ten next month but this year since Ramadan Hamdulillah he's been praying all of our 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 nine 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 twelve and thirteen and now it's like oh it's thought of them 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 is about an hour and a half and this is how you 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 fuzzer 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 uh can't get up right so we should educate ourselves like you know what time your sleep so that by the time fuzzer comes inshallah you will have you're not completely you know burden and this all of us can learn from this if you have a hard time with fuzzer 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 and I don't know you read different things and I get it there's different you know 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 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 it's known you know the many of the greatest 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 Sunnah was to do the Qaylullah which is the afternoon nap between Mahmoud and Asad so this is the Asad in Mahmoud Asad in Mahmoud Asad in Mahmoud right 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 enough 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 like this 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 gonna 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 and you know 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 if they need to understand that your children are you know 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 give it 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 you know 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 and just 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 but this is you know again being aware of our needs being aware of their needs this is what the education 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 adults you know as adults and caretakers we have to make sure that their needs are met with be vigilant so they are around that they're safe around the people that we expose them to or leave them with so that's our duty in making sure that even when it comes to their health making sure they have adequate healthcare and they're obviously free from any type of abuse and neglect so if you have an abusive personality type where you are really hard on your kids you got to take yourself into account here the 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 abusive towards their kids and they don't realize that that type of there's no such thing as you know a 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 7 they need play you have to give them room to play and not shush them quiet them stop every 2 seconds that's not normal if you have a noise issue then just remove yourself 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 just let them be their wrestling their loud wait a minute it's a home but there's rooms that I could go to but sometimes 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 to play so we have to watch ourselves as adults and realize these are needs that we have to meet for them and then esteem 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 and sometimes you'll just think well I don't hear anything I guess that's fine that's passive parenting you can't just wait for your children to always listen to 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 schoolwork 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 there's no problem you know I don't have to worry about it but there could be umbers there could be sparks you know underneath and they're just waiting to 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 school every other day they're making excuses I'm sick I'm not feeling good that's probably a science of things 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 community but even if it's in a public school talk to the teachers talk to them this 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 or it doesn't happen no it happens and it has happened stuff for a while and children have expressed these very horrible um you know ideas to people because you know that's where they're at they feel like they don't have any other so 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 did I see a hand up and then and then obviously self-actualization this is what we all want for our children we want them 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 doing 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 and sweating they would actually rather go and maybe you know learn something and produce something they have to be a 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