 So, diving right into it, the 10 pieces of advice, the number one piece of advice that pretty much 100% of all of the families are doing is Bua, Bua, Bua. And many times the response to hearing that we should be making Bua is that, okay, yeah, yeah, you know, we should be playing, but really get to the meat of it. Give me the meat and bones of what actually should we be doing beyond Bua. And if that's our response to hearing that advice, we really need to kind of hit the pause button and take a moment and self-reflect. Because if we think that there's any success possible in raising our children, that doesn't come directly from us on a holler than from us diving ourselves. So, everything starts first with Bua. Purifying our intentions, begging Allah for help, asking Him for His mercy, asking Him for His guidance, asking Him for His protection. And many of these parents told me that not only did they rely on Bua, but their children saw them constantly relying on Bua, relying on children to Allah. So they told me that anytime they had to make big decisions regarding their lives, their children's lives, they would just swallow up the prayer of guidance. And their children saw them first and foremost turning to swallow up the prayer of guidance before making big decisions. Anytime there was a need that they had, whether they wanted their children to go on exams or whether they were hoping for a cure for health reports from the doctor, they would turn to swallow Hajj with the prayer of need. Anytime they saw blessings emerge in their lives, they would turn to swallow sugar with the prayer of gratitude. So there is this attitude in a home that the children witnessed going up, which is that first and foremost, we turn to Allah before we ask anybody else, right? Okay, so the second piece of advice these parents gave me is that one of the things pretty much every parent prayed for was Sufha companionship. And they said that your Sufha companionship would remain for quite a while and my mom used to say to us that don't think that you're better than your friends. You are who your friends are. And so these parents would go out of their way to become friends with like-minded families with families they admire the way they were raising their children and forage these friendships so that their children have beneficial subliminal lives. And some of the parents talked about even changing their circles of friends they realized that the community that they were living in or that they were socializing in that the way their time has been spent and the things that their children were being exposed to were not necessarily the most positive and they weren't necessarily what they wanted to see in their own children as it could have grew up and those parents actually made drastic decisions to change their entire circle of friendship and bring in the friends that they felt were going to be role models for their children. So when it comes to sohba we have a mom in the Bay Area he gave a little bit of advice he said that your children are being influenced in three aspects of their lives you're being influenced in the street which is basically where they're socializing so their social media, the streets, their friends so they're being influenced in the street they're being influenced in the school and they're being influenced in the home the street, the school, and the home and he said that you have to be living in two out of three of those areas so street, school, and home two of those areas is where you should be the prominent the predominant influence in your children's lives and a book that I would like to recommend that can help you get the tools and how to be a primary influence in your children's lives is a book called Hold On to Your Kids Why Parents Think Matter More Than Years Hold On to Your Kids Why Parents Think Matter More Than Years and that book is written by a man named Gabor Manté his last name is called N-A-T-E and that book gives really good tips on how to forge a relationship with your children so that your children will actually, inshallah, prefer your company over social media over friends, over population one other thing that I saw in these families which is a blessing that not all of us have but those of you who do have should be very, very grateful for it is families that have been friends in the home I saw that there was an exceptional level of other those matters because there's something about children who are realizing that they have to be helped for the needs of somebody other than themselves that goes very far in teaching them selflessness and teaching them service and that comes when you have to worry about like when I'm going to start eating until our grandmother is sitting at the table or my grandfather needs his hand held while we're walking to the car or to the restroom or whatever but the fact that these kids learn that they have to look out for someone other than themselves because in the culture that we're in today it's a lot of community looking out for ourselves and so having grandparents in the home as long as inshallah it's a functional relationship it's a respectful relationship the children along, the parents along inshallah get along with each other with other and the kids grow up with an extra level and oh by the way just going back to the beginning when I wrote this article and I started interviewing families about what impressed me of your kids just to give you an idea of the things that we're impressing about these children so in the article I say raising children at humankind I don't need to suggest that humankind are people because they're not humankind knows the world and the life and communities and our spiritual values and religious values and religion it's always supersedes everything else but many times people tend to think that it's binary it's either one or the other you're either going to have your kids they're going to be doing really long schools doing sports and getting ahead in the world but then you know prayers like hit or miss you know Islamic education is kind of put on the back burner or people will think that families are completely immersed in religious matters but are neglected maybe the educational path that their kids should be focusing on so these kids what I saw is that they're seen to be a really good balance between excelling academics excelling in sports excelling in their career path but at the same time striving for that same level of excellence if not higher when it comes to religion as well so I just it's important to define terms and explain what we're striving for so I wanted to make that clear these were the role models that I was looking at because we're doing well but we have to also for community watching what's thriving for hybrids okay so we talked about the duos relying on the power of prayer and then so far how you're sort of the companionship and the care of your community so the third thing that came up with these families was that when it comes to so far who could be the best companion who could be the best and what I saw in these families is that there was a very close relationship and close love with the prophets and we're not going to do this alone and the prophets and brothers and I'm going to do this alone was believing in the reality in these families lives he wasn't somebody relegated to ministry books he wasn't somebody just kind of percent based school he wasn't somebody from the ancients he was somebody relevant and he was somebody who was real and these families talked about the prophets and brothers on a regular basis the way you might talk about a grandparent and her children never got to be like for example I never met my maternal grandfather he passed away before my parents he was not married but growing up my mother always talked about it and the love and it's just a second and it's very very evident and when you do well in school you should be saying things like oh you know Papa was alive he was so proud of me because he really really admired him he did well in school and that would make us happy to think that a grandparent was alive he was the peace with us so that's the same attitude except about the fathers and so there are different ways that families brought the prophets and brothers into the children's lives one is that they talked about it in the sense of joy in the sense of excitement so for example one mom told me that when on Fridays she had the kids make a special treat right out of the honor of this job and then she would tell the kids you know the prophets and others and I don't even love squash so how about you may pumpkin my hands today or the prophets would sort of love dates or you love honey how about they date them or honey bars to the prophets and notice about the color green or the color white how about we wear green clothes today or we wear white clothes so very gently mentioning them and bringing them into the children's lives so that they were thinking about them on a regular basis I once was visiting my sister's home and her son at that time was seven years old and I saw sitting next to his dad and it was a a yellow book published by the publishers and it said Shema Ilana The Life of the Perfection and it's a book written by Imam Thirvind in the 9th century I believe ancient texts but it had been translated into English and it had been done for children and it was sitting next to my nephew Mustafa's dad and so I asked my sister about that I said what's this what's this and she said oh that that's just it's called Shema Ilana which means characteristics and she said that's just a compilation of Hadith that describes different characteristics of the prophets and every night before Mustafa goes to bed his father who reads him one Hadith just one Hadith no big long lecture no big discussion just going over one Hadith before Mustafa falls asleep and she said you know the fact that Mustafa knows that the prophets and Ramesses don't like to eat dates and cucumbers together makes them feel like he knows the prophets and the truth is that you can't love somebody until you actually know them right so it's really important that our children grow up knowing who the prophets and Ramesses are plus that is when our children were little we asked Mom say Chakra what should we be teaching our children and we just without any hesitation he said teach them Sita and teach them Mashi so Sita is biography of the prophets and the Mashi are songs that were sung crazy and when my kids were little we had use of the song and we were able to be a national woman I'm a reward for what they from the beauty they provided us in this field however we have a lot of options out there now and so you know I've seen two years old three-year-old children sitting in their car seats who are singing the sheaf right along with the radio and I've seen a three-year-old boy when he's getting strapped into his car seats in the site prior for traveling so that's another thing that was important learning about the prophets to learn about all the different standards there's some basics that should be taught and it's taught in repetition so the the love for traveling in the car the love on entering the restroom the love of leaving the restroom the love of entering the home the love of leaving the home one dad told me that he just printed out the gloves in English and put them up all over the house in different areas and they would recite them every time they passed those cards and over time the kids ended up not listening to them one anecdote that I want to share on this topic is not a song this is something that I actually witnessed myself there was a mom who she got up a little late for fudger like fudger was still in but it's about to go out like 10 minutes so she didn't want to spend her time trying to get her 8 year old out of bed to pray fudger and so she took care of her own fudger and fudger time went out and for the 8 year old when he woke up and he realized that he had missed fudger he actually burst into tears and he was crying because his mom hadn't told him on fudger and the in-laws were sitting at the time were horrified actually by his response because they were like what if you've been teaching our grandchild like why is he frightened does he think he's going to burn in hell like no 8 year old should be this upset about this prayer they thought it's kind of a place of fear and anxiety but actually when they talked to the 8 year old it came out what was making him cry was that he knew that the last thing the prophet said what his own talked about before he passed away was the prayer and that his last words were the prayer the prayer pulled onto the prayer and this 8 year old knew that from learning to see that and so for him it was a feeling of letting the prophet the prophet down and neglecting something that was very, very important and so the mom learned her lesson and she was like not wake my child up or budger again but it was a beautiful example of coming to prayer coming to Allah from a position of love instead of a position of fear all children need to learn love and fear of a love but in the early years it's all about love and there was nobody who loved Allah more than the prophet said so teaching your children to love the prophet helped teach them to love Allah okay so I'm sorry my PowerPoint presentation wasn't downloading so I'll just review so the first one was the second one was your sohbah the third one was that the prophet was living breathing breathing these children's lives the fourth tip that these parents told me is that having fun wasn't halam in our home but we made the home environment as halal as possible I'll repeat that one more time having fun wasn't halam in our home but we made the home environment as halal as possible and another way to paraphrase that is beware of the dangers of don't beware of the dangers of don't children should not be growing up constantly hearing no no no no no you can't do this no you can't do that no that's halam no Allah doesn't like that no we're not allowed if we use a little bit of creativity it can it can be flipped and we can guide our children in the direction we want them to go to while using the words yes right so so for some examples I saw in my community was like I personally have no opinion about celebrating birthdays and passing I know the mom doesn't celebrate birthdays for their own philosophical reasons but she and her family went above and beyond throwing the most lavish celebrations when her children would memorize like when they memorized jazama when they memorized the 29 jazas I still remember my children still remember the party she threw she had twin children who both went on daughter and son but when they memorized the 30 jazas she had a full on party in the park with two separate gigs and everybody got party favors but it was honoring and celebrating something that she felt was worthy of honoring and celebrating and I know like it left that party motivated and inspired and wanting to achieve similar types of goals so so that was an example she had to say no you can't have birthday parties she said yes we're going to have parties we're going to celebrate when you guys do and everybody can figure out whatever those goals are I know moms who throw in job parties for their daughters when they come of age where all the ladies and aunties in the community come together people who have celebrated their kids 7th birthday because that's the year they're going to take on praying so the whole party becomes focused around prayer it's a salam party where it was what were some of the games I saw the salam party like pin the moon over the mosque I think was one and they had a prayer a miss paha making station so people get creative on how they can have fun with their kids one little caveat that I'm going to give this little topic and be an entire talk on its own so I'm not going to go very too depth into it but I just if there's nothing else that anybody takes from this talk except the power of the lad this one other thing that I want to share with you inshallah I'll consider this inshallah success these parents even though they made sure to give their children a lot of yes's instead of no's one thing that these parents every single one of them was on board with and all the same page about is that they did not allow their children to have access to the internet and the privacy of their letters so if that's the only thing anyone takes from this talk it will get huge blessing access to the internet and the privacy of your letters and I won't really go more I won't go to turn to that topic other than that okay the fifth tip a lot of these kids what they shared with me when I asked them to give me advice some of their parents did well with them they said our parents didn't just talk the talk they walked meaning that their parents weren't hypocrites or they didn't see their parents as hypocrites and I know some of them you know a lot of them children listen with their eyes children listen with their eyes meaning that you can give them all the lectures you want but if you're doing something different than what you're saying nobody steps out hypocrisy quicker than children so if you're telling your children about a family member or if they if you tell your children that you should have supper but then they see you using your temper over some small inconvenience kids are learning from that and so I know one young man who told me that he remembers seeing his father read when his father inadvertently missed a prayer and he said seeing my father read when he missed a prayer taught me more about the importance of prayer than all the lectures in the world seeing the way his father responded to that active moment of negligence Shiv Keohar says that children need to see that Islam worked in the whole world they need to see that Islam actually benefits them and actually works that Islam is the reason that the home is a common environment Islam is the reason that everybody's clean and smells good Islam is the reason that we make choices that give us a lot of lives of dignity so when children see that Islam actually works and gives you a life of peace and dignity then Inshallah Inshallah they will choose it for themselves whether they're older and obviously we want our children to choose the food because they recognize it as hub we want our children to choose Islam because they recognize that Islam but many people when they get turned off the religion it's because they see that it didn't work when it comes to talking to talk I'm sorry walking the walk not just talking to talk we also have to be mindful about the kind of religion one example for my own life is when my kids were little and I was working on a project with another law the time for Muharram came in and without thinking about it I just said to her oh you know I need to go get Muharram out of the way and she was kind of startled for a second and then she just smiled and she said oh that's interesting in our home we say we need to get Muharram in the way huge difference that one word right I need to get Muharram out of the way I need to get Muharram in the way just the way we approach our religion the kids pick up on that attitude and she said that in Islam when we give charity we're supposed to give charity to the right hand in such a way that our left hand doesn't work so that so don't hide your acts of the father share with your children so that they learn that this is how they do it okay the sixth tip that these parents shared is they said I wasn't afraid to be the bad guy but I didn't be a bad guy I wasn't afraid to be the bad guy but I didn't be a bad guy that means that these parents were friendly with their children but they didn't try to be their best friends because your best friend is not going to tell you your best friend is not going to tell you they need to do your prayers your best friend is not going to tell you that it's time to go to bed parents do that authority figures do that but they have friendly relationships with their children there's three types of parenting out there which is it's my way or the highway if you don't listen to me you're going to see the back of my hand both my rules matter me as the adult I'm the only one who matters nobody else is a voice and there's permissive parenting which is called jellyfish parenting that's where parents don't have a spine and they're very weak and they're always whining and they're always telling their children please listen to me if you do that one more time we're going to leave I'm telling you if you do that one more time we're going to leave and then the child does it and they don't leave and they say what do I do with my time here she never listens to me not getting up and leaving right so that's jellyfish parenting permissive parenting the third type of parenting which is considered to be the best type of parenting is called authoritative parenting that's called backbone parenting it's where parents say and an excellent book by an author that I heard I believe this has had him speak as well by Dr. Leonard Sacks I recommend every book by Dr. Leonard Sacks it's also about SAX I have three sons so I've read his books about raising boys boys adrift it's an excellent excellent book for parents and girls there's a book called Girls on the Edge but the book that he wrote that will be an authoritative parent is a book called The Collapse of Parenting it's a New York Times bestseller and it's a book that everyone should have a year longer okay the seventh tip these parents share is they all these parents told me that I always kept my kids close by I always kept my kids close by I was a stay-at-home mom and I homeschooled our sons up until eighth grade a lot of people assumed that's what I'm talking about but I'm saying oh you have to homeschool your kids that's not what I'm saying what these parents did share with me every single one of them and I know everybody's situations are different so this is I don't need to hurt anybody's feelings or to freak anyone out to make anyone feel like that from speaking to all these families but every single one of these families told me that we didn't put our children in day care that our children were not in day care for like seven in the morning until five a week with non-muslim caregivers sometimes some of these families had families to help them some of them had grandparents in the home to help them some of them had Muslim aunties in the community to help them work but the primary caregiving and therapy of the children was done by parents parents or grandparents somebody invested in the children and somebody Muslim Muslim other Muslim roles Muslim guidelines so that was across the board another very common role that was not very popular with the children many of these parents told me that they did it to sleepovers that they didn't allow their children to go and sleep in a home where they could go check on them but the way they would compromise with their kids being creative with that same guess instead of no is that they would allow sleepovers in their home and they would have their friends there some of the people knew that all the men would be thought from the home no father no brothers no sons in the home then maybe girls would be allowed to spend the night in a home where they were older girls sometimes people did sleepovers where the parents got to sleepover as well but the idea of having your child and somebody else's home didn't spoil our kids nor did we praise them too much we didn't spoil our kids nor did we praise them too much what that indicates is that these families while they were concerned about their children's academic education and they were concerned about their physical education they were also very very concerned about how their nuffs is also developing their egos so one example that stands out in my head is in the Bay Area we have an Islamic school they're called North Star and every year in the month of Rabi Lolo North Star does national poetry competition where they pick a theme every year about the province and they encourage children from all over the country to go to Islamic schools to submit their own poems that they written based on that theme and then their poems are judged and North Star has their annual fundraiser and hundreds of people are there and then on the stage they have asked who the winner is whose poem got chosen as first proof and so one year one of our students from our home school she won her first prize for her poem we were very excited about the event that was happening at our local mosque in the month of Rabi Lolo so I asked her mom if it would be possible for her daughter to come with sight that poem at our again and this mom is a mom I really would advise her a lot taking a lot of notes from the way she raised her children but what stood out for me is that we wanted to have our child recite a poem about the prophets and others in public but what she said to me was you know my daughter's been getting a lot of praise for that poem she her name was announced at the fundraising event she was called up on stage in front of hundreds of people and she said and then she happens to be in this one particular science program and that TV show was going to be airing on television next week she said you know I just don't think it's been for her enough I don't think it's been for her ego to begin the spotlight so much so if you don't mind we're actually saying no and that was a huge teaching for her because I realized that the mom was looking at something much deeper and concerned about something much deeper and looking long term and her daughter has now grown up to do amazing things graduate from a great university has a great job as a bold model to many people but she's and I realize that it's because of the mindful way that her parents watch a lot race so that's just one example okay the ninth tip talk to your kids with love talk to your kids with love and so what many of these families told me is that it's really important to teach for them to teach their children to look at the guy of discernment to kind of look at the deeper messages the deeper lessons behind things but to do that in a way that doesn't become lecturing that doesn't become nagging that doesn't become didactic all the time where they're just any time the kid wants to do something fun they're just getting a lecture about it there's a fine line that we have to want and so it was important in time teaching their kids to think at a deeper level so like for example I have a couple of different examples so one is I know a family where a dad wasn't thrilled with the community frozen and frozen came out a few years ago as a disability it was very popular every single child in America singing songs from that movie so the dad didn't love that movie and I don't have the lyrics written down but in particular the song let it go and but the dad did not forbid his children from watching frozen he let them watch frozen but he watched it with them and he enjoyed it with them but then he disgusted with them as well so for those of you who don't know the story of frozen it's just a quick synopsis this girl is in charge of her sister taking care of her sister and the whole time she's taking care of her sister she looks stressed out she's buttoned up and then at some point in the movie she decides to let it go and the lyrics of the song literally say let it go let go of the rules the rules don't matter anymore and after that she's living in this castle and she's in a sleeveless gown and she's no longer taking care of her sister she's like abandoned her so the dad talked to the kids about that like what does that mean to let it go I know one mom is being of service to her sister but the movie shares her as being very unhappy when she's being of service how what's the Islamic approach to being of service to people and the dad talked to the kids about like what does it mean to let it go with rules what does it look like in our lives if we have rules we follow what's Sharia why is Sharia in our lives right and what would our life look like if we let go of rules so again actually having a discussion and getting them to think about these some of the deeper messages that society is giving them in my own life I again just doing things mindlessly my kids when they were little it started to rain and you know I started singing to them the song that we all do on the which is rain rain go away Sean and me want to play have again another day rain rain go away right that was the song but my brother happened to be there when I was singing that to my boys and my brother was like don't teach them that rain is a blessing especially in California rain is a blessing we need rain so he's like why are you teaching them to reject all those blessings just because they want to have fun is just because there are dumps ones to go out and play like they should be rejecting the utmost mercy and less blessing so I was like oh I didn't really think of it that way and we came up with our own song and the song that we sang to our kids was rain rain come on down come and fall upon the ground rain rain come down fast come and bake some green grass rain rain pour pour pour your mercy for harbor rain rain fall on me I turn to Allah gratefully so we would sing that to our kids every time it rain and I saw this with my own eyes that one day I was going to take my boys on a picnic and they were really excited and they were going to see their friends and it rained and we got rained out and we weren't able to go on the picnic and I still remember my boys standing at the sliding glass door looking out at all the rain disappointed and then I saw my older son turn to his younger brother and say it's okay I mean Allah's being kind to us California needs the rain we'll go on a picnic another day and I remember being very moved by that because I knew I was convinced that that attitude that we had towards this disappointment I think it came from that subtle pretty washing that had been happening for so long so long with this song because the natural information would be to be like why is this happening why why are my plans getting messed up right and it's messaging I had been for years it's rain rain go away we want to play then I think you know the response would have been very different so that's just a little example of you know talking to your kids with love with the audience just starting one female scholar she did say that you do want to be very of falling into the trap of over respecting their children over talking to your children like every single thing that you have to do should not have to be explained to them sometimes it's okay for parents to just say what I said so and kids need to be okay with that as well so just making sure you have that balance oh and when it comes to talking to kids with love one thing every parent should know kids should not be calling themselves sweet if they've gotten in trouble with you if you've gotten disappointed to you you can let them know but before they go to sleep they should be reassured that they are loved that tomorrow is a fresh day that everybody gets another chance and we all make mistakes and that they're saved and they're loved and they're accepted every kid should be getting that messaging no one should be going to sleep on what I love so what that means is parents have to be willing to reassure their children that they're okay and they also have to be if you mess up and we all mess up we all mess up if you lose your temper if you make some you know a bad choice on how you deal with your kids it's okay to say I'm sorry and I'm sorry that I made you feel that's one easy way you're going to teach our children how to apologize in the future to people in their lives and you're also going to teach them how to repent for a lot you also are able to ask for forgiveness okay the last tip and this is the tip that causes most tears and again it's not to make anybody feel bad it's just data that I've collected but it has come up again and again and again the number 10 tip that pretty much all of these families shared with me is that the children had a pious father who engaged them that's the key part being pious was not enough they had a pious father who engaged them meaning they took an interest in their children they were invested in them they were involved in their lives they talked to them they knew their friends were they knew what made them sad they knew what made them happy they did things with them activities with them so for the longest time when I used to do this talk I used to say I don't have science to back me up this is just data I've collected from partner people who actually do have science to back me up there is a man named Byrne Bankston in this landmark 30-year study he started in 1972 and he ended in 2004 where he followed 2,000 people for 30 years and he would meet up with them every few years and the whole goal of his study is to find out what is it that these Christian and Jewish families are doing that is causing the next generation to continue being Christian and Jewish and there were a lot of different factors he found but the overwhelming factor was that the next generation had fathers who were practicing Jews and Christians it wasn't enough for the mother to be a practicing Jewish Christian so like if the mom was taking the kids to church on Sunday but the dad was staying home and watching football it was hit or miss whether the kids were going to go off to be Christian but when the dad was involved and was taking the kids to Sunday school in their Bible classes with them then it was more likely that the next generation was going to continue the practice Christianity and Judaism and this is what the Muslim families have said to me as well and I I know of a young boy who one of the one of the kids in our community when they spent the night at his house they commented that they've seen in all the different homes families have different ways of practicing so in one family the kid might get up and pray fudger with his dad in Jama'a but he mentioned this one particular boy and he said you know in his home his dad just comes in to the bedroom and he says Ali fudger and Ali jumps out of bed and they go to the mosque and I was really impressed when told me that and I was like oh wow that's not easy it takes so long to get to the mosque and building a mosque for fudger this boy Ali has such a good attitude about me and the little boy who was sharing this with me he said yeah but you know what Ali's dad does after fudger prayer everyday he takes Ali to Starbucks for breakfast so I think that's why Ali's jumped out of bed so I don't know we don't know is causing Ali to jump out of bed budget. It's not cheap. It's like four or five months a day, you know, times 30, so 150 months a month. He took his kid out for a treat at Starbucks after budget prayer. And this kid was associating budget as this beautiful bonding time with his dad. And Mashallah, he's an adult now. And I know he takes other young adults, too. He can sit up in his car and take some of the budget prayer. It's something he's held on to. And it's something he grew up, you know, seeing from his dad. And we know that even from the beast, right, that the bedwin who came to the Prophet's love is someone who saw the Prophet's love. And he said, I had 10 children and I'd never missed any of them. And the Prophet's love is someone who said, is there anything I can do once I was removed or see from your heart? So, you know, fathers have mercy on their children. It shows up. I know of a young woman who grew up in a small town where there were virtually no Muslims. But her father is very, very pious now, a very tall man. And she and her siblings were up to the amazing Muslims. And I once asked her, like, how did you guys not get sucked in by the siren call of the culture around you in this small town? And I'll never forget what she said. She said, when you feel love in the home, you don't look for it anywhere else. When you feel love in the home, you don't look for it anywhere else. And she felt that love from her father in particular. So for single moms, what's going to be really important is having male mentors in your kids' lives, whether it's uncles, whether it's older brother type figures, whether it's grandfather, whether it's reaching out to a friend's husband in the community and saying, can you mentor my child, especially my son, because boys, especially at the age of 11, 12, by that time, they need male mentors. They definitely need male mentors. And a lot of times they can't, they can't even hear things from their own dad that they can hear from other male mentors. So a lot of benefit, no mentorship. And this is an incident a friend of mine witnessed. She was at a big conference. One of those is not a male type of conferences. I'm not saying it's that one, but she was at one of those and there was a famous Muslim male figure who's up on stage. And somebody in the audience asked a parenting question, and the male figure on stage started to answer the question. But then somebody else in the audience stood up and said, how can you answer that question? You were never around with me. And she said it was a, it was a very heartbreaking moment and very awkward to witness. But there's a lot of truth in that because so many times we're so focused on giving back to the community and giving to the umam, inshallah, inshallah, inshallah, may everyone be rewarded for their normal intentions, but we can't neglect our own homes. We can't neglect our own families, particularly fathers who sometimes can get so spread thin giving to everybody else that their own children can get neglected in the home. And um, okay, so in conclusion, how am I doing on time? Ten minutes, okay. So in conclusion, I just want to share that, you know, I love to do lists. I love checklists. I love those, let's read articles that say, you know, whatever you do this and you'll get these results. But I know more than anyone else. And that's not how parenting works. Parenting isn't like you do ABC and you will get XYZ results. It's, you know, first and foremost, it is Allah's mercy for any success that anybody sees in their lives. Um, we know that prophets were cast into their children, you know, prophet Nul, alaihi s-salam, adham alaihi s-salam, yahu alaihi s-salam, that these were the most pious men. So people who are directly communication with Allah, you're still tested with children. You didn't believe that they didn't practice and you disobeyed them, you disobeyed Allah. So sometimes, sometimes, uh, Allah will test us with our children just to show us that this isn't for me. You can do everything quote unquote, right. And you're still not going to see the results that you want. It still doesn't absolve us from learning and it proves us to learn from people who came before us and to learn from their mistakes and to learn from their success stories and try to implement the advice that we can and all we can do is take the news, right. The end is up to Allah. And I know of a mom. I know the mom did everything right. She did everything that she could have written this article, every single one of these things that I went over today. She had in her life with her children. But still, when her son was in college, one day he called her and said, I'm not praying anymore. And he told her, I'm not feeling the heat. That's how he worded it. He said, I'm not feeling the heat. And I'm not praying anymore. And when she told me, she told me very calmly, like this was the latest update. And I was a young mom and I was not very subtle about, not very thoughtful. And I just kind of worded out, oh my God, why aren't you, why aren't you freaking out? Why aren't you freaking out? Your son is telling you that he's not praying anymore. How can you like just announce this to you so calmly? And she said, because I have a high opinion on my word. She said, I, from day one, have been doing well for my children. I've been doing well for their akhira. I've been doing well for their iman. I've been doing well for their yambu. And I don't think those was just disappeared into thin air. I don't, I know that those was were heard. And in inshallah, they'll be answered, but they'll be answered in Allah's time. They won't be answered in my time. So, and I am comfortable knowing that on the day of judgment, inshallah, I can tell Allah I did everything that was asked of me. Everything that you commanded that I was supposed to teach my children, I did. So, and now my son has his own journey. He has his own ups and downs that he has to go through in life and choices he has to make and consequences he has to face. But I did what was asked of me. So, all I can do now is continue to do the love for my child. There's nothing more powerful than a parent's door is small, witnesses to that. And all I can do is keep an open door. And that's what she did. She and her husband continue keeping an open door, continued welcoming their son home, loving him. They kept moving forward with their other children. They kept practicing the need. They kept living their life the way it was meant to be lived. They didn't stop for their son. And he was welcome to join them, but they made it here. We're moving forward with or without. And I'm happy to report that he eventually didn't come back. Took some time, but he came back to the team and did makeup prayers to make up for the time that he wasn't pregnant. So, you can't despair. Despairing is hard on our own. So, all we can do is take values and be grateful that we are not held accountable for the results. We're only held accountable for what we did to facilitate our children's success in childhood. So, I'm going to end with the words I'm going to help you put on. I'm going to read the English translation of it. It's from student 14. Oh, my Lord, make me one who establishes regular prayer and also raise such among my offspring. Oh, our Lord, and accept thou my prayer. Oh, our Lord, cover us with thy forgiveness, me, my parents, and all the leaders on the day that the regular