 Bismillah ar-Rahman ar-Raheem. Alhamdulillah wa salatu wa salamu ala ashraf al-anbiya'i wa al-mursaleen. Sayyidina wa maulana wa habibina Muhammad. Salallahu alaihi wa salamu ala alaihi wa sahbihi wa salam taslimin katheera. Welcome to the third and final installment of Quranic parenting. Alhamdulillah. Thank you for all of those who've been tuning in. The videos are available on the MCC website if you wanted to go back and watch the first two sessions but this will be the final session. So I'm going to now zip through some slides because I need to get to section three today. And last week I did a summary but it took a little bit of time so I'm just going to ask all of you to go back and watch those to get session two. But session three is on balanced parenting. So with that said let's go ahead and begin. Here's a beautiful quote from Imam al-Ghazali, to get what you love you must first be patient with what you hate. So there are a lot of things that we need these reminders as we continue to parent or if we embark on the journey of parenting that it is a constant balancing act between a lot of emotions. And if you have this perspective then inshallah you will manage, you'll manage. It won't be easy but you'll manage. So balanced parenting is really again knowing how to navigate the demands of the dunya which we are all sometimes drowning in with the goals and objectives of the achara for yourself as well as your children. Because although we live here this is not where we reside or wish to reside right. We're here temporarily. So just like when you vacation you go and you rent a space it's only temporary right. Your final or actual home is somewhere else. So that's how the believer looks at dunya that this is just we're passing through but we still have to live so therefore you have to be able to meet those demands as well as keeping your eye on the final destination which is the life after this world and that is for you as well as your children. So always keeping both of these in balance right. What do I need to do to survive in this world but what do I need to do to have salvation in the next world right. Survive and salvation. So you want to think of those two. And so I mentioned this last time I like acronyms because they work they're easy to remember. I make them up. It's nothing special but here's an acronym that I hope is helpful for you. Balance parenting is parenting with PMC. I know it's not as catchy but let's work with this. So the first one is prioritizing right. This is knowing your responsibilities first and then the rights. Sometimes we enter either the domain of marriage or parenting always with all of our rights in check. Like we know what we're going to get what we expect what to do to us. But then when you follow up with do you know what is expected of you we don't really always know those things right. So you have to know the rights the responsibilities of the you know the role that you're going to take on first and then after you've really you know make sure you have that down then you move on to your rights right. So you should know what are the rights of children over the parent not the opposite right. What is the child's right over me. What will I be called into account for. What is Allah expecting of me because as we mentioned parenting is an amenah. It's a trust from Allah. So right there the role or the responsibility is on us to fulfill the rights of children right. But if we don't even know those clearly that's a problem. So we have to know what the rights of children are over us next. Then we we can learn what are the rights of the parent over the child right. Now that I know my responsibility as a parent what am I owed as a parent and what should I be guiding my children to so that I am raising responsible children who understand that life is always about this balance right of roles responsibilities rights and so that they understand also what's expected of them and over time as they grow that they really again have a clear understanding and then the next thing is really important because this is probably in my estimation one of the biggest contributing factors to why households are falling apart is because we have not yet defined are we going to model our marriages and families according to our cultures or Islam because if it's your culture you're going to likely have a lot of problems especially when you look at blended families and you have a husband and a wife who come from two different cultures now who gets to call the shots right because if my culture if I think my culture is the best and my husband thinks his culture is the best then what we're going to be squabbling over every little thing you know my this is you know the custom in my family yours isn't as good and this is this constant competition that's really terrible to start off of a marriage like that let alone a family but so many people do that and even within the same cultures you'll have this so it's not even you know mixed family you'll have well my you know tribe of this culture does it this way or my family did it this it's all ignorance and it's why we have so many problems so we have to go back to making that definitive decision which is our family is going to be run according to Islam the model that's set before us by the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam and what he taught us and all of the teachings of our faith that have come after that is what we are going to run our family according to not culture because culture changes it you know it's it's fluid Islam is fixed and it's perfect then you want to go into the next part here which is modeling again if you want a balanced household you have to understand the children learn especially when they're younger they learn mostly from modeling they're watching you they're learning and they're imitating and if you are not going to put forth virtuous acts and be a good person and all of that meaning then to expect that your child has the best adab and manners and is just a model child is quite frankly insane because where would they learn that if you're not doing that yourself so you have to be working on your own self and really correcting your own character so that your children can learn from you but if you're oblivious to yourself and you're just you know dictating to your children thinking that they're going to learn under your command it doesn't work that way so they need proper guidance they need to you know make sure that again that you you have that understanding that they learn from by imitating listening and observing so model good behavior excellent behavior and then the last part of this is customizing right so this idea of a one size fits all model of parenting is also it doesn't work there are there are philosophies of parenting but each of us have to really think about what works for our family and so if you have multiple children in your in your family you have to take the time as a parent to know them to know their temperament their personalities what's different about one in one house you will find multiple different personality types you'll find the aggressive kind of intense personality type you know strong willed you'll have the more sensitive you'll have the extroverted that is very social and you know out and about it makes friends easily and then you'll have others that are more introverted if you don't realize this about your children and you kind of just give all your kids the same rules and expect them all to fall in line like little you know soldiers in an army it just doesn't work that way you have to be paying attention to the nuances in your children's personalities and realize that even in the same household even in the same womb right twins triplets quadruplets all of them their womb mates right as they call them you will find children who share the same womb completely different temperaments that's a law that's just a proof of a law right there they have the same DNA but completely different personalities and temperaments so you have to take the time to know them and also you have to know about what each child what the dangers are for each child like if you have a child that's easily influenced it's there they're very you know people pleasing you have to know that they're going to have a very different set of dangers than the one that is super strong willed and you know has a very like kind of take charge attitude they have a different set of circumstances they're working with right are they going to have you know each of them will have challenges because of those you know what they're presenting so the dangers as when they're young look like that but as they grow older right think of a highly influential child that enters adolescence what happens to that child when when you know they make a friend with someone in school that's telling them hey let's go do this and let's go do that if you're not aware of your child's temperament to give them the strength to be able to resist giving into people pleasing and just kind of going along with the crowd then they will fall and that's what's happening everywhere you're finding just a crisis with our youth because all of these children who have not been fortified with what they need specifically are being then set out into you know amongst the wolves and we expect them to be fine it doesn't work that way we we're our responsibilities to protect them part of protection isn't just keeping them safe from you know a shelter and and and and all of that it's also seeing that the present dangers and giving them the tools necessary this is what there is the tools necessary for them to navigate the world but it requires present parenting it requires that you're paying attention and you actually care to know the differences in your child's personality and that's where temperament theory is very useful I think I may have mentioned it before but temperaments we have in our faith this is called me Zaj it is to study that the different temperament so I mentioned extroverted introverted you also will understand the difference between a reactive child and a non-reactive so for example if you have a child that gets very easily agitated and blows up emotionally they just they can't contain their emotions I mean that's typical of young children but even if you have adolescents or young teenagers who are very instantly you know just it's like a switch comes on that child needs to learn how to regulate that emotion right because they can it can harm them and they can harm other people that's why you see a lot of harm happening in the world because of people who've never learned to regulate that emotional response to whatever the circumstances right but then you have the opposite of a child who is non-reactive and so there there are a lot of you know kids for example who get bullied easily it's not that they are weak we make that mistake and assume that some children have a slower emotional process to heightened situations so when a classmate comes and grabs their you know thing you know whether it's a young child or with an older kid if something happens to them that kind of comes left field they're not prepared for it they have that freeze you know they kind of freeze in the moment now if you don't teach your child that that's natural right then what happens is someone else tells them how to label themselves or think of themselves you're weak so then they carry that label forever that oh I'm this weak person because I can't respond or react in the moment that is horrible to do that to a young child whereas if you teach them before which is what we're supposed to do listen Allah made all of us very different some people are reactive some people are not and the beautiful examples that we can draw from which is where present parenting is really shown is look at the Khulafa Ar Rashidun they are each of them they represent one of the four temperaments and they were all very powerful leaders but they were not the same you have Abu Bakr who was very quiet subdued but incredibly strong he was the right hand of the Prophet so I said I'm always there by his side dutiful stable but he was not a person of many words right and then you have Alma he was intimidating people were terrified of him right and that's why when he embraced Islam he brought so much strength to the Oma because he was just this mountain of a man and he maintained that throughout his life and then you have Othman who was gentle so gentle that the angels were shy of him he was he was known to have incredible modesty even the angels were shy of Othman and then you have Sayyidina Ali who is cheerful and so warm and welcoming all of them again according to our scholars representing one of the four temperaments you have in Sayyidina Abu Bakr you have the melancholic which is again not very verbose not very talkative but stoic strong non-reactive stable force choleric is the next temperament that's in Amar forceful very outspoken right formidable then you have Othman Radhila and Sayyidina Othman who is the phlegmatic temperament gentle very loving modest kind of just calming present excuse me and then you have Sayyidina Ali who was the sanguine cheerful sociable always you know just warm and welcoming these are beautiful models that we can teach our children so that they see that all of their temperaments are beautiful and not one is not better than the other so I remember once I did a talk many years ago at an event and this mother came to me afterwards I was talking about temperaments and she came to me afterwards she was crying she was crying because she said I wish I knew this when my children were younger she said as you're explaining this I realized that I punished my quiet son always his whole life because I compared him to his older brother who was the more outgoing athletic super talkative social one she said I didn't realize I just thought he was deficient because that's what the society tells you we create these black and white archetypes where it's like if you're not this way there's something wrong with you and our children are susceptible to those messages because in their world what children are exposed to by celebrities and by all the other stuff that's on the online world is saying the same thing that if you're famous you're cool you're relevant if you have a lot of followers in school if you are what? popular right if you're popular that means you have a lot of friends which means you're super funny you're outgoing you're charming right and so a child is told to look at themselves constantly in contrast to that and if they don't fit that they feel that they are what? I'm a loser this is the self talk of our children our youth are literally bombarded with this message in their inner voice I have no friends I'm a loser I'm quiet I don't speak up in class I'm a loser I'm this I don't sign up for this sport or do this I'm a loser this is the negative self talk because nobody is telling them that no you're not a loser you're actually one of the beautiful temperaments that Allah gave us and this is actually and then you can go on and expand that the Prophet SAW had all four of these temperaments in perfect balance and so you're representing one of his temperaments and this is how we empower our children to not fall into the narratives that they're being taught in this general society a parent who's not aware of these things will not know to do that they won't even talk to their children about these things and sometimes we are the ones actually who are giving them those messages what's wrong with you when I was young I never did that what's wrong with you what's wrong with you if that's what your children are hearing why would you expect them to have any sense of confidence in themselves because you're making a comparison to either yourself or other children your cousins how many kids and I hear from youth by the way so I'm not speaking in just general terms I'm telling you of some of the pain that youth have come to me with about what their parents tell them you know they're comparing them to cousins or other friends always and making them feel that they're deficient and it's because we have failed to recognize that our children are all beautiful every single child is beautiful they are light they are in fitra they are sinless right and that's why we love to see children you know Sheikh Hamza mentioned this recently but he said you know when you look at the face of children right it just it lights you up you don't feel that with adults you know we don't get like oh I mean some adults when there are people of God but generally speaking because he was saying we've amassed so much sin right that it's reflecting in our face whereas children are pure and sinless they even smell pure you know he was saying this too like an adult you don't bathe for a few days it's not a pleasant sight or smell but children you don't really see anything right subhanallah because they're sinless so they are light and if you don't appreciate that about them and you just kind of you know their nuisance is shooing them away or you know we just we need to bring back restore that that sense of respect towards children inshallah but this is balanced parenting so that prioritization modeling and customizing and it's also now a reminder about that we've mentioned this but another reminder parenting is a trust from God right Allah swt actually tells us now specifically fear Allah and treat your children small or grown fairly with equal justice we all need this reminder because we're very we coddle young children and we're tending we're tending to them we rush to them as soon as they have something going on because we're so afraid they're fragile to us right but as our kids get a little older we start to you know wane in that in that attentiveness towards them and we almost kind of just figure it out right do it on your own and that's not to say there's you know anything wrong with trying to create that sense of independence and autonomy in children but it's more about the heart and if you are no longer you know treating your grown up children with that same sense of fairness and mercy and compassion and justice that you were when they were younger this is the message that you need to be reminded of because their age doesn't matter you cannot be harsher just because your child is now bigger and seems like they're an adult which yes when they're technically speaking when they've reached puberty they are considered adults in Islam but that doesn't mean that you begin to speak to them in a way that you've diminished that sense of justice and fairness right because you see sometimes parents losing a lot more patience with older children than they ever would with younger children and it's because you know you should know better that's the attitude and a lot of it does come back to that comparison I could never speak to my parents this way I would never leave my bedroom this way I would never do this and the harshness comes through but your treatment of the child should still be fair and just be on the side of truth don't let your ego always run the show basically whether they're young or small and then we mentioned that children's rights are mandated by God so we have to know what they are and there are hadiths that describe in essence what the rights of children are but among them are that they have a beautiful name that you name your children with beautiful names and not names that are in any way disparaging sometimes or people will come up and I'm sure you've seen it now there's a lot of attention seeking behavior even through children right so it's like I want a weird name that has some abstract meaning I've seen people like even symbols and letters and like there's no real meaning to that name but it makes the parent feel good I got a cool eclectic strange name I'm the mother or father of so and so but if that name has no meaning or it has a bad meaning this would be you know wrong on the parent because the child should be you know deserving of something of honor right so name your children with excellent names another right is that we educate them and give them sound education now the word education is complicated because immediately we think of schooling right but we're not talking about schooling here necessarily we're talking about tarbiyah that your children need to know Allah subhanah they need to know they need to have a grounding in the dean and that takes precedence over all the other stuff that we're worried about and I know because I was there too with my young children the first thing you think about is oh my god can they read I need to get them to read so we were all thinking of ABCs in the womb the first book is like okay ABCs are like that infant is like just born yesterday we don't need to read to that child yet but there is this fear right that we're not going to we're going to mentally you know handicap them if we don't do these things early but then the spiritual handicap nobody thinks about what about their spiritual well being what if they don't know anything or they don't have the right understanding and then you put them into environments where they're going to get the wrong understanding how are they going to navigate that so if you're going to not give your children that foundational knowledge but then put them in an environment where they are taught by other people who literally do not believe in God and who may in fact you know in one way or another get that message across to your children then how can they protect the how can they be protected so it's our task to lay the very very strong foundation and when it comes to the six articles of faith for example you know we know right God his messengers his books his prophets the angels the day of judgment heaven and hell these are the six articles I would caution with young children introducing the heavy topics we don't need to talk about fire and burnstone and hellfire we don't need to talk about shaitan with young children they don't need to know that Iblis exists don't scare them and frighten them like oh it's dark at night you know don't do this or you know people sometimes it's very cultural to do that but it's it's traumatizing to young children when you introduce those ideas because they're in the world of imagination and play and they're in fitrah and inshallah they're with Allah always in this beautiful state and then you bring them out of that as we say the garden of Eden and you cast them into hell with these images terrifying images no don't do it if you need to control your children threatening them with that kind of message is not the way to go you have to do better and the better thing to do is to actually teach them about Allah and love of Allah and jannah and angels of light and the stories the incredible stories from the seer of the prophets which we should know because one of the things that I find devastating in the modern world is that our children would rather sit in front of a screen which is just you know puts them in a complete spell and you know extended exposure as we know absolutely affects their brain but they would rather do that because they've entered this fantastic world of lights and images all based on farce it's all lies right it's all imagination it's just it's fantasy it's not real but then we haven't done our job to convey to them the truth of a story like the revelation right like islam al meraj when the prophet was first you know seeing angel jibreel if we don't have the words because we haven't learned those stories well enough to convey these powerful real truthful stories to our children but then we're quick to turn on disney plus and Netflix and let them enter that world of where shaytan I mean literally if you haven't done the research look go and look at the many people who've shown the hidden symbolism and a lot of the messages in disney films there are subliminal messages this is not you know conspiracy theory it's real they do not really care they like to you know put certain things out there because that's the way they normalize things right so anyway without this as a parent that you need to know these stories well so that they can come to a masjid inshallah or come you know to a space where they will feel so invigorated by hearing a story about you know when angel jibreel came to to ghar hira and he saw the process and he said squeeze like all of that imagery that you're bringing because you've done the work to say I'm going to show you what a real incredible story looks like I'm going to bring that to you that awe of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala I'm going to show you that and I'm going to sustain that with continued exposure to the seerah and the quran because there are miracles upon miracles upon miracles that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala has left for us that are treasure it's a treasure trove of stories but we don't know it so then we don't know how to convey it and we cannot expect the masjid or a teacher to always do it it's on us as parents to learn how to do these things so an education is really that knowledge of God that's the ultimate and the highest form of knowledge so this is just a reminder for all of us to lead we mentioned about modeling before but we have to lead by example and we have to know the difference between commanding the respect and demanding when we begin to raise our voice to our children which we all are guilty of at times is because they're far that's not what I'm talking about because if you're just trying to reach them that's fine but if it's they're right in front of you and you're angry because maybe you want something done or something happened that shouldn't have happened a perfect example you know your child goes to to get some milk and then the entire jug collapses on the floor right you have to if that's ever happened to you before or a glass breaks or something just you know disturbs you because it was unexpected event pay attention to your reaction in that moment right some parents I've seen it actually it's quite tragic and very upsetting to see a young child be reprimanded harshly because their small hands can't hold like sorry let me just overwhelm us then we don't realize these precious hearts don't deserve a scolding because their hands couldn't hold something properly so we have to move away from this idea that that if I raise my voice I get what I want that is a failure of parenting you don't need to raise your voice you just need to speak with respect and you can be firm you can say please don't do that but to yell to threaten or to scold harshly and humiliate a child just because they were children is a failure on us and may Allah forgive us for breaking pure hearts of children may Allah never let us do that to children so this point about you know tailoring our parenting is really important as I mentioned but here we have some sage advice from said Nali here reminds us beautifully that we have to do better in terms of tailoring our parenting because first of all do not raise your children the way your parents raised you because they were born of a different time so whatever you experienced as a child of your parents is not enough as you know to replicate you can borrow from certain things that worked for you or that were pleasant good memories good rules that your parents showed and it worked for but if that's all that's informing your parenting and you're not reading books you're not learning about children's temperaments developmental stages you know that in the next I mean look at the insight look at the insight that they gave us 1400 plus years ago about the developmental stages of children that they're only now learning about right if you can if you know Eric Erickson psychosocial development of eight stages it's all it's how reflecting the exact you know presentation that we had centuries ago play with your children until the age of seven why because this is look at them they're so sweet this is the age of play they're learning this world is new they've been thrust into the universe and everything is sensory so they're just learning they need to touch they need to put things in their mouth sometimes we don't want them to but that's how they know things right so let them play but you know what play with them they're their world you see some fathers who come home from work they don't want to play with their children I'm tired and they'll go straight to their video games computers start working more even though you just came from work let's just work they don't want to get on the ground and sit and let's wrestle let's play you want to play Legos you want to play Play-Doh mom maybe if you're stay at home you have to do it you have no choice you will go crazy anytime you're cooking you're flipping you know baratas and then also playing with the child or cooking rice and you're just doing all this stuff but you have no choice because children demand our attention so it goes to both but the point is is we have to play with our children enter their world go into their play rooms and I'm telling you probably some of the sweetest parenting moments I've ever had in my life was when I did that when I took a pause for my adult mind but I just want to be a kid today let me go into my kids room and literally and well I sometimes I would get emotional because the shock of my kids seeing me enter without invitation they didn't invite me they didn't say mommy come play with us I would open the door and I would just go sit on the floor and they were like frozen looking at me like what are you doing because I wasn't as often as I would have liked it to be but they were very pleasantly surprised when I said can I play with you can I play with you you want to play with us of course and then of course mommy so here's this guy I have two boys so it's Lego land basically in my house still is but the joy that would overcome them at seeing me wanting to enter their world we have to do that as parents right so play with your children be silly be goofy if you come ask my kids they'll tell you the whole other side of Hossai that you guys wouldn't even or think it exists but yes I am very goofy I'm very I do voices I will get into character I do it all there's nothing really because I want them to have fun and we can we can do that Mashallah my sister-in-law is here so I'll just mention this about her she's Mashallah wonderful with children may Allah bless her but in addition to her her husband I always say who's my brother-in-law I say he's like a walking amusement part for kids because Mashallah his ability to connect with children especially I've seen him mostly with boys but he is just so fun am I kids to this day even though I have a 13-year-old who's almost you know 6 feet they still get excited when Hamza Kakas coming because they know it's going to be a lot of fun you know and he's like that with his own children so of course he's going to be like that with children in general and Sahar Mashallah amazing ability to connect tell stories read in a way you know this is the kind of parenting philosophies that really work with young children so do that more and get over your your cultural you know added sometimes it's just culture that tells us oh that's kind of silly or but no just if the prophet said him could do it who are we he played with children he let them crawl on his back he would race he would do things it's all ego be like him and you'll succeed discipline and teach them from the age of 7 to 14 this is the next level so when they reach that age of 7 you're going to see an awakening that happens because they are starting to think about themselves in the world around them and they do you do start to see a little bit more maturity so this is where giving them more tasks giving them responsibilities teaching them about their farahid like what they will do starting that process and over time solidifying that identity that I'm a Muslim too that I pray just like mama and baba that I make will do that I read Quran all of that comes in that age of 7 to 14 right and then befriend them at the age of 14 plus so now as we're we're teaching in the middle and guiding and then the befriending comes when they really need it our teens are going through a lot they have a lot of people pressures that overwhelm them and they need to know that their parents are a refuge right so if we are meeting them constantly with a litany of tasks that they have to do and responsibilities and we don't really make time to connect and just say hey how are you how's it going talk to me and just you know hold them sometimes you'd be surprised and I really want to say this for parents of boys one of the destructive things about modern society is that it has created you know this it's just something that's happened with boys around this age of adolescence where emotionally they start to really shut down and they don't talk about what they're feeling because they are told or conditioned that in society they're conditioned by society to think that emotions are for girls right so boys just have to act tough they bury their fears bury their anxieties because if you talk about it you're not you're not strong you're weak you're like a girl that's really the insult that boys receive to be anything like a girl's an insult all of that it's horrible but again when you look at the Prophet s.a.w. and the way that he nurtured this emotionality and even the youth you know there's that famous story of Umair who lost his bird you know he was holding his bird and the Prophet s.a.w. went to him and he basically helped him reconcile and grieve over the loss of his pet like you have permission to be sorry you know you have I mean feel sorrow and sadness he didn't tell him toughen up what's wrong with you it's just a bird go bury it you know like some of our cultures do around these things it's like because you're a boy you can't cry a girl sure oh a poor girl so allowing them to be expressive towards you and inviting that is so essential as a parent inviting them to talk to you so with my boys we you know I do and I have to do it again because I kind of had a hiatus but I would do these what we called mommy and son like dates where we would go separately so I would not take the family I wouldn't take them as a unit I would take them each separately and give them all so that they get undivided mommy or baba attention and my husband did the same it was both of us having to do it with each kid and they loved it because it was like I feel special I feel seen and you you'll love it too because you realize like I'm always speaking to more than one of you you know and it's nice to just see one of you and not worry about what the other one's doing right now so to separate the kids is good good to do but that is one of the later teen years so now I kind of just go into similar I mean similar discussion is what I just said but we kind of want to know what young children need most they need love safety and guidance all of our kids these are their primary needs right now when they're young right and the tools that we can do to inculcate the love of the prophesies in our children is storytelling with animation so we have to be more animated in our storytelling the shameless plug but why not I wrote a book called clear the path a rhyme book for unmanners for little Muslims and the reason I wrote that book is because I worked with young children I realized like wow I could teach them all day about Allah and the prophet and just lecture them but it's not going to stick but if I sing to them anything they'll remember so I said okay we all want our children to have good manners why not their lyrics all day but what were they singing about being a good Muslim so you know rhymes work and you can make up your own songs you don't have to cut and paste everything from a professional just make silly songs up they don't care they're the most receptive amazing audience you can have as a young child you can be tone deaf have no rhyme skills whatsoever have no musicality but your young kids will go yay they just like to see you as not you know this adult and you're being willing to be silly so do that stuff and then model you know that's what they need modeling and then the second group or second developmental stage is at 8 to 11 what do they need love of course respect and reassurance this world becomes very scary at this age because they're coming out of as we say like the Garden of Eden and they're now because in Jannah everything is great it's rosy it's amazing right when you start to see and hear about things like young you know middle schoolers this is where they hear stories from their their friends about kidnapping and murders and you know like really dark themes and so poor kids start to suddenly you know they get scared of the world so they need a lot of reassurance and a lot of love and hugs and it's okay and so get them in the habit of calling on Allah if you're scared if you're upset about something just call on Allah Allah is with you always he'll always be there for you he'll rescue you and I can't tell you how many times I'll have that like my son will come out of nowhere and he'll go mommy mommy and you know he said I had a headache and I was feeling so bad and I made dua and I asked Allah please get rid of my headache and it's gone and I'm like of course because your Dawaz musta jab but they know to do that because we taught them you're in pain make dua Allah will take it away so we have to teach that at this age so that they get in those good habits right and so what tools we teach them with storytelling of course always works with kids at all ages but now we want to move into those metaphors and analogies too that's another really good tool to use because there are you know a lot of stories in the Quran are metaphorical right and lessons in the Quran and so you know that's those are the types of stories that work and also because they're in that age of seeing the the you know the the sort of dystopian nature of the world the good versus evil right that's kind of what they begin to understand the world as it's really good to expose them to like stories where of nobility of valor of like overcoming odds so the battle stories of the Sita for example right like but there's an amazing story to tell children at this age because the numbers are so like incredible how they beat right the the Mushriki despite their low numbers but because they had you know the the obviously but Allah sent helpers to them all of that imagery needs to come through so showing stories of overcoming hardships really speaks to this age because they're going through a lot of that internally and then of course modeling the excellent behavior that we want with them and the final stage you know what do they need the most love respected empathy that we don't understand and instead of judging them and expecting always the best gold standard of behavior at all times always we have to also figure out what's wrong why aren't they for example sluggish to come to prayer right because a lot of I get these questions all the time my teen doesn't want to pray anymore they don't want to come to the I'm frustrated what do I do with them yes I can understand to be frustrated by that because you want the best for your children so you feel like they're standing why what's going on maybe there's something that's happening maybe there's a classmate of theirs from school you never know Muslims go to the school together that they don't like to come see at the masjid because they have a history that you don't know about you gotta fish for what the core issue is do the investigation ask the right questions get to the core is there something you know a very good example like my teen son when he was maybe 11 or 12 he just flat out said mommy sometimes in prayer I get distracted like I can't really focus you know and instead of responding with that with like shame like well that's not good and just start judging you want to give them you know like what's going on what are you thinking about what are the things that come up for you and you know sure enough it's gonna be the game that they have the next day or seeing their friends all the stuff that we adults also experience we're always planning future so we just have to humanize them and say okay so let's come up with some tools of how you can be more focused and so I told my son for example I said it's what I want you to do I mean just feel free to use this but I said I want you to for every prayer before you get in the prayer think of a couple of things one one thing that you're grateful for just one thing one thing and one thing only do that two think about the suras you want to recite before you get in the prayer don't make those emotional as you're doing it because sometimes we just get in prayer immediately and then we're thinking of these things but I said if you're more intentional before the prayer you'll find yourself more focused right and it worked for him right and so it's just these are little tools that we can teach them but that's empathizing like I get it your child your brain is distracted easily so let me help you rein that mind in by giving you tools instead of just what parents do so how can we inculcate love of God and His messenger friendship and mentorship it's really important that we extend also for other adults in their lives that can play that role of a mentor because there are there are adults believe it or not it happens it's happened to me before and I've been on the other side of it where the parent and their friend or this mentor will verbatim say the exact same thing to the child but they take it more from the mentor than they do for the parent and for the parent it's hard it's hard on our hearts to see like really I've given you my whole life and you're going to take this person's word I said the same thing to you last week and you didn't even believe me right but it's just the way it goes and this is part of their actual natural you know development because in this age they are wired to start to separate from us and it makes perfect sense they eventually have to be like the bird that leaves the nest and fly on their own so if there's always this tether to mom and dad they will not learn to fly so there is this kind of detachment that slowly begins in adolescence and we have to be okay with that where that's why enlisting the help of trusted mentors is not seen as you know something that we should be territorial about no you're bringing them in your family so look for those helpers by the way when they're young because trust me time moves very quickly and all of a sudden you're like oh my god I need some really good adults that I can trust my kids to so forge those relationships when they're younger so by the time they're older that adult has already an established rapport with your child but they need that mentorship and they also need classes and experiences this must have something that's for families and you know the offerings work for your family if it doesn't guess what we're in one of the blessed places in this entire planet in that we have so many massages so many incredible organizations doing a lot of good things do the work look up research go on threads ask what are classes my child is interested in this in this whatever it is find something and if it doesn't I want to go past this idea that everything has to be done for us taking initiative is important and what is taking initiative saying you know what my child for example likes to do crafts okay if you don't see a craft class make a craft class call up your mom friends or your dad friends and say let's do a workshop you know I don't want to put it on brother but maybe MCC can host something like that for the parents to do together here you could create a club environment regularly or you could open up your home you know if it's that important to you to have your child connected with the masjid or the your dean then you need to come up with experiences for your child and don't just give up because they don't exist take the initiative and make it happen where there's a will there's a way and I've seen it happen before Allah will give you Tophia and then discussion and debate this is a really important one too for our teens we need to encourage our teens to push back on narratives so if you don't know for example if you've never studied logic and the art of rhetoric the art of public speaking you need to learn you should and there are by the way classes like there's toastmasters which offers classes which youth can also attend so I've attended a few and you will see sometimes parents bringing their 12 13 14 year old child and I'm like good never a class that your child will really benefit from it is discussion and debate and public speaking put your youth especially teens I mean I would say even pre-adolescence in those opportunities to develop that skill set because when they're being bombarded with messages as they are right now but they don't have the words to defend themselves that's when they get sucked in but when you've given them the tools to say wait a second that's a logical fallacy that's a flawed argument I can prove you wrong guess what they're not going to be falling into this or that you know camp because they have the tools to see a lie and a distortion right for what it is because you've taught them and if you don't know how to do it guess what there are a lot of online programs that teach logic there are courses that you can take for yourself there are books you can buy there are websites I mean YouTube videos that are free it's all free you don't even have to do anything you don't have to pay anything those are all available but I really would suggest even pushing for it in your schools if you have the ability to talk to you know your school if you're on the PTA or whatever like is there an opportunity to get public speaking for our kids I want my I want to train professionals each children how to do this and it will help them inshallah but these are things that we should also invite in our house so around the dinner table right come up with good discussion topics why not instead of just sitting there and having the TV on blaring in the background and watching horrible news out of some you know whatever CNN or Fox or whatever people watch or silent dinners you know or everybody's scrolling on their phone it's tragic we don't invite discussion we can if you have a prepared list of topics maybe you know it could be like you know a box that everybody just pulls from every night and see okay today you know and you'll it's honestly so exciting to see everybody take a different position because you know that's what a debate is okay what's your position even if they don't believe it they still have to defend it and then watch them they have a lot of fun you know like should school uniforms be implemented that's a good one for kids if you have you know children you'll see that like arguments are really fun because they come up with some great ideas but it's just innocent topics like that that is a family offering now the common parenting struggles because we talked about the dangers and the struggles but we should know what they are for each stage too right so in that early years the pressures that a lot of us feels to be the perfect parent we're being judged very heavily microscopically by parents grandparents in-laws with your first child right first children are always like oh what are you doing don't do that don't do this and you're like wait I just need to figure what happens but because we feel so much pressure what happens is of course it's mentally physically exhausting but sometimes we tend to lose our own identity our own voice and so some people will just give in to okay fine I'll do this way I'll do that way and you lose your own ability to think so that can definitely wear you down and then if both husband and wife are also not communicating right with each other on the same page then there's a fracture in their bond so it's now compounded it's like I'm exhausted from parenting this child and I don't have a supportive parent or a co-parent and it's just all starts to fall apart so we have to know that and prepare ourselves how do we deal with that right how first of all nobody's perfect nobody we've all messed up we all make mistakes and that's fine we're human beings so get rid of this notion and then also deal with manager exhaustion for the mothers I will speak because I know for myself and a lot of the women that I work with we part of this narrative of perfect parent is to be the martyr right because we're holding ourselves to the standard of our mothers and grandmothers they had 10 children they never complained they had three hot meals they did it all they didn't do anything wrong they were perfect so then we feel because sometimes our own mothers may say that oh really you're gonna go and have you know dinner outside wow you know and they'll make those little comments and so then you feel like you're the biggest loser mom wife right in the world no you're not you're perfectly in the right to say I don't wish to cook today I'm gonna take a day off the you know the oven doesn't need to be on every day all day and so just own your own mind and don't let people get in right because there's something that they pick about so you just have to stop trying to do it all give yourself space and I'm gonna ask the husbands who are watching also to recognize that if you have a woman I mean a wife excuse me who's staying at home and taking care of her children all day morning tonight the mental toll that that takes as much as we love our children it's a product of the modern world that's not very healthy because in traditional societies there are multiple hands off like I need to go do this I need to go do that when women cannot even use the restroom for more than five minutes without a hand slipping under the door or a door wide open it's a real clear sign of we've got some major balance to correct so I asked that the husbands please come in when you come from work and even if it's just twenty thirty minutes offer a break like I got this you go do that for five days please do right you want to go like take a walk outside sometimes that's all it is I just want to go out without a leg you know someone pulling my leg right or crying their head off for why am I leaving no emotional manipulation please right before we get out the door or just want to go take a drive or go to the garage I don't know whatever you want to do but just offer your wives please when you see her frazzled and sleepy and giving really short answers that means she's the pressure cooker is about to hit that what peak boil where the whistle is coming on right we know the whistle like the alarm is about to go off so just turn it off and say I got this and it shall reward you when you do that when she comes back she will be renewed right I'm telling you I would sometimes take this from a small break because we end up missing our children by the way when we're taking a walk and you know whatever we're doing we're thinking about them it's crazy but hold it up so offer that and that's when they're young now when they move into the middle ages academic pressure becomes the next set of pressures that we worry about right what grades are they're getting are they in every program do they know how to code someone told me recently that they put their two years old coding I don't know do they even know what the word coding is I don't know can they say the word coding but you know what if you're putting that kind of pressure on yourself because you're trying to compete with the Silicon Valley model of like you know I don't know perfect students and I know that there is a lot of worry about these things but they'll be fine you know you have to kind of pull back a little bit you know working obviously to develop their mind but that's more important that their identity is strong as Muslims and then behavior concerns and social aptitude a lot of parents worry about their children's you know whether or not they're going to have strong social skills so those are the things that we have to mitigate before we enter these phases because what happens often times is we go into crisis mode because we didn't foresee these things and then we find ourselves dealing with like this is my constant I have parents all the time coming to me in a panic state what do I do with my child is doing this what do I do my child is doing that or not doing this and so we have to prepare ourselves with the understanding that they will have you know that they may have certain challenges and how can we deal with them and that's what I was saying earlier having those mentors in place looking at you know paying attention to their moods to just being critical to being effective as parents we have to be paying attention always and I'll give you a quick example just that happened to me earlier today so I've been very busy in Ramadan as we all have Alhamdulillah not complaining but it's been a constant juggling act and in that yes my children at times are like hello do you see me and so my son today is 13 he wanted to as I was getting ready to come here he wanted to just have some time with mommy but it was very quick because I was putting on my hijab I was getting ready and I was kind of like moving fast and he stood very patiently kind of behind me waiting for what he was waiting for a hug right and after a long time I realized what he was waiting for and he's like I just basically waiting for a hug so then I gave him a hug but because I was panicking about being late it was one of those okay thanks bye you know I barely like it was a two second hug so I was I just was in mode of like I gotta get out because I'm gonna be late so I got into the car and I sat and then I realized what I had done I just crushed his spirit you know because he felt I could tell he was emotional so then I we have the home pod you know where you can do an intercom through the phone so I just I asked him and he came on the passenger side he opened the door he's like come on this side and as he's walking around the car I could see that he he kind of knew what was about to happen like she did see me after all you know and so I opened the door and I said come here and then I hugged him and I said I'm really sorry and I'm gonna give you I just made it up I said I'm gonna give you some Uma later he was like what's that Uma and I said I will give you Uma later I promise you and he was just really happy I could tell but that was because the empathy kicked in for me a little later than it should have that I had hurt him you know that he was waiting patiently he just wanted to hug and so these are the kinds of things that we have to pay attention to when you see your child like walking off kind of abruptly closing the door with a bit of a tone don't dismiss that as an attitude problem try for help that is that I am feeling something and you're not you're not picking up on it and I have no other recourse so I'm just gonna run so if you can be perceptive and not personalize everything then what you do is you say I need to go open that door and investigate like what's going on and it takes a lot of self-awareness to do that it's not easy we all forgive us but the more we do it the more our bond with our children will be stronger so then the teen adolescent years are departing from childhood they have that worry that natural angst about adolescence we worry about the attitude issues detachment from family their friends and social circles they're mixing with good friends bad friends obviously that they're exploring the risky behaviors that we're all definitely afraid of our kids knowing about the online social media usage rebellion resistance to authority faith struggles these are probably the biggest things that I get asked about as a I'm sure all of our teachers from parents is how do I protect my child their E-mat what if they what if they go astray or they may be going astray I don't know what to do and then their future success so if we can see the worries ahead of time that's why it's kind of like pre-empting right I see these worries I know that they're real because everybody's experiencing this what am I going to do to prevent me from falling into this right or our family from being affected by these things what measures are needed now so if you have younger children pay attention because this is likely going to be a concern for you in a few years and if you have older children it's never too late we don't despair right Islam is not a deen of despair it's actually haram to despair because you're losing hope in Allah when you despair so what you do is you raise your hands in Dua first and foremost and you ask Allah protect my child whatever it is that you're feeling really worried about ask Allah to protect them and to guide them out of that and then excuse me then in addition to that look for those helpers seek out help we have individuals but we also have organizations that work with you that can help you and really be persistent if you keep knocking on the door someone's going to open the door be persistent look for those mentors look for those helpers and read there are a lot of people that have already worked all these things out and they have really good guidance someone I could think off the top of my head that I really advise you to know about is Dr. Leonard Sacks he's not Muslim but Mashallah he's really ahead of the conversation and he has great content for parents of boys and girls on how to preempt a lot of these things going through so get his material he has a lot of free stuff online too but he's phenomenal so I would say him right off the top of my head and then the greatest threats right Shaitaan Nafs bad company media pop culture internet social media these are the things that we really have to be worried about because they are everywhere and and then solutions we have to teach their faith properly how to protect themselves model the behavior empower them what's strong and effective tools like emotional intelligence right which we'll get to in a moment and build their confidence encourage trust communicate effectively identify their strength and weaknesses by temperaments all of that knowledge those tools that you build for your children early on are going to help them when things fall apart to repair and to build and so that was the end of session 3 do you want to take I'm sorry because I mentioned in the beginning for those who joined as late because this was we only are doing these sessions for 3 weeks we are squeezing 2 of the parts together so this is a bit of an extended class so I'm going to try to move as quickly as possible because I know we we've gone on already for a while but do you want to pause for Q&A or do you want to just zip through the rest and then do one final Q&A I'll leave it up to the audience here yes thank you just like a look here so Alhamdulillah so I have 3 kids and they're in the range like all 3 of these ranges so 10 12 and 14 and I think like during the pandemic I really had trouble with their whole like growing up phase like that detachment phase and not taking it personally that was really hard for me and I'm still trying to adjust with that but anyway I mean do you have any books that you recommend for dealing with this and kind of understanding temperaments and also that books that give solutions like how to address these things right very good questions I think a lot of parents in COVID had a very similar experience because the pressure of just being away from their peer group caused a lot of kids to shut down emotionally and that was immediately experienced by the parents and their family so it's a very common experience that a lot of people had as far as books one book that I do can remember right now is the temperament that God gave you it's gosh I can't remember but it's a husband and wife they wrote that book and so that's a good book just to get started on knowing about temperament theory as far as you know how to to you know kind of deal with these situations I can't think of anything off the top of my head in terms of resources but I think having there's a I got a book for my boys it was like a mommy and son journal that had prompts and questions from you and it was a nice way we started it we still have a long ways to go but where sometimes it's hard to verbalize what you're feeling but writing actually does become cathartic for even kids if they learn to channel those emotions and so an exercise like that where it's like hey because it's like a handoff you write your portion and then you give it to them and then they answer the questions and the prompts so it's not coming from you it's kind of like you have a third person in a weird way but I think that's things like that are helpful when you want to reach your children who seem to be standoffish because verbal communication is not easy for everyone and that's why we go back to temperament you'll realize the last two temperaments are the phlegmatic and the melancholic they tend to be less you know verbal and so they feel but they don't really verbalize their emotions as much so if you have children those temperaments and you're more gregarious and like I just really I want to talk it all out you may feel like you're failing to reach them but it's not that it's that their temperament is different than yours you like immediate on the spot verbal communication for them that might be a little too threatening because they don't have the words it's not that they don't feel things they just don't have the words so I opt for written communication when you have that type of dynamic because it allows their own pace and their own time if they want to do it later in their bedroom without eyes watching them to like and then you know sometimes with siblings around too it's like weird to like talk because you're like are they listening so I mean just to like with my boys I'm very clear about privacy and respect of boundaries so when any of them either of them want to talk to me privately and the other one comes into the space I will say to them really can you please leave and there's no issue because they both are respectful of that boundary so they just leave and then they know to never ask questions like would you guys talk about or would I even do worse which is to be suspicious and try to stand by the door and listen they don't do that because they know it's a sacred trust that mom has with her child and just like I'm gonna offer it to you at another time you want that to be respected right so you need to reciprocate so we can show our children that respect of if you tell me something it's trust you know I'm a safe space for you and I'm not gonna go share it with even your you know unless it's really serious but I'm not gonna share it with even Baba or mommy if it's something you're trusting me with right so creating that kind of safe space I think is a good invitation for them to open up but also try the journaling so should we go forward I feel like zipping through the rest and then I can open it up and breathe a little bit is that okay yeah okay so let's get to the rest inshallah thank you for the manir and if you have to leave I totally understand it's a long session so session four the theme is active parenting so the first one was intentional parenting the second was prophetic parenting the third session which we just covered was balanced parenting and now the final session is active parenting right and I closed on this one because this is the take away we need to leave these sessions with something of action right so active parents are those who know that they cannot give up right no matter how hard it gets they have to persevere for the sake of Allah because it's not about being perfect it's about trusting him so as much as you feel exhausted and tired and oh my god just yesterday mentioned this that they're just so overwhelmed they just want to quick throw in the towel we can't right so we look at here are some models from the Quran because this whole session or this whole series was on Quranic parenting so I'm going to bring it back full circle go back to the book of Allah Subh'ana where we learn directly from our prophets who are our examples the story of Prophet Nuh-alaih teaches us what about the importance of submission to God's will did everything possible to guide his family things didn't go as planned and he had to face the reality that his wife and one of the sons were disbelievers and he had to accept that and move on and so sometimes you may find may God never test us with that but if you find that your child has reached a point where you can't do anything further remember the story of Prophet Nuh-alaih continued to make Dawah and do what you can also submit to the will of Allah and realize you cannot control everything but the best thing that you can do is make Dawah for your child and keep the door open the next I'm sorry the font is so small on these I apologize but this is also another important model that we can look at which is the story of Prophet Ibrahim because his story teaches us the importance of making sacrifices for the sake of Allah Subh'anaHu and that when we do it will always pay off for him with a beautiful renewed relationship between him and his son when he was told to sacrifice his son I mean physically literally sacrifice his son and he was willing to do it because he had that strong yaqeen in Allah Subh'anaHu Dada then Allah showed him the reward of that type of submission and so some sacrifices you may have to do for the sake of Allah for your children's well-being or you know for that bond but there's immense reward in that and so we can learn again about the importance of sacrificing for the sake of Allah and then the story of Prophet Yaqoub again another incredible model from the Qur'an he taught us about dealing with larger family dynamics right keeping trusts helping to bring balance in difficult situations and he showed us immense patience because he was so patient right we get from from the story of Yaqoub alaihi salam to have beautiful patience in the face of tribulation so if you're tested may God not test us with our children whatever that is to show beautiful patience is there's immense reward and to be able to manage your emotions right despite all of the you know just treachery and dysfunction around you is a skill that we can all learn but by way of example of Prophet Yaqoub alaihi salam we can learn that and then the story of Asya radi allah anha we have to remember she was married to a tyrant right but she put her trust in Allah s.w.t and then raised one of her children to become a prophet of God so if your marriage isn't ideal and I say this because I know there are a lot of broken marriages that are still staying together for the sake of the children but if you're in a relationship where you're miserable I mean aside from abuse right that's an exception we should never endure that type of abuse but if you feel like you're having a difficult marriage first of all seek help try to seek the help you need to come out of that but sometimes our partners don't want to you know work on themselves and so you have to kind of make that decision to stay with someone who might not be the best practicing Muslim who might not always be on the same page and if that's your you know circumstance and you want to borrow some strength from us because having a difficult partner having a partner who's not spiritually on the same page is very different than having a diabolical tyrant as a husband but she did that right she was she managed to work around his massive ego and yet raise a son who was not hers but who became one of the prophets of God why because of her faith it was no other reason not a lot so channel that strength right and that and so she's a wonderful example and then of course the story of Maryam alaihi salam because she was completely inexperienced thrown into parenting right without any experience whatsoever any preparation whatsoever huge shock to her and then she had to endure scandal right and all of the things that she went through but despite all of that the inexperience and all the push back and she she also managed to raise a prophet of God how faith faith is what helps us succeed it's not going to be anything else nobody else can come to our rescue or help except for God so if you maintain your faith and your connection to him whatever the circumstance you are in you will succeed because you are he is with you and he's always with you now I mentioned emotional intelligence about this many times so I don't want to belabor it but I do think for those of you who've never heard it before it is an important framework that can really help us to understand prophetic wisdom right and so what is EI it is the ability to identify and manage your emotions as well as the emotions of others and this is important because emotions actually precede our thoughts right this is why when we're in highly emotional situations it can with a rational mind and we sometimes can you know we can cause things to become worse right because our cognitive abilities and decision making powers are compromised so emotional intelligence was coined back in the 90s by John Mayer and Peter Salovey they introduced it and they wrote about it and it kind of changed the understanding of how we define intelligence but then Daniel Goldman came along later instantly famous millions of copies sold and it changed the entire conversation on how we define intelligence because prior to that it was IQ it was always measuring people's spatial abstract ability you know mathematical skills whatever those types of things and then we'd give them a number and it's like oh you're smart but they were like no actually intelligence isn't that left brain function alone there's a whole other aspect of intelligence that we have to know about so it was a revolutionary paradigm shattering idea you know when it was first exposed and you know and I thought it was interesting too that he wrote another article based on these findings called what makes a leader so he's showing us not only that this is in there in the 1990s this was a paradigm shattering and revolutionary but also identifying that effective leaders have emotional intelligence right so when I started to explore at EI I was like they're totally talking about the prophecy everything they're describing is in him embodied in him so for them that was revolutionary right but not for us and so that's why I started to teach about it but these are the three skills of emotional intelligence that we will look to to get which are awareness regulation and management and the acronym for this is an arm so think about strength like it's a skill that you develop and you strengthen just like you would like your muscle so to be aware of your emotions and then to manage the emotions of other people and so these are the qualities that when you're studying emotional intelligence you study or you this is the order you become self-aware so you the temperaments that we talked about what is your temperament what another factor of your personality that people don't look at is birth order birth order absolutely impacts our temperaments and our personalities because we are ushered into roles by way of the birth right like if you're born anybody here first born the oldest in your siblings so you typically are parentified early you have a lot of responsibilities right because you're the model oldest one for everybody else to follow so you end up being hyper-wired to just be dutiful and responsible but that can also take a toll on you because as you see your siblings get away with everything there's a lot of resentment like wait a second I didn't have that luxury when I was their age it affects your relationship with your parents your siblings everything and then also in partner selection because we tend to mirror you know partners that kind of mirror us so you may also find another kind of type A intense personality in your spouse but middle children are known to be any middle children were completely forgotten like does anyone see me at all right and so what happens our struggle because we're in the middle but anyway middle children are they're lost and they tend to be people pleasers so we end up actually because we're so eager for validation nobody cares about anything we do or say because the oldest ones get first dibs and the babies whine and get their way so then nobody cares what we want for dinner nobody cares it's already decided it's pizza or it's whatever right it's all about people so they'll become people pleasers and we have to really know that about our children so if you see your child always eagerly trying to do everything always giving up things for other people even in their friends group take them you know show them I mean have some conversations with them that if they keep doing that they will be taken advantage of because people can be pretty ruthless but that's how we've got that we have to get to know what we have through gifts through quality time through acts of service through physical touch through words of affirmation what is the way that you receive and give love teach that to your family and these are the nuanced things about each of us separately but specifically to become self aware is to know your aqeda to know that's the starting point. And then you move on to self-regulation. How can I control myself? How can I not be explosive and impatient and angry and given to my desires constantly and indulge every whim and desire? That's where tasquiat that nafs comes from, right? Purification of the soul, purification of the heart, the tongue. So self-regulation kind of makes you, you know, practice willpower, which is what we're doing right now. We're all fasting. And this is why Allah and His infinite wisdom imposed the month on us. It made it, you know, one of the pillars and to teach us that we can do this and we should do this because we become much better people when we suppress those appetites and we have control over those emotions, right? Which has become nicer. We become over time anyway. You know, after you get over the initial shock of it all, you just become a more subdued person and then your soul can emerge and you start to see the priorities in life. So that's what happens when you self-regulate and then motivation, empathy and social skills, all of them build upon each other. So you start with self-awareness, then you go into self-regulation, then you become a naturally motivated people because you have a project yourself. You're working on yourself. You have an assignment, which is I need to constantly be better and better. And who are you comparing yourself to, the problems I set up. So as you're motivated, then you move outward. You're now looking at other people, which is where the empathy kicks in, right? Like I need to be more considerate of other people, right? I need to You have not reached the perfection of faith until you love for your brother or sister what you love for yourself, right? So empathy is really coming into terms with that and becoming more aware of other people's feelings and emotions. And then social skills is navigating different groups of people. So you can, for example, our children should be able to talk with adults. You know, if you have a child who freezes with adults, we need to have some conversation, get him around some adults that they don't feel terrified around and have those adults be engaging with them talk. And if you have, that's where those healthy mentors early on can really help because a good mentor for your children is someone who talks to your children. Like, how are you? Talk to me. Give them attention. That's a good friend. Because if you have friends who are just bypassed your children and just see you, they're a good friend to you, but they shouldn't ignore your children because your children are part of you as well, right? So they should honor your children too. May Allah make us do that. But we should know how to navigate those relationships with non-Muslims, how to be respectful boundaries, teach ourselves first of all these skills, but then our children. So all of these are important. And then FYI, because I mentioned earlier that, you know, this concept of emotional intelligence was revolutionary in the 1990s. This is a hadith of the Prophet, peace be upon him, he is putting them two together 1400 plus years ago that reasoning intelligence after the basis of it after the faith in God, right? If you've demonstrated that you're an intelligent person, if you believe in God after that, it's can you manage human emotions and relationships, right? Loving kindness towards people. So he's putting them two together, that it is actually a higher form of intelligence. And that's why he is the most emotionally intelligent human being ever, because, you know, he's perfected all of these virtues. And then we also know that the one who knows him or herself knows their Lord so self-awareness is absolutely integral to our path. And we have to teach this to our children. And then, you know, the Prophet, peace be upon him, just examples for us all to think about when we examine our own emotional intelligence and also teach our children that he was always of cherry disposition, easygoing and compassionate. What does that teach you? I mean, tell you, it tells you right away that he had control of himself. He could control his emotions. Don't think that the problem was him didn't suffer. He had an entire year of suffering. He had more loss than we can even fathom. But when he would meet people, smile. That's a person in control of himself, because I don't need to burden everybody with my problems. These are my problems, my test between me and Allah. And I'm going to meet people with beauty, with welcome, you know, like warmth, right? So smiling is a sunnah. And then he was not boorish or coarse or ruckus or vulgar or critical. SubhanAllah, he had empathy. He didn't disparage people. He wasn't mean to people. He wasn't rude to people. He didn't overpraise or jest. So he had balance. He wasn't going in one extreme or the other. And he ignored that, which he disliked. He could control himself. He didn't have to point it out and criticize things. He just didn't say anything at all. He would not dash the hopes of anyone who hoped for something from him. Sallallahu alayhi wa sallam. Constant empathy, constant caring of the hearts and souls of other people. And they would not be disappointed. He was held from himself three things. This is exactly what self-regulation is. He didn't debate. He didn't waste his time on that. He was never excessive. And he also left alone that which didn't concern him. He minded his own business. And this is something we, these are the adab of our deen. Like we need to go back to this. You know, one of the reminders that that I recently also received, but it's important to mention is now, you know, we're in Ramadan. Some of us may be going to other people's homes for iftar, right? When you're in other people's homes, it's really important that you respectfully move about the house. You know, if you're just walking in any room that you want, even if it's your family or siblings, there is, you know, a lack of consideration because the home is a private space, right? So one of the adabs is that you do not basically, you know, go into other people's private spaces or even look and try to, sometimes people are nosy and they can't help themselves. They're looking for things or making assumptions based on things, you know. Don't do that because that's not minding your own business. So minding your own business is a very important principle in Islam, right? That we just basically leave things that are none of our concern alone. So don't inquire, don't be intrusive, don't pry, don't ask excessive questions about things or people just if someone wants to give you information, fine, but you don't need to further explore things just out of curiosity, right? And he withheld from the people through things. He would never criticize or disparage anyone. He wouldn't seek to shame anyone and he would not speak about anything unless he hoped to be rewarded by Allah for it. So his motivation was clear. He was always motivated by the pleasure of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and that's how he was always. This is by said Nadi. I mean, always of cherry disposition. You got to think like subhan Allah. That takes immense control, but he's our example. So I'm gonna now just kind of zip through this because I talked about these a lot and I don't want to keep repeating more, but you know the self-regulation, motivation, empathy, and social skills. So those are, and you can learn more. I've given a lot of talks on that available online if you want to learn more about emotional intelligence, but the gist of it is basically the prophetic example. If you follow him, if you look at his teachings, sunna and seerah, for yourself first and foremost and then apply that to your children and teach your children as well, you will find that inshallah they will naturally inculcate these virtues of balance that we want them to have and all the beautiful virtues, control, courage, wisdom, justice, all of these things that we want them to have. And so the final message, yeah, I know she's done. I'm done. We're all done. We're gonna end soon. The final message that we wanted to leave is to never forget that we do not control outcomes. Everything is decreed by Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta'ala and he tells us that we will be tested in our relationships with our children, our spouses, our lives, our wealth. So we have to just let go of control and this will help us a lot when we just kind of foresee that part of being in the dunya is that we're going to be tested and as long as we are aware of that then we keep asking Allah for protection from those tests, but when they come we recognize that they are from Him and that we have to bear the test with patience and that's where good company, good teachers, beautiful communities like MCC and other places that where you can come and you find community here that can help you and support you is so important. So attach yourself to the house of Allah, make good friends because you know it's inevitable that we're going to be tested but we can also come out of those tests as many people have before succeeding if we have these things in place. So just do your best, try your hardest and make a lot of daa, make daa from the depths of your soul. Get up and you know cry to Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta'ala, show Him that you're in need of Him. Wake up for tahajjud, give up your sleep. You know you can always nap in the day or find a way to nap in the car if you have to but don't don't squander the the blessed times to connect with Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta'ala and the early in Fajr recite Qur'an, the Qur'an that's recited that Fajr has witnessed. There's a lot of practices that we need to be doing to connect our hearts with Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta'ala but if you really really want anything from Him then mean it and then follow it with action. It can't just be a desire in your heart but then there's no action and give you know for the sake of Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta'ala this is a time of immense opportunity for us to reap the benefits. The Prophet ﷺ was the most generous during the time of Ramadan so if you really inshallah want good for your family then be willing to give up your comforts for the sake of other people's comforts and inshallah Allah as He's promise is true. If you're grateful I will increase you in blessings and the way we show our gratitude is by paying it forward right. We are very very blessed. We have a lot of wealth. We're living abundant luxurious lives. There are a lot of people who are suffering who do not have what we have but if we think of others right then Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta'ala will reward us and He will manage our worries and our concerns and rid us of the burdens that consume us because we are doing exactly as He tells us to do which is to think outside of ourselves and to put our trust in Him. So Alhamdulillah and remember finally that your children are the property of Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta'ala to do everything to return them to Him with a clear conscience. We want our children to go back to Allah, precious, pure, sound, strong, fortified, believers and it's our job to do that and we need Allah's help. We can't do it without Him but if that's your intention with your children may Allah give you tawfiq inshallah and protect you and your families. I thank all of you for tuning in. Those of you who are watching live stream and those of you who came out for the past few weeks and barakah la fiqm for your support and thank you to Brother Manir and the entire MCC Awesome team for coordinating and helping us to put these programs together inshallah. We're going to be entering the last ten nights of Ramadan so this will be the final session but please don't forget us in your da'a and remember that these are the days of maqafira so ask Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta'ala to forgive us any mistakes I've made or my own and may Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta'ala again reward all of you. Jazakumullah wa khayran. Inshallah end on in da'a and then we can open it up for any questions if there are any. Bismillah ar-Rahman ar-Rahim. So now we can pause for Q and A if there are any last questions inshallah or comments or anything. Asalaamu alaikum. I was I'm kind of like as you see my little two girls I'm trying to make them be friend and good to each other but sometimes you know it doesn't work and then you know they try to fight each other so if you can give us an answer for that. It's a very good question. I think when you see the emotions between your children who are close in age kind of boiling up it's likely that one of them you know may feel territorial right because it's usually has to do toys food right they're feeling not safe that their sibling is going to take something from them right and it's hard to always manage and watch them at all times. I remember with my kids as well but I think if we have some boundaries in place for example like maybe what you can do is have like give your your oldest one especially because she's the one who's going to have to learn to model the correct behavior for the younger one right and the younger one will follow along but if your older one feels that you are that you are aware of what her concerns are like maybe she has certain toys that she doesn't want to share and that's okay okay let her have like some toys that are just hers right and you can say okay you and I will play with these when the little ones not here but for toys that she's willing to share right let her be in control of that so tell her which of these toys for example are you okay with sharing with your sister and let her tell you right that I like this one she can share I don't care about that one but this one's my special toy and if she feels like she really does not like it honor that right because sometimes we think no no no no you have to share everything I have to share everything in certain cases but she has to also learn that her boundaries are being respected right so it's a boundary issue for her at this point and she's also young so it's hard to rationalize when they're so young like okay it's not a big deal it's a toy you know you can't do that so you kind of want to work with the boundary of saying okay I respect your boundary I get it that that's a very special doll to you and you think that your younger sister is going to maybe bite it off or something right so if you empower her with the choice to make the decision of what she's willing to share what she isn't inshallah she won't feel as threatened when her sister comes into her play right or same with food like and with young children I've always found that letting them make the decisions is much better than telling them what to do so instead of saying no don't do that or just say which of this can you share because now they're confronted with a choice that they have to make as opposed to the binary yes and no right don't do that do this right that's very hard for a child because it doesn't if you they feel lost like you're not giving them what they want but if you empower them and say okay you have you know three cookies or whatever it is that you've given them which of these foods can your sister share now that she's going to think about it and it's going to be like oh well I have the control so I get to tell her what to do right and it changes her entire perspective and hopefully she'll be more willing to see herself as an older like you know guide for her younger sister as opposed to this other person who just came out of nowhere and disrupted my peace and my sanity you know I was doing fine before this one came right but give her that sense of autonomy and control and leadership by giving her choice and she'll start to model the right behavior I mean that's just my tip but any other parents feel free to jump in if you have tried and tested uh advice you're welcome I'm sorry just briefly because I I just remembered on the topic of sharing um one of the things I also did with my kids and we still do it now there are certain things that I always did share with have my kids share because it was Sunnah so for example you know we we know that it's Sunnah to eat from one plate right it's Sunnah to even drink from one cup so those are things that I did start off early with my kids and even now we'll have one drink that we're all sharing and I just yesterday I said do you guys remember why we we did this it's not that I can't go get more cups for everybody but there's baraka when you're sharing from one vessel and you know and the plates um I said I told them even last night so we need to do the plates too but the plates was just because where the table's kind of far spread out so I said maybe if we sit on the ground we can do the plates but it's good to get your children in the habit of eating from one plate so then they won't get so territorial I think it's part of the territorial behavior comes because we're separating everything right you have your cup your juice box mine and then it's like mine mine but if you're saying no we all share which is the Sunnah model then nobody feels threatened because everybody's hand is in this you know what I mean so try that with young children too and inshallah yeah like I always split everything their juice box they would both share and then I would say if you finish the juice box we can get another one so you don't need to have two separate get it it's like a psychological trick it's like just drink from the same one when it runs out I'll open up another one so you're still getting two juice boxes but I'm not mentally separating them so that you have yours and he has his and and then they would always be respectful and now even to this day if there's anything left over alhamdulillah it's from Allah they'll split it naturally and give it to each other they don't look at it like oh it's one last it's for me they look at it like oh it's one last I have to split it so it's just something that works if you do it inshallah thank you everyone