 وأقول في القرآن ما جاءت به آياته فهو الكريم المنزاله وأقول قال الله جل جلاله والمصطف الهدي ولا أتأوله الحمد لله رب العالمين والصلاة والسلام على عبد الله ورسوله نبينا محمد وعلى آله وصحبه أجمعين السلام وعليكم ورحمة الله وبركاته وعليكم ورحمة الله ورحمة الله ورحمة الله وبركاته وما يتقلها يجعل له مخرجه ويرزقه من حيث لا يحتس it يجب أن يتذكروا أنهم مسؤولون سوف يتسألون وعليكم لا يتسألون عن أعقبه وعليكم لا يتسألون عن أفضل أفضل أفضل وعليكم ورحمة الله ورحمة الله وبركاته لا تتسألون عن أفضل الأعقب لا تتسألون أفضل ما يحدث مع هذا الشيطان يوم القيامة وماذا يرغبون أنهم لا يتسألون لأن هذا ليس في أعقبك هذا ليس في أعقب الله سبحانه وتعالى كما الله عزو جل يخبرون النبي صلى الله عليه وسلم إنك لا تهدي من أحبب ولكن الله يهدي من أشهر لا تسألون أفضل الأعقب الذي يحب you love but Allah guides whoever he wills فهذا المساعدة ليس في أعقبك المساعدة ليس في أعقبك ولكن ما في أعقبك is how you behave and how you respond to those difficulties so focus on what you can control don't focus on what you can't control because there's a tendency when things go badly wrong or when difficulties happen people have a tendency to panic over things that they don't control or can't control and ultimately that is futile it's wasteful in term and it saps your energy and it drains you and instead of that focus on what you can do and that's why we're going to really talk about two particular issues here we're going to talk about looking at the child's tarubia as it relates to the parent and then on the second level or the next stage looking at the outside influences that might be affecting the child because ultimately many issues and I'm not sure we can say every issue but many many issues if not the vast majority of issues are going to come down to one of those two things in terms of what you can control am I saying that that the fault has to lie with the parent no it's not the case we don't say that the fault with regard to the son of Noor of Noor, عليه السلام, his son we don't say that that was the fault of Noor Noor was or set the highest example of parenting was a prophet from أول العزم من الرسول صلى الله عليه وسلم so ultimately it's not the case but we're talking about what you can control there are broadly two things that you have an ability to change one is the way that you carry out that tarubia that you educate and prepare them and discipline them and manage the situation or looking at the outside influences that again we're not going to say you have 100% control over but you have some degree of ability to try to influence those outside influences or to try to control those outside influences so if we look at things like that the first thing that a person needs to do is to put their trust in Allah the prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم told us in authentic hadith احرس على ما ينفعك وستعم بالله ولا تعجز seek be keen for what will benefit you and ask the help of Allah and don't feel that you are aegis you are unable to do it don't tell yourself you're unable to do it so the same principle here and we've come across this hadith many times the same principle is going to apply is that you're going to try your very best and you're going to start by looking at you as a parent and when I say as a parent here we have the issue of a person looking at themselves and then potentially looking at their spouse as well now it can be more difficult when the issues happen between the spouses there is a difference in message from each of the two parents the father says one thing and the mother says something else and I think that's very important to try to reduce that as much as possible it can be difficult and if it's a situation where the marriage is struggling it can also be a situation where that could cause impact upon the children so again I'm going to go back to looking at what you can control so if you have no influence over your spouse so it's not working at the moment the communication is not there and you're not able to talk to them about how you guys can come together and be consistent in giving the same message then no problem focus on yourself only at the end of the day have as much Taqwa of Allah as you are able to do as much as you can to protect yourself from the punishment of Allah this has been a recurring theme but look at your own self this course I wouldn't say it's been comprehensive we haven't covered everything but we have covered a lot of points as it relates to the rights of the children go through those and look at where things might have to change where do you think if it were to be something related to your طربي as a parent that could improve where would you want it to improve is it to do with softness and gentleness is it to do with showing affection is it to do with fairness is it to do with the whole way that the طربي and education has been structured is it too favoured in terms of too much on the side of the dunya and the worldly life and not enough attention being given to Islam for example so ultimately you look at those things and you make a plan to change them but when you make a plan to change them plan for the long term don't look for short instant gratification that I'm just going to change something and today my whole children everything my children is going to change at the end of the day it's going to require sabr it's going to require patience it's going to require time and especially when it comes to the older children you really need to plan for the long term don't look at very short term very quick changes that you make that really Alhamdulillah you might be able to make a quick change that improves the situation and if you can that's a blessing from Allah but generally speaking be prepared to make long term changes that are going to take a while to come into effect but insha'Allah you'll see the rewards of them over the long term so for example if I have a situation with a parent where a parent maybe says you know I've been too focused upon the worldly life I've pushed my children in school in their worldly education and I haven't given enough time for Islam and now they say they don't want it or they are pushing back against it there's going to be changes you see where you want to be but how are you going to get there not in a day, not in an hour but over time by preparing and planning for the long term look I'm going to gradually introduce some of those things I'm going to bear in mind what was said in the course about for example that make Allah beloved to His servants don't make people feel negative about Allah or feel negative about Islam but if that's been the environment in the house for years and years to change that is going to be something that you plan for the long term but you don't feel defeated you don't say that I can't do it you don't say it's impossible I'm not worried about seeing a result tomorrow I'm willing and Alhamdulillah if Allah is the best person you can change in the blink of an eye but I'm willing to have that patience for as long as it takes to bring about these changes and I realise there's often many changes not just one small change or two small changes but many changes and likewise maybe as we said often it's the case that the two spouses no problem let one person change let them turn towards Allah let them ask for the help of Allah let them not say that they're going to be defeated and then insha'Allah Allah will bring about the means to help with the other spouse the other parent to bring them on board especially when they see the success of what you're doing and insha'Allah those things will come about in their own time it is really important that as a parent you don't pass off your responsibility to other people and I've mentioned this I believe in the course already but especially passing it off to the spouse so saying it's not my problem it's my spouse's problem or it's not my fault it's my spouse's fault it's not my responsibility it's my spouse's responsibility to pass off to other people the teachers will take care of them the school will manage it the madrasa will do it youtube will do it that idea of passing the responsibility now that's different from saying that a parent has to do everything we're not saying that you as a parent have to do everything yourself you can delegate but the responsibility saying it's my responsibility to make changes here and yes no doubt the spouse is going to be involved no doubt there are going to be other people teachers and classes whatever it might be but you to say I'm the one who's going to take responsibility for this I'm the one who's going to grasp the nettle take responsibility and I'm going to do whatever I can because Allah has given me the tawfiq to recognise there's a problem Allah has given me the success to see there's something's not right here and again here I think it's really important to talk about doing things as early as possible the earlier that you can make changes the better the situation will be and there are people right now who are struggling with young children, toddlers 2 years old, 3 years old that is still easier to make those changes than when that child is 12 or 13 and we're easier than trying to influence them when they're 22 or 23 so here what we're saying is that a person needs to try to do things as early as possible if it is the case that your child's 18 and you're trying to fix things Alhamdulillah don't despair nothing is difficult for Allah don't feel it's beyond you it's well within the ability that you have with the help of Allah however if you're in a stage where you can make early intervention then this is really it is one of the means that you can really make the situation easy by the permission of Allah is to get involved early don't allow problems to simmer and then say I will solve it next month I will solve it in the summer I'll solve it when the school finishes I'll change their school next year I'll do something next you know in 2 years time in 3 years time when we move when I finish my job when I have more free time these are all things that you fear are part of the whispering of the shaitan about delaying and it's the same thing about Toba is that I'll make Toba next year I'll make Toba next month I'll make Toba in the future and ultimately that's not how we as Muslims are taught and that's not what Allah is our Jail is to do so we need to kind of get involved as early as possible and we need to understand that what we do for our children when they are very very young has a massive influence on what happens to them when they are older as does the relationship between the parents and I'm not going to try I don't want that to feel like a burden that like if you know the parents are not getting on so well or there are some marital issues that you know you have to solve everything or now I have to solve my marriage and I have to solve issues with my kids but realize that marital problems affect children that is the waka that's what real life is like you know children get affected by their parents marital issues to a greater or lesser extent so again that could be an easy fix that could be something where you could work and say I think that the majority of issues happening right now are because of what's happening between me and my spouse so in that case working to fix what's between you and your spouse could have the added benefit of helping with your children but even if there are issues between the husband and wife I'll come back again to the concept that the message from both parents should be the same now when I say the message should be the same I don't necessarily mean that both parents should be like a clone of each other but what I do mean is that both parents should encourage the children to respect the other parent and both parents should not allow the children to manipulate them into using one parent against the other which is what happens the children are very clever it's a kind of a negative point of human nature like a lot of people have told us in نهو كانا فلومة جهولة that the state of mankind if they're not corrected by Islam is one of oppression and ignorance and therefore it is there are some negative traits within human nature that Islam told us how to get rid of and one of them we see from the children is manipulating and playing one parent against the other and one of the ways you can minimize that is if you do disagree with your spouse about something with regard to your children try your best to discuss it with them privately or semi privately as much as you can rather than discussing it with them in front of the children because then they absorb that and they look and they say okay now I understand mom and dad I understand how to make a wedge between mom and dad and how to use that to get what I to get what I want so that's even very very young children so it's really important that even if the husband and wife are not getting on that they still have an understanding that when it comes to the kids we have to have a single message and even if the mom and dad happen to be separated or divorced it would still be the same thing that there has to be a consistent message with regard to the children and obviously we've talked about the fact that the husband and wife is a family structure the husband has a degree of responsibility but ultimately there's going to be times where the wife makes decisions the husband makes decisions and there has to be some kind of framework to bring those in line and again I would say here that the greatest advice you can give on that topic is that you make the decisions in accordance with Islam and if you make decisions in accordance with Islam you'll never be disappointed you'll never be disappointed we can't promise you what the outcome will be because the outcome is in the hands of Allah but we can promise you you'll never be disappointed if you do something for the sake of Allah sincerely you won't be disappointed so make it for the sake of Allah and make your decisions and the rulings you give with regard to your children like the Prophet SAW he said have the taqwa of Allah and be just among your children and one of the ways you are just among your children is to be fair in the way that you judge a matter between them as you make for them so make Islam the core of that and insha'Allah that will make things easy it's also important to bear in mind that the children differ according to their ages and we took from the hadith of the Prophet SAW when he spoke about the 7 year old and the 10 year old as it relates to praying and he SAW he said to command your children to pray when they are 7 and to discipline them when they are 10 years old and SAW here this is a fundamental principle as it relates to the differences in your children's ages and that's why even the way you discipline your children and the way you talk to them and the phases your children go through differ according to their ages and as a general rule there's a golden age of discipline and I haven't found a hadith specifically for this but it's from the the wise things that are said generally is that there is a golden age when it comes to discipline when it comes to the child being very young they can be too young before they become more before they reach the age of atameez because children they have these three phases there is the time of when they are small children and they are not they don't really know the difference between right and wrong not a developed difference between right and wrong they may appreciate that something is wrong because mommy and daddy shouted me when I do it but they don't really have a real understanding of what's right and wrong then they reach an age where they have an understanding they know something is right when they know for example that I'm praying to Allah and that you know they have an understanding and that could be at 6 years old it could be at 7 years old it could be at 5 years old there's no specific age but you would generally expect most children by the age of 7 they would have reached the age and probably earlier than that maybe by 5 or 6 they would have reached the age of atameez where they can distinguish between right and wrong and they know when they should be doing something and shouldn't and they have an appreciation for the actions they're doing like I'm doing this for Allah you know to a greater or lesser extent so that is a different age and then you have the age of puberty where they reach the age of puberty and they become adults and they could still be children quote unquote children living in your house because somebody could reach the age of puberty at 12 years old 13 years old 14 15 they may live with you until they're 22 they may live with you until they are 18 until they are 17 so here what we can see is that you could have a child who is who doesn't have an understanding of right from wrong and here very tough discipline doesn't really doesn't really work you obviously there's a place for discipline but generally there's a lot of play there's a lot of softness and the really kind of like life lessons to be honest don't work usually speaking and again this is a very very general speech I'm really generalizing but at that age which is less than 10 years it's not the ideal age for it it's an age of habits the age which is doing 10 years which is less than the age of knowing the difference between right and wrong is an age of habit building where you can build really good habits and you can build habits to know so many things you can do but discipline probably comes best at the age between 10 years and between realizing what's right and wrong and puberty once they go beyond puberty there's still a position for discipline but it's more difficult as a parent because they are now even though I don't really like the word I don't think it's a very good word to use because it makes you feel like Islam is burdensome but they are now responsible for their actions their earning sins and good deeds are being written for them they are now going to be asked in front of Allah about their own actions so now the kind of discipline that you can enforce upon them before they reach the age of puberty and again maybe puberty is not like it might not be who accept that from you a little bit longer they may accept it for example they may reach puberty at 12 years or they may kind of accept your really tough life lessons and discipline and stuff like that they may accept that up to 14 or whatever but we all know that as the children get further and further into adulthood it's harder and harder to enforce the same kind of discipline that you would with a 7 year old or an 8 year old or a 9 year old child so the golden age for for disciplining and giving them those life lessons is between the age where they realize what they're doing is right and wrong and the age of puberty or a little bit above that and that that really is the ideal time for that so what's the ideal time prior to that is like we said is probably habit building teaching them really good habits they may not really understand why they have those habits but teaching them good habits and good manners at the younger age according to the way that they can understand it and as for the older age when you're dealing with children who are already adults then really what is needed here is more accompanying them being alongside them being like a friend to them talking through their issues and realizing that they are now adults that have their own decisions to make that doesn't absolve or that doesn't absolve them of the obligation of obeying you as a parent as we're going to hear in this segment on parents it doesn't stop them having to obey you that's children to their parents that's how it is no matter what age even if the children are 40 years old or 45 years old or 50 years old they still have to obey their parents but the way the child the interaction of companionship being with them talking to them and taking longer the way you would deal with them the way you would advise them is like you would advise any adult you can talk to them as an adult you can give them a more refined kind of because they've reached the age of adulthood so you can talk to them as an adult now no doubt when it comes to teens this is particularly difficult because the problem with teens and I'm not sure how much this happened in the time of the Salaf Al-Saleh it's an interesting research topic I'm not sure how much this happened to them but in our time we have a problem of teens that are mature physically and immature mentally you can say there is a hadith the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم that they're young in the truth and foolish in the mind about the خوارج you can say this might indicate that sometimes you could have this problem but it is an issue of people who are very young who are mature as adults but they might not have that maturity in terms of the maturity intellectually and emotionally that we would really like them to have so that can be a difficult age where you get the kind of sometimes teenage tantrums behaving like a younger child but coming from an older child and that's something where probably the best behavior is to blend between the two phases if those things come out then it's showing that they're still young enough to accept that discipline from you because they still have that element of immaturity in them so they're still young enough to accept that discipline that you might give to a younger child but also you need to mix it with the advice and the kind of companionship and friendship that you would have with the older and more mature child so you probably need to blend those two together and like we said there are no absolutes see every child is different and you have to judge each child according to according to their individual their individual situation so that's all we have time for in this episode we'll be continuing our discussion on this for another episode because we need the extra time to finish as many points as possible that's coming up in the next episode and Allah knows best السلام عليكم if you're enjoying these videos and you'd like to keep up to date with all of the courses we're going to be running make sure you head over to amauathome.com