Children’s Tarbiyah

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September 5, 2017

Featured Writer, Islamic Reflections, Parenting

Why Children’s Tarbiyah?

A common issue, which arises today, is the tarbiyah of the youngsters. As elders we seem to neglect the youth, the manners and the characteristics we instill into them. A common thing we say to is “It’s OK, it’s not that important, the teachers at school will teach them or the Ustadh’s at Madrasah will teach them…”. But that’s totally wrong we need to teach the youth living with us how they should be behaving. The Ulama would prioritize youngsters to elders as they could have more of an impact on them, they are the future generation and they will be able to cause more of an impact too.

So what can we do?

1. Take youngsters upbringing seriously, remember Allah has entrusted children to you as a parent and if you are negligent towards their upbringing you will be questioned for it.

2. Reduce working time and spend more time with your children

3. Start by teaching your children the importance of worshiping Allah – the best thing a parent can do for their child is to bring them up in Islam believing in Allah alone and having good akhlaaq.

4. Treat them with kindness – if we shower them with love and kindness they will in turn show kindness and love to others.

5. Teach them about Muslim heroes – instead of teaching them about celebrities and action heroes teach them about our beloved prophets, sahaba’s, ulama and prominent Islamic figures.

6. When going to an Islamic gathering or listening to an Islamic lecture take your children with you so they may benefit from it as well.

7. Make them feel important and never belittle them as they will go other places to seek attention.

8. Go out as a family – this way they will pick up good values from their family who wish the best for them.

9. Praise children – children like to be appreciated and valued and they need to be told for them to continue in the right path.

10. Do not humiliate your children in public – if you dislike something they do in public; let them know in private.

Finally what we must remember

Alllah has entrusted the upbringing of the future generation to us; he has left the example (the perfect manual) which we can follow and adopt in the life of the Prophet (ﷺ).The life the Prophet led showed the way he was around children and how he treated them. Children loved being around the Prophet (ﷺ) and he loved being around them, he knew it would be the youngsters that would be propagating Islam so gave them his time and his attention.

Nowadays we go to the Masjid and we see the Imam shouting at the children “Hey child… come here, why are you running around the Masjid, eh?…. This is the house of Allah; you will get ghunah (sin)…” We are repelling the children from the Masjid instead of making it a place for them to spend their free time. As a Muslim it is our duty to must build an environment for Muslim teenagers to be able to have fun and spend their time in an Islamic environment.

We have to work as a team – parents and Madrasah teachers. We must help the children practice what they learn at Madrasah at home and make it as part of their lives not just practice Islam for the hour we are at Madrasah! They are tomorrows leaders so we need to get them ready for when they will take lead. We need to bring out the best in them, we need to mould them so their good outshines.