Muslim Parenting

The following is a talk given at Masjid Omar al-Farouk in Orange County, California (USA). The speaker is Br. Shareef el-Arbi, a community youth leader. Br. Shareef speaks about his experiences growing up in the US, as well as what he has come to know from the youth he works with. The talk is fairly frank about the issues Muslim teens face and mash’Allah is also filled with guidelines for parents (with examples from the sunnah and Qur’an). Good, inspiring and cautionary video for Muslims raising children in the West.

The Boston area is filled with colleges and universities. This video focuses on the activities of the Muslim American Society Boston geared for university students and young professionals. The video looks at the experiences of two youths (one female and one male) who took advantage of these programs. Their journeys are ones I hope my children can take, insha’Allah as well.

MAS Boston also has programs (scouting, sports, game nights, etc.) for children and teenagers. The chapter even trains youth workers. There seems to be a lot going on at this chapter. I won’t be able to describe it all. You can find out more on their website or by contacting them.

Muslim American Society Boston

10 Garfield Avenue
Somerville MA 02145
Phone:(617) 623-3004
E-mail: info@masboston.org

The Muslim American Society Youth Center in Raleigh, North Carolina lists its priorities for its work with Muslim youth as follows:

1- Islamic Education (Comprehensive, practical and authentic)

2- Spiritual Development (Uplifting, sunnah based, and life changing)

3- Outreach / Dawah (Engaging, Integrating, and Implementing Islam)

To those ends, they host regular youth group activities, such as sports and field trips, youth halaqahs and itikafs and provide many other forms of youth outreach.

Click here to view photos of their activities.

You can contact the center, insha’Allah, through its website.

The following is a promo video for The Muslim American Society’s programs in Tampa, Florida. The video highlights their youth programs and youth center.

Click here for photos of the youth program in action.

Muslim American Society Tampa

12226 56th Street
Tampa, FL 33617
Phone: 813-899-2267

This video profiles two initiatives for Muslim youth in Brooklyn, New York. Very inspirational, mashAllah. Those of us who don’t live in Brooklyn can use this video to see what can be done. Focusing on the young people is so important.

For more information:

Muslim Youth Center
1933 Bath Avenue
Brooklyn, NY 11214
Phone: 718.232.5905 Fax: 718.232.5103
Email: info@mas-myc.org

alternately you can contact their parent organization The Muslim American Society at (703) 998-6525

Council of Peoples Organization (COPO)

Note that COPO is not an exclusively Muslim organization; instead its focus is on South Asians.

1081 Coney Island Avenue
Brooklyn, NY 11230
Phone:718-434-3266

The following is a lecture that Sheikh Hamza Yusuf gave at the 2000 ISNA conference on the influences of non-Muslim (”Western”) culture on Muslim children and youth and ways in which parents and youth themselves can encourage good Islamic character.

Sheikh Hamza touches on consumerism, advertising’s influence on children, television-viewing and guarding eyes and ears from the haram.

Here is what I took away from the talk:

• Don’t allow children to watch television. Sheikh Hamza feels very strongly that it is a negative both in terms of form and content. He also criticizes movies and actors - though I know from reading materials on Sheikh Hamza’s Zaytuna website that he is okay with allowing older children to watch carefully chosen (informative) videos.
• Educate children about advertising and consumerism so that insha’Allah they can be better armed against them.
• Encourage children to use their (limited) time to study Islam and also to develop other useful skills and talents.
• Encourage children to be active in community and family life rather than waste their time with video games, TV and movies.

Mash’Allah! Today my 9-month old did sajda. She’d done it yesterday as well, but I thought I was seeing things. Today it was confirmed.

She crawls around nearby as I pray salat and I usually say it audibly so that she can benefit. Today I noticed that as I went down for sajda, so did she (though with her whole head, arms and torso touching the floor). And when I said allahuakbar for ruku she also did sajda.

Pretty funny to see a small baby, who does not even walk or talk yet, imitating me in prayer. Made me realize how important it is to stay steadfast in prayer and let my children see this.

Stay-at-home, homeschooling Dad, Bob Harte got frustrated with the amount of time his son was spending on the computer.

So, he hired a programmer to create software that would time his son’s use of the computer and log him off automatically once he had reached his limit.

The software, which works on computers running Windows XP is available for free download.

It’s linked to from the website community, AmigoMaker, that Harte runs for hunters and fishermen.

I have not used the software and don’t know Mr. Harte personally, so I cannot vouch for the quality of the software.

Setting Limits for Your Kids This Summer
By Christina Lemmey

Children see their summer vacation as a time for relaxing, playing, and having more freedom. There’s no schoolwork, friends want to just hang out, and doing chores or having a strict schedule sometimes goes out the window. Often we parents want to avoid arguments and want to be “friends” with our kids, thinking they deserve some leniency since they’ve worked so hard in school. You may think that you’re rewarding high achievement but in reality you’re conceding control of your household.

Children need strong, positive role models who will teach them how to make proper decisions in life. Parents are the very first role models for their children and the responsibility of teaching their children lies with them. When the parents relinquish their teaching duties, chaos in the household will ensue.

Here are some ideas for keeping the parents in charge of the household this summer:

1. Wake up your child by a certain time each morning. [Admin - Taken care of if you are waking them up for fajr] That doesn’t mean he has to be up by 6:30am but make sure he’s up by 8am or 9am at the latest. He’s still “sleeping in” but can also have some morning hours to play or plan his day. Letting kids sleep until all hours of the afternoon will only lead to staying up late at night and it will be a tough habit to break come September when school starts again.

2. Limit your child’s television and computer time. Why contribute to the childhood obesity epidemic? Watching mindless TV shows or playing endless hours of violent video games will make your child’s mind go numb and she’s not learning anything worthwhile. Try using “TV tickets” where 1 ticket = 30 minutes of TV. She can use her tickets anytime during the day but when they’re gone, the TV stays off.

3. Reassess your child’s responsibilities. Every child is capable of handling age-appropriate chores so take this time to make changes to their chore list. Encourage your child to have daily responsibilities that need to get done and find a block of time for your child to accomplish these things. If your child is an early riser, encourage him to do his chores right after breakfast and be done with them for the day. Or set a kitchen timer and see if they can finish their chores before the timer dings. Be sure to remind your children that doing chores is helping the family and not only a means to earning allowance.

4. Set your child’s bedtime. “Night owl” behavior can often lead to trouble and bad sleeping habits so make a set bedtime and stick with it. If you want to make it 30-60 minutes later than usual since it’s still light out, then go ahead, but growing children still need lots of sleep and it will help your child learn to stick to a schedule.

5. Don’t be afraid to set rules. Make up additional rules that help your household run smoothly. Be sure these rules are fair and age-appropriate based on the number and ages of your children. Always remember that your children will look to you first for guidance so teach them how to make rules and stick to them.

Summer vacation doesn’t have to be full of tantrums from spoiled children who have no respect for their parents. Earn your child’s respect by showing him/her how to set limits, how to follow a schedule, and how to handle household responsibilities. You’ll keep control of your household and your child will have the basis for becoming a functional adult.

Christina Lemmey is the mother of two girls and the owner of http://www.survivingathome.com

Christina has a number of very interesting articles on her blog right now on kids and summer.

First posted on July 20, 2006.

Tackling your children’s questions about being Muslim and therefore “different” if you live in a non-Muslim country can be really daunting. Especially when their self-awareness of being Muslim comes with awkwardness and maybe even shame around “not fitting in.”

Sr. Tasmiya who lives in Brisbane, Australia, had to confront just such a dilemma early on with her five year old son. She writes:
‘Yesterday we managed to get ourselves organised enough to be EARLY for school. We decided to head over to the library where 5 year old could drool over his favourite science book.

As we walked towards the library we passed one of 5 year old’s classmates. The two boys greeted each other in that 5 year old way - awkward wave and mumbled hellos and all without any eye contact.

I asked 5 year old if he would like to invite his friend to the library. Without hesitation he whispered, “No, mummy. He doesn’t know about the scarf…oh maybe he does know about it..no, no I don’t think he does.”

I was floored. Could my son actually be embarrassed about my scarf?’

You can read more of what she had to write about this crisis with her son and also view the many interesting responses she received from other Muslim parents on how to deal with the situation here.

To summarize these comments (coming from several different Muslim perspectives):

- Make sure to instill a sense of confidence in being Muslim in your child

- Point out that outside of where you live, there are large areas of the world where most people are Muslim. In other words: “You are not an anomaly.”

- Emphasize similarities between Muslims and non-Muslims

- Make an effort to explain the reasons behind why Muslims do things differently. Explain as much as you
can.

- Instead of just framing non-Muslims and Muslims as being “different” from one another, emphasize the concepts of right and wrong, stressing the Muslim way as the right way.

- Encourage your children’s friendships with other Muslim children and discourage their friendships with non-Muslim children

- Ask your children about what they are thinking as regards their Muslim identity, especially when they make a comment like the one Tasmiya’s son did. Find out just what he meant by it. Otherwise, you may be jumping to a conclusion not intended by your child and/or your response may not best serve her needs.

- Be proactive. As part of developing a strong Muslim identity encourage your children to give dawah - in the form of telling others at school about Muslim holidays, for example. This reinforces the idea that they have something valuable to share with others and are not simply passively comparing their lives with those of the non-Muslim children they encounter.

First posted in August 2006.