Muslim Parenting

MashAllah! Soundvision offers a really great list of tips for Muslim parents of teenagers on supporting their children in growing into good Muslim adults.

Some of the tips focus on increasing family time and fortifying ourselves first as a way of strengthening our parenting. Other tips, like ‘building’ a masjid in your home, dating your teenager, and having a halal fun day once a month are pretty innovative.

The article suggests that we marry our teenagers early - I think the assumption here is that although married the couple may continue living with their respective parents and keep going with their studies. This is culturally foreign to me - but may well be a good strategy if well thought out and managed.

Anyway, teens can be exasperating and full of novel ideas as the Soundvision article is, it is worth a read.

Okay, so An American Family’s Blog, is quite different from the other Muslim parents and family blogs I usually read for this site. It is the brainchild of Hijabman of Muslim t-shirt fame.

It seems that he is part of a very tight-knit “eight-person American [Okay, so we have one Brit…]Muslim family.” Hijabman’s family includes, his parents, sisters, brother and their spouses and children.

The family seems to spend a lot of time together - it’s almost as if they live in a joint household, though I know from their posts that they just live near one another.

They have been careful on the blog not to reveal too much. You don’t know where they live and you don’t see any of the adults’ faces, though you do hear their voices and sometimes see their feet.

The posts (especially the video posts) are all fairly off-beat: they talk about lotas (Urdu/Hindi name for waterpot used in the bathroom), mayhem in Karachi and Palestine, chocolate and all sorts of other topics. Remember that, in theory, there are eight very different family members contributing to this blog.

Hijabman, the impetus behind An American Family’s Blog, is himself unmarried and not a parent, but don’t let that stop you from at least checking out this Muslim family’s blog.

Perhaps, like his sisters you have some advice to offer him on finding a wife or even have a special someone in mind, so that he can too can join the parenting ranks. LOL.

The Times (London) reported last week that Muhammad is now the second most popular baby name in Britain.

“Muhammad is now second only to Jack as the most popular name for baby boys in Britain and is likely to rise to No 1 by next year, a study by The Times has found. The name, if all 14 different spellings are included, was shared by 5,991 newborn boys last year, beating Thomas into third place, followed by Joshua and Oliver.”

Demographics are driving the name’s popularity. The Times reports that “Overall, Muslims account for 3 per cent of the British population, about 1.5 million people. However, the Muslim birthrate is roughly three times higher than the non-Muslim one.”

You can access the full article here.

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.

Big news out of Britain this week: A new bill that would support the rights of mothers to breastfeed their babies has been put forward. This is wonderful news as there has been a bit of a war on in recent years with breastfeeding Mums routinely being asked to leave restaurants, stores and other public places while mothers bottlefeedings were unmolested. Under the bill businesses who harass nursing Mums could be fined thousands of pounds.

While I think it’s important to be discreet when feeding baby, I do think the whole world should be available for doing so. It is a baby’s right, is better for baby and increasingly they are proving for mothers as well. Alhamdullilah - insha’Allah the bill will pass.

It’s already passed in Scotland.

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.

From Tasmiya in Australia, who describes herself as “- Muslim - Australian- 30-something - wife - mother to 3 beautiful boys - owner of 2 boy cats - thoroughly enjoying being the matriarch in the home - part-time veterinarian - procrastinator extraordinaire”:

- You can wake up whenever YOU want to wake up. You don’t need to dress up and run around madly in search of that matching scarf

- You can relax. Breakfast is time for chatting, eating and joking. Not a time for yelling, “Hurry up - we’re going to be late!”

- Baby doesn’t get his routine interrupted while you pick up or drop off the school boy

- There are no emotional upheavals for you to deal with. Your child won’t be angry, tired or hungry in the afternoon because you will have taken care of his needs

- You can go on holidays ANYTIME instead of having to wait for school holidays (busiest and most expensive times of year)

- You can live abroad for a while, wherever and whenever since the kids’ school is wherever you are.

You can read Tasmiya’s great blog here.

First posted August 7, 2006.First posted August 7, 2006.

We all know that being a mother can be quite a responsibility and indeed burden - this is acknowledged several times in the Qur’an. But as Hesham Hassaballa spotlights in his article, “The Difficulties of Being A Muslim Dad,” that Muslim fathers also shoulder [if they step up to the tasks] weighty obligations.

He writes,“As a Muslim father, I must shoulder an enormous responsibility, both fiscal and religious, and this responsibility is first encountered before I even have any children at all.” You can view the full article here.

First posted on August 14, 2006.