Ads by Muslim Ad Network

aaa

Ask About Parenting

Nasira S. Abdul-Aleem
14 March, 2017

Dear Brother/Sisters,

We would like to thank you for joining us in this Counseling Live Session.

We would like also to thank our counselor, sister Hannah Morris, for answering the questions.

Please scroll down to read the answers of the questions below.

 

Ads by Muslim Ad Network

Feel free to contact us and send your questions any time to:

[email protected]

 

Ask About Parenting - About Islam Ask About Parenting - About IslamAsk About Parenting - About Islam

Thursday, Mar. 16, 2017 | 03:00 - 05:00 GMT

Session is over.
DISCLAIMER
Views expressed by hosts/guests on this program (live dialogue, Facebook sessions, etc.) are their own and their appearance on the program does not imply an endorsement of them or any entity they represent.  

 My daughter is 8-year-old and I want to begin to talk with her about sex and starting her period, as I know some girls started their period at 9 year.I'm just nervous about doing this. So, how to bring it up and how to explain it so that it's understood without using medical words?



As-Salaamu ‘alaikum wa Rahmatullahi wa Barakatuhum,

 

I am so excited to get an easy question! Well, not easy, per se, but not one that is near life-threatening, like so many of them are.

 

I read a great book for my introduction to sex. It was called “A Husbands’ Guide to Marriage”. I tried to find it years later but could not because it was out of print. But, if you can find that book, it was really good because it talked about a husband being appreciate of his wife in his love-making, i.e., treat her with respect by listening to her responses and going with them, instead of how to get what he needs and wants for himself of his own physical needs. But, book or no book, I think you should start there—not about the physics, yet. Talk about the reason why we even get married at all—it is not just for sex, it is for a particular kind of companionship of which the pinnacle, the epitome of which is “marital relations”. Then you can go on to expand on that theme to include the role that physical interaction has in that process, inShaAllah.

 

Ads by Muslim Ad Network

Talk about marriage—why do we get married? What do we need from marriage?  What do we get out of marriage? Why did Allah Create marriage?

Safety

Belonging

A safe place to express and explore our own personalities—our fears, our feelings, our successes, our failures, our shortcomings… all without being criticized and condemned or judged for being weak, or for needing help, or something or someone from someone else…

Support

Love

Mercy

 

The list goes on and on. but get your child to start thinking about these things—try to get her to come up with the above list and more to add to it.

 

Once she can appreciate that we intellectually and emotionally “mix” in the unique personal way in marriage, that is called “intimate”, then you can help her distinguish that from how we “mix” in the public world in a much less “personal” and “intimate” way. Then, when you expound on what personal and intimate mean, she will be able to better understand it. Then, when you introduce physical interaction—physically “mixing”—she will know better what you are talking about, as compared to just hearing it in a vacuum of its meaning.

 

I would not shy away from medical terms because childhood is the time for learning words. However, I might shy away from them for another reason: they make the process medical and it is anything but. Yes, it is a physical process, but if it is physical without the motivating love and desire for emotional expression that makes it intimate, it loses it “meaning”. It becomes an exercise in pleasure, not love. Excuse the rudeness of what I am about to say, but…. you can get that from a doll, you don’t need a human being for that. A human being was created as a sentient being for a reason, i.e., there is more to life than pleasure/physicality. That is the first lesson in understanding the “intimacy” that takes place in marriage—whether it be physical or mental or emotional expressions that aren’t physical.

 

When it comes to teaching her the physical process, keep it simple at first. When she is about to get married, you can fill in the fine points, inShaAllah. It may help to NOT use a book that has pictures because pictures of sex can be scary to a nine-year old (and they are unIslamic, but they may be important to a woman who is about to get married if she is uneducated—to keep her from being surprised—to prepare her properly).

 

I wish I had a good book to recommend, but I am sorry I don’t know that area of literature. Everything I read by Muslims was horrible—sorry to say it. It had was superficial and inaccurate (but that was years ago, so maybe something good is out there now, inShaAllah).

 

There used to be a Muslim store for sexual products. You could Google that. They were very serious about their responsibility to fill that role in a righteous way for Muslims. Maybe they have some good reading materials on marriage and sex, or even books for children—or for parents on how to introduce the subject to children.

 

My pet peeve—but not for now, she is too young—is teaching women that the motive in male sexuality is very different from that of the female, the male impetus being visual and sensory while the female’s impetus is emotional. But that is another discussion altogether, but I could not resist mentioning it because it is one of the biggest sources of sexual dysfunction in marriage.

 

And Allah Make it Easy for you!

 

 

 

As-salamu `alaikum, I need your advice, I’m not a parent, I’m 17 years old, but I have a big problem with my parents, I feel that they can’t understand me, they always criticize my actions and I keep trying to explain my rationale but they never get that. I don’t know how to make them understand that the young people have a different way of thinking than theirs. Please advice.



As-Salaamu ‘alaikum wa Rahmatullahi wa Barakatuhum,

 

Bless your heart for writing! I am sorry that your parents “can’t understand” you and “ always criticize your actions”! That is an unproductive relationship with one’s parents, which is sad because you lose what you need to have in a relationship with your parents—the benefit from the relationship that Allah Made in His Creation of the relationship.

 

I am going to try to help BUT, you, and I, and everyone, cannot control other people’s behavior, let alone their thinking. So, all any of us can ever do when it comes to something that someone else does is control our own behavior and thinking and hope that it has an effect on them such that they change. If they do not, then at least you have done your best—and then you have to figure out the answer to a different problem: how to survive their treatment that won’t change.

 

Ads by Muslim Ad Network

That means that all we can do here is figure out how you can change your interactions with them in order to try to affect a change in their behavior. How can you change your outlook, your approach, your ideas, etc., so that you get a different response – don’t panic, I am not going to take their part and criticize you and tell you to do their bidding.

 

First, I want to distinguish between their deductions and their thought process. Your parents are coming up with different deductions from your own, but their actual “way of thinking” is not “different” from yours—if we are talking about their way of “processing information”. All brains work the same; they use conscious and subconscious “material (thoughts and feelings)” to induce and deduce “decisions”, some of which are conscious and some of which are subconscious. What is different between your parents’ thinking and yours is not their decision-making process but their deductions.

 

Why is this distinction important? Since they think the same way you do, you can give them “grist for the mill”. That means, you can give them your reasons for for your deductions so that they can come up with the same deductions. Now, it won’t work if you are not playing in the same ballpark (another euphemism which means, if your are playing football and they are playing baseball, you will never be able to understand each other, let along play together because you are playing by two different sets of rules on two playing fields that are laid out completely differently). Another term for this is “context”. If I say the Shahada when I become Muslim, I am Muslim. If a non-Muslim school teacher says it when they are teaching it to their class, it does not make them Muslim. Context means everything!

 

So, the way to reach your parents is to find out what playing field they are on and what game they are playing—of course, they are not playing any “game”; they are dead serious, but, you get my point. Then, meet them were they are at. For example, they want you to wear hijab and you don’t want to. They say, “Allah Says to wear it; don’t you want to go to Janna?” You say, “Yes, of course I want to go to Janna but I won’t have any friends if I wear hijab because everyone thinks Muslims are terrorists and I hate people thinking I am a terrorist”.

 

I don’t know if that is anything like what you are experiencing, but whatever you are experiencing, the principle is the same: both parties in the discussion have to be talking about the same thing and in the same context. In that example their context is the next life and the other person’s is this one. So, the way that conversation might play out is: The parents would then say, “Oh, I get it, but Allah is more important”. And, then the child will say, “That is easy for you to say; you don’t have to deal with everyone in school hating you and treating you like you are a freak or dangerous.” Then, they might say, Oh, okay… I see your point and then they might let you not wear hijab. Or, better yet, the two of you (or three of you if it both parents) could come up with a solution, with the Help of Allah, that is a compromise—and Allah Knows your struggles and Is Forgiving and Merciful – but Allah is also Helpful and can make things turn out differently from your fears- but you have to take the risk first to find that out, inShaAllah.

 

Anyway, do you get my point? Find out what they are thinking and where they are coming from and point out to them how the place that you are coming from is different and they need to address that – or vice versa.

 

If you can get them to see what you are dealing with and where you are coming from—and vice versa—then you should be able to have a productive conversation, inShaAllah. Allah says in Suratul-‘Aasur to join together in a MUTUAL EXCHANGE BACK AND FORTH in search of truth, and to do that with patience and constancy – don’t give up and do it regularly and be patient with the process- it is not magic and does not happen instantly – it takes a step by step process of sorting out all the info so you can get on the same page (another way of saying the same thing) and be talking about the same stuff… then, you when you find out what they are thinking, you can destroy their argument, or not—they may win the argument. But, at least it was a fair fight, not a power-play based on their authority as your parents up against your right as an adult—who, by the way, is new to the process–to make your own decisions, inShaAllah.

 

Suratul ‘Aasur makes sense because there is a lot much going on in every “decision” we make, stuff that we are not even aware of. We have to be patient in order to find out all that “stuff”. That “stuff” in our decisions is a combination of our conscious and subconscious minds. Our subconscious mind is our fitra and our programming. Our fitra/nature is our needs Created in us by Allah when He Created us. Our “programming” or “imprinting” is what we got from our parents and culture as we were growing up.

 

Our programming often feels like our fitra but it is not (e.g., when we get angry, we usually follow the pattern of behavior modeled for us by our parents and/or society throughout their childhood, e.g., if your parents or culture yelled when angry, the children of those parents and culture usually yell too). Then there is our conscious mind, which is the logic we can track, i.e., the thinking process I described above in my role-playing scenario. Then there are universal principles of philosophy, and logic, and emotional intelligence–the things we want which we know are not good for us, or we desire to have when it would be better to wait, etc.

 

And, don’t forget, even if you disagree with your parents, you are still supposed to treat them with respect –don’t even say “uuf” to them, while you firmly say that you cannot do such and such. Let them down gently, please. We suffer a lot as parents, for years and years and years. But, when our children grow up, it seems like it happens all in one day, and they are gone, leaving us alone. So, please have mercy on us.

 

And Allah Make it Easy for you!  

 

My son is 3 years old. He doesn’t go to a nursery. He wants whatever someone else has, no matter what it is, and refuses to share anything with anyone. We have tried to break him from this, but nothing seems to work. How to deal with this selfish boy?



As-Salaamu ‘alaikum wa Rahmatullahi wa Barakatuhum,

 

At three years old, it is completely normal for a child to be what you are calling “selfish”, so don’t panic, yet! A three year old has no understanding of the world yet, i.e., that other people need to get their needs met too. The Prophet taught us to be the slave of our children until they are seven years old. Then, after that, teach them to be our “slaves”. Now, that does not mean to spoil them rotten. It does mean that we have to be by their side serving their needs, walking them through life every minute because they don’t know anything yet. We have to be their constant companion, monitoring everything they do, for this very reason—they don’t know how to do anything yet, let alone “share”. So, we are supposed to be with them helping them “learn” how to do “life”. I am not big on force—within reason. Of course, sometimes you have to just take a toy away from your child and give it to its owner, or make your child share—and hear them scream in the process.

 

But, I would hold them in my lap and and comfort them—if they will let you. and, if they won’t let you, I would stay near. They are very smart about one thing—if not about other’s needs and rights—they are watching you like a hawk to see if you care about their needs, or don’t care about their feelings. If you have to make them cry, be “with” them in their pain. Know in your own heart that it is a healthy learning process, i.e., a “healthy” pain, but, they don’t know that yet, so be “with” them in it so that it does not hurt more than it needs to hurt–in a different way.

 

Ads by Muslim Ad Network

They will eventually come to understanding that the world has more than one person in it. But, inShaAllah, until that time, the best approach to teaching them that is with respect for the pain of that—you can’t take it away, you can just let them know that you see that it is painful and you feel their pain, and they still need to share. When you use force, do it with love; they can tell the difference—even though they will cry like their world is crashing down on them – because it is –be firm. Comforting them is not giving it—it is sharing their problem with them-it is love!

 

We learn by repetition. It takes 18 times for us to “learn” something. And, in the case of kids, that means 18 years! Just kidding, but you get my point, inShaAllah. So, don’t panic. Remember, when you are feeling frustrated and the other children are mad, your child is seeing all of that and taking it in. Just keep repeating the message to him/her. Also, of course it helps to let him/her feel the pain of what it is like when others will not share with him/her… even at three, their little minds are ticking like crazy, figuring it all out.

 

It helps to have to siblings—like you said, your child is not in a childcare situation. Take them to play with friends and expect it to be difficult. Plan to deal with their crying while you hold them. An only-child often grows up to be a very hard-to-deal with adult, because of this very problem—they never learned to share … So, hang in there, visit other children so you can begin to face this challenge, keep being gentle but firm and repeat repeat repeat… InshaAllah.

 

And Allah Make it Easy for you!  

As-salamu `Alaikum dear counselor, I’m a mother of 3 kids (14,10,7), my question is how to help my kids to be organized and to make them help around? Thank you



As-Salaamu ‘alaikum wa Rahmatullahi wa Barakatuhum,

 

This is such an important question because it is the classic problem of childhood—I heard that the word for “child” in Arabic is “someone who breaks things”. Allah Made children learn by tearing things apart—SubhanAllah. Then, they have no consciousness yet about the need to put them back together again, SubhanAllah! So, we really have to be patient and we need to be around to deal with that. It is so hard for working-moms (working outside the house, that is) to have the time it takes to teach our small children how to be thorough. Most of us just clean up behind them because we don’t have time to teach them by walking them through the process of reconstruction each time they tear things apart, over and over and over again. I don’t know if you are a working mom, but, whatever it is that you do, this process does not change – it takes time whether you have the time or not, so don’t be mad at them or yourself if you don’t have the time—just be clear about your limitations and merciful with yourself and them accordingly.,,, and that goes for both parents, inShaAllah.

 

So, the way I recommend approaching this reality is teach them the mantra: “beginning, middle, and end”. Which usually equals: “prepare, do the thing, and clean-up”. Nothing, but nothing can escape these three steps. Every single process on the face of the earth has to go through these three steps. So, the sooner they—and you—and we all—get our in line with expecting to have to be a slave to this formula, the sooner we will all be able to deal with life better, and not abort that process half way through, or truncate it in the middle, etc. with emotional baggage or lack of understanding, etc. – InShaAllah.

 

Ads by Muslim Ad Network

So, using the mantra of “prep, do, and clean-up”, or “beginning, middle, and end”, or any variation on that theme, you can then be able to ask them if they did all the steps necessary in “life”? If you can get that step process as a “habit” in their minds, then, whenever they approach anything, including cleaning, they will have some forethought, some perspective of what is needed and what to expect whenever they approach any project or conversation, or meal, or or or…. anything.

 

However, when kids do stuff, YOU have to do that stuff with them to model for them. You can talk them through it too by asking them: “Did you prep? Did you do the thing? Did you clean up?”

 

Since none of your children are under the age of 7, they should all have the capacity to understand the above concept – BUT, they may not have the habit yet (they do not, otherwise you would not be asking this question).

 

Sometimes, other problems arise. For instance, some people think that it is “male” to not clean up behind yourself, i.e., that it is “women’s work”. That is not Islam! If you think it is, write to the scholars on this website for proofs that it is not Islamic but a cultural misconception of the roles of men and women in Islam. If you don’t think it, your male children may still have seen this idea around them and imitate it, in which case you will need to “prove” to them (with Q and H) that this is not Islam but a cultural idea that is not healthy (because it is not Islam).

 

With the 14-year, you can probably use the argument that it is easier to find something in a timely manner when you need it if the room is clean—as compared to needing to “tear the room apart” to find something.

 

With all kids, rewards and punishment get them going/motivated – rewards usually work much better than punishments. Some ideas of rewards are: healthy (honey) candy, coins (nickels, dimes and quarters all add up), 10 minutes on a healthy (Muslim) video game, 10 minutes of you reading to them, or 10 minutes of them reading to you, 15 minutes shooting hoops with Dad, candles/candlelight at dinner …. etc.—whatever works for your particular children. Some ideas of punishments are: taking back the coins they earned, being grounded from playing with friends and/or from playing (Islamic) video games.

Because kids need physical movement, I don’t recommend restricting their outdoor activities. Separation from the group is particularly painful for children. So, if they have to eat separate from the rest of the family at dinner time that can really matter to some of them. One of my children loved to be alone, so telling her to go to her room was not a punishment for her. The only way I could get my son to listen to me was if I made him stand in the corner on one foot. NOTHING but nothing else worked with him. All that to say, you have to know your particular child’s likes and dislikes and “work them”—there is no cookie-cutter remedy for all children. But, there are a few standard principles: TIME is needed, which means patience is needed. We learn from repetition! And we learn from our mistakes—as painful and hard as that is to deal with, it is true –so don’t cry over spilled milk, celebrate it. Just kidding. Don’t celebrate it because that would give the wrong message. But, it is very important not to get mad because it was a mistake and does not deserve scolding. It does deserve that you say something like “Live and learn” so that the child knows that you understand that it was a mistake and it should not happen, i.e., that they can learn how not to spill milk from that experience.

 

It only takes one experience of getting burned by a stove for a child to learn, forever after that, that a stove is hot (not that I am recommending that you facilitate that process – only if that happens by accident, and that too should be protected against!).

 

Allah Make it Easy for you!

 

My daughter is 14 years old and we live in Canada. I used to buy her clothes on my own and about 2 years ago, she has been insisting to come with me and choose her clothes and I didn't refuse. However, since she used to go shopping with me, she started to choose immodest clothes and refused anything I chose for her. I tried many times to convince her that Muslims should wear modest clothes and that she can't reveal her body but all my trials just failed. Recently, she started to go shopping with her friends, many of them are non-Muslims and they buy very bad clothes. Whenever we talk about her clothes, we end up fighting and yelling at each other. please tell me how can I handle the situation.



As-Salaamu ‘alaikum wa Rahmatullahi wa Barakatuhum,

 

Thank you for asking this very important question. It is about a very difficult yet common problem—so, thank you for asking.

 

My first suggestion is ask Allah for Help. When we feel desperate, like there is no solution to a problem, when we ask Allah to Guide us, we can begin to see things that we did not see before—the reason we get tested is to see if we ask of Allah or not. If we do, then we can get three Rewards, InShaAllah: Allah’s Guidance, Allah’s Pleasure, and Hope of The Reward in the Next Life, which is Unity with Allah, His Prophet, and the Sahabi!

 

Ads by Muslim Ad Network

Secondly, on a practical note, are you giving her the money she needs to buy her own clothes on her own, or paying for what she chooses? I am not recommending that you stop doing that. I only mention it because that aspect of your question confused me.

 

The reason I am not recommending that is because I think it would be better to talk to her … So, the question is what to say since everything you said so far ends in a fight. Ask her what matters to her that has to do with clothes—in other words, clothes mean something, obviously, or else there would not be a problem. Find out from her what they mean to her—don’t assume that you know what is going on in her head –or even what is best for her at her present stage in her development. In other words, you may know what is best for her in the long run (to obey Allah and be safe with people (modest)) but, that may not be what she needs to hear now. You have to “hear” her first. Then, once you hear her out, she will, inShaAllah, return the favor, i.e., be willing to hear you out, out of “reciprocity”, i.e., if you treat her with respect, she will treat you with respect. It does not always work but does a lot, inShaAllah.

 

To figure out from her how to “reach her”, you have to “get inside her head” – not yours. Once you find out what is going on in there, “walk her” through the thought process that she needs to have, inShaAllah, i.e., walk her from where she is to where she needs to be (for Allah and her safety), inShaAllah.

 

If you just tell her what to do, you are not going to “reach her”; telling people what to do is telling them what your choices are —and why you made your choices, but so what – that is not her. You have to “launch” her into her own adulthood, which means making her own decisions. When our children are small it is existentially essential that we tell them what to do, otherwise they will die–get hit by a car or fall off a cliff, etc. However, when our children enter adulthood, the parent’s role is very different; we have to let go. However, we have to “transition” them first. To guide our children as to how to make their own right decisions is very hard and is an act of faith.

 

To do this, you are going to have to go out of YOUR comfort zone. Enter her world. Walk around in it (metaphorically) so you can get on the same page as her. Then you will be able to talk to her about the things that matter to her.

 

If she is receptive to Islam, there are tons of proofs that show that modesty is Islamic. However, I suspect that she is not there yet. I suspect she is operating from a worldly perspective, thus the problem. So, get “on her plane” so you can speak to her issues.

 

For instance, to be a Muslim woman in the West (Canada) today, you have to have the heart of a saint (I don’t believe in saints but it is a good way of referring to what I want to refer to here) and the nerve of a warrior. In other words, to wear modest clothes, and especially a hijab (khimar), one has to be an activist, an outsider, a leader—and a warrior and a saint. We are not all that “good”—and were any of us that “good” at 14? A Muslim woman’s clothes are like carrying a flag around all day that says …. What? See that is the problem. To a Westerner, our clothes symbolize oppression. If they symbolized what we “really” are as Muslim women, we would want to were that flag, But, they do not. So, have mercy on her by recognizing that, TO THE MODERN WORLD, modest clothes mean a barbaric religion—something akin to the life of the Dark Ages—and an oppressed woman who has no freedom to choose her own life, etc. it is a very tall order to expect her to fight that battle on her own—especially when she does not even know that she is fighting that battle or any other. That is the wall of obstruction that our enemies use to rob us of our selves and our children. So, to win that war, the first step is to realize that you are fighting a war with someone other than your daughter!

 

If you can get her to express these challenges that she is facing simply by the clothes she wears, you can begin to defuse their power. Reason with her about the truth about Islam and the falseness of our enemies. If you cannot get her to express her struggle, help her express it WITHOUT giving her ideas or info that she does not already think and feel. The way to do that is to get her to say what she is thinking and feeling, and then help her express it better with some words that say it better – do not introduce new ideas.

 

The most important thing is respect her – not her choice to be immodest but the fact that she will need to make her own choices now that she is becoming an adult. This is confusing because you have to distinguish immodesty from her humanity. Honor her process even if it ends up in a bad decision. This is hard, I know. Just tell her that, you do not respect immodesty, but you do respect her mind and soul, so tell her that you believe in her capacity to see through the garbage and lies and tricks of our enemies to the beauty and truth of Islam, even if she is not strong enough right now to take on the whole world as a warrior—give her that space and time while showing her that you believe in her heart for Allah and her intelligence. Then, maybe you will make some progress with her, inShaAllah.

 

The most important point I would make to her (once you get her listening to you because you listened to her first) is that there is a difference between the public and private worlds—they are different. Our bodies are part of our private world. When we marry, we do so to go from the safe place of our parents to the safe place of a husband/wife—safe meaning a place where we can expose our mind and our body without it being shamed if we are imperfect or make a mistake. This is so that we can “develop”—to grow we need the safety of love and mercy. The public world is not like that. If we make mistakes or have shortcomings or shortsightedness or lack of knowledge in the public realm, we are made to feel stupid. We are criticized and often ridiculed, especially by kids who can be brutal in today’s culture of bullying! The safest place where we can show our limitations, i.e., our “shame”, is with Allah, The next safest place is in the privacy of our homes, where we are loved and cherished by people who have mercy on us with our mistakes, inShaAllah. That goes for our bodies too. No one’s body is perfect and if it is, that too is private.

 

May Allah Make it Easy for you!

 

Disclaimer: The conceptualization and recommendations stated in this response are very general and purely based on the limited information that was provided in the question. In no event shall AboutIslam, it’s volunteers, writers, scholars, counselors, or employees be held liable for any direct, indirect, exemplary, punitive, consequential or other damages whatsoever that may arise through your decision or action in the use of the services which our website provides. 

 

My daughter hates modest clothes - About Islam My daughter hates modest clothes - About IslamMy daughter hates modest clothes - About Islam My daughter hates modest clothes - About Islam My daughter hates modest clothes - About IslamMy daughter hates modest clothes - About Islam