Abdur Rahman ibn Yusuf Mangera – #parenting Navigating Adolescence, Maturity and Teenage Years
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Bismillah al Rahman al Rahim Al Hamdulillah Al Hamdulillah,
Hamelin cathedra on the given Mubarak and fie Mubarak unnati. He
come out your headboard up on our way all the
jewelry who are Minowa or Salatu was Salam o Allah say you will
have even Mustafa SallAllahu they're either either he will
either early he was Safi, he was seldom at the Sleeman cathedral,
Medina mvat. So the brothers and the sisters, we are speaking about
something very important. Allah subhanaw taala says, Yeah, you
have Latina and oeko and fossa como Alikum. Nowra are people who
believe protect
yourselves and
your families from the hellfire, I don't need to discuss the
importance of that, because who I'm speaking to is, obviously here
has taken time out of their Sunday afternoon, to sit here and to
to be part of this. So I think the importance is not lost on you
already.
We have two sessions. In the first session, we're going to be
discussing just some realities. And since most of us are adults
here,
you'll know exactly what we're speaking about. So this won't be
much of the things which will be discussed. In fact, much of it is
not going to be new, especially in the first session. But the reason
I'm covering it this way, is just so that we understand the
milestones. And we may get an idea of how to discuss this with our
children to prepare them. So while we've all been through this,
because most people here majority actually are adults. So they've
been through these.
I'm focusing on first the seven to 14 year olds, and then 14 and
beyond. Because that's the early teenage, and then later teenage,
young adulthood. I don't know how much we'll be able to do. But
in the two hours and so that we have will also try to take
questions, we've already received some questions, actually. So in
the first session, what I'm going to be going through is literally
some of the actual changes, and developments, physical, mental,
and thus, importantly, the spiritual that takes place, just
so that we know, so that we can find talking points
to deal with our own children, grandchildren, or whoever it
whoever it may be. So again, we're discussing from 17 to 14, seven to
14 year olds.
This is an important time that later, I'm not going to focus more
on the early part of that, but maybe more 10 to 14 is this is the
age of obviously elementary education and the onset of
puberty. So this is when things start changing for a child, right.
And this is when children will get older, they grow up. And they
actually now start thinking like, a bit more like and behaving
slightly a bit more like adults. They no longer that youth sorry,
that that
that child hood, innocence starts disappearing. Right? It was
wonderful. When it was there, it starts disappearing, and it
becomes more challenging. These usually start from between nine to
13 Girls, which is earlier than from 11 to 15. And boys, girls,
ages
quicker than do boys. Usually. It's not discrimination. It's just
the way it is okay. Right. This is what you call adolescence, right?
This is what you call adolescence, where children mature into adults,
and now they've becoming capable of having children themselves. So
while we are not encouraging children to have sorry, we're not
encouraging people at that age to have children, although
unfortunately, it is happening. And I say unfortunately, it's
happening because I don't think our society is prepared for people
even at that age that the the those who get into the wrong
relationship chips and then have children at that age. They don't
know what they're doing. They don't know what they're expecting.
And it just puts their whole life into misery. Yes, in cultures
earlier on, a centuries ago, even a century ago, and throughout
history, people did have children at young ages. You know, but
that's not very encouraging, because I don't think we're
anywhere ready to even do that. Okay, so but physically the
becoming ready to have children. That's why so much is changing in
their body. That's what we have to understand that look, all of this
change that is happening is because you know what Allah has
created us for which is for procreation as well. You are
capable now of having that not that we're encouraging it. Now,
this is the time when many physical, lots of emotional,
mental, and spiritual changes take place. This is the time where it
changes really fast. Children will start noticing that they look
different, right? They start focusing more on themselves.
They feel different. And they even think different just to a year
ago, I don't think this happens overnight, they just wake up and
you start feeling different it gradually it happens. And then of
course, there's a difference between what happens to boys and
girls. So in a girl nearing adolescence, she might even gain a
bit of weight for growth spurts. And sometimes it can even grow a
few inches, a few centimeters in a few months, there, certain parts
of the body will become larger, to then resemble more like an older
you know, and an older woman, she'll start getting hair under
her arms and around the private areas, a boy goes through similar
boy will go through similar growth spurt, and boys might start eating
more. At that point, they need more calories or something to
assist, their shoulders may begin to widen, they will start getting
hair under their arms and around their parts and maybe even longer
sideburns, and maybe then eventually on the face and chest,
the with the with the boys, the the sound of sound of the voice
will get deeper, more like a man's voice. And
buying shoes at this point gets very difficult because they keep
growing out of them every few months. Right? Unless you've got a
lot of handouts from before then they can just carry on. Right?
This from a spiritual perspective, this is the time to emphasize
salaat and religious more, there was always encouraged. But now,
soon, it's going to be time when he's going to become binding on
them, when they become valid, and mature is going to become binding
on them. Okay, few of the more emotional aspects here, which is
very important for us to understand is that children around
this age now start becoming more sensitive to criticism. I mean,
some children already very sensitive, but they start feeling
angry easily, they could get moody and emotional, quite a bit. Right.
And if anybody can remember this, they start some, some children
start to interact with their friends a bit more. And then the
problem with that sometimes is that they're going to start
learning a lot more values and ethical or non ethical standards.
So there's going to be a lot of that confusion. That's why parents
should actually be very careful of super, be very careful and
supervise their visits to the if there is any such thing. Some
families have made it a very clear ruling, we you don't go to anybody
else's house, we don't mind if your friends come over here. But
you can't go to any. And I think that's a really good policy unless
you really know this family. Otherwise, be very careful of any
new families, we'll send him to, you know, with no, we're not
judging the family, but you just want to be careful. In fact, one
of the things they say that when some of the earliest sexual
encounters that teenagers have, their first one is usually in
sleepovers. And that could be with cousins. So one has to be very,
very careful have to be constantly on the lookout, you'll have your
1213 year old and maybe until now you've got cousins who are male
and female, and they've been sitting together playing and you
know, all the rest of it. Now that they're barely 1314 15 years old,
they can't be sitting next to even a nine or 10 year old, you know,
you need to tell Look, that's inappropriate. Now, that's
inappropriate, we just don't do that. We don't we're not
sexualizing them, we're just telling them what's appropriate,
what's inappropriate, okay, at this at this time, as well, now,
children may feel shy, in some cases, because they're developing
a more kind of self consciousness. So they, they shouldn't be
suppressed at this point, they should be encouraging to say what
they're feeling. It's better to know what your child is feeling
than to not know what they're feeling. And they just divulging
it to somebody else that they trust. Because we haven't created
that trust. One of the most difficult children to bring up are
close to children who don't show you anything. Or they just show
you a sulky mood, but never speak, and you can't even get them to
speak, because you just don't know what's going on. So it's good to
encourage people to speak and to not judge them straightaway and to
take measures in a more measured way. body muscles will obviously
start growing stronger at this point as well. And they will
become hopefully they become inclined to some kind of sports,
which is good to let them get vent the vent themselves and express
their energy and release some of the pent up energy that they have.
Because remember, at this age now in many traditions in history,
people started getting married and children, they would go and work
in the fields or whatever, they come back home. There's nothing
else left to do. So let's produce some children. You know, that was
standard. Again, there's not an encouragement here but somewhere
that energy needs to go somewhere. They start depending more on
themselves. They focused on the eating
In clothing, personal hygiene, right. So that's something we need
to teach about what personal hygiene is, they need to have the
right guidance, because in Islam, we have proper etiquette of
personal hygiene. So it's time to teach them the etiquette, which we
should have already taught them. If not, then at least at this
time, we should have already taught them the etiquettes of
eating, drinking and socializing, at least socializing. Now you can,
although we've been teaching these them like how to make salam how to
welcome somebody, these things. We should also, if we haven't taught
them already, we should start teaching them to us. In fact, we
teach them in mucked up. So that's, that's really good for the
various different aspects. Right. Now, in the beginning, children
will prefer the company of their own gender. But then as they start
getting more towards the later teens or the higher teens, then
they're going to be obviously focused on the other gender. So
that's where guidance
is very, very important. They Yeah, we should be very careful
not to expose them to any kind of erotic imagery in any way,
whatever that is, including, well, we don't have them anymore, we
have internet, which is worse, the worst thing you could have in your
house in those days were these big catalogs. With all of this laundry
being sold in then you know, everybody would be that would that
would be where they get the little thing from the now you don't get
those catalogs anymore, I've hardly seen one in years, it is
all online now. But this is worse, because you can get worse stuff
online so easily. So you definitely need a parent to block
at home on your internet. Some in broadband providers have it on
default, and you have to actually switch it off, while others, it
doesn't come with one. And you have to actually so parents need
to be savvy about these things, because they could just stumble on
this stuff. To be very careful.
After 10 years of age, they shouldn't be sleeping in the same
bed.
Definitely not boys and girls in the same bed, they might be able
to see still be in the same room for a while, but definitely not in
the same bed. When it comes to girls now in particular 11 to 13
year old, right, there's something a massive thing that changes. And
I think the way we approach this, because a lot of people don't know
how to approach this sometimes of how to even discuss this is they
may, they will actually start to menstruate, usually between
between the ages of 11 and 13.
A few days three to seven or something days each month, a
smaller amount of blood is released from the private parts.
And you just tell them that, that this isn't some kind of illness as
a lot of people like to call it she's been murdered. That's why
she's not doing the maths, that's not the mighty In fact, if you
don't get it, you'll be more, right.
It's absolutely natural, it's essential actually, to have that.
And you just don't know what this is, this is a sign that the girl
is becoming physically ready to have to because this is all womb,
this is all relates to the womb. It does. It's not supposed to
hurt, okay, there may be some cramps and pains and so on
eventually, but humans are created this way. And all this blood is is
the thin inner lining of the uterus. Because the two ovaries
will start to ripen one egg each month and a blood rich lining
forms in the uterus, a kind of nest where the child will where
the fetus will eventually grow. Right? Obviously, the egg can't do
anything right now without the male sperm. But
eventually lining becomes old. So the uterus disposal of it every
month. It's just a healthy system of regeneration. And I think if
that can be explained, that just makes life easy, okay, it's just
the natural physical thing. It's not some kind of be Mary. It's not
some kind of taboo, or whatever it is. I mean, there are some
religions that call it some or some ideas, ideologies that call
it some strange thing. So it made women feel strange, but that's not
right. The first time this will happen to a girl, it's going to be
a very important event in her life. She has reached puberty now.
That means that she is now officially formally religiously a
young woman, right? I know, in this country have to wait until
you're 18 to become that.
And even then, they're still not there. Right? It's just because of
our social construct and social situation. But that's what it is.
What we have to teach our children from a young from a young age and
then especially at that age is that from this moment on, you're
responsible for all your religious obligations.
Just like any adult Muslim woman, there's no difference between your
fasting praying cover your covering yourself fully.
Etiquette between genders and so on. And some women will feel some
cramps or tired or irritable during this time that there's a
hormonal change that takes place at this time. And if you just tell
them that this is what could happen, then they'll be able to
understand why they're feeling grumpy one day or irritable one
day
Right. So this is all part of therapy, who else is going to
teach them this, the school * education,
they're going to fill in a lot of other stuff in it as well. So
that's why we have to give them this basic information is very,
very important.
Allah has obviously excused women from fasting during this time. In
fact, they're not allowed to fast and not allowed to pray either.
They don't have to do color of the prayers, but they do have to make
up the fasting, which will just be, you know, 3456789 days, for
the rest of the year, they can do that.
They also can't enter the masjid proper during this time they can
if there's a program taking place in a side hall of the masjid side
room, then they're allowed to go there. Is this actually Masjid?
No. So for example, if they were here, they could have been here.
So it's only shut a masjid, which is religiously considered the
prayer area.
Women need to be taught how to then look after themselves during
this time how to deal with the you know, with the with the various
different pads and things that they have all of that needs to be
taught to them, rather than they get caught one day without it and
they don't know what to do, and then you tell them. So I think it
should be preempted. We have to also say that when you complete
that the basic muscle of menstruation should be taught that
you need to take about a bath afterwards, and so on so forth.
Now, going to the men's side 13 to 15 year old, right, this is when
they will become men in the sense that their body can now produce
sperm, which is very, very important. It's not a bad word,
right. So sometimes usually will happen when they're dreaming at
night, their reproductive organ will become stiff, they may see a
dream, and then some sperm is released. This is called a
nocturnal emission. And
that's impure, we consider that impure as everybody knows, again,
I'm saying that these are just I'm just saying it in this casual way.
So that we can say the same thing to our children, because otherwise
somebody's going to have to teach them right.
This liquid is in the hands of your mother, it's impure, but
Shafi is considered pure. So if you have someone to clothing, they
would not consider impure. Whereas Hanafi is do, we can say the same
as urine in that sense that it's impure. So you can't pray with
that on your clothing. So you'll have to have a bath, wash
yourself, and so on each time you do have that you do have to have a
proper hustle. So we need to teach them proper hustle, if they've not
already studied that, in our marketers, they usually teach that
kind of thing. So that's fine. It just means now that you're you've
moved from being a boy to a man, you may still be playing the
PlayStation, but you're a man No, you can make them the man of the
house, I think we need we need to stop waiting until 18 to be a man.
Because I think if we teach them that responsibility from a young
age, then hopefully,
they'll start acting like men earlier, they'll have the courage
and
the honor the chivalry to deal with them. You physically can be a
father, you don't want to be encouraging that from now. But you
know, that's the purpose of it.
Again, from this point on, you become responsible for all of your
religious activities, you're solid, you will be accountable for
them now, so now don't miss any. And if you do miss some start
making them up. These are, I mean, very simple things I haven't said
anything new, very simple things. But if we don't discuss this, then
they will either find it out in a haphazard fashion, or they'll find
out later, or they will find out in with some wrong information. So
that's what makes it a bit more complicated.
So you're responsible for your religious obligations. Now, some
children may not experience the what they call the nocturnal
emissions, the dream at night. So if they do reach the age of 14
years, and approximately seven months, then that means you've
become religiously, religiously
accountable now. So if it happens before that with the nocturnal
emission collars, that's what it is. Body hair doesn't make a
difference. In this case, it is a sign, but it's it's a side sign,
but it's not the main sign of it.
This is the time when we need to be very careful about our
children. Because with the hyper sexualized world we live in,
there's
discussions of for example, * is just everywhere.
At school, they'll probably be other students who have
experienced it
might encourage it. It might even be taught in sexual education
lessons, there's nothing wrong. Just fine just start using you
know your facilities. That's what they say. So this has to be talked
about that this is haram in our faith. It is a waste it is not
should not be done like that. And you wait
For, to get married to release your so try not to look at
anything, don't look at anything and don't touch your private parts
in a way to stimulate them. Right. So you have to tell them that
look, some people do do that they feel good about it, but it's a
haram feeling of good. So somebody's going to have to teach
them that. Otherwise, a classmate is going to tell them in the wrong
sense. So either the mother or the father or the Maulana, somebody's
going to have to teach them that we can't blame them for not
teaching them because our responsibilities parents, we
organize around hamdulillah that's why I think they should be teenage
classes. Every year, they should be teenaged classes for all
12 to 16 year olds or 17 year olds.
We go through this in a you know, in a in a very clear way, in a
very clear way, in a non sexualized, clear way. Very
important, because they know then what's going on Alhamdulillah we
do have a few little books and things that are being prepared on
this on this subject.
If somebody does anyway do the * then they have to do
a hosel. So we know that now if we move on to 14 to 21, they've
become valid now both the girls and boys they become valid now
they mature. Now obviously the they'll start asserting themselves
more than this is a very critical time because a lot of mcnabb's
because they've probably if they've done well they've
completed the Quran at the age of 1112. MashAllah Quran Palooka de
la que as they say, now you're fighting, you've done barage you
know, the more than Buhari just, you're done, we don't have space
for you. In fact, I would say that it is
profoundly more important to teach the children between the ages of
12 and 16. This is the time and it has to be a total different way of
teaching, more discursive, more more consultative, more discussion
based, because this is really when they're making their mind, we've
given them a firm basis, inshallah through a good mock them before
that. But now, it needs to be a much more easygoing, open minded
kind of discussion. So that they can come and vent what they're
hearing, listening, observing outside, and actually setting up
their scene. And it's a massive deprivation, if you don't do that,
at this age, this is the most important age is always important.
But this becomes really critically important at this age. So the
muscles will start growing, you might see that your children, you
know that age, they might want to start going gym, and they start
looking at their muscles, and they think they're very strong now. And
whichever, you know, they Hamdulillah, you know, and the
girls will start becoming more feminine, they might start copying
and become more self conscious of other's hair will the more growth
of hair on the face, and so on as well for the boys, and so on. And
there'll be different inconsistencies in growth spurt,
sometimes someone only could grow very quickly in a few months, and
then they slow again, and so on.
Now, what we have to tell them is that there's going to be a lot of
adjustments now in these next four or five years, there's going to be
a lot of adjustments, just take it easy, and it's just fine tuning of
Allah is just fine tuning your body to eventually get it to where
it's going to be. And then by the ultimate age, then it's going to
stop there. So
I think if they just understand that it'll be easier.
The biggest problem at this phase aside from this physical
biological issue, the biggest issue at this age, is making
decisions. The emotional aspect is the critical problem here now,
because their emotions are all over the place, they just wreck
they just,
they've just realized that they've got mashallah a lot of
capabilities. Now, you know, they can stand there, and they can
start thinking for themselves. So there's going to be a lot of back
and forth with the parents, they may not want to listen to us as
parents anymore.
So they want to start following the emotions rather than the
rationality, the rational faculty hasn't still fully grown. But the
emotional faculties, they already
the hearts have conquered their mind. So they whatever comes into
their heart they're going to want to do
and their feelings and emotion will dominate their reason.
So at this point, they become very self conscious.
And they start worrying more about how they look
about themselves.
You will have to take a look, you might need braces, some is at this
age, they you start seeing them all with braces, they get acne and
spots and stuff on their face. Because again, it's just various
different internal changes that are happening. So it's just a
tournament, there's just naturally it'll go away eventually.
Some might start getting worried that they're too tall or too
short. not tall enough yet, not too short. Yeah, what's going on,
or too fat or too thin. This age, you know, it could be anything at
this age, it's eventually going to come to it
supposed to be. So all of this can make them kind of nervous and
unsure about themselves.
Some might even start worrying about their future career like,
where am I going with all of this? What kind of education I should
follow, or I don't want to do anything. I just want to enjoy
myself. Right? That's another career, right?
Some might even be worried about who's going to marry them. Allahu
Allah Muna. And I think that's maybe a minority. So all of this
can make them actually quite irritable and anxious. So parents
have to be there to get it don't worry about these things at all,
it's just a few years, you refine, don't worry, we have to give them
a lot of reassured reassurance.
One of the things that we have to understand is that we have to just
make an effort in the first two.
First one or two, especially we got more kids after that, and they
will do half the job.
For the for the rest of them. Especially we've got a gap in
between. It's a lot that has made a wonderful system, but our job
becomes it does become easier, eventually, for the later
children. And we have a lot more experience as well. The problem is
that we don't want to learn through experience where we've
messed up our first child or second child, and then we're fine
with the other two. That's why these classes are important. So
that we don't basically make a big mistake and then realize it too
late.
So hormones are now developing and maturing. So this is why
as the body is growing, the hormones are coming in. So there's
going to be mood changes. Boys may feel restless or angry for no
apparent reason
was fine, like five months ago, but now it's starting getting you
get these complaints started acting very irritable.
Restless, girls may start crying more sulking over small things,
shutting themselves in their room, becoming irritated, irritable, at
the slightest thing becoming sensitive.
Some of them want to start being treated as adults.
Why not being treating adults,
but then they want to act like children. So we're gonna get the
best of both worlds.
Now, these feelings are going to be confused because they don't
know is the first time experiencing this. So they don't
know. We have to just tell them, Look, don't worry, this is normal.
This is the way you're going to be don't worry about it, you know, if
they notice, like, Okay, hopefully that will benefit them.
As long as it doesn't become uncontrollable, these these things
should not become uncontrollable, that means there's something else
which is a problem, a bit of irritability, a bit of confusion
is fine, that's normal, that could be fine. But if it becomes
uncontrollable, then there must be some other issue. Because Healthy
People learn to control their feelings, and emotions and think
twice before speaking and acting on them. The one good thing is
that at this age, though, the child's because the mind and
intellect is developed, you're going to have somebody who can
give you matura who can consult who can assist now on a Mandy
level, you know, or a female or a woman the level and they can learn
now more complicated things, many skills that they can start to
adopt such as cooking,
taking care of children fixing things around the house. And I
think we need to understand that and start all of that soon because
as I said, in the Western countries, they've waited until
the age of 18 and so on are these guys who don't know how to
literally tighten the screw.
That's all you need is a bit of a Title school they wait until you
call up a builder and charge you 3040 pounds. And it just means a
tightening of a screw. They don't know they don't know. And there's
girls who won't cook anything.
Many girls nowadays their their profile is oh she loves baking.
Right? Do you know how to cook biryani? Do you know how to kick
dutch oven?
You know
you can't buy that? I don't know Is there any restaurants that sell
their child by the way? You guys may badly but what about Carrie
kitchen? Can you make an EKG in a restaurant? Which one? No Forget
catering places like you can go in and buy one portion of curry
kitschy?
I don't even barely supplies that right, but you can buy loads of
cakes.
So people should not I mean baking cakes. No, nothing wrong with
that. But what I'm saying is that don't think you know how to cook
just because you can bake a cake. This is the time when you tell
them you need to learn as many skills as possible but we need to
make that enjoyable because just like learn a skill learn this
learn that it's not going to happen. And not all children will
learn all skill all skills some are just more intellectual, some
martial law good with their tools. You know they were mine helped me
are they going to take active interest? We have to be able to
determine that. And at least every child should know how to tighten a
screw though.
Social skills become more important because people are going
to expect them to be more adult now, before they were children,
it's okay we understand he didn't make salam to me. Right. But now
they're going to. So that's why the way they speak and socialize
with others and participate in various organs, that's going to be
very important. For example, we have to teach our children that if
somebody comes to the when we're not there, how they can address
them politely, and in a welcoming way?
Not like, Who is it? What is it? He's not here? Sorry? Like, you
know, when you go to somebody's house, the kid opens the door, you
don't know what they're saying? They have no idea. And then others
are slavery come? How are your uncle? Sorry, my dad is not here.
But you know, is there something I can tell him, I can tell him for
you. They're very mature, it has to be taught.
It has to be taught. I remember, in America, there was this one
family. So the mother used to always send the young girl, you
know, she was one of our students. Rather than you'd expect, in a lot
of these cases, the mother or father to us, we'd actually ask
the children send the children to ask for permission or something
like that, to teach them that responsibility. Can't remember the
full examples now. But you would have expected that, usually, it's
parents who would ask for that same thing. But here is actually
getting the younger daughter to ask those things. So they can
stand up for themselves. Otherwise, the parents or the
children are always going to feel like they can't do anything for
themselves that they're going to have to always have somebody else,
ask for them.
So a lot of skills, they can learn at this point and learn about
taking more responsibility for themselves. They can take a part
time job if they if they want to, even if you're, you know a
millionaire, and you don't need them to work, just to learn, teach
them struggle, responsibility, and value is very, very important.
So at this stage, from an Islamic perspective, the very specific
Islamic perspective on all of these things, one has to start
lowering the gaze at the opposite *, that's very, very important.
Do some physical activity to consume and release some of your
energy? Right? Fasting on Mondays and Thursdays possibly, if
withholding
certain types of energy become complicated, especially avoiding
Hello, which means avoiding being alone with members of the or
sitting too close to them, as you used to do before. That should be
very, very important for person to think about.
And then, of course, separation of the bedrooms and things like that
as possible. In fact, I think it's in England, even the council, they
require that children over the age of 10 have to have separate
bedrooms, or they count them like, you know, when people are looking
for how many bedrooms are they entitled to then that's how they
count if it's three boys, two boys, and it's okay to be in one
room. And if it's one boy and one girl then so that that's something
that scientifically improved, you know, that they've understood as
well.
La ilaha illa Allah.
See, this is going to also be at a time when children are wondering
about themselves as human beings who they are, what they want to
be, what's their purpose. That's why the maktab is very important.
It's much more difficult to teach younger children the purpose of
life, because they're just not focused on purpose right now, they
just focused on growing up enough. So they'll memorize stuff, they
learn stuff, they'll know how to do stuff. But I think on a deeper
philosophical level, most children aren't going to understand till
they get older. That's why this is the time to do it. That's why I've
told I've
told them, I've asked a lot of people that since mucked up, have
you read any book on Islam or taken any course on Islam since
you were 19 years old? No, they haven't. So they've never studied
Islam formally.
After being mature, they've never studied Islam formally. What was
taught to them as childhood was not advanced enough. It was the
basics to get them through which Alhamdulillah I did, hopefully.
But now this is the age to do it. Right? So they lost who am I? Why
am I here? What is life all about? Why are there so many problems in
the world? Why are people being massacred in Gaza?
Why can humans be so cruel? Why can people just stand around and
not do anything but in fact, support aggressors? Why can people
do that? We have to talk to them about it. Because we don't want
them to misread this somehow and becoming aggressive to a level of,
you know, hatred in a way that is unhealthy. We have to give them
some understanding of that, and a way to show them Allah's
timetable, Allah's Mercy Allah has
whatever Allah wishes to happen,
so they will start asking
A lot of questions. And sometimes the parents don't have time for
this, and then they'll start dismissing them. And they'll
become a lot of tension between this
teenager as you become a bit more stable by the age of 16 to 19,
that's when they start stabilizing,
from this immaturity stage, a maturity stage, but 16 to 19. And
then they might get another stage of complication. But usually this
childhood immaturity and just breaking over to the maturity
side, 16 to 90, and then they become, they become more stable at
16.
I guess we just have to tell them that this road to adulthood is
a long and difficult one. And it requires a lot of patience from
everybody involved.
And you get the benefits of that later. So it's we're not doing it
for nothing. So it's at this age they, they develop the ability for
abstraction, I mean, as a way to put it for abstraction, rather
than just simple linear. They start to conceptualize and imagine
things, they can start anticipating problems and devising
solutions. Before they could only think about the immediate present,
they just wanted this now, now they can after 16, they can
actually start thinking
of the longer game slightly, they start to understand that the
importance of day and time, they can start understanding history
now that they occur in a particular manner. In a particular
phase in history, there are people who pass by before us, they might
start start wondering about their great grandfather or the great
grandmother now, right? Who are they before? If you never saw
them? Now, you might wonder, what do they look like? What did they
look like? Do you have a picture? Allah, so they kind of start
thinking about immaterial things, none many abstract abstract ideas,
beginning end of the universe, and so on, where we're going, and so
on. All of that discussion could happen.
Of course, a lot of daydreaming and fantasizing can take place at
this time as well, because remember, they're worried about
their future now. So they're fantasizing or dreaming,
daydreaming,
the they have their desires, and so on. And they're thinking about
all of this.
One of the characteristics of mental thoughts
shouldn't be overdone, though, they might not fully understand
Heaven and *. And our whole idea of the afterlife, let's say
becomes important to discuss this, they'll start being more critical.
Now.
They stopped being a bit more critical. Even with their parents,
they might criticize the parents for their clothing, food tastes.
And the way they raise their children will have start having
ideas of their own. Right.
They start comparing themselves to other children at school and what
the other children have told them about how their parents are with
them. And children can make up a lot of stuff. So your friend at
school can tell you that his mom buys him everything. You don't see
any sign of it. But and you just feel so bad because your mum and
dad doesn't buy you anything rightly so sorry, doesn't buy you
everything rightly so, he man I wish she was my mum and dad.
So you have to tell him that look, not everybody is what they say it
is. And even if there is this in, it's not healthy.
You have to make them feel very content with your own style, as
long as your style is good.
Because if our style isn't good, and make them feel, then they're
going to do the same when they grow up. And that's not good.
There's someone like there's one person who has a bit of OCD issue
right now. And he reckons that he might have got it because his
father was just
too particular on every small issue of cleanliness and things
like that. So now he's dealing with, you know, he's been through
bouts of obsession.
Obsessive Compulsive Disorder on whether my will do is broken or
not, or stuff like that. So one has to be careful. Yes, we
cleanliness is important. But if you're going to smack your kid
every time drops a bit of water or something like that. It's that one
of my kids down the other day, and I said, Look, you know, and you
take the cereal out of the box and and then you pour the milk in.
What happens is that the packet, because I know he's making me,
he's always dropping some cereal in there. So look, I think I
understand because the packet is a bit flimsy. So instead, what you
have to do is, you know, it's happened before five times or 10
times. So now the next time you do it, you try to think how can I do
this without it spilling rather than Don't spill your cereal?
Like I'm trying to give him an idea of how to mechanically
improve and then you know the milk, you have to be careful
because if it's especially a full drop of milk,
full, you know, container of milk, it just pulls out too, too, too
strongly first. So what you do is you bring it closer to the ball,
raise the ball if you
have to stop pouring from somebody who if you pour it onto the
conflicts, it's going to spill because it rebounds. So give them
some
physics. Right? So then they understand rather than why you
spilling it again for that's I don't know what else to do I just
pour it in the spills. What do I do about it?
So sometimes adding a bit of physics to it explanation of it
can work, because you're telling them what to do.
Teenagers at this point become idealists. Do you know what an
idealist is? Ideal is it wants something in a very everything in
a very particular way, their own idea? Law? If it's the wrong idea,
then we're in big trouble because they think that is right. That is
the idealism.
And obviously, their idealism is obviously skewed because they
haven't had experience of the rest of life. So you have to find a way
to tell them that look, this isn't the way it is it you'll
understand, like one or two years, this is what's gonna happen. And
there's other ways of looking at this. Look at that experience.
Look at that experience.
For example, why can't I play every day?
On the computer, or the games? What's wrong with it? Because
children don't see anything wrong with playing games, they don't see
anything wrong. So what we've tried to do sometimes is because
we're suspicious, were suspect in us telling them that you can't
play. You just don't want us to play. That's it. That's the end.
You don't want us to play you hate me playing. Like, why do I hate
you play?
They don't think about that. You just don't want us to play you
want to make life miserable. So what you do is get a
a analysis from a third person to show the harms of this neutral
person neutral, meaning some personal users not relating,
listen to this, listen to this analysis. So it's not coming from
the parents, that to help them
straighten their idealism.
You know, we've jumped into teenager hood, there's these this
is this is the critical point, this is the most critical point,
the most rockiest point on your journey, then after that gets
easier, there's still going to be things to contend with. But this
is the most difficult thing. Okay.
This is where some of them might even reject authority of their
parents and societies and so on. I think if we've taught them respect
for elders, in Islam, we have this beautiful aspect of respect for
elders, respect for religious people respect for your teacher,
that helps hugely, if we didn't have those etiquettes built in,
then can you imagine that be no grounding. So respect for elders
respect for elders is very, very important to teach them that from
a young age, remember, we jumped into this stage, but a lot of this
would become easier.
If we've done our job, well, from a young age, I just didn't want to
waste time with that, because we only got two hours right? To go
through that. I've done a number of lectures on that age. This is
the first time I'm doing this younger, teenage. I don't have any
lectures on this particular age, it's the first time I'm doing it.
But remember, you can make life easier if you're on the same
wavelength from a younger age. And they've been taught all of these
articles. And a lot of this would be easier.
I just signed posted a lot of these ideas, and I'm just sharing
ways of just simply talking about it. Right? If I can talk about it
here, you can talk about it with your children.
Some parents are going to ask that if I've never spoken about any of
this before, how do I start speaking, it's kind of like
embarrassing, or how do I? So I think
you just have to use some strategy, find an excuse to speak
about it. Talk about it from another person's perspective, not
about them. Like, oh, look at that, look, wait, if there's
somebody else's kid who's not white, and you give that analysis,
so you're telling them, but you're telling them not about themselves,
directly, it's about somebody else, but they should understand
were the same people, you know, were the same age or going into
the age. That helps a lot. The problem with allowing the children
to develop their idealism, if it's not correct, is that the world is
not going to come out that way. Because it's not, it's too
idealistic and not realistic. So what's going to happen is they're
going to become completely helpless and hopeless, because
they're going to feel that I can't follow my ambitions, or they're
going to learn from me maybe, but we don't want them to lose
confidence. So we help them to manage that. Very important to
have a lot of parents or guidance and hand holding at this point,
because as a teenagers will want to do them things for themselves.
And then they will make mistakes in that and then they're gonna get
burnt, they're gonna get despondent, or it might teach
them, but we don't want to leave it because we're trying to help
them with that the Prophet salallahu Salam, there's
We have traditions that talk about a Shabbat, Shabbat to middle
Junoon. The youth fullness youth age, age of youthful, of youth is
a stage of insanity. It is not insanity. Of course not. But it's
a stage of it. What does that mean is when you're insane, you can't
see right from wrong.
If somebody is crazy, they don't know what they're doing. So he
says it's a stage, it's just one stage of the stage of insanity to
show that you're not thinking properly. And the studies show
that the studies actually show that our
cautious mind only develops actually around 2728. So around
2122, while we've come out of all of the other adolescents and all
of that, we're still not averse to risk taking we, we can take a lot
more risk, that's why insurance will be much higher at this age as
well, they know that,
right? So only when you're 2627. Now you will actually look at
things that the brain has fully developed in that sense at least.
So they need to also see achievements. Because when you
have an achievement, then humans are usually goal oriented. If they
get achievements, and they have success in certain things, then it
lets them go for the next milestone, the next ambition, the
next goal. So what could help is well defined responsibilities,
that they can actually have been told exactly how to do it, they
can fulfill them, they get a sense of routine. And they get a sense
of achievement, that's very, very important.
If you are going to give them responsibility, you have to make
sure that you see them through it. If a mother or a father gives them
a responsibility, and then they don't do it. So you shout at them
a bit, and then they still don't do it. And then you just do it
yourself. And you do that all the time. They know what they don't
want, they know what the score is, I just have to listen a few times,
and the job will get done, my mom will do it. That's not very
helpful.
That's not very helpful. I can't bother shouting at them. So you
don't have to shout at them just use another strategy, maybe
a lot of the time, this actually works in tandem. Right? Both
parents can or can't both be extremely strict.
One has to be slightly less than than the other one, they both but
you don't want to play good cop bad cop. That is the wrong thing
to do. Because the child will understand they'll use the bad cop
and the right cop, they People are selfish, they know exactly what to
use. Both parents have to be on the same wavelength. But obviously
one can be softer, because then you need to, then the softer one
is dealing with them usually, but then when you need to bring in the
harder one when you bring them in. If the harder ones always involved
in is nobody harder than that they will get used to that. You
understand. So sometimes usually the mother has a softer one, the
father is the harder one, right? So the mother might complain, you
never you never get involved. Well look, if I get involved every
time, then there's they'll get used to that stage. And then
there's no stage behind that. They don't have to bring in Melissa,
which is the wrong thing to do. Right to scare your children with
Mallanna. Because I think that's the very wrong thing to do. That's
why they don't open up to the molars mashallah teens have the
ability to memorize, and do a lot of those good things for
themselves. So I you know, one thing after saying all of this,
I'm going in detail, but I think the best thing you can do for your
teenagers, you know what that is, is to keep them busy.
That is the best thing you can do make them work hard for their
entire teenage years. And believe me, it's gonna be tough. But if
you've made them work hard, where you've given them, their own
desire to do these things. So if you've got somebody who's going to
school in the morning, in the in the daytime, doing some part time,
or limb course, or something like that, or some other training is
not alone, because in the evening, and even in the weekend, they
they've got some responsibility.
I'm not saying 24/7 But you know, enough responsibility, then
there's no idle mind. As long as they're getting achievements at
the end of it could be a part time job, if you've got a family
business, get them into that if it's enjoyable, right? That is
going to be tough those years, but they'll come out knowing how to
deal with things. And their teenage years have been protected.
It's very variable. It's not always easy. But if you can keep
them busy, you'd rather keep them busy than doing nothing. They've
got enough time to relax afterwards. They've got enough
time to relax afterwards. You can't get children to memorize
stuff at this age. Now if you I mean you can but it's easier to
get them to memorize things from a younger age. All of our children
who have memorized Quran quickly and easily they can memorize a lot
of other stuff. But I mean Hamdulillah we have a tradition of
hymns but we need to increase that
especially the Alma and so on. The only one
A compassionate complaint I have against my teachers is that they
didn't make me memorize enough.
It's a compassionate complaint I think they did wonderfully Allah
bless them reward them abundantly. But I wish they just done that.
So that's why it's important. If you've got a kid who's done half
is then let him do it. He's got a mind to use it, incentivize it.
incentivize it. So every time they learn something new like they
learned Hizbollah them I know one kid has memorized the whole Hizbul
album, all, you know, 150 60 pages of those words, he probably never
needs to learn another door in his life, you can sit here and do a
half an hour dwell for you no problem. Right, which most of us
can't do. Right? Then after that qasida Buddha. Now he's learning
the Jezza year, which is a poem on Cara, there's lots of stuff they
can memorize. So just on this topic, if you've got any question
answers, after the next session will be totally different to be
more general guidances on things, this was just kind of stage by
stage to understand the stage and what's going to happen during this
stage. So the topic was just about teenagers. That's why I'm not
talking about anything else. Right, I like to stick to my
topic. So yeah, any questions on this sofa?
You just have to. So if she thinks that you're getting paid, every
time you criticize on every small thing, then what we need to do is
just change our strategy.
So I think eventually, what we'll understand is that there'll be
certain pattern behavior, certain things that she or he does, right?
So then try to preempt those things in the future and talk
about them. Not at the time they're doing them, but later on,
kind of explain it from a different perspective. Like I
said, I can keep telling the kid like, don't drop any cereal, don't
drop the milk, why do you do all the time. And then I thought, You
know what, let me just give him the mechanics of it. So sometimes
try to come from a different angle, sometimes get somebody else
to talk about it. I'm just giving ideas. Number three, talk about
somebody else. Without
doing in such a blatant way that she knows you're talking about her
talk about somebody a genuine case, in a third person scenario,
and just make lots and lots of dua.
So, or have somebody else speak to them?
You know, what's interesting, is that they've done a lot of studies
on child rearing. I think the ultimate conclusion is that there
is no perfect way scientifically sound it means there is no
reproducible way
that you can child read, and it comes out 100%. Like, there isn't,
that's what the ultimately all the research culminates in.
In our, in our religion in Islam, we also don't have a one way fits
all, either there's just broad and specific commands
for different ages, like give them a good name, Do this, do that
separate them in their bed, you know, there are general ideas and
then o'clock that all the teachers in o'clock bear down on this as
well. So
I know at least one or two sets of twins brought up in the same house
born around the same time, just a few minutes apart, maybe
same food, same parents, etc. Love the same way, but they're very
different personalities, Allah creates everybody individually
unique. So what works with each one, even to even twins, is going
to be not the same. So there is no but there are just broad general
ideas that we can use and keep adjusting and a lot of DUA and get
to Inshallah, to success. But the secret is to get started earlier,
the point of a lecture is to encourage people to act to get
further an inspiration, and encouragement, persuasion. The
next step is to actually start learning seriously, to read books
to take on a subject of Islam and to understand all the subjects of
Islam at least at the basic level, so that we can become more aware
of what our deen wants from us. And that's why we started Rayyan
courses so that you can actually take organize lectures on demand
whenever you have free time, especially for example, the
Islamic essentials course that we have on the Islamic essentials
certificate, which you take 20 Short modules, and at the end of
that inshallah you will have gotten the basics of most of the
most important topics in Islam and you'll feel a lot more confident.
You don't have to leave lectures behind you can continue to live,
you know, to listen to lectures, but you need to have this more
sustained study as well as local law here and Salam aleikum wa
rahmatullah wa barakato.