Altaf Husain – Navigating Adolescence Recap

The growth and the development,

the growth and the development of teenage of

young children and adolescents,

ultimately cannot be on autopilot.

And this is one of the critiques that

I have in studying this population,

is that I think for too long we

have maintained a,

sort of an autopilot

kind of an approach.

That indeed children are being raised in a

Muslim household,

so they must, you know, inshallah they'll turn

out okay, you know, we live by the

masjid, we take them to the masjid, so

they're being, you know, touched by Islam, and

somehow they'll just be fine.

Also, a rude awakening clearly has occurred,

whereby

just the sheer amount of information being given

to children

at very, very young ages,

sometimes without the

presence of parents and guardians who are Muslims,

which And by that I mean whether in

nursery schools, in,

in nursery programs,

in preschools, and wherever, whereby we are not

there to help our children even internalize or

listen to and make sense of what is

being presented to them. And it is just

by chance

that,

sub alhamdulillah,

many of them are coming out well, but

there are clearly issues arising from the fact

that we don't have necessarily

a grasp on this

age group. There are cultural and social forces

also

that are really bent on ensuring

that there's a particular

angle, if you will, a particular,

healthy, quote unquote healthy

developmental,

project that is being, you know, presented,

that if you don't subscribe to it, if

you don't subscribe to that project, if you

will, that somehow you are the one out

of line, and you are the one out

of, a sequence sync.

Connections matter.

Attachment parenting,

one of the styles,

talks about connections.

And this idea, and the Prophet peace be

upon him, subhanAllah,

when you look at the little things that

we think are little that he did with

children,

He was known.

He was known

to hold,

and to embrace, and to hug, and to

kiss his grandchildren

all

the time. All the time.

Ali radhiyallahu ta'ala Anhu and Fatima radhiyallahu ta'ala

Anhu obviously inherited these behaviors and watched them,

and they displayed similar.

Why is that critical?

Touch

for the young children, at an early age,

from loving guardians and parents, is something that

starts to develop a level of trust.

A level of trust that all is well.

Even to the orphan

who may not have guardians,

and he was an orphan, as you recall,

who never saw his father, his mother passed

away by the tender age of 6. Even

to the orphan to show the love, he

said,

he said, for the one and this is

a cultural thing where you comb the or

you brush your,

hand through the hair of a child,

basically kind of going like this as a

gesture of love.

Gesture of love. I'm I'm married, masha'a, with

4 kids, if I visit my mother, it

still happens, so don't think it's all that

strange.

He said to the one who does that

to a child and who is an orphan,

by by putting your hand through their hair,

sort of showing a gesture of love, for

every single

strand of hair that your hand touches, Allah

subhanahu wa ta'ala will reward you.

To show you how much,

you know, healthy,

embracing,

and kissing, and holding of our children was

critical. So connection

in the lives of these children who were

at risk, at birth, and then through 40

years emerged as the one of the most

significant factors. Believe it or not,

spiritual

sort of connecting with some higher deity, if

you will,

and some level of connection to faith emerged

as the second

strongest predictor

of,

a positive development.

And so here's a culture saying, run away

from religion.

In fact, abandon God. And remember in the

eighties, you know, is God alive and all

kinds of, you know, these, headlines that were

there. When we're saying, in fact, do the

exact opposite.

In fact, not only introduce the children at

an early age to who is their lord

and who is the prophet and what is

the Quran, and on and on and on,

then create in them

positive associations

with the religion in early life. And the

recent Harvard study talked about this, that people

who go on to have very positive development

developmental

outcomes, they have had a very positive relationship

with religion, and ultimately for us, that would

be God.

In what environment are we talking about this?

So, in other studies,

it has,

recent data has shown

that 1 out of 5 children

will likely suffer

a major depressive episode

before even leaving high school.

Brain development

is among the major concerns

of developmental

psychologists, social workers, and others who are focused

on adolescents

because this is the time

when the brain is most undergoing undergoing the

most change, which is this idea of early

teens and teens and so forth.

In fact, a not a disclaimer, a, a

preface to this is that whatever we did

know about when adolescence starts

is literally being have having to be thrown

out the window

because of how much

hormones, steroids

and other chemicals have been introduced into our

foods

that have triggered,

triggered

the early onset of puberty

in children

that was never seen before prior to this

last decade and and 2 decades. So whatever

we thought would happen at 7, 8, 9,

10, or 11, 12, 13, and on and

on, whether it was Piaget or Ericsson or

any of the other psych, developmental,

psychologists,

some of that is being having to be

reconsidered

in light of the fact

that these changes are occurring so fast, but

it's also altering

the thinking of young children in terms of

that hormonal development, but also societal forces for

the chemicals and the

steroids and stuff are affecting who they are,

how they are developing physically, and then psychologically,

they have the impact of culture and society

on them. So what are the things they

go through? Among the things that adolescents have

a hard time with is perspective taking.

They are often one-sided in their thinking. Not

every adolescent.

It's just the case. It's just how they

grow out of it, most of them, and

then ultimately if they don't grow out of

it, they end up becoming dictators who head

up countries who only have one perspective.

So we wanna pray for people who grow

healthily out of this, inshallah.

The reality

is that while the brain is under development,

there are societal,

cultural forces

literally attacking and hitting hard

at that vulnerable age group.

Magazines,

websites,

blogs,

all kinds of, you know, marketing forces that

are there. 1 of the students in my

class did a study about how young girls,

for example, with any who develop

ultimately

eating disorders or, or con overly, you know,

concerned with their physical shape, partially it comes

from an industry

that is destined

to create in them at least schizophrenia,

if not complete loss of self esteem if

they don't fit a certain shape or size

or look as is being prescribed by those

marketing forces.

So while that brain is under development,

who is there for them?

Who is there for them? So I'm raising

more questions

than potentially giving answers in a setting like

this, but this is what we need to

have. This is what needs to be done.

We need to be talking about these questions

and and looking at this. They're also more

prone

to emotional outbursts

because of, again, that development they're going through.

They're also more prone to misread,

misread emotional cues.

Which is why, by the way, and I

and I said, I have a 17 year

old, I have a 13 year old, and

I'm sure I was a teenager, others are

teens now and raising

teens. Right? Sometimes it's a strange reaction between

parents when we say something to them and

how they ultimately react to us. And they

read anger when there is no anger present

because they misread those truth, they misread it

as controlling.

So if we're gonna be having a compassionate

environment,

in which they're able to explore who they

are, and some of these questions about gender

and other things. Have we done the homework

from the very beginning to introduce them to

a very healthy concept of gender,

and a healthy concept within Islam, of both

genders, not just the male, but also the

female, and to do it equally and, and

equitably.

If young children

are in a society where everything is always

open to questioning

and seemingly done in a vacuum where no

guidance is provided,

they will have, they will develop a lot

of trauma.

Alhamdulillah, we are not a people who are

left without guidance.

So how do we use that guidance, and

what can we do? Number 1.

It is urgent.

It is a matter of urgency for us

to develop curricula or curriculum

that can be shared with parents

so that this conversation

about gender, and socialization,

and roles,

healthy gender roles,

understanding and appreciation of those begins at the

earliest of ages.

In our home, for example, as I mentioned,

with 3 girls and 1 boy, it is

not at all,

another day goes

by that I don't have to watch my

language when I speak to the children and

not just say, hey boys or hey guys.

And if I forget

if I forget, my 8 year old

will fold her hands and then I'm almost

in timeout. Right? Because she gets it. She

gets it. If we're doing activities, I have

to be careful about what I'm promoting

as being the in thing to do and

making sure that she and they are both

being raised in a way that is healthy,

but also indeed enjoyable for them. At home,

and I've mentioned this before, and I don't

say this just lightly,

I'm, because of different, you know, obligations with

the community and other things, what can I

do at home to help the family? I

do the laundry, I do the ironing.

Typically, that is not known to be gender

roles in terms of males.

So when my daughter sees me doing that,

and my sons see me doing that, I've

already contributed to a healthy understanding

of not my

thinking or my views, but how the prophet,

peace be upon him, conducted himself in the

life of his family. You follow what I'm

saying?