Mohammad Shoaib’s Guide to Father-Child Bonding in Islam

Bismillah Alhamdulillah wa salatu salam ala Rasulillah.

The brothers and sisters, a Salam alaykum Warahmatullahi Wabarakatuh. And welcome to this raising believers special session.

And as you can see, I've got with me for the show I Hamid. And without further ado, let's begin. So Brother shave.

I would love it if you could introduce yourself. And tell us a little bit about the sort of work you've been involved with with Dad hood, the podcast and you're coaching work. And then we'd love to hear your thoughts about fatherhood. And some of the ideas that you'd like to share with us today.

Allah sorry, come on, I haven't Allah here. First of all, is that gonna have to start a fatwa for inviting me on to, to speak to your fellow students, and had a we've run this session before in a previous cohort, and it was very enjoyable handler. So I'm glad that I'm able to come back and give some more value in sha Allah to some of some of the people in this cohort, myself, you know, funnily enough, your team who reached out to me they were kind of putting together a bit of an introduction for myself, and they did a way better job of introducing myself than I could have done introducing myself. So that was, you know, I need to save that one. Because it was it was written very nicely,

Mashallah.

But if I had to kind of tell people a little bit about myself, I am a father of two children, Hamdulillah. They're quite young at the moment. A few years ago, back in 2020, I started off the dad hood podcast, and that was, you know, in order to sort of engage fathers in conversations around being a Muslim father.

And then, you know, since then Hamdulillah, it's grown. And I've had a lot of fathers reaching out to me, and I've been coaching Some fathers on time management, and mainly on time management and a few other things, just to ensure that fathers are still living up to the standards that they promised they would do when they got married, you know, sometimes those goals get put to the side.

And other than this, you know, I I work for Muslim kids TV, which is a streaming platform for Muslim children, a kind of Hello, Netflix.

Yeah, that's about it. I think that's everything I'm doing right now.

Exactly like Aaron, brother, Mohammed, please tell us what your session is going to be about. And please do begin. Okay, sha Allah. So let me make sure I am going to be sharing my screen properly. And I'll ask if you can see it. Okay, so after brother shaves,

presentation, you're gonna have the opportunity to ask questions. So please do have your questions prepared. And we'll be open to you unmuting yourself and, you know, asking the questions, verbally yourself. So just just for you to know that you're going to have the opportunity and Charla

javelins are going to fail. So we'll get started. So, this session in terms of what we're going to be covering, will be the following. So first of all, we're going to go through what an involved father is, from the perspective of the Quran. Secondly, we're gonna go into what are some of the negative effects that that an absent father can have on child development. Then thirdly, practical tips on spending some time the children have 11 Tips Inshallah, that all of them should take less than 10 minutes to do to build that quality time. And then number four, I'll just let you guys know a little bit more about Dad hood and where you can find some of that information.

So yeah, they're all focuses on the first three. So let's get started. This is the first example I want to bring, which is the story of Prophet Ibrahim Ali Salaam. And it's my idea he's set up. So we have in sort of soft,

this exchange between this Father and the Son, and it's a very, very powerful exchange. And we can draw many, many benefits from it from the angle of how powerful it is for a child that they have a father that is really involved in their life. So the first thing we see here is

when the boy reached the age to work with him, okay? This is the start of this is so this is when ALLAH is talking about putting this story into context. That when is my smile is reached that age of puberty reached the age of you know, being a young man being a teenager or maybe slightly Oh,

then that being, you know, in an age where he is able to think for himself, he's able to do for himself. It is at this age now where Ibrahim ID Sam is bringing this question to his son. So Allah Subhana Allah kind of contextualize this and tells us that we're going to be seeing how Ibrahim as the Father interacts with a teenager or interacts with a young man and his son being at that age. And then we go on to see how does the father actually interact? He remember his son is of this age where he's able to do for himself and think for himself. And the way that Ibrahim is and I'm starting his interaction says,

Yeah, Brene Oh, my dear son, so he addresses him with the most endearing way of speaking to his son. So, here we see an example that what Allah subhanaw taala wants to teach us, is how we as far as can speak to our children, you know, speak to them with endearing words, speak to them in a way in which they feel like they're close to us. And this is even even though that the son is a bit older. Now, sometimes we speak in very sweet ways to our young children. But when it comes to the oldest, and the ones who are teenagers or above, they become adults, now they are doing their own jobs and whatnot, they are working for themselves. We maybe we've lost those sweet words with them. And we

speak to them as if, you know, they're, they're adults like us, and of course they are. But here Allah subhanaw taala is reminding us of using those kinds of sweet words and saying, Oh, my dear son. So already we've got kind of two things. One is Allah setting up the context that is mine, I said I was a teenager. Second thing we see here is that Ibrahim already said I'm using the kind words to engage his son. Then, what is this all about? This is about of course, the famous story where Ibrahima at Islam says that Allah has told me in this dream that I must sacrifice you. And how does it Ibrahim? Is that an end? His his sort of his request to son says, Tell me what you think. So

is it fun, though? Matt, Mother Torah? Tell me what do you think about this? So this is again, another interesting point that Allah brings. He is he's telling us through the story, that to essentially engage your child with your decisions, engage your child with these conversations, and bring your child into big decisions that you're making. And remember, if we go back to the context, Ibrahim Ali Salam is somebody that is already a young man, he is somebody who thinks for himself and does for himself. So it's my there it is. He's at an age where he thinks for itself and does for himself. And it is at that age, where Ibrahim says, What do you think? So Allah is not saying, okay,

for all these big decisions in your life, moving house,

you know, changing your career, or these kinds of things do you have to consult your children or get your children's opinion on if they're just five years old, or six years old, or seven years old, but when they do become their own person, and they are their own man, this is the time to really engage them into their own critical thinking, ask them for their opinions, see what they think about these kinds of situations. And when is the last time that we really thought of our children on that level? Well, we have a big decision to make. And we're ready to ask them their opinion about these things. Sometimes we don't do that. And unfortunately, when we don't, then we're not setting up this model

for our children to really have periods of critical thinking when it comes to big decisions. And sometimes we don't set up that model for them to come back to us, when they have big things going on in their life. They don't have that model to be able to think I should go back to my dad or my mom, and ask them what they think about these situations. So this is again, another point here that Allah shows how Ibrahima Allison wants to get his son involved. And so he asks him his opinion, then to sort of round this off.

It's my ideas and models his father, and he addresses him and he says, Yeah, Betty. So you see before Abraham is the father came and use some endearing words and terms to address his son. And I son has sort of reciprocated that and mirrored that back because he's seen the type of manners he's seen the way that he should be speaking to his father. He's seen that from his own dad. And so now he reciprocates that same

mannerisms back to his father and he says, Oh my dear father, and then obviously this ends with a smiley said, I'm saying that do what you need to do. You'll find me steadfast, you'll find me willing. Inshallah, and this shows us how much trust a smile at Islam has with his father. And the way that this trust was built up was because Ibrahim Al Islam of course number one, he's a prophet. And number two is very nice and um, has a high

Evanoff Taqwa being a prophet himself. But we need to also realize that the tarbiyah that the Father would have shown the son, the amount of involvement the father would have had with the son in the son's life would have built that trust would have built that bond. So that is married and ASAM could come and say, Okay, no problem, I trust what you're doing. You're a prophet of God, and you know, you're, you're my father, you've never let me down, you are a wise person. So let's go ahead and do what needs to be done. So these are a few lessons that we learned from this idea.

Another story that we can look at when it comes to the power of an involved father is a story of Dr. Boob, and Yusuf Alayhi Salam. So it starts off in sort of the use of the very famous surah. That covers the whole story of the Prophet Yusuf, it starts with him coming to his father. And again, using that same terminology that we see, yeah, Betty using the most endearing words to speak to his father. And he comes in, he tells them of this dream. Now this is the first indication is that the son was ready to tell his father about a dream that he's heard, meaning that he's already got a good relationship with his father, meaning that he already trusts his father, and he already has this

bond. And the reason this is quite stark is because we can see that the other brothers didn't have this relationship with their father and the other brothers. Maybe if they were in this situation, they wouldn't have been able to be that open with the Father and tell them that we've had this dream. But it's, it's clear that you know, use of artists has got that because the bond that he has with his father,

then we see how does the father respond? How does a cold respond again, you see the same terminology? Yeah, B'nai Okay, oh, my dear son, again, using that kind of endearing language. And then he tells him about protecting his vision are not relaying his dreams to his brothers, because they may devise a plot a plot against him. Now, why is this an important point to bring up when it comes to an involved father? Because the father here knows all of the personalities of his sons. He knows how Yousef is. And he knows how useless brothers are. That's the only way that he was able to know other than ye from Allah and other than knowledge from ALLAH, he was able to then know what

could possibly happen, what could go wrong, because he knows that his brothers are Mischief Makers. They have some jealousy. They're the type of personality that they may be, you know, they don't know. They don't like Yusuf. How would the father have known that dynamic between the brothers, other than if he was actually involved in their lives, and he could see them, he could interact with them, and he knew their personalities. And so because of that he was able to then save yourself is around from maybe something that could have gone on. But of course, we know what happened in the story.

Then, finally, what does the father Jakub hate you is that he, he notices that use of artists and um, is coming to him worried in the stream, right when he's relaying the stream? is a bit worried. What happened? Why did I see this? And now you're also telling me that my brother's may plot against me? So what advice DOES HE round this off as the Father, He tells them, that your Lord has chosen you? Okay, they're the care. Yeah, just a vehicle rabuka that he has chosen you, okay?

To teach you all of these things, essentially telling us of our day salon, that he's from this lineage of Prophets. Now, he's from this, he's now part of this mission of prophethood. Right? So he gives him he sort of

quells his worries. And he sort of gives him this aspect of motivation and this confidence, they say, Look, don't worry about the potential harms. And we call it this is a good sign from Allah, this dream that you had a means that you're going to be protected, you're going to be on the path of the Prophet, Allah has chosen you specifically. So it shows how the father has concerned for his child and when his child comes to me with worries, he actually goes out of his way to console him, given some practical advice like don't relay your dreams to your brothers. And then also give them confidence and motivation by telling him Look, you're going you're going to be arrived, you're going

to be from this kind of mission of the prophets inshallah. So these are two stories that I wanted to bring to everybody from the Quran. And I think we said we'll do some questions at the end. So inshallah we'll carry on to the second part now. So the second part of this is looking at the negative

The impact that an absent father can have in children. And I've pulled some statistics from the National Fatherhood Initiative, which is based in America, and they have various different studies that they have compiled on families, and different sort of dynamics within families. And so I've pulled out the ones on the negative impact of an absent father and children, I think it's just important for us to know this. Because inshallah many of you that are here, you've signed up to something like this, because you want to be involved in your children's life, and you want to take that extra step to learn from the material that's in this course, to improve your your relationship

with your children.

And this is just something that gives you an initial sort of a look into what could possibly happen if you didn't take that step or you weren't involved in your in your child's life. And maybe, you know, people as well who

don't have are not involved in the in the child's life, and what are the potential impacts that can happen. Now, of course, there are anomalies here, right? In the sense that you're going to find that many people from a single parent household haven't fallen into the typical consequences that come out in some of these studies. And of course, that can happen to Allah's daughter through the the kind of hard work of the parents of the mother or the father, whoever is the primary caregiver, because of of their tenacity, and their their sort of motivation and the work that they're putting in and Allah's help. That means that this doesn't happen, but what I want to present are the general

statistics of the trends and the patterns that we see. So this isn't to sort of sideline anybody's effort or to make anybody feel like if they're from a particular family dynamic, that this definitely applies to them. No, maybe that you, you are not part of those same statistics. And this is just some general information for you to know. So one is from the angle of school and academic performance. So children living in a father absent homes are more likely to repeat a grade in school. So for example, this study that was done by the US Department of Education found that children living in father absent homes are twice as likely to repeat a grade as children living in

two parent homes. And so, you know, the the opposite to that that's in this picture, which is the father involvement in schools is associated with the higher likelihood of student mostly getting AIDS. So that's sort of the correlation that we see that less father involvement means likely to have lower grades and more father involvement means likely to have better grades.

When looking at mental health, children living in father absent homes are more likely to have anxiety and depression. For example, a study that was in 2011 found that children living in father absent homes are more likely to report symptoms of anxiety and depression than living in two parent homes. Right. And then the opposite to that to being on the picture that children who have involved dads are less likely to be mistreated. So again, here when looking from a mental health perspective, that the less access to the father or the father, not being as involved in the home can lead to spikes in mental health difficulties, and those who are involved means that children are more

resilient, more stronger, less likely to be bullied or mistreated in in school, then we're looking at the aspect of sexual behavior. Children living in father absent homes are more likely to have sexual problems. For example, a study by Ellis and cava and 2000 found that girls who lived in father absent homes are more likely to engage in early sexual activity and to have multiple sexual partners than girls who lived in two parent homes.

And then again, looking at the opposite here on the picture, that daughters are less likely to engage in this risky behavior, when they have a sense of closeness with their fathers. So the father being around in the household and giving that sort of protective

closeness towards their daughters allows the daughters to be less promiscuous or it means that they have less opportunities to do that. Whereas those who don't have the father present, they may be exposed to certain situations that they would have been more likely protected from if the father was in the household.

Then lastly, you have the negative effects of delinquent delinquent behavior so children living in father absent homes, more likely to engage in delinquent behavior. For example, a study that was done in 1994 found that children living in father absent homes are more likely to be arrested for a crime than living in two parent homes. And it's

goes here that individuals from find the option home. So 279% more likely to carry guns. This obviously in America do drugs than peers living with their fathers.

So yes, of course, you're always seeing that the lack of the father figure may mean that children are more exposed to these types of lifestyles and indulge in them more. Now, like I said in the beginning, there's obviously many other factors to take in, in consideration here, before we apply this to your own particular situation. There are sometimes situations where families are split apart. For purposes, for an it may be even that it's actually better for the children for the mother and the father that this family is slightly broken apart, and people live separately. Because there are there are situations which are toxic, there are situations where even she'll have to have advice

that maybe you should live apart, or else you know, being together can make things difficult. So that's not looking at those specific situations, this is talking from a general point of view, to give you some of the potential consequences that are patterns that some of these studies have seen.

So that's part two, on the negative impact and absence, the negative impact an absent father can have on children. So just want to move over to our part three, which is our last part. Before we head over Inshallah, to the questions section. So the last part is looking at how can we as far as ensure that we are then more involved? So we've got evidence from the Quran, that being involved is something that is a prophetic tradition. And it's something that is encouraged, then we've seen what could happen if we're not involved as far as this? And what are the potential causes of this? So what's the practical solution? What can we do to get more involved. And what I want to present you

here is 11 tips, okay? That I've come up with that I think can work and all of them, you only need up to 10 minutes to do these things. And you don't need to move things out of the way of your busy schedule that you have as fathers to be able to have this kind of quality time with your children. So let's go through some of them.

Toothbrush time, you can gather everybody to brush their teeth simultaneously. And if your children are little, then you transform this in a game where each person dances amusingly while they're brushing, right. So just imagine this is your day, you've got a busy work day, and the only time we really see your children is in the mornings in the evenings, here are a few ways in which we can sort of just slip in a little bit of quality time when they feel some closeness to their father. So brushing your teeth, everybody has to brush their teeth in the morning anyway, right? So why not turn that into something where everybody does it together, we turned into a bit of a game. Number

two breakfast bonding, here, allocate each child a task for preparing breakfast for him. For instance, our Asia could toast the bread, or Malik post the milk consumables, and afterwards, everybody gathers around for a device free meal. So everybody's gonna have to have breakfast as well, right. And maybe we can even have a quicker breakfast and get out the door before we need to do the school drop off and proceed to get to work. But everybody's sort of sharing their tasks. And when they everybody has that feeling of responsibility. And then they come together around the table that can bring that closeness. And we obviously make sure parents is no devices at the table to make

sure that even those five minutes that maybe you're doing a rush breakfast, there's still some sort of close connection, three active family moments. So if you're not hitting the gym,

you can establish a routine for 10 to 20 minutes home workout with your kids, or the ones can access alongside you while the younger ones can partake by assisting with a tie with timers or fetching water. This is something that I do with my children as well. If I'm not going to the gym on that day, I'll do my workout at home. And I'll make sure that I get involved either they do some things alongside me or I tell them no I can eat some water I'm tired or can you press this two minute timer I'm going to do push ups for two minutes or whatever it is right? And that again brings that closeness and you're also modeling something good of being active in the household. Number four

Quran reading engage your children in Quran reading, let them enjoy, let them join with you they almost have so if they are the age of they can read and they read from the same page as you. So this could be that you read IR by IR. This could be that you eat one page, they read one page obviously this depends on how much time you have. But every household is inshallah going to have a time that they read Quran the parents will make sure they read at least a page of Quran and the day the children make sure that they read some sort of Quran in the day. So why not make that time come together? Where you do it together. And if they're very young and they're not able to read Quran,

then something I've done with my young children is that

I take their finger instead of using my finger on the

Also, if I take their finger on and put an underline that I'm reading, or I told them to turn the page for me when I'm done with that page. Also, there's like certain apps out there, which split each part. Each part is they split the crime into verse by verse, so only one verse comes on the screen. So sometimes what my son does is he gets excited to press the arrow that skips the next verse, and then the next verse. So again, that makes it fun for the children, by a thoughtful school drop off, so skip the radio, or anything that you listened to, during the school drop off and stimulate the children's mind with thought provoking questions tailored to their age, and their

interests. So this could be instead of just the general questions of how are you, or what you're going to be doing today at school, this could be bigger questions, you know, around things that you really want to learn about your chores, you know, who are your friends? You know, it could be how does?

How does your teacher teach this particular subject that could be something that requires a longer answers and essentially, the last few tips here, so six insight for school pickups, you've got the drop offs and pickups you know, rather than asking the generic, how was your day, delve into the experiences and inquire about interesting lunchtime event, whether they brought a smile to anyone's face, or if their friends accomplished their tasks. So now you're getting to know your child at a deeper level, because it's more school is more than what they actually studied. School is about how they interact with their friends, school is about the types of behavior that they had, you want to

find out how good your child was, you there's other ways of finding out rather than saying was you good, or wait until parents evening, so I inquiring it is little things about who their friends are, what the type of things that friends do, if their friends completed their tasks, if if you bought a smile to someone's face, seven errands and engagement. So involve your kids in daily errands, be grocery shopping or delivering items to the house, make them feel important by assigning roles such as checking checking of items from a shopping list. So for example, something that my wife does is she's kind of in charge of doing the home delivery of the groceries. And she kind of gets the kids

around the tablet, and gets them to choose which things that they want to add to the basket. And they might even have to go look into the fridge and see if we're out of stock of something and then come back and tell her, Okay, we need this particular thing. And again, shopping, grocery shopping, something you have to do, I'm not, I'm not picking out anything that is outside your daily schedule, these are things that you're going to have to do anyway, tidying up together, turn that into a joint effort, assign some tasks, and set some collective rewards for finishing within a set timeframe. So sometimes you set like a 20 minute timer that my son likes to put on. And it's like, Okay, you guys

have to go clean that room. Me and mom got to clean this side. And you know, as if you guys finish everything within that time, then there's a reward, play time participation or the shape? Could I just make a little comment on? Sure. So your your point six and seven, I think the that's the really important, because I was reading that with insightful school pickups, that when

when a parent, the first time a child sees their parent of the school,

if the child searches for the parents eyes, you know, and I was reading the psychologists were saying that don't make it such that your eyes are basically down on your phone. At that point, you know, at that moment, when they're just looking to connect, make sure that you greet them with your full attention. You know, I thought that was quite powerful. Because I think the tendency is there isn't it to be like looking down at your phone as you're going to pick them up and always in a rush sort of thing.

And the one that you said about errands,

I noticed that as children got a bit older, we started just leaving them at home, and one of us will go and do the errands, you know, rather than involving them with us. So we had we actually had a chance and now we should be taking them with us so that they actually learn through that journey through that experience, how to interact with people, whatever it is that we're doing. So yeah, I think because it's so easy to not involve them. I think those those two points are very important. Just like a locker.

That is really good. Yeah, I think that's quite important. Like even send errands like you're dropping something off to a friend's house, like you know, you might cook something and think I'm gonna drop it off somewhere. Bring your children with you let them see that you've actually gone through the effort of bringing food to somebody's house, and that's a good thing to do.

So yeah, many of these things are really important. So I'm here for those extra points, looking into the child's eyes and picking them up and things like this.

So we have play time participation. So instead of scrolling your phone during your breaks, invest 10 minutes into your children's activities. So you may be, I mean, this may be applies more so to

a parent that works from home, okay. And sometimes you will take a break, and your break will be just checking your phone and your messages and scrolling through something. Or maybe even after you've come back from work, you work in the office, and you want to relax, yeah, take your time to relax. But what you could also do is consciously say, okay, for 10 minutes, I'm my children are coloring something, or they're playing a video game, or they're doing whatever they're doing, right, depending on their age, I'm gonna take part in that for 10 minutes, whether that be me physically actually taking part or just being next to them while they're doing the activity.

10 is doing a unity. So like the breakfast routine, very similar to that, give it everybody responsibility, gather everybody around and make sure that there's no devices at the table. Again, you have to eat dinner, why not just do that together. And the last one, bedtime comfort be present during those final moments before your children fall asleep. This offers them a sense of security as one day ends, and another one begins. So the first thing that they get, the last thing that they see when the day ends is you and your face and they hear your words. And hopefully the first thing when they wake up is you may be waking them up, or you're getting them involved in the breakfast routine,

or the teeth brushing and whatnot, right. So hopefully, you're starting and ending the day in those ways. So these kinds of 11 points are all points that take less than a few minutes, or they don't take any time out of your schedule, they're actually within the things that you're doing during the day, it's just about fine tuning those moments to ensure that there is some quality time there. Sometimes when we think of quality time, we think we have to book 1000 pound holiday, we have to take out a whole weekend, we have to go on a trip, we have to do all those kinds of things. Those things are kind of you know, the icing on the cake, those things can't happen all the time. And when

they do happen. Okay, that's great. But what about all you know, the other times, right? Are you always going to wait for the end of the year to take them on a holiday and that's your quality time, or about daily building that Bond slowly and slowly through these particular things. I think those are really important.

So that was the third part, I have a quick activity. But I feel like we might go over time. So maybe it's better, we just kind of take questions from now. So maybe if we have time, at the end, we'll go back to the activity. So last thing I'll just say is a little bit about myself and dad hood. So like I mentioned, it is a podcast that is related to Muslim fathers. And the idea was, you know, kind of started off where when my wife was first pregnant, I was kind of frantically searching online, looking for experiences, Muslim fathers, whether it was a video or podcast article or anything like that. And all I could come across were that were not Muslim dads were from outside of the culture,

which were great because obviously fatherhood kind of has a universal parenting is quite universal. But there's certain things that we want to get from our own experience within our religion, our community and our culture. And I was already finding that. So you know, I decided when much suntan about two or three, I was like, Okay, let me kind of start this up. And hamdulillah it's been going well. So all I asked you guys to do is to inshallah support that.

So we have two ways of supporting that one is by subscribing to the YouTube channel, which says up here data, just search on YouTube. And the other way is subscribing to our newsletter, where I send out some of these tips. So some of the things you've seen here already, which is delving into the is going into some practical tips, looking at some statistics, I create a lot of newsletters around these things. So the link is there, you might just need to physically type it in. It's not too long, and inshallah subscribe to those two things. So yeah, we'll take some questions. And if we have any time at the end, I can go over to the little tasks that I had inshallah.

Sure, that's great. It was fun. So if anybody has a question,

we encourage you to speak to unmute yourself. But if you don't want to, then I'm sure we can just put it in the chat. Okay, I've just seen this one. Should I read it? Okay, so brother, as he says, in chat a lot. Our children are not part of those statistics. It's very scary to hear all this but again, Allah is greater than all these patterns and statistics. So how does a father who doesn't live under the same roof as his children be there for them in terms of all these activities listed?

Inshallah? Yes, my last one to Allah protects all of us from any of these harm.

It's a difficult one in terms of, you know, the father doesn't live under the same roof because he may have a strong desire and a strong need to be close to his children to build a bond with his children. But the situation is such that he doesn't live in that same household if the parents are split apart for whatever reasons.

The first thing, of course, is dua. Okay. Making that dua to Allah, Samantha either reaching out to him and making sure that that constant connection to your children is through Allah. So if you don't have a chance to be with them, that you can, you can tell allah how you feel about that, how you how much you want to be with your children, and you hope that Allah Allah to reward you for those moments that you intend to be with your child, you intend to give your child that closeness and that bond. And Allah subhana, Allah looks at that and says, My slave intends to do this, but he can't do this. And and there's no way that he can do this because of what the situation is. But he has a

strong intention, therefore I can reward him for this. So that's, that's one thing, inshallah.

The other thing being to increase one's righteousness, we see in throat Alkaff, that Allah subhana, Allah tells us, why Haider, he,

he he

built up that the wall and hid that treasure that was for the orphans, and why that treasure was left was because last winter, Allah tells us that

their father was righteous. So they he the Father, even from a distant distance, you know, already being passed away, okay, these two were orphans, even from that distance, because of his righteousness, He was still benefiting his children, right. So of course, building up your own righteousness, and having that is something that can help, then, okay, these are some maybe spiritual things, while about the more practical things,

I would say that any opportunities that you do get to interact with your children, that you make the most of that time. And you don't allow any baggage that may be coming along with this situation that you have, with their mother, allow that to get in the way. And I'm kind of speaking from slight some sort of personal experience, so not in your shoes, but the shoes of the child. So I didn't grow up with my father. And the first time I did get a chance to interact with him, unfortunately, there was a lot of that baggage that was put forward about my mother and sort of bringing my mother into those conversations. And that meant that I didn't really get to connect with him as my father, and I

didn't get to kind of see him in the best light because of that. And that was my first interaction, which would, which then kind of shaped my image of what my future interactions with him will be. And, obviously, I'm not saying that he are going to do this, it's just from my own personal experience, it's important to point out that those small interactions that you do have, they're going to maybe in the child's mind, paint your character as a whole. Now, of course, from the child as he matures, he'll be able to understand that in shallow be able to understand that there's multiple facets to a human being and that one interaction doesn't pay the home view human being as

one thing and I had to learn that later, after I properly reconnected with my father.

Going back to the question again, how does a father who doesn't live on the same roof be there?

Yeah, I would just say from my it's hard to answer it from from that perspective, and just looking for my own personal perspective, or not having my father around and, and how that felt to me.

I would have appreciated for example, if my father would have reached out every so often, to let us know that he was thinking of us. So if you couldn't physically be there with us, if there was a way to get a message, or phone call a letter, anything like that, that would have been greatly appreciated. Okay, from a distance, because the child sometimes like I did for a long time thing.

If there's no contact coming through, is because he doesn't think about us. Of course, it was very, very wrong. Once I reconnected with my father. There were reasons why he couldn't contact. But if there were, if that contact is able to come through, that would be very, very helpful and powerful, because you sort of stop

the distance from becoming too distant. Even though you can't be there. You still feel like okay, my father's thinking about him about me and he wants to be close to me. If there's a possibility of sending gifts over, that'd be excellent as well. Can I know sometimes in these situations in divorce or whatever the case is, that sometimes contact

This is very limited. But if there's a way of sending a gift, if you can't obviously have the address of the household, where you can send it to maybe somebody else that can get it over to the children, that will be, I think, greatly appreciated as well.

And, and yeah, if if you're able to get to a point where you can have some more time with the children, make that that time really, really valuable, and really make them feel like, all that time that's being spent all that energy, that money, whatever you're doing with them in that time is for them is for this bond, and it's for no other purpose. And there's no other strings attached. It's not because I'm trying to make myself seem better. So I can get more custody or something like this. It's not because I want to show off in any way to the ex partner, or whatever it is, it is a pure, genuine thing that I'm here for my children, I just want to build that bond. So I guess those are a

few things just for my own personal experience of being on the other end and being the child. Hopefully that helps.

Yes, does that allow her and

I'll just make a little comment about that as well, too. Just in addition to what Brother shave said, I'd say it really shows you the importance of,

of having an amicable relationship with your ex, you know, like, whatever the situation is, at the moment, I would say, or, you know, however the situation was left, I think it's in the interest of both mother and father and the children, that the spouse or the ex spouse is,

at least going forward, make a plan to kind of work out their differences, or put them aside for the benefit of the children, you know, even if that means putting your egos aside a bit, if that means sacrificing a bit of ego, in order to just be able to have more time more kind of access to the children, etc.

Even if the other party is being unfair, right. And we can't really control their actions, I would say it's really important to have a plan and make a concerted effort to rebuild the relationship, at least to the point where the children can be minimally affected. You know, I think it really shows that.

And I will also I would say probably don't you think Brother shape will be good.

In situations like that if if a father can have one to one time with each of their children separately, you know,

not just always together, but also separately, because I think

children when they're by themselves have different have a different response and interaction, don't they? They relate differently to their parents then when they're all together.

So I think sometimes trying to build that in is going to be important as well. That does apply here. And let me read the next question we've got here.

Now a lot of women are working mothers, how can we portray the importance of fathers presents for the family apart from only financial?

financial means? How can we help them and encourage them to take more roles within family life?

Okay, excellent.

Yeah, I have a few points on this one. So

one thing is, you know, to remember that

father's having maybe more involvement nowadays, which is a great thing, from the communities that many of us have come from, okay.

And the previous generations where those coaches are, that type of involvement wasn't always there. That doesn't mean that that was right. And this is wrong. I'm just saying, from the hard facts that we have, that now there's a trend of fathers being more involved and before that trend wasn't there. Whereas for mothers, the trend has always been that you are kind of going to be the primary caregiver, and you're going to be involved in the child's life. Which means then that the generational knowledge that is being passed down to mothers is quite strong. And that usually not in all cases, but usually a female grows up, knowing that this is going to be important part of her of

her life and her role, and that she's maybe seen from grandmothers and mothers and aunties, what they do with their children, whereas a young boy and young man, for generations, that kind of knowledge hasn't really been passed down the knowledge or has been passed on to protect your family and go on and these kinds of things which are important, but being more evolved beyond that within the child's life. Sometimes that isn't passed out.

And so we this is not to make an excuse, but it's just to kind of put it into context is not to kind of

make fathers feel like they are doing something completely wrong when many of these fathers maybe are not used to, or don't even see how a father can mold himself within that sort of dynamic can be maybe more involved. So I guess it's more or less about blaming the dads and more about helping them to step up. I'm not saying that the whoever asked was was blaming, but this is just kind of a general note is that we should maybe help the father step up rather than blaming them because that generation knowledge hasn't really been passed on. That's one point. Another point is that

the aspect of a father, okay.

His fatherhood is more than just the change the nappies. Now, I'm going to caveat that and say that I actually believe the change of nappies is really important. Okay. And I'll come back to that. But I want to give this point first, which is, it's more than the changing of the nappies and is more than the, than being really close with the children and doing maybe the things that are seem to be more feminine, or seem to be more motherly. Because included in the father's role is that the child gets to see that he goes out to work, the child gets to see that he's involved in his community, the child gets to see that he prays his salah, in the masjid, the child gets to see that he takes other

responsibilities outside of his family, maybe within his community, wait, maybe within the OMA, he does all of these things, he, he seeks knowledge, he gets fit, he goes to the gym, all of these things are very important for the child to look up to the Father and see that this also makes up a father, that he does only these types of things. And that adds to the experience of the child and how he how he looks at his father. So sometimes, if we see a father that doesn't do maybe the more motherly things, we think that father is not involved. But actually by the Father doing all those other things. He may be setting up a very good example for his children and a very being a very good

role model. And maybe we're dismissing that, because we have, we're surrounded by maybe certain ideologies that are pushing a certain way that a man should be.

So that's, that's kind of a second point I want to make. And then the final point is just to go back to the change when the nappies is that yes, I do think that the father taking on more of these may be what is considered to be more motherly, I think that they should still do some of those things. For example, even from the point of when the babies in the womb, the father should be speaking, the father should be reciting Quran, getting his voice familiar with the child, when the child is being born, the father should be there, right? I think anyway, I'm not saying this is a master this is if the father is not there in the room in the labor room, that he's wrong. But from my own perspective,

I think that that is important that he is there. He is there within the he's taking that paternity leave away from work, he's helping with changing the nappies, he's there burping the baby, all these kinds of more infant things are seen to be more motherly. I don't see the mother shouldn't do and the father should don't do I think, and I still think the mother should probably do it more. But I think the father should still get involved in that whole process, because it will definitely build the bond. And I think it will allow the father to have that more compassion that we see from some of these fathers, these prophets, like Iacob, like Ibrahim like Muhammad Sallallahu Sallam allows him

to build that compassion for children when he's involved from a young age. And that compassion is obviously very important for a father to have.

Yeah, those are some my points, I think that the main question was, how do we get them more involved? I think just knowing some some of what I said, puts things into more context. And then getting them more involved is maybe just giving them allowing them to have those opportunities in case you're depriving those opportunities. I've seen, for example, some mothers Be very afraid to allow the man in the household to take the child out for the day, or to or to feed the child or to change the child and they have their own anxiety. Maybe the mother does. But you know, can the man's a man let him you know, do what he needs to do if he's getting it a bit wrong way? Yeah, yeah, let

him do it his way. And it might be beneficial for the child to do in that way, rather than your way. So allow those opportunities to be there. And like I said, yeah, maybe even the Father is still reluctant, maybe reiterate some of the points that we've learned in the presentation of the importance of being involved. Yeah, and I think mothers can play a big role in drawing the children's attention to what fathers do, you know, because one of the part of the question was, you know, how can we portray the importance of Father's presence for the family?

I think the idea was, you know, is it that sometimes

it's only financial that people think of fathers you know, in that room

God, but I think as mothers, what we can do is we can draw our children's attention to the things that the Father does that maybe they're not getting to see, you know, so they don't just think, oh, Mom's doing everything, you know,

I think a lot of the things that fathers do are hidden things. And that's why, you know, people when they, when they lose their fathers, for example,

when they're if they're orphaned, or even later in life, if a father passes away, one of the things, consistent things you hear people say is I felt like,

like, this safety net, was removed, you know, I felt like this, I was under the shade of something, and that shade was removed. And I think that's because there's like this invisible stuff that dads do, right?

That, if it wasn't for them, we wouldn't. You know, for example, if it wasn't for Dad, you know, I wouldn't be able to relax and sit here with you, you know, it's because dad does his work, that we can do these things, we can buy these things we can function in this way, et cetera, et cetera, I think, I think it's important for each parent to highlight the

contribution that the other is making so that children can

appreciate it more.

I actually have one more question that somebody sent to me over WhatsApp

from our group. And

there's just a saying.

Is it possible that the absence of a father can be better for the children? If

if the father has certain, you know, behaviors, or certain suffers from certain illnesses? And

the mother is afraid that, you know, some kind of harm may come to the child? I think

this is from a sister who,

who is no longer living with her husband?

So she's asking, isn't it possible that the absence of a father can be better for four children?

Okay, so good question.

All right. In very, there may be very, very extreme cases, right? Where it's not necessarily even about the father, being the father, it's about there's a human being in the dynamic, that doesn't have the correct mental health, or doesn't have the correct facilities, okay, to be able to take care of children or to be able to take care of other people within the family, right, removing the Father, for me, it could have been any human being in that position.

It, it just from a logical perspective, it would make sense that, that situation, maybe that person who has those difficulties, and maybe he's being very toxic to the other members of the family, that that person may be removed, or there may be a situation where that person needs to temporarily be removed to receive help, and then be allowed back to the family unit, all of these kinds of things. So of course, there are going to be those situations and situations. And we shouldn't try and pinpoint it down to the fact of him being a dad and having those things is just anybody could have had those things, and it could really affect the family. So I think yes, there are extreme cases

where if somebody in the family has those type of problems, depending on the advice you get from your local scholars, depending on the advice that you get from family counselors, and whoever else is social workers, whoever else is helping this situation, it may be that your situation requires for that temporary breakup to happen in order to bring things back to normality. But then we also need to think from the angle of is, is this from a logical perspective? Or is this being taken as an emotional burden, right, is maybe the mother and the situation, looking at it from her lens, and that she feels very scared about the situation, because maybe she has a right to feel scared. Maybe

there is something that has gone on between her and her husband, that gives her the right to feel afraid of him being being in her life. But then she then projecting that onto her children is she allowed her own burdens and allowed her children to take on her own burden as their own. Right? It could be that the father

or whoever is in situation has harmed one member of the family, but has never harmed anybody else and has no intention of harming anybody else. Should those other people also take on the burden of that one person and and paint their relationship with the with the

either through the lens of that one person who has been burdened, I don't think that would be correct to do even if you look at it from outside of a family perspective, you look at it from maybe a group of friends, would that be correct for that to happen? If you look at it from any other sort of societal group? I don't think anybody will conclude and say, yeah, it's okay for me, who hasn't been hurt by this person to treat this person, as if they have hurt me.

So I think, you know, I'm not saying this is a situation but look into and see whether it's maybe the mother projecting these types of things on.

And then then other thing to think about is also the age of the children, okay, of course, when they're very young, it may be different, it may be that the type of access is less so, okay, doesn't mean you should be no access. But it might mean that is less. So as your children get older, and they become their own people. Okay, and they getting into sort of adulthood, they shouldn't be prevented by any member of the family to see any other member of the family does this okay? Dependent regard, okay, unless it's a very specific situation situation, chef has given a fatwa from a general perspective to actually haram for you to prevent somebody from reaching out to their own

family members would actually be haram. So unless there's a specific fatwa and speak situation, I'll be very careful to to prevent the older children from reaching out to the Father, no matter what the Father is, no, no matter what is meant to help stay is whatever is happening, that child, they should, obviously that child, if I speak to that child themselves, they should take their own precautions, right. But they shouldn't be prevented by anybody else to go ahead and do that, if that's what they want to do. And as long as they've they've taken the precautions that need to be taken to make sure that that conversation, that relationship that they're going to have now is going

to be as safe as possible for them. And also, I'd be careful when it comes to getting photos as well, because I actually find it quite upsetting that some Sheoak are willing to sit there with one party and take their entire story, and then give a conclusion, you know, which now that pert that party could basically use, you know, they might even end up weaponizing that against the other party. Yeah, I think it's very problematic, because, you know, it's so easy for one side of the story to just seem make the story seem so. So black and white, right? So I think, anytime you're going to refer to you, it's always good to be willing to do it properly, like as a mediation

session, almost like with, with your spouse, or your ex spouse, you know, so that both sides of the story can be put forward. I think it's very problematic when it's just one person's perspective that's taken in by a chef, and then. So there's that. But the other thing, as you said, Brother shape,

I think moms have to be really careful that you know, something that you consider to be making your children safer.

You could be harming them in 10 Other ways, you know, because you think you're, you're making them safer from one thing, right? So as much as possible, and with keeping whatever precautions you think, are absolutely necessary. If that relationship, and whatever is good in that relationship can be maintained.

I think it's in your interest as a mother because one day those kids are gonna grow up, you're gonna have to handle whatever they come with, right? It's in your interests, that they grew up with their dad, even with the flaws that the dad has, you know, nobody's dad is unflawed even those of us who grew up with our dads,

you know, nobody's dad is unflawed everyone has their issues or traumas and things that they, they they're carrying, and they pass down and, you know, but but I think it's in that in those floors, there's a beauty as well. Right? If there's a human humaneness that children have to learn about, you know, there's human beings out there that are flawed, that we we still love.

So I think mothers should be really careful to do you know, minimum necessary changes like it and not to sort of

not to go ballistic, basically, and not not do anything that's like an ultimatum or anything, that's fine or because Don't you think Brother che maybe you can speak to this based on your experience as well.

A child wants a happy story for their life, you know, like

when they're thinking about who I am, they want the narrative of their life to be something positive. And sometimes the adults

make it more negative than it needs to be. Right. And so I think it's really important to help your children to frame whatever their father's going through whatever the whatever this situation is that you're going through, to frame it in the best way possible. And in a way that they have hope for the future, you know, they have a positive hope for the future.

Because sometimes something that you consider to be really bad that the father does. I'm not saying all the time, but you know, it is possible that something that from from your eyes and your perspective looks very harsh, or very,

the child is not really experiencing it that way, you know, sometimes, so you've got to be really careful.

And how many children say, you know,

I'd rather have had my dad in my life, even with his floors, even with his floors.

I don't know, if you want to say anything about, you know, subprime loans, the point that you brought up about the the flaws of the Father, nobody's perfect. Me, I always had this perception that, you know, that the Father has to be without flaws. And, and that, if he has those flows, that's, that's what that's what's making this so difficult. That's why he's, he's separated, that's why I can't get in touch with him. That's why all of all of these problems

are occurring. And so you sort of build up this

resentment towards your father, because he's not living up to the standard, that you have set the expectation that you've set. And once I kind of reconnected with him, and I had a chance to get to know him. And I realized that he's just as much as a flawed human being as, as I am, and everybody else is, it makes it much more easier for me to remove that resentment and have forgiveness for him. Because if that was me, I know myself, and I would have hoped that somebody would have looked at me and said, those flaws that I have doesn't make up my whole character doesn't make me who I am, as a whole, I've just made a few mistakes here. Maybe I've made major mistakes as well. But still, I that

doesn't paint me completely. And that's not accurate representation of myself to judge me through those flaws. I have flows, everybody else's flows. And so when you think about it like that, and it makes it much more easier for you to have that forgiveness, and for you to actually feel that level of closeness with your father that you thought you wouldn't have ever had. So in this situation with the sister,

I think is important that the children do get to see the Father with those flaws. Because as long as those children and maybe I'm mature age, okay, when when I was younger is when I had those expectations that things should be perfect. It's only when I got older, and I had my own children, I realized, actually, there's more, there's more to human beings than there is the standards and expectations that we set. So if those children are older, and they have that level of maturity, that I think it would be important to allow the child to see the Father, even if you think he's flawed or harmful and whatnot, because it that may be the very thing that breaks that child's barriers that he

or she has put up and allows them to connect with the father in a way that they thought they would have never connected before.

Yeah, absolutely. As long as you can make the situation safe. Yeah. And there's multiple ways that I'm sure you could figure out to do that.

I think just having dad in your life, it adds a layer of to your identity, you know, that I don't think you can ever put a value to

and Allah Subhana Allah knows best. So I think pretty much those are the questions.

If you wanted to do the final little session, it's up to you. I know we have

technically finished timewise.

But we still got

a number of our parents online. And

how long do you think we can we can do it for five minutes that people want to? You've made us so curious now. Like, you have to ignore my 1000s of tabs, please. I'm one of those people.

Okay, so I want you to quickly put this together as like a way of fathers sort of being able to segment their day, even mothers as well. And just as a quick tip for parents who are very busy on how they can sort of look at a busy week.

and say, Okay, how do I get on top of everything, and I wanted everybody to participate. So on the yellow, sticky notes, you can see how all the tasks that you have may be going on in a week.

And the four boxes here are areas in which we need to move these yellow sticky notes into. So the do now box is considered important, urgent. So we have urgent not urgent at the top important, not important on the side. So one box, which is an task which is urgent and needs to be done, and it's important as well, that means we must do it now. Then we have the schedule for later box, which is this is an important task, but it doesn't have to be done right now. We scheduled it for later, then we have the not important, okay.

But it is urgent. That means we can delegate it. And then we have the last box, which is not important. It's not urgent for this week, then let's eliminate it for now.

So if everybody can help me,

let's go for this first one Chai with friends. Where would everybody put it? I guess easiest thing is just to go in the chatbox. And say do now schedule later delegate or eliminate those your four options. Less you need to have Chai with friends or senior tasks for this week. Where would you put it?

You know, sometimes I think it's urgent and important

to have Chai with friends because you really need a break. You know, it might be Yeah. So Misha schedule for later.

When we don't name sorry. Yeah, just to decide if it's important and if it's urgent, and where then goes.

And then we got two things scheduled for later. So over rule you share her and we'll put it here. Okay.

Now urgent could be urgent when you have problems. Important not urgent schedule for later. Okay, most people as calculator. Alright, let's go for date night with the wife or husband, depending on

I think I wrote this from a man's perspective. Of course. We try and do a few of them we won't spend too long.

Do you know

scheduled for later

on it's pretty chilled out. The context is obviously is that you've got a very busy week. And you're trying to prioritize things

to for scheduled for later. Okay. Put it in there. And let's go visit sick encore. Does that mean not this week? No. It would It would mean at some point this week eliminate would be you'd not not even do it this week. Do now for sick uncle.

Okay.

All right. Let's see what else do we have pay a parking fine.

I guess this depends on the deadline.

You know, I pay? I pay my parking fines in the car as soon as I get them. That's very good. Because if I don't, I know I'll forget and then I'll get that letter. You know

that's that's if I think it was a fair parking ticket.

Do Now slash delegate to do. Okay. You know, for you forget

the s3 thing do now and I will explain to do now. Policy. Do you know? Good let's say book a family holiday

schedule for later

this week delegate.

Think the husband's will say delegate and the

difference of opinion between the schedule for later and delegate.

Delegate Ergo somebody's Okay. Okay. So maybe we do one more and then we'll end.

Which one should I choose? It's time 123121 Time with one to one time with your son or daughter. Okay, let's go for that one. Do now.

Yeah, everyone's saying do now.

Everybody on this cohort has got their priorities right? I'm guessing. Good 100 law. Okay, well, we'll end it there. Don't take too much time. But the idea of this is that it really helps me my wife, sometimes we have a really, really busy week. We'll literally get on a whiteboard, we'll put these four boxes and we'll write down our tasks and then we'll just start putting them into areas and it kind of clears your head and makes you feel like okay, as a busy parent. I have all these things but I can't actually do them and segment them properly. Yeah, wouldn't be good to these types of life. Yeah, that's right. That's that's the idea inshallah do with your spouse just makes things

easier. You know, what tasks need to be done, who's going to take care of what when these things get need to get done now when they can get scheduled at Inshallah, just

Sir nice tip Insha Allah, that kind of hair that was

just like a hair and you should do a PDF of that. Let people download it because I think people would download it print it and then you know, do it with their spouse.

Yeah, exactly. Well, Brother che really appreciate your time with us. You've given us so much so many insights and I love it that you shared also your personal experiences as well. So brothers and sisters, that's the end of today's session. Thank you so much for participating. Yes and Baraka Luffy calm as well. I'm glad you benefited. Does that go ahead and brother shape? Is there anything you'd like to say right at the end before we end? So does everybody for participating really appreciate it if you guys want to get in touch with me, like I said just search dad hood on Instagram or YouTube or anything like that and follow the links for newsletters and all that will be

there. So get in touch if you need anything.

Thank you for the show. And we have put the some of the links on the WhatsApp group as well so everyone's got those. Okay everyone with that we will bid you farewell. Subhanak Allahumma behenic Asha do Hola Hola, Atlanta. Esta Furukawa to be like a Salaam Alaikum Warahmatullahi Wabarakatuh