Hosai Mojaddidi – Ad Fontes Raising Resilient Children
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AI: Transcript ©
Thank you guys for taking the time to come. It's an awesome topic.
And I've been excited and inviting my friends and families to come.
So do help yourself, please with some light dinner.
So,
today, I'm sure we're just gonna go over the agenda for today. We
have some obviously mentioned arrival and refreshments. So
please do help yourself.
We have a just go right into the topic. Pierce into it. Okay.
We're going to be doing an introduction about advantis in our
wonderful speakers, and then introduction to the theme of the
month. We'll break a little bit for prayer. I think prayer comes
in about 639 As I looked at the schedule, and then we're gonna get
right into the topic, and discuss raising resilient children. That's
our topic for tonight. And then we'll afterwards have a q&a.
All right.
Yeah, I don't think is it at seven? No, it's at 730. I mean,
Dan's gonna come up. Yeah. So that should be here about 689.
Probably, what 10 minutes later, we'll pray inshallah.
Again, we don't have accommodations for children. I
don't see any children here. But usually Parent Night. And please,
no video, or voice recording possible. We do have a camera
there. But it's only for our purpose, internally that we
record. And, obviously, please feel free to ask any questions,
especially during the q&a. That's the time I think, most of you that
have been here too many of these discussions. So I would highly
suggest sticking around. I know it's a long night, but it's a
wonderful time to ask your questions, or concerns.
And we'd love to hear lots of feedback from you guys.
Especially I saw that for future sessions, especially if you guys
have something in mind that you guys want us to kind of bring
aboard aboard and talk about, we'd love to hear from you guys to do
give us some feedback. And so our February session will be healthy
co parenting, that's our topic that we picked. I think it's a
wonderful topic and we don't have the speakers yet. But inshallah we
will be announcing and it's going to be on February 21. So keep that
in your calendar in sha Allah.
So we want to talk about the intention behind at Fontas. And as
you can read, it's basically taking it back to the fountain and
and basically creating a forum where we're having conversations
around parenting, education, and having a sound upbringing for our
children, a cohesive and sound upbringing, upbringing, and
especially into this modern world.
And
having sources such as this topic tonight, to to kind of collect
wisdom and understand and discover a lot of ways to kind of feed
through this and channel through this as we all are doing. So. This
is the purpose. This is the intention.
So this is the whole I Fontas intention.
And our advantis team, as mentioned prior. It's our
beautiful, Principal, Miss hehmeyer Wassell. Miss Ella, our
Vice Principal and Miss Sonia, our first grade teacher, Miss Afra
Abdullah our intervention in Liberian myself and Miss Sofia,
our curricular activities director
over the goals, yeah, okay.
All right, take it over,
grab this.
Thank you. So the goals behind that Fontas are to learn from
classical and primary sources as parents, and to really start a
dialogue around these things.
And, and to understand our roles as parents better as the community
because it is something that's deteriorating and we want to make
sure that we are kind of reviving that spirit supporting each other
and doing this and and kind of creating that culture of
discussion and elevated discussion in our forums. And then Skule or
restful parenting, building our understanding of the place and
value of leisurely learning, our communities so harried with the,
you know, just technology and traffic and all of the insanity
that's kind of ensues, causing us to live in constant kind of states
of anxiety, which sometimes we don't even
I realize, so for us, this is a very intentional way of kind of
slowing things down. And then bringing that that sense of Skule,
or leisure back into our homes as well, because it's definitely, as
we're constantly juggling multiple things, it's really hard to feel
like we're a family or we're a community, and then responds to as
a response to urgent issues facing us as a community. Definitely,
there's so many different things that are happening in our world
today. And making sense of it together is a very important thing
to do. Learning to embody the principles of truth, goodness, and
beauty, and Islam, those being Imana Islam and estan write those
principles, bringing them back into our lives and being those
people who can embody that sense of beauty. And then building
strong family and community relationships, it's really
important for us to be that village that's raising our
children together and, and create that sense of belonging for
everyone here. And for all of us to know that we have support
systems we have each other to rely on when we need to call upon that
inshallah.
So I'm actually not going to do this because I forgot to change
the slide, but I'll just do introductions, myself and fella.
So I'm gonna introduce the topic really quickly, and then inshallah
I will go ahead and introduce the speakers. And I'll join sister
Jose for a few minutes and beginning of the conversation,
whether you just email or message me saying that he's running a
little bit late because of immense traffic, and so inshallah He
should be here shortly. But to begin the conversation, I read
this book, which our English teacher Mr Urbina gave to me a
while ago. And it's been on my mind to do a session we've read it
kind of as a community together, but not necessarily as a parenting
session. But with the kind of advent of advantis. This year, we
thought it would be a really relevant topic for all of us to
delve into
the coddling of the American mind, how good intentions and bad ideas
are setting up a generation for failure. I mean, we are definitely
seeing the byproduct of these issues. And I know that our
speakers will, inshallah do a good job of talking about the three bad
ideas and kind of discussing the details of the text with us as
well as their own understanding and Islamic perspective on these
things. But we, as teachers, and as people who are dealing with
adolescents, and children all the time, are facing kind of
unprecedented issues within our community and specifically with
children. And so we have to ask ourselves, what are the things
that are kind of contributing to this? And finding resources that
answer some of those questions makes it really relevant for us
and, and so we thought it would be very important to to begin our
conversation with this, this this month in sha Allah. So how many of
you read the book or looked at over a few didn't read it in its
entirety? Oh, Mashallah. That's awesome.
Yeah, there is definitely a PDF version of it. So you can take a
look at it. You may not want to, you may want to skim through it.
It's not necessarily a very heavy read, but it's a it's very
informative. Hamdulillah. So, with that said, Inshallah, I'll go
ahead and introduce sister Jose, and then brother Ali, after
prayer, he'll join us. And maybe we can begin the discussion
together as your partner is late. I will be your partner.
And tell us so sister Husain is a
activist, a teacher, a mental health advocate, mashallah so many
different things, she has been a staple in our community for a very
long time and a wonderful resource for families and for communities.
And for sisters in seeking sacred knowledge as well as, you know,
bringing to forth some of the issues, kind of prominent issues
within our community, and addressing them in very clear,
concise, and, and practical ways. And so hamdulillah she's been my
friend for a very long time, and I have definitely benefited from
this friendship, but also, as my teacher, and as all of our
teacher, sister has, I also teaches logic at peace, Harris
Academy, formal logic to our students, and she also taught the
art of public speaking, as well as the art of debate to our junior
high students. I mean, these are topics and subjects that we don't
see within our school systems anymore. So the fact that she's
helping us to revive these things, and giving her valuable time to us
just means an immense, you know, immense amount to us much all so
we're with gratitude and Sharla we were well
Come you. And then brother Ali is a certified therapist. He works
within the nuworks school district with high school students.
Mashallah, he's a fantastic brother and a resource within the
community. He currently leads a discussion group with our junior
high boys, called a young man's guide, a Young Man's Guide to
Healthy communication which is so fantastic for the young men in our
community and Hamdulillah. So Ben Charla he will join us after
prayer shortly. So, this man that Miss Jose
what is the perspective that we have within our faith and within
us enough the Prophet SAW Salem in terms of
in terms of being people of resilience and then obviously
raising resilient children Sure. I'm gonna spit out a better human
him the low so that was salam ala Shippen, MBA even more studying,
say that 109 or what have you been? Mohamed some Allahu Allahu
wa salam, wa sahbihi wa salam to Sleeman Kathira, Santa Monica, or
Hamdulillah. Hubert.
Thank you so much, Amanda, John, and everyone at PCRs, for
extending the invitation on this very, very important topic. I also
want to thank you for getting me to finally get this book, I've
heard so much about this book over I don't know how ever since it was
probably released from a lot of different people who had mentioned
that it's just for every parent, every educator, they need to read
this because it really an Earth's, what's happening with our society
with our world. And if you recall, the last at Fontas, that I did
here with the SR hubba. We address the issue of post modernity. And
it's very much tied to this topic. So I did as much as I could in the
time I had a deep dive I haven't I'll be honest, I haven't read the
whole book. But I what I read from it was just hitting all the marks
for me, because it was connecting the dots in many ways, you know,
this long debate of nurture versus nature, right? What how, you know,
what, what is really the impact on the human being? Is it
environmental? Is it you know, you know, is it something that we, you
know, we're just kind of born and raised with, like, all these
discussions that often occur around the topic of children,
child rearing, faith, I think are addressed, you know, at least in
terms of what we're again witnessing in our society
unfolding with our children, because I've done so many
parenting sessions, and this topic comes up all the time, like, what
happened, what's going on? Why am I having such a difficult time? I
didn't have these issues growing up. And so we have to, first and
foremost accept that, yes, the world has really transformed a
lot. And it's because there are ideas that are divorced from faith
and tradition, which, you know, there's been a long standing
history of really trying to infuse or imbibe certain principles in in
children are in, you know, members of society, about, you know, being
stoic, being resilient, not falling apart at the first sight
of hardships and difficulties and challenges. But when you're rooted
and you have a faith that anchors you, right, and a belief system
that helps to answer or at least give you some consolation, you
know, with regards to challenges and difficulties, it's a lot
easier to, to move forward and find that that strength, but when
you take faith out of the equation entirely, which is what we've seen
in the past, how many decades right?
You know, that they've really tried very hard. And they are in
many ways succeeding, to erase the concept of, for example, something
as that is inherent in our faith, which is part of the six articles
of faith, right, that we believe in Kedah, right and other we
believe that there is divine will and that there are certain things
that are, you know, that that are, you can't really necessarily
change, but There's wisdom in them. Right? So we have this
concept that answers a lot of these unknowns, where as when you
deal with, you know, people who have no faith or no no faith that
again, grounds them or gives them those answers, then they try to
seek meaning in their own limited ways. Right? And so that's what
we've seen is that this direction of our world, in our society away
from God away from meaning away from interpreting events that are
unfolding with a metaphysical lens, right with a lens that is
beyond the world because the the the worldly lens is limited we
don't have all the answers to everything, but when we you can
say that, you know, there is a divine purpose there is Divine
Will there is more to life than just this material world and at
some point inshallah we will have answers that in and of itself
provides clarity provides calm provides a lot of just tranquility
in the individual, but again,
In our society is moving in a direction away from that. So what
happens is you gotta have, you got to kind of have, you know,
something to, I guess, fill that void. And what's happened is
feelings have taken over, right, the conversation around, you know,
feelings versus intellectual rationalization that makes sense,
is where it was what why this book is so relevant, because nowadays
no, we're not rationalizing, we're not seeking meaning we're just
reacting, we're in a reactive state, life happens, things are
happening. And so, you know, everybody is now in a state of
just feeling and then processing, whatever is happening with
feeling, and that is, at every level of our society, we're seeing
that right, where that's why this book is highlighting things that
are really important for us to understand, like what, you know,
when when it's talking about, you know, the untruths, but also what
we're seeing, for example, in academia, right, we're seeing
discourse shut down much. But at least here, we're seeing, you
know, debate shut down, we're seeing, you know, even even the
intellectuals of our society have fallen prey to this mindset, that
if something if I if I don't feel right about something, or if
something doesn't align with my feelings, and I have the right to
prioritize my feelings, as as opposed to what is in the common,
you know, in the interest of the collective. So there's this
entitlement, there's this, there's a lot of just really, again,
unfortunately, very harmful, you know, patterns that have emerged
because of these ideologies. And these ideas that are, again, from
our faith perspective, completely divorced from fate. So there's so
much to say, and I know I didn't exactly answer your question,
because I do have a lot to say about Islam and Assam's position
on resilience and what our Dean teaches us but mashallah, now that
we have brother Eddie here, I think it would be wonderful
because we were initially going to start off the discussion trying to
just again, introduce the concepts in the book, and because Michelle,
brother, Ali has more experience in the space of his, as a
therapist and in the schools, and really works a lot with youth, he
was going to begin our discussion and just share, you know, some of
the observations you've had, and then we'll get into the Islamic
perspective on these topics and how Islam addresses, you know,
really infusing in children, that that fortification that they need
to be able to manage, and regulate themselves and handle the
bombardment of challenges in this world, which is 100% rooted in, in
faith, but as an ideal is a is an intellectual process. It's
something that it's not rooted in emotions, it's rooted in
understanding, right? And so it's a reasoning that we, that we
approach these things with reasoning, whereas we're in the
world of feelings right now. So now I will, this minute welcome
you, brother, Eddie. How are you? Very good. Mashallah. So why don't
you come off, so please forgive me for my tardiness. If anyone knows
me, or anyone knows my wife, one thing that I do not like is being
late. So it's a long day at work today. So go into feelings, I have
to ground myself with my feelings. So.
So yeah, so I, well, first of all, subhanAllah, there's so many
familiar faces of parents that I see out there. And, and I just
want to thank you all for taking the time out, away from your
families, and just away from your children, actually. So I have to
commend you to kind of give yourself that space. And that's
one thing that as a clinical therapist, what I do often talk to
my, my parents, about what do you do outside of your children? And
what does your life look like and in for all of you to be here,
that's just actually really amazing to see. And I expected a
good turnout, but I didn't think we'd have such a good turnout so
much, although
I actually the book is right up my alley. So for those who may not
know me, I am a licensed clinical therapist, and I am positioned at
Newark High School. And so I'm there full time. And so I'm
working with our students at that high school, Monday through
Friday, sometimes longer days, like today,
with a lot of different emotions, that they're going through
different kind of life obstacles that they're trying to manage.
Anywhere from anxiety, which we'll probably delve into a little bit.
Depression, grief and loss. We're looking at relationship issues,
and they could be peer family, or otherwise. One of the models that
I use one of the modalities that I use, I try not to use too many
clinical words. One of the evidence based practices that I
use is cognitive behavioral therapy, which the author of The
coddling of the American mind they
to authors, they do a really good job as far as using that and
extracting some of that information and trying to help the
reader understand where the feelings are coming from how to
navigate those. But it really kind of comes through the thoughts that
we think are the thoughts that our children think. And I actually
teach this quite a bit with a lot of my students. So I just wanted
to if it's okay, I'd like they have some takeaways, I want to
give you some my takeaways and just by a show of hands, and
there's not putting anyone on the spot, but who has who has had a
chance to either gleam through or read thoroughly through the book
itself, just so I can get an idea of those who might. Okay, so I
might go into a little bit deeper detail of what the authors are
presenting. And so hopefully, that'll kind of help you along
when you actually get through the book or you get to the book.
It's a very straightforward book. So it's not
beyond that, really the high school reading equivalent. So it's
not very hard, it's a very easy read. And the authors do a really
good job of storytelling, as long as as well as putting forth things
that you can actually take away. And hopefully, use, you know, as
you're raising your children. So I wanted to just kind of read and
then I'll put my own thoughts it can I would it be okay, if I can
have the floor for just okay. All right, very good. So I'm going to
read a little verbatim, directly from the text, and then I'll give
my, my own little thoughts on that. So
basically, the two authors are really kind of looking at high
school children below. So any anything under that was actually
the beginning of the study, they actually went into the college
setting, so the university setting, and so what they were
finding is, there was a situation where there was a program that was
put on, it was a a kind of a heavier debate, where
feelings were kind of like, kind of out of control because of the
speakers that were being presented and the topic that was being
presented. And I'll say that as a surprise, if you guys dove into
the book, it's in the first chapter so and they were they made
a quote, unquote, safe room for parents or students or staff even
that might have been triggered by the discussion, right. And so the
authors actually saw this, and they were just kind of very
curious, like, wow, how fragile some of our adults are, right? Not
necessarily children, but it was kind of like looking at the
adults.
And I, you know, it's very weird, because in the clinical therapy,
part of it, I, we talk about safe rooms and things like that, but I
think he was showing the extreme of it. Right. And so, he, that's
where it kind of starts, and it just kind of starts where, where
thoughts and feelings begin. So
he said many university students are learning to think distorted in
distorted ways. And so that's where it starts. And so I find
that oftentimes with my students, and even a staff, I work with my
teachers.
And it's, it's their thoughts and how they think about the
situations in the environment that they're put in or placed in and,
and how they think. And then and then all of a sudden, those
thoughts, there's behavior behind it. So
that's kind of where the authors are going. And then it continues
on that there's a culture of what they call safe. DISM. All right.
And so it has produced institutional practices that have
overreached the goals of protecting children from harm, and
undermine our ability to solve important social problems. So as
I'm looking through my notes, I wanted to just talk about my high
school students. And one of the things that I'm preaching to my,
my teachers, like, I have a lot of students that come out of the
classroom because they have anxiety. And so I'll give you an
example of test anxiety. So that's, that's a big one, right?
So I'll get a teacher, they'll call me up and they'll say, Well,
their student is just out of control. They have all this
anxiety, and they, they just need to see someone, right. And so
that's kind of that escapism, so they run to my office and there's
breaking down, they're in tears, they're shaking, and I'm trying to
figure out what's kind of going on, I thought maybe there's a
there's an argument with the parent or there's an argument with
a peer or, or maybe there's some kind of other thing going on, but
it's just a it's just a test. It's just a quiz, or it's just
something like that. It's kind of going on, and all of a sudden, I
start kind of breaking down where the where the student is. And so
one particular student and I'm like, Okay, what's happening?
What's going on? Well, I did
So they'll say that I didn't prepare enough for the test. I
said, Okay. And then we'll say, Okay, well, what else? You didn't
prepare enough for the test? So you're going to take the test
anyway, I can't? Well, why not? Well, I'm going to fail the test.
Okay? Failure is part of learning, right? And what happens if you
fail the test, and then all sudden they escalate, they escalate the
negative thoughts. So the negative starts start rushing through. And
they're thoughts of, I'm gonna fail the test, I'm gonna fail the
class. And now I'm going to fail, I'm gonna fail school. And then
they they frame it as I am a failure. And so my job as a as a
therapist is to back them down, why I called Walk down the walk
down the staircase, because now they've escalated to the point
where now physically, they're reacting to their thoughts and
feelings. We're now we're seeing physical symptoms of shaking and
crying, and all of this kind of getting out of control. So we walk
them down. And I say, well, first of all, let's look at the test.
What is the test on? It's on? It's on chapter 24. Okay, how long is
the test? Well, it's 25 questions. If you fail the test,
hypothetically, you failed the test.
What's your grade? Currently, I have a B. I said, Okay. So logical
is, is F on this particular test, going to give you an F and the
overall grade? And then they start to start to think and reason and
understand and like, No, it's not going to bring my B down to F.
Okay, great. Okay. Now, if it's not going to bring your beat down
to an F, it might impact your grade a little bit. So now, so we
start to problem solve, so that that is kind of like the core of
it, we have to get their fears and anxieties kind of calmed down, so
we can start thinking rationally. And so that's where the kind of
the book is kind of going. And so
I'll continue on it. They talk about the three untruths early in
the book. So the two authors, they come up with three untruths. So on
Truth Number one, the truth of fragility. So they use this model.
Now, I'm not necessarily fond of it, but they're their words, is
it? What does it make you mean, what doesn't kill you makes you
weaker. Now, I don't know if you've all heard, what doesn't
kill you make you stronger. Right. But that's the premise that they
want you to take. But I guess they're saying that you've heard
this one. But really, it's, I have an example. And I see this a lot,
I lost a friend, therefore, I will never find another.
And I will no longer be a good friend. So
I had this one particular instance, where two friends junior
high, they come in high school, and they had a falling out. And
then all of a sudden this
argument happens and all of a sudden, they catastrophize it,
that's what we call it, you know, just making something small out of
this huge thing, right? And now all of a sudden, they're no longer
friends. And now I'll never make another friend ever. And so I have
to we talk about logical and illogical, right? So I have to
break it down, I have to kind of bring them back down the ladder
again. Because their thoughts are now turning into beliefs. And, and
I'll get into where the the the author's kind of think, are
actually describe how thoughts become beliefs and cognitive
behavioral therapy, talk about this. So if you think something,
therefore you will start to believe it. And then therefore
you'll see the action or result behind your beliefs, right? So the
second one is the untruth of emotional reasoning. And so they
said to always trust your feelings. So that's, that's the
untruth, you shouldn't, shouldn't always trust your, your gut
feeling that and you'll hear this a lot with adults. We might say,
Well, I feel it in my gut. And I know that that's what I should do.
And and we go down this what they call gut instinct, right? And with
this, this could be false. This could be not not necessarily a
good thing to actually do or even teach your children you know,
should we should react on your, your gut instinct, because it
might be a false thing to do. So that was that's the second
untruth. And then the third, untruth is the, the untruth of us
versus them. And this is this one hit home with me a lot. And so
it's basically separation of groups. And we find this in
politics, especially in the political environment that we've
been placed in over the last, say, 10 years, right. We want to
shelter and we want to contain our children from from feeling bad or
feeling, you know, upset and we want to care for them. We want to
put them in a kind of a plastic bubble, kind of say, and we don't
want them to experience pain, right? So we want to rescue them.
So the authors say and I also say this with my parents as I work
with my parents and my students, that's going to be okay.
When you learn you're going to fail
You're going to have many failures. Matter of fact, one of
the things that I do in my office and I love chess, chess is one of
my favorite of all times, there's a lot of lessons can be
extrapolated from chess, in the game of kings.
When you start learning, you will lose. It's a complicated game in
the very beginning. And I often teach and I have friends from all
over the states, I'll teach over the phone. But the first time I'll
teach them, I'll say, you're going to lose, that's the first thing
until you're going to lose, and you're going to lose a lot.
Do you still want to play? Sure, let's teach me how to play. So I
have a I have a guy from Alabama that I have been playing chess
with over the phone for
about a year now.
23 losses in a row. And I said, How's your resilience? So I'm
gonna, I'm gonna beat you. I said, that's the, that's the attitude
I'm looking for. And he did, he finally finally won a game. And he
I'm telling you, that made his whole life just beating me one
game. And then after that, I crushed him five more times. But
and this is something that I learned in play therapy. So very
early on in my education, I was I was trained in play therapy. And
my clinical psychologist who trained me in play therapy, she
set me up in elementary school. And
she, she taught me different kinds of ideas about play therapy. And I
didn't know this particular idea. And one of my little guys wanted
to play board games, as all he wants to do is play board games.
And I would just let him win. And I didn't, I didn't think twice
about it, we play and, and then I would just find a way to lose or
just let him be happy, because he took a lot of joy in it. So I'm
gonna pause just for a second as the event goes, the smaller. So
just to kind of pick up where I was at. So play therapy, I'm
working with this little guy. He loves playing board games. And so
I would, I would just find ways to lose to make them happy. So I
thought that that was, that was a good thing. And so part of my
clinical training is I have to review each and every student that
I'm working with. And so my clinical supervisor sits down, and
we go over each of the children that I'm working with. And so I
get to tell her about my little guy, he only wants to play board
games. And, and that's okay. And this is what we call structured
play. So we have structured play and free play. Free Play is quite
different. But structure plays more with the rules, right? And so
she was asking me about, does he abide by the rules? Does he cheat?
You know, they hide things or try to make you know, he's doing all
good there? And, and she said, How often does he lose? Then I'm like,
he never loses. And then like, she's like, he never loses. They
Wow, he's pretty good at these kind of games. And so well, I
purposely let them win. And she said, Well, why is that as well,
because it makes them happy. And it gets a lot of joy out of this.
And she goes, Well, I want to talk to you. But like, that's not
necessarily a good thing. And so she wanted to let me know that.
There's life lessons that has to be used and in play and play
therapy. And part of that is losing and learning how to deal
with the emotions of, of losing. And so I said, okay, so she, she,
she made assignments, she said, Next time, I want you to play and
I want you to do your best to win. And of course, you know, next time
we played, and she wanted to know how he reacted, how we responded.
And sure enough, the next time we play, I think it was chutes and
ladders are something weird. And so sure enough, he loses. And he
had a fit. He just had, he was He's eight years old, just he took
the board, he kind of threw it off the table, all the pieces flying,
he got up and he's I don't want to play anymore. And he went off on a
cherry powdered for a while. And as I Wow. Alright, so now I need
to process with him. So that's the key, right? So needed to run and
work on. So anyway, with that being said, I talked to my
clinical supervisor, and she said you need to help them through
those emotions. Because now we need to extract what does he think
of himself? Right? Because it's all about thoughts versus
feelings. And that's, that's kind of where the authors are going
with this. So long story short, I had to continue to play with him
this way. And and I found some rigidity with his willingness to
want to play these type of games anymore. And now I would have to
encourage them. No, come on, come on. And then it's about teaching
as well. So there's a teaching aspect of learning. And so
whenever you're finding a child, your child who's having
difficulties or struggling or getting angry or upset, those are
the feelings right? And they're they're turning into action. I'll
get into that in a little bit. But the teaching aspect is probably
one of the most keys because the authors are are saying that
In order for a child to grow and develop in a healthy way, and an
independent way, they have to learn, adapt and grow. And they
kind of go into the brain and the consciousness, and how the brain
is still growing. And it will be growing into the early 20s, you
know, but at the tender age of eight, 910, and 11, there's
cognitive processes that are developing, and the neurology is a
little bit deep. But in all reality, it all comes down to
teaching learning so they can grow and adapt. So that's another part
of the book that I really found. And I'll be honest, I haven't read
the entire book, but I can't I can't put it down. So I will, I
will now finish the book. So thank you, hamara. For for even bringing
this book to my attention, because I was I was not in the know. So
I don't want to over Are you over again. Okay. Okay. So I wanted to
get into something I'm passionate about. It's the modality, it's the
clinical practice that they're looking at. It's the cognitive
behavioral therapy. And so the basic definition, it's an
intervention that focuses on challenging and changing unhelpful
thoughts, beliefs, and attitudes and behavior, improving emotional
regulation, this, this is very key as stop there, there. The
emotional regulation is where my high school students are
struggling. So I am actually I give sugar to a law that I'm in a
high school situation where I'm dealing with students from the
ages of 14 to 18. And I've been mashallah, I've been there for
now, seven years. And I'm finding that my young adults are not being
young adults. And so a lot of the work is helping them understand
and adapt to being a young adult, because that that very critical
age of four years from 1418. And in all sense at all, you know,
kind of sense of the things here in the United States, 18, you're
considered an adult.
And the parental rights are now waived. So, now adult, I know, the
parents are like, well, you're 18, you need to get out and you need
to take care of things yourself. And we're finding that our 18 year
olds are not prepared for this. And, and so I noticed this, and I
try to find my freshmen, I get them early. As soon as I can get
them in, I'll ask them who wakes you up?
When you meet mom always meal.
Oh, you're 14 years old, and you don't get up on your own? Oh, my
mom gets me. And I will say more than more than most of my
students. Parents are doing this. So that safety is right. I don't
want to make sure you're not late honey. So I'm going to wake you
up, I'll get you up, and I'll cook you breakfast. And I'll take care
of this. And I'll get your books together. And I dissect I'll ask
questions, right. But it's about what I want to talk to my parents
about is we got to get them to become adults. And how do we do
that we have to teach. So when they're on their own when they're
in college, and I assume I'll just take a poll real quick. For all
those in the audience who have children that they hope and shot
love will go to university.
Okay, the majority of hands, if not all the hands went up. And
that's, that's fantastic, Mashallah.
The chances of your child living at home
might be slim to none. There's some universities that require on
campus, dormitory state for a freshman, not all so.
And so then if your child goes to, like UC Santa Barbara, or UC
Davis, or Sacramento State where my did my bachelor's degree,
they're not close enough. So they have to be on campus. They have to
be on dorm. So if they're on dorm and they're 18, no, they have to
become adults.
They have to get themselves up on time, they have to make sure
they're doing their homework, they have to make sure they can cook or
at least, you know rudimentary kind of cooking. You know, just
basic things. They have to make sure they're showering in their
dressing, and they're using deodorant and the hygiene is
correct. And they're brushing their teeth, and all of these
things. But if our parents have created this safe DISM, where
we're doing everything for them.
And now they're away from Mom and Dad, for the first three months.
It's going to be very hard for them to adapt from parents,
keeping everything safe and all too now I have to do everything
myself. And how do I manage that I'm frustrated, I'm angry, I'm
upset. And then again, we get back to the thoughts and then how they
feel about them. How they how they feel about themselves. I can't
cook for myself, I can't eat therefore I'm a failure. I can't
do this and then we get into this
Failure Ristic kind of mindset. So as my parents as I sit in front of
you,
one of the things that I really would request is you start
training your, your, your children to kind of be independent, teach
them how to cook, get them an alarm, not their cell phone,
give them an alarm, that they could get up on their own. If
they're getting up in the 12 1314 year old, it's time for them to
kind of stand up. So when frustrations handle or happen, or
they're confronted with some obstacles, now they there, they
have a little bit more that inner strength in them, that, hey, I can
do this. I don't need mom there, I don't need that there. I can I can
manage it, it starts very small. And with my students, it starts
with just getting up. And then it starts about going to bed on time,
you know, do you have to be told about of it? Or do you know what
time your bedtime is? Right? And so it's just this little thing. So
going back to the cognitive behavioral aspect of it.
So
what it what cognitive behavioral therapy really kind of gets into
is automatic thoughts. So when something happens, you will have a
thought about it.
If an earthquake happens, what's your first thought? What's that
automatic thought? Am I gonna die? Is it am I gonna go through fall
through the Earth? Allah forbid? Or is my child safe? Am I safe? Is
my home safe? Am I under fault? Where did it happen? You know, so
all of these automatic thoughts start rushing in. And some people
have these automatic thoughts that are
pretty gruesome. I know somebody who, who feels that they are going
to die in every earthquake, that happens, right? And so these
automatic thoughts is the ground starts to shake, I'm going to die.
So now we have this false belief that's now growing, right? So if
you've ever experienced a car accident, I had a sister that
experienced a car accident, and it's pretty major. And I was young
at the time, and she had to go to therapy for it, because she
couldn't get into a car. And her automatic thought was, every time
I'm in the car, something bad will happen. So therefore, I won't get
in the car, therefore, I will not drive. And so all of these
automatic thoughts turned into feelings, which turned into
resistance. So cognitive behavioral therapy is about
learning how to dissect the automatic thoughts. And then it
goes into how do you look at that thought that came up. And so just
for the sake of it, I'm going to talk about optimism and pessimism,
okay?
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy always wants to look at the near
the positive side of thing. So being an optimist is the best way.
So if we're looking at the negative, sometimes we have to,
but one of the things that I do train my students as much as
possible, oftentimes, I'll put a bottle of water on a half a bottle
of water on the table, and I'll say, your opinion, is this half
empty or half full? Almost every time, I kind of already know the
answer I'm gonna get, depending on the student I'm working with, if I
have an optimistic student, most likely, they're gonna say eyes
half full. And if I have a pessimistic student, you're gonna
say it's so almost empty, it's halfway. And so they're gonna look
at the negative what's been taken out of it. So this is one thing
about cognitive behavioral therapy, they want you to look at
the positive, because what happens is the negative thoughts creep in.
Negative thoughts creep in, negative feelings follow. So it
goes back to thoughts and feelings. So if a if a dog bites
you, that's a negative. That's a negative
action. Now, the negative thought is the automatic thought all dogs
bite.
And it's a sweeping thing and all of the dogs out there, all dogs
bite, my there is a truth behind all them do Bay. But not all dogs
are aggressive. So there's a way to kind of break this apart, and
understand that not all dogs will hurt you. And so that's what
cognitive behavioral therapy is about is kind of breaking away
these these, these thoughts, these automatic negative thoughts. And
what happens is negative thoughts build up into negative reaction,
negative feelings, and then it turns into a negative reaction.
And I actually want to get into that. I'm going to sum that up.
I'm gonna give you an example. And I'll give you an acronym for those
who might be taking notes. But to sum up cognitive behavioral
therapy. I'll sum it up in two sentences. What we think and what
we've started, what we think and what we do effect how we feel.
Negative thoughts lead to negative feelings. That's that's if you
want to take the whole science of CBT
put it all into two sentences. Those are my two sentences right
there. So how does that apply? And how is that applicable to the real
world? If you think of a FBR
as the action,
F is the feeling,
B is the behavior. And four is the results. I had to look at my
notes. I do this all the time, but
it's getting late for me now, right? So the example is the
action.
There's an argument with a friend and the friendship, and that's the
action, that's what happens, the physical thing that takes place
the feeling, I will never have friends again. That's that
distorted, abstract, negative feeling
the behavior, I'm going to isolate and not make friends, so I'm safe
from getting my heart broken.
The result?
loneliness, isolation, depression.
Now, as a therapist, I go right from the beginning, I have to kind
of unpack it all. And I start with the action, what happened? We got
into an argument. They said, they never want to talk to me, again,
they was upset with me. And then we have to stop it at the feeling.
So the feeling is, I'll never have friends again.
And so I have to, there's a disbelief, there's a there's an
automatic thought that now has to be deconstructed. And oftentimes,
I will say, Well, do you have any friends? Oh, yeah, I do have
friends. Okay, who are your friends, and we just want to take
that as a false belief and dissect it. And so they can disprove that.
And this is where the critical thinking part of what we need to
do with our children, so that their thoughts don't turn into
their negative thoughts. Because we all have negative things happen
to us, when we don't want those to become negative thoughts, then all
of a sudden, they're negative feelings. And then we have a
negative behavior attached to it. And that is CBT, in a nutshell.
And the resilience aspect of it all is the and that's this is this
really kind of the author's solution to the resilience factor
is kind of to see things as thoughts and feelings and
behaviors. And what I would like to do is leave you with, really
this is the ending of my aspect of this talk,
is understand that your children are going to make mistakes,
understand that they're going to have these negative feelings
attached to those mistakes. And it's your job as a parent, your
job as an educator, you're so if you're a teacher out there, and
you're teaching students, it's your job to debunk the belief, the
false belief that they start attributing to themselves, and
you'll see it you'll hear it oftentimes is I will never, this
will always all these forever, kind of infinity words, you know,
once you hear those key words, you have to stop them. And you have to
kind of deconstruct that with them. And once you do that, we can
start removing the negative feeling, but also to teaching to
our children, that failure is part of learning. And failure is okay.
As long as we attempt as long as we try failures, okay. And so I
actually spoke with a student today, and his heart was just on
getting into USC. And so he's been he's a senior now. And he put in
his early application. And the US USC has an early admissions. And
he thought he nailed it. And I was trying to get them prepared for
the what if scenario, what if right, he was he was shutting me
down, and I'm not going to talk about that. So I get an email from
him today. And he says, you know, Mr. Bishop, can I can I meet with
you? Man, my art has been it's probably about the UCF or the USC
application. Sure, no problem. I have an opening such and such time
come by my office. And he comes in my office, and he's just wearing
basically an emotional wet towel. Right? And he is just devastated.
I already knew what happened, right? Just you can just tell and
he's walks in. He slumped in the chair.
I was looking for those infinitive words, it was negative infinitive
words. So I'm saying okay, what brings you to see me What Why did
you shoot me the email? He says, Well, I didn't get it. I said,
Okay.
How do you feel about that? Well, you know what happened when you
get the letter and, you know, I just feel like a loser. I'm never
gonna get an any of the universities as a whole I'm in. So
I had to deconstruct this, because now we've got this never I'm never
going to so now is resiliency
He is now he has he has no resiliency. Now he's just going to
drop out of school and he's just going to become a nobody, right?
That I have to build off of this.
So I said, Okay, how many other universities? Did you apply to?
seven others? All right, let's listen. What's your number to
school? You didn't get your number one school? What's your number two
school? UC Santa Barbara. All right. Next one, UC Irvine. All
these other UCs he throws out. I said, Okay, before you call
yourself a failure, and you're never going to university? How are
you going to say that you're never going to do something if you don't
know what the other side is doing?
Part of this is getting him some hope. So this is what I asked you
to do is for your children. You give them hope.
Right? You give them praise for their attempt. But also to that
hope is that that optimism, right? We want to give them this could
possibly happen. And the reality, I had to show him facts. So
another thing as a parent, and as a teacher, I want you to lawyer
up. All right. I will tell you about lawyers, a good lawyer is
not going to bring the emotion to the court, the judge is not going
to have any part of the emotion. And if a lawyer gets a little
emotional with it, because he's trying to influence the jury, the
judge will shut him down. Anyone here has ever been in jury duty?
Okay, so when you go, you'll see this play out. So the minute that
the lawyer tries to use a motion to sway the jury, the judges? No,
no, no, no, you stop that. No.
And so the lawyer has to bring facts in so once you have a child,
that's us, you know, that has these thoughts and feelings that
are all in the negative. And you know, these are false thoughts.
This year, it's your job to bring the facts to debunk those
thoughts. So with that student, and now in now, I told him, I
said, What's your GPA? That was the first thing as 4.2 4.2 GPA and
you're telling me you will not get into university I said, I
challenge you to come back after your seventh give you letters in
the mail that you did not get it.
And so that's our that's our deal as he left my office. So anyway,
thank you, thank you for just give me the floor there for a minute.
Now modicum mashallah I want to first and foremost, thank brother
Ali, for your presentation. So relevant, so powerful, a lot of
food for thought that you left us with. And as you were speaking,
many things were coming to my mind. But I wanted to just first
mentioned two things that really tie in with, you know, the the
portion that I'm going to be presenting, which is the Islamic
perspective, what you mentioned about how you
introduced the game of chess to your friend, and you basically set
him up for the realistic expectation, right, which is that
he will fail. And I think that, you know, as a concept is
something that we need to first and foremost understand, because
in Islam, I was just mentioning earlier, I had a class. And I was
mentioning that one of the my, I mean, there's many things,
obviously a candidate that we love about our deen. But one of the
things that I love about Islam and I think we should really take
great pride in is the fact that our deen is so transparent, you
know, also kind of data has really just laid it all out for us, you
know, you read the Quran, you read the Sierra, you you get the
picture, it's all there, there's no secrets, there's no, you know,
agendas, there's no hidden plots and twists. And you know, it's all
there. Dunya is difficult. Dunya is hard, you're gonna be tested,
we're gonna test you with your children with your spouse's with
your wealth. So all of that is, you know, it sets you up for the
right expectation in life, right, which is why what I was saying
before is so important that faith grounds you in setting yourself up
or with the expectation that will align with the reality you're
going to have. But when you don't have a faith perspective, and then
you create a false utopian concept of what life is, right, because
people who don't have faith, they really do see this place as it
right like this is it, I'm going to make the most of it. And so you
set your expectation that everything should go my way. And
then we have, obviously in our, you know, in the West here, we
have a problem with entitlement. We have a problem with a lot of
messaging that gets ingrained into the minds and starts to shape a
person's expectations and reality, all of it which is not set in
reality. That's the you know, ironic thing, right? That, that
we're actually falsely portraying,
you know, life by foot, you know, by through media, for example, I
mean, think about how much of our expectation
Jinns are shaped through film, through television through music,
right? When you're growing up on a diet of messaging that's
distorted. That's utopian. That's not set in actual life, real
experience, but stories, you know, then you start to think that way.
And I've seen this when I work with couples. I mean, this is one
of the main points I talk about. When we talk about marriage, for
example. And I say, if you came to marriage thinking that the
Bollywood movies that you've been watching, right, or Hollywood, rom
coms are like what your expectation is, you know, like
your or, you know, your even before that, like your selection
of a spouse is informed on the archetypes that you've seen
growing up watching all of this television and film, you are
setting yourself up to fail, and you're setting your marriage up to
fail, because that is fiction, it's not reality. Reality is,
yeah, you might have that little honeymoon phase, but all of a
sudden, have problems, right? And we're taught to, to, to basically,
you know, be very mindful of what affects, you know, what we let in,
right? And, you know, when you when you ask, you know, how do we
protect ourselves? How do we protect our children, we have to
go back to the basics and the basics are, what is the Quranic
worldview, right? What is the, what is the worldview that almost
father wants us to have and ascribe to? And how are we
implementing that in our own families in our own lives? As
parents as educators? What are we teaching our children? Is it in
line with the Quranic worldview, which says that, for example, you
know, as I mentioned, you will be tested, right? That this life is
a, you know, an, or the dunya is a low place where, where you should
expect sorrow, anxiety, depression, grief, like if that's
not what your the world that you're preparing yourself for, let
alone your children, that obviously, you're going to fall
into everything that they're describing in this book, which is
a false expectation based on, you know, whatever, whether it's your,
your entitlement, your false ideas around, you know, the, the
narratives that you've envisioned, but it's not true. And so as you
were speaking, I love that, because that is part of the
solution, that we actually start off our journey as individuals,
obviously, our own selves, that's where, you know, you, we start
with you, if you're not grounded in reality, which is, you know, I
have to expect and anticipate that I will have problems that I will
have challenges. But I also have recourse, right. So it's not like
I'm just left to suffer through suffering through hardships, we
have a, we have a worldview that is actually quite empowering,
right. And the perfect proof of that is to look at the lives of
the prophets. So if you're actually studying, you know, the,
the highest of human beings and the ones that are exemplars, all
of the prophets, but specifically the prophesy set up, and you see
that from the onset of his life, he had challenge that he had to,
you know, overcome after challenge after challenge after challenge,
but what have what's the totality of his of his life is that he was
the most perfect human being. So those challenges did not in any
way, take away from him, they actually are part of why he is so
incredibly, you know, who he is, it's because of those challenges.
So, you know, going back to the book, and those three untruths, I
think if we go through every single one of them, you will find
Islam has a perfect answer to all of them. The first one, as I
mentioned, what doesn't kill you, makes you weaker, of course, it's
alive, because I just, you know, we just stated that if all this
man is telling you are telling us that this life is difficult, and
and hard, and you will go through challenges, however, you know,
those who are the most patient, those of us who are the most
resilient those who have severed Jimmy and they practice, you know,
that beautiful patients will come out successful, then obviously, it
debunks that lie right away that actually, hardships right make you
stronger. And again, the proof of that is evident in all of the
great prophets, the saints, the teachers that our deen encourages
us to know and learn about their histories. It's to infuse in us
this concept and really get it that actually, yes, you can go
through a lot of suffering in life, but you can succeed and then
come out on top. So not to look at suffering as something that you
should fear necessarily or suffering that is something that
automatically means that you are disadvantaged. That's actually not
true. As we're taught. I was planning to test those he loves
the most right. So this is where, as brotherly mentioned, using
whether it's CBT, which is you know, a modality that therapists
use, or what Muslims would use is actually again, deferring to
back to the source that informs us of how to interpret things right
because you if you if we let if we're left to our own devices,
it's very dangerous the mind is you know in our In Islam we have
the concept for example, that our thoughts are shaped by four
sources okay. So we call these colletta are hotter right. So,
there are four however, there are four sources of inspiration or
thoughts that will that all of our thoughts can fall under the first
is hotter, Rabbani Okay, which is that it is an inspiration that is
directly from Allah subhanaw taala. The second is hotter
Molokini. So from the angelic angelic realm, right there
positive thoughts. The third is hotter enough 70, which comes from
the knifes and then the last is hotter. shaytani. Right. So, all
the thoughts that we have, and I think I've I mean, I've read
studies that say anywhere between 6000 thoughts a day to even 70,000
thoughts a day, right, can be understood in this, you know, in
this structure that they fall under one of these four sources
right. Now, again, this is all from our dean. So when we're
taught that, that you need to pay attention to your stream of
consciousness, make sure that it's passing the truth check, you know,
is there is this real rational thought? Is this a thought that
that is provable? Is it falsifiable? Is there something
that can counter that thought, because it is irrational or it's
based on emotion? So that is a process that we can develop
internally, with ourselves? How do we do that? Again, you look to the
dean, by process of maraca right by process of Maha Sabha, we're
supposed to think, right, we're supposed to be thinking we are our
uncle, which is, you know, again, going back to how rich our dean
is, because all these questions that I think a lot of people are
grappling with, in terms of the, you know, the thinking versus
feeling our answer, just looking at the way that our Dean has
provided so much context to, to our creation, right, like the
momentum, bizarrely, I mean, one of my favorite, he has many, many
wonderful teachings. But one of my favorite, is also something that
is found in in the, according to the ancients, and in the
Aristotelian model, in the pre even Socratic model there was they
had a very holistic understanding of the human being as being
multifaceted, right, so the whole mind, body heart, you know,
connection, but what the moment was that he introduced, and he
really helped to explain is that we have three aspects to us, we
have the He called these coolers, right, so cool, it'll clear the
intellect, quarter for the beer, the emotions and growth and shadow
Ania the appetites. So when you understand your, your, your self,
in this triune nature, and then you realize, you know, what our
dean, you know, instructs us, which is that almost father
created the uncle at the top of our being right, because this
should govern everything that we do. Our upper should be in charge,
right. So you should be rationalizing. That's why we're
differentiated from all of his other creation, the animals are
not their instinctual, they're not rationalizing anything they feel,
animals certainly feel, but they're instinctual. Whereas we're
rational beings, right? So the mind is at the top of the crown of
our entire structure, then we have the emotions which reside in the
heart. And the the analogy that he uses is that emotions, you have to
understand them as having a functionality similar to
a hunting dog, right? If you have a dog that you are, you know,
training, because you're a hunter, or you, you know, you're out of
your survival, you're surviving, you need to know how to train the
dog, and then dispatch it to retrieve what you need, and it
comes back. So emotions, that's what they should do. Emotions have
a function, there's a time to be angry, there's a time to be happy,
there's a time to be sad, but it should have a function. And once
the function of it is over, like it would be wholly inappropriate,
if this was a, you know, a funeral, and we're laughing,
right? So we need to know that that is not acceptable socially.
And that we are, you know, created with an ability to be empathic to
have sympathy to grieve. And so that's the emotion that should
come forward and that you know, time and place, but this is a
rational process, right, understanding this. So the
emotions are centered in the heart, you train it, you and this
is where regulation comes from. So when, brother when you were
talking about, you know, CBT, and, and all of the distortions, right,
the cognitive distortions that a lot of us are susceptible to
catastrophizing, you know, or even the opposite of that.
minimalizing. Right. There's a lot of things that we do as human
beings. It's because we're not we're
rationalizing, that's the bottom line. It's an emotional drive that
leads to those conclusions. But the moment you activate the
intellect, which is what our dean is constantly telling us, right
that you are intellectuals, you're you're created with Apple, you
should be thinking reasoning, weighing the pros and cons
weighing the veracity, you know, there's a DA that the policy is
sort of taught us to make, which is, you know, Oh Allah show me
truth is truth and falsehood as falsehood because we're
susceptible to our own distortions and also being manipulated by
other people. But the point is, is our uncle has to be in charge at
all times. So the emotions are based in the heart, you treat them
like you would a hunting dogs, you train them, you regulate them, and
you dispatch them according to the appropriate time and context. The
shot Hawa the appetites, are likened to a pig, you have to not
fall into enslavement of them, right? So we're now many of our
teachers like Chef Hamza, he's he's mentioned this before, but
it's true, that if you look around, you find a lot of what he
calls dog people. And pig people. They're driven by emotions, which
is what we're talking about, right? Everybody's triggered,
everybody's sensitive. Everybody's fragile, everybody's falling
apart. Or they're just giving into their base desires. They just want
something there shot, what leads them? Where are the people that
are reasoning, that's supposed to be us? Right? The Muslims are put
in the position of the Holy Father or the the representatives of all
US partners, Dean, because we're supposed to be reasoning. And if
you really look at historically, this was true, right? Our golden
age was, was the age of what the dark ages for the Europeans
because we were on the rise. And many of these, even these, you
know, conveniences that we have today are sourced to the fact that
Muslims contributed so much there's of science and medicine
and all these things. So we are absolutely the vanguards in the
trip, you know, we were leading the charge for so long, because we
were doing what we were supposed to be doing. But now we've come
here, right and what's happened. And this is I mean, I've seen it
in my lifetime, where as soon as we come to the land of choice and
opportunity, what takes hold, right? How many people do we know
who've immigrated here from Muslim lands, they had mashallah
structure order, they were praying five times a day, they come here
and it's like, well, yeah, it's party time, right? Let me just
tell you, like, let me just, you know, throw all of that knowledge,
all of that out the door, because the dunya and this is, you know, a
microcosm of what the dunya represents, right? America or the
West, with all of its opportunity with all of its choices, is like
a, you know, a buffet of a shower of desire. And if you're not in
control of yourself, and you don't have the right understanding of
your purpose, then you're susceptible to falling prey to all
of the distractions and all of the things that we're seeing so many
people around us fall prey to. And this is why when we go back to
parenting or educating our children, we've got to remind them
of their essence, you are a spiritual being. You're that's,
that's in a physical body, you are not a physical weak to the flesh,
right body that has no spirit. And that's the demonic worldview that
they are being indoctrinated in everywhere else in this in this
country, or in this world, which is you're just a physical body,
your feelings are all you know, everything, your whole reality
should be shaped around your feelings or your desires. And so
the spirit is completely gone. And children are not really being
taught that anywhere else, unless they come to an Islamic school
unless they have parents who are really grounded in their deen and
remind them you are a spiritual being you have a high MACOM with
Allah, you have the ability to rise above the angels, like I
mean, just think about how powerful that message is for a
child, that regardless of your human frailty, regardless of the
skin color that you have, that you're insecure about, that all
these you know, things, the all the accidentals that this society
tells you to focus on. It's immaterial, it's irrelevant,
because you're, by virtue of your character, by virtue of your good
deeds, you can achieve higher than the angelic realm. If we could
teach our children to see themselves in that way, then what
happens is when they're faced with difficulty with challenges, they
will have a, you know, resilience, right? Because they're, they're,
they, they're, they're, they're informed on the truth of their
reality. Whereas nowadays, again, which is really the big issue, and
unfortunately, it is affecting our Muslim children in sha Allah, not
with families at peace tears, but I've certainly seen it in the
community because, you know, their children, they're sending their
children to public schools, where they're not getting any spiritual.
Input her at all, ever. And then, you know, there's no time because
you come home, there's homework, there's sports, there's all these
other things. So where's where are our children supposed to get this,
you know, solid fortification that really reminds them, that you have
to be strong that this world is temporal that there's much more
to life and that, yes, you're gonna go through things. But guess
what, all of the best of people have gone through things. And
we've survived and the only like our teachers remind us to, that
the only reason why we even exist today and this is where, you know,
a perspective that's really important to, for us to have to,
is to look at the generational resilience that resulted in us
being alive today. It was because our ancestors went through famine,
went through war went through horrific marriages, abusive
relationships, but maintain their faith identity maintained their,
you know, their they had, it's the comma they stood, they didn't fall
apart because they had this that or the other happened to them,
that we are standing here today as Muslims, especially those of us
who were born into Muslim family, so we have to really appreciate
that stoicism resilience, all these themes that our Dean teaches
us are part and parcel of being a Muslim and in and that's why we're
It's haram to fall into despair. It's haram to let you know, your
your own machinations, your own false interpretations. cast doubt
in your Lord, which is what happens to people when feelings
just start going sideways. And you know, we're all over the place
with our feelings. So regulation of emotion is so important. And I
think the other point I wanted to mention, which I'm so glad you you
talked about the game that you were playing with your PE or with
the student that you were working with, it's so funny, because just
the other day, I had this discussion with my husband, so how
many of you watched Jeopardy in your households? Okay, so we never
I never had regular television. But with the World Cup, my husband
bought YouTube premium or whatever, for three months. And so
I was like, we're only we watched the World Cup, and I'm not a TV
person, but I was like, I love Jeopardy. How much Jeopardy? So
Jeopardy and wheel of fortune, right? Those are the two we watch
them. And that's it. That's our TV for the day. But I am very
competitive. So if you know me, you know, I will win and I will.
And I am Yes, I'm a showboat, I'm a braggart because I'm like, it's
all about competition. You got to trash talk, you know, if you could
do it on the court and basketball, then why not sitting at the house,
and I'm rubbing it in your face that I want. So anyway, I like to
do that. But my husband was getting, he was in the kitchen.
And he was like, You shouldn't do that. Because my youngest one was
getting like a little sad, you know? And he was like, pouting,
because I kept getting the answers, right. And so I had this
debate with him. And I'm so happy that you shared this, I'm gonna go
and talk about it. confirmed that what I because I knew I was like
the same exact thing. I said, No, I want him to be tested on me. He
was telling me to let me let him lose or lose, let him win. Stop
answering the questions. I was like, No, I'm not gonna do that. I
will, I will win. And I even if I'm playing chess, if I'm playing
any game, I never take the approach of like, let me you know,
stop No, I'm I'm beat you and
teach you my ways. And that's the other thing I do that I'm I'm
generous in that way I will.
But I want them to win. So I actually, you know, defended that
position. And then I had to have that same processing conversation
with my envious when I said, Listen, the reason why I'm like
doing all that is because I want you to feel confident and also to
spark that competitive drive in you, where it's like, okay, it
might not be about mommy, it's just about I want to do better
next time. I don't want to just sit here and pout and feel like,
you know, I'm a sore loser. So you know, infusing these types of
ideas, even in these transactions that we have with our children
every day. They're so important because it will counter this
fragility that they're seeing everywhere else in society right?
If we believe in them if we bolster them if we remind them
that with Allah subhanaw taala everything can happen I've had
even my son over the years with different situations, I remind him
of Dora the power of Da Da is the weapon of the believer. I mean,
that's such an important integral Hadith for us. If we're teaching
our children then guess what, when they feel like okay, like I had my
son he was preparing for my oldest one was preparing for a big
basketball competition was like a tournament, and he was really
stressed out because he was playing the best team and his team
was like, okay, but he was like, so I kept telling him just make
dua I was found out is with you, if you just make dua work hard,
obviously, practice, do all that, but just my thought. So when
hamdulillah they played and he won, and it was a biggest shock,
because nobody thought that their team could beat this other great
team. He was like, he came to me with the full confidence. He said,
Mommy, I made a lot of dua at Fudger time and right before the
game, I did Fatiha. And I in he was like I know that's why I won.
And I said that's exactly that's you know, when you've had that
parenting like yes so Hamdulillah you know you got it and I you know
we but it's that's the kind of messaging that our children need
to hear not Oh, you're sad. You're triggered let me cuddle you. Let
me protect you safety ism, all these things that brother Lee was
talking about, which actually end up doing far more harm. And I
actually
You know, I remember, just FYI. I mean, it's kind of a little
footnote. But I remember when I first had my, my, my first my
eldest son, and I was reading about all the parenting
philosophies, right? There's the attachment parenting style, and
there's a cried out method, right? If you look at the research of
those two, and you'll find camps, I mean, in my own family, I had
people were like crying out, put them in the room and close the
door, right?
That was not me, I'm too much of an empath. If I hear like a little
bit of a, I'm like, cool, you know? So I was like, No, I'm gonna
do the attachment parenting, right. But when I started doing
the research, what did they say? They said that actually, you think
that by leaving them in the room and to cry it out that you're
going to build these strong kids, we're just going to, you know,
basically Sue themselves. Whereas the research shows that they end
up actually having more stress later in life versus attachment,
children. So it's, again, challenging these ideas that we
have with with fact, right, like brother already said, you can't.
Your your interpretation, your understanding, may seem logical,
but is it really in line with first and foremost, for us, our
criteria isn't just science, but compassion, like to have a baby
crying, and you're just like, I'm going to sit and eat my ice cream.
Like what you know, that infant is a gave them that ability, because
it has a need, maybe it's in pain. But for some parents, they've been
so conditioned to think that they're going to do better by
their children by abandoning them and leaving them to cry it out
like that. Because it's like, yeah, I want to have these
resilient kids. But the research doesn't prove that it's the
opposite. They actually, because why you're getting them accustomed
to this high cortisol, like stress response. So they end up actually
having far more stressful experiences as adults, because
they don't feel safe. So here's like, a perfect example of how
these kinds of ideas that are perpetuated. And usually because
there's, you know, I, for me, I'm just at a point where everything
has to be questioned in the society, money drives so much of
what is marketed to us and so much of it is sold to us. And they're
very convincing, they're very good at trying to use these, you know,
like these, these, you know, whatever, you know, propaganda to
convince us, but we have a higher criteria and our criteria is
truth. It's up and if it doesn't align with our deen, it should
immediately be abandoned. I don't care how many people are pushing
it, because if it directly is an opposition to, you know, a core
value of our deen than inherently it's flawed. And this example of
like, you know, as I mentioned, lacking compassion toward it, or
toward an infant. I mean, I'm talking newborns are left to cry.
Like, I just don't understand how any Muslim could adapt that adopt
that if they were reading the Hadith if they were reading the
messages of having compassion towards children. Right. It just
doesn't make sense, right? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think that's
one of the things in terms of going back. And that's why we
named this for ad scientists, because it's going back to the
source. And going back to the sources of truth and those
initial things. Two things I wanted to say. And then I think we
need
one is the junior the elementary teachers and I, and they were
asking me about this, how to actually instill this concept of
thinking versus feeling. And so one of the things that I said,
anytime that a student says, I feel this, tell them to to repeat
their their their statement, was saying, I think this because so
instead of saying, I feel scared, to say, I think I'm scared,
because these were there, when they're rationalizing it, then you
can work with them on that irrational thought, right? So what
is the feeling and they're feeling triggered, and they're feeling
that constriction, and they remove their thoughts from it, they're
not going to necessarily do that. So it's just a little trick maybe
you guys can also use with, with the kids that when they come to
you with anxiety, and they're pouring out their feelings, to
help them to rationalize it, and then started know, I wanted to
piggyback and I just, I so appreciate you bringing that out,
because it's something that we work with in my office quite a
bit. And I use the cause and effect model, right. And so if
anything, I There are so many aspects of clinical therapy, but
one of them is behavioral psychology. And behavioral
psychology tells us that there's a cause and effect, right? So
whenever there's an emotion, right, so if your anger goes up,
there's a cause of why why that went? It might be obvious it may
not be, but there's a reason so I feel angry because and so this is
a very clinical way of helping your child go through and explain
why they feel the way they feel. So just excellent planning. I
just, I just was smiling inside I was like, thank you so much.
The
other thing that I wanted to say was the concept of us versus them.
One of the things that's really dangerous and kind of permeated
our society is this concept of the females versus males, men versus
women. So we were constantly perpetuating this and have kind of
ingrained it that if it's coming from my husband, I'm surely not
going to take it, it's coming from the male in my family, this whole
concept of us being two, you know,
beings that are constantly at odds with each other. And, and seeing
everything through that lens is a very dangerous lens versus, you
know, that from a lot than the partnership and the love and the
reverence that always wins fights cause us to have towards each
other, they have the option to have towards to each other. So I
just wanted to point out that when we put ourselves into camps, that
sometimes those are ideological, political or whatever, but we also
put ourselves into these narrow female camps. And, and it's a very
dangerous place to be in when you're raising a family, because
you're not, you're consciously not being a one unit. And you become a
kind of these utilitarian kind of practitioners of, you know, your
point of view, versus how do we create a cohesive point of view
within within our household within our relationship within our
household and then perpetuating those differences with our
children as well. So I just want to make sure that that's a point
that we keep in mind that subconsciously or consciously
Can I just quickly add something because I wanted to just quickly
mention, you know, we talked about the three untruths, right, which
is the what doesn't kill you makes you weaker? That's obviously a lie
in our deen. The second was always trust your feelings, what I was
saying earlier about the thoughts right, and understanding the
sources of thoughts. Our knifes is really, you know, it's like a
record playing constantly in our minds, right? And that, and it is
the greatest of the evils, right, there's four sources of evil in
the world, shaitan knifes Hawa and dunya, dunya, the material world,
but the neffs is the greatest evil. So we actually have to be
very suspicious of our thoughts and very suspect of our feelings
and make sure that you are literally questioning your
feelings, questioning presumptions questioning your like, for
example, Hassan Advan, the concept of, you know, if you if you if
someone, for example, didn't invite you, so but you have to
your it's on you to make excuses for that person, as a rational
exercise to get you out of victim mentality. So the victim mindset
is not acceptable in Islam, you you have to be willing to do that,
like what are the rational explanations of why you weren't
invited? Do you have to conclude that they don't like you? Or is
that maybe an irrational thought, That's give feeding into your own
inner weakness or whatever. So rationally, do the thought of
like, oh, maybe they didn't have my email, right? And you do that
up to 70 excuses were challenged to do. That's how much we should
suspect the suspect our thoughts. And then the third, as you
mentioned, life is a battle between good and evil. We, I mean,
yes. And from from the, from our cousin, cosmological understanding
of the world, there's good and evil. But as Homer said, we have
to be very humbled to not presume we know who's good and who's evil,
right? Like, who are we to make a claim? We don't know if we're on
the right of any situation. I mean, Imam Shafi said he never met
anyone, without thinking that they were better than him. That they
were that they had more truth to the debate than he did. And he
actually wanted that. So if we're going to create these polarized
worldviews where everybody is in, like you said, you know, whether
it's identity politics, or whether it's gender, or whatever the issue
is, and we fall into these camps of us versus them. That's a
supremacy and supremacy is Jaha. Leah, it's ignorance. It's
shaytani. Whereas the prophesies sent him the best of creation
never treated people as though he was the best of creation. So he's
our model. So all of these points are in line with, you know, our
deen in terms of you know, what we have to infuse in our children. So
I'm sorry, I just wanted to kind of full circle that and now put it
for the q&a for the for the audience ishasha