Hosai Mojaddidi – My Parents Just Don’t Understand Me ParentTeen Forum (Part 1)
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AI: Transcript ©
Bismillah suddenly come everybody. My name is Aaron, aka Harun
sellers. I say aka because literally mine, the name of my
birth certificate the name that my mother gave me is Aaron. And I
became Muslim. And I accepted Islam converted to Islam, however
you want to say that in 1994. And just that every Muslim I've met
since then, when asked me what my name is, as soon as I say, Aaron,
they just automatically say, oh, hi room, so they just
automatically translate my name, and Hamdulillah. It's the name,
it's the name of a prophet. And so I have no problem. You call me,
Aaron, or hover, no problem.
I was born in Washington, DC.
And from there moved to Maryland and Virginia, and then from
Virginia, moved to the amazing California Bay Area, I think, in
the summer of 2000, specifically, to serve at what was then called
ze tuna Institute. And I literally just came to initially to help
Sheikh Hamza Yusuf to switch or make the transition from audio
tapes, selling audio tapes to get into the digital age and get
material and the higher quality format of CD and Hamdulillah. He
said, Why don't you just stay. And so I stayed, and I'm still here,
and hamdulillah I'm very thankful to be the longest serving person
that but has now become zaytuna college,
at the top of a mountain in Berkeley, California. So it's
really an honor and pleasure to be here in the Bay Area.
I'm happy also to be a father happily married for over 20 years,
I don't want to mess up the date. And hope my wife's not watching.
And I'm happily married. I'm the father of all girls. That's what I
made dua for I asked the law right after I got married, it's all up
please give me all girls. And I'm doing I have all girls, the oldest
of five. So I have three younger brothers and a sister. So I helped
raise my brothers. And that experience I think is what led to
me praying for all girls.
Sam Diller what I do at zaytuna College is I'm an audio visual
manager, been recording and preserving lectures and producing
promotional videos,
photography, which you can find on the zaytuna College YouTube
channel, Facebook page, live stream page, and so forth. My
motto is to capture and share light.
But as we'll get into one of the there, one of my intentions and
moving here as a family was not just to serve, but to also be
benefited. So not only to bring benefit, but to be benefited by
what I saw was a growing community of knowledge. And so I really felt
that not only could I bring a particular benefit to the
community in terms of my audio visual experience, but I really
felt there was a dynamic, growing hungry community of knowledge and
a particular way of teaching that knowledge that was very attractive
to me as a convert, especially as being that the founder himself,
she comes in as a convert. And
I'm doula so that was really the impetus for us moving out here was
to benefit myself and my family and try to bring it benefit and
it's really an honor to be up here speaking with you in this capacity
today.
Salam Alaikum My name is Asmaa Zhi Shan matar, I was born in Karachi.
And before the age of four, I came to the United States to New York.
I lived in New York, went to the public schools there, and then
around fifth grade came to the Bay Area. So I was here in the Bay
Area, and lived in different cities in the Bay Area. But then I
moved to Saudi Arabia during my sophomore year in high school, I
lived there for a couple years and then move to a crotch move to
Pakistan live with my grandparents away from my parents who were
still in Saudi Arabia, and live with my grandparents for a year
and went to Karachi American school. So I was on three
different continents for high school, three different years. So
that was pretty interesting. experience some good, some bad
living in a Muslim country at that, at that time. My parents
prayed and taught me the religion, but I kind of went out on my own
so early that I feel like I grew up once I came back to the United
States. I came to UC Santa Cruz pretty isolated down south, the
mountains and the beach, and I didn't have any most Muslim Sahaba
so
I grew up and went to college, without family without any support
on a continent all my own, without any Muslim Sahaba. And, you know,
your environment affects you. So I grew up long, for a long time I
lived pretty much my life without really much being so I can speak
to the reason why I'm on the panel, I believe is because I have
that experience of sort of feeling lost and trying to find myself and
then going and transitioning into deciding to marry a muslim woman
sitting right here on my left. And then how are we going to approach
you know, learning the theme of raising children. So I have three
boys who live in the Bay area here. Some of them are, are here.
So maybe we're going to share some stuff that they're going to hear
for the first time. And so wanted to be asked to be on the panel to
try to understand or help parents navigate what their children went
through, because I I feel with
the stuff that I went through, I think I can understand. So
hopefully, this will be beneficial to
everybody. My name is Hannah Han matar and the wife of the Shamrock
that
like you said, we have three sons, I used to be a high school and
middle school English teacher. And I was also very honored and
blessed to be one of the founders of the homeschooling cooperative
in Lafayette, California known as Elmtree, which all three of our
sons attended. We homeschooled them up cooperatively with other
families up until eighth grade. And then they all did different
things after eighth grade, which I guess we can go into later on
about educational journeys for children. If we get into that
topic.
I do I write for seekers guidance, and I've written a column called
written for a column called Raising our Ummah, which is for
the Muslim observer. They have different columnist who write
about different topics of parenting, they wanted to South
Asian and Arab and African American and a convert. And so I
was a South Asian writer for that panel for the over a year. So I
have articles on parenting that are out there on the internet that
people are welcome to read if they're interested. And I just
wanted to add a little side story. So brother, how to whom. It's
interesting, because in the late 90s, I purchased video cassette
called Pathways to Islam.
Pathways to Islam, and it was one of the first video cassettes we
had, and in it there, were we Yeah, VHS. Were you guys in
college then? Was it? They were it was like?
Yeah, so it was these three college students sitting at it at
a table, talking to an MSA about how they came to Islam. And I
remember this one young man really standing out on the panel and
talking about, he said, One day, I look forward to having a Muslim
wife and having Muslim children and lining them up behind me and
leading them in prayer. I shall, and who knew I shall then years
later, when I met him, I was like, Oh my gosh, it's that celebrity.
I watched in the video VHS. But it's just to me, that's just the
proof of intentionality. And you never know when you're those are
going to be answered. And that was a wish he had and Allah subhanaw
taala more than granted at Mashallah.
The just to give you kind of a an outline of how this is gonna go.
So as we mentioned, we gathered questions and survey responses
online, which we will inshallah address those at the second part
of the panel. So that's we're gonna kind of split things in half
and give you guys a little bit of a break to get a stretch and some
water in between. But this first half, what we're going to do is
actually address some questions that the panelists have, or that
we've received, and that we're, we're going to, you know, I'll go
through each question and allow the panelists, whoever feels they
want to jump in and address that particular question.
And then we'll, we'll go from there. So, again, please send us
your questions, because the more the better, we'll really have a
really fruitful conversation. If we generate, you know, if we get
more questions from you, so, okay, so, inshallah Bismillah. With that
said, I'm gonna go ahead and read a question that we received. And
again, I'm gonna turn to the panelists and allow each of you to
just take it if you feel it's something that you want to speak
about. Okay, this one so the first question is, my parents expect me
to get straight A's and to get into a top tier university, but
then they expect me to do all of my prayers on time and also go to
the mosque for drama. How do I get them to realize that they that
they can't have it all something has to be given given up? There's
there isn't time for everything right now in my life. So
any of the panelists want to take this question? Yeah, okay.
Okay, so, my shallow one
One of the things that is on a lot of parents plates is to set their
children up for success. And it's a big responsibility. And it's a
big weight. And it's a big source of stress for many parents. And
one of those responsibilities is helping their children be
successful not only in the dunya, but in the ACA as well and Shala.
So, parents who have been successful in teaching their
children will teach their children the
about time management skills, and also about what is due to their
Lord, right. But everything isn't just about succeeding in the
dunya. So it can definitely feel like it's very, very overwhelming.
But you can't have success in the dunya without actually turning to
Allah and asking for his help. And that's something that parents
realize, and are trying to communicate with their kids. And
sometimes, maybe the communication skills can be lacking, and it
feels like there isn't empathy or there isn't sympathy and they're
not getting, what kind of pressure that children are under. And so
it's going to be important to sit down with your parents and let
them know that these are the things that are stressing me out,
helped me figure out a way that I can manage my time so that I can
be successful in the things that are important to both of us, and
inshallah pleasing our Lord. And fulfilling his rights is also one
of those things that are important. So one of the things
that I saw
work really well with a friend of mine is when her kids were in
college, and they were applying to universities, she made it really
clear to her kids that they had six different areas of their life
lives that they couldn't be neglecting. And that all six areas
needed to have something filling those if you want to call them
time slots. So she,
when I when she laid it out for me, I was a few years behind her.
And when my kids came of age, I had the same discussion with them.
And I have found it to be really, really helpful. So the six areas
we talked about focusing
on was that your body has a right over you. So physical health,
making sure that you're working out, you're getting exercise,
you're getting sunshine,
you're going out and playing sports or having having fresh air,
right, and that you're not just in your room studying all the time,
you're not just sitting at a computer the entire time. So
physical, your body has rights over you. The second was that
something education related. So regarding your education, so you
have to be going for tutoring, or you have to be taking your classes
or going to college or whatever it is that's being fulfilled by
taking going to classes, taking care of your education. The third
is career. So figuring out what you want to do. And doing
something in that direction, whether it's an internship, or if
you want to have pocket money, getting some kind of job, even if
it's babysitting, something where you're doing something out there,
where it's not just your parents taking care of you 24/7 That
you're out there also, you know, having some responsibility. So
there was physical, there was educational, there was your
career. The fourth was something for the community. So just making
sure that you're out there, whether it's going to jamaa for us
it was going to Bali on Sundays, so just meeting with the community
making sure that you have some kind of bond with other Muslims.
Some I know in her family, her son decided to tutor students and
underprivileged areas. So that was his way of giving back to the
community. So that's covered for now. So the fifth was religious.
So making sure that you are praying, or you're you've got some
ODOT, some kind of liquor that you're doing. And the sixth the
was
family time for the family. So even if it meant only having
dinner once, once a week, if that's all you could do sit with
your family and have dinner once a week or Sunday morning brunch,
making sure that that was fulfilled. So they laid it out as
a chart. And then their kids had to figure out how they were going
to fill every single one of those slots. And we did that in our
family as well, because there was a time where I noticed like with
one of my sons, all those slots were being filled, but exercise
was being neglected. And so it was like no, no, we got to figure this
out. Like how are you going to be going out and making sure that
you're taking care of your health as well, or with one or the other
kids everything was being fulfilled. But family time was
being neglected. We never saw him at the dinner table because he was
always running in different directions. And sometimes one
thing could take care of two of those things. So like one of my
son's teachers got on in the community. So for him, that was
his religious thing because it gave him a
has to review his Quran, but it was also his giving back to the
community. But making sure every one of those slots is filled,
otherwise, you're going to have an imbalanced life. And then
inshallah Dolphy comes right with praying to Allah for that for
success. Central and may Allah make it easy.
Thank you so much, Michelle, for that comprehensive response. Sure,
of course, let me pass this down.
Well, that was a great list. Time to, like I said, this is a, this
is not a top down type of form. That's not the intention.
Just like I said, in terms of my reasons, for even coming to the
community, it is to my my goal here is to bring benefit, but also
to be benefited by the things I hear. So thank you very much for
that system. And that for that list, because I'm the total
opposite. I'm like the head in the clouds, artsy, kind of father,
kind of person. And that trickles over into how I parent, but one of
the things I try to consistently do, or an essential ingredient in
my parenting style, is to always really try to be aware of what's
the bottom line, and everything because, honestly, just hearing
the list when I heard that question, I was like, you know, if
you think about it, like even as parents, we're still struggling
with that same, okay, how do we work full time, and be a full time
father, full time husband, you know, and also get on my prayers
and on time, also participate in community events. I mean, like
this one even being here today. Like, I'm so thankful for all of
you for taking time out of your Saturday to be here, I'm not
worried about the numbers of people here. But just, you know,
the people who did show up, I really appreciate it. And also for
the panelists, you know, for to take time out of your schedules,
to be here and participate in something community, I myself tend
to be a caveman. You know, when I'm off work, I just want to be in
the house all day, all night. And so I really appreciate that
sisterhood side brought me out, it forced me out of the cave. Today.
Because I'm doing I do work. I'm surrounded by my, you know, by
Muslims, despite the nature working to zaytuna college, we
also have a lot of events. So I tend to, in my off days just want
to be by myself or, again, just locked into the cave.
But it's important. So I just want to acknowledge that modern life,
in and of itself is very challenging, especially as you
know, saying this as a convert, you know, coming from a lifestyle.
Well, yes, I was Christian before this. And we had our beliefs and
our do's and don'ts. But we didn't have a structure such as the five
daily prayers. I mean, that changed everything. For me trying
to like literally, like, on Monday, I wasn't Muslim. Tuesday,
I was. So I come to work Tuesday as a Muslim and have to tell my
manager, hey, I'm gonna have to step out back in the storage room
or in the hallway back back here to do these prayers is going to
take maybe a couple minutes. And how do I explain now it's like,
well, so and so you always takes a smoke break, like to smoke a
cigarette. And that takes government law. I'm just going to
pray. You know, so so he got it right away, like, okay, yeah, go
do your thing. So it's challenging, that was very
challenging to figure out how to do this five times a day, within
it's time. So I just wanted to acknowledge that it's not just
our our kids who have this struggle, we should acknowledge
that we also have a struggle with this. And one of my parenting
principles is to make religion a group effort, make the practice of
the religion a group effort? Yes, you know, I appreciate that, that
God has given us a sense of order and a kind of a chain of command,
in terms of who's the leader of the House, and who's the Minister
of the Interior, and so forth. And I appreciate that, and my family
is aware of that. We respect that. But in terms of our practice of
the faith, I said, this has to be a group effort. I don't want your
Islam to just be dependent on what you see myself and your mother do.
I feel that would be a tragedy, you know, and again, one of my
purposes was moving was to also expose my young, my young
daughters to other women, and also other men who practice Islam and
they also bring their different unique flavors. But we're kind of
all in this together because I felt that there's too much weight
that just put all the Islam just on my shoulder, just with Dad
things and just what mom thinks she has her baggage and background
and and particulars and soda. Why, but when you come in community,
and you see
As we have a community that that's around not just one teacher, but
several, you know, and not just male teachers, female teachers of
knowledge, it's, it's a, it's a tremendous gift to be able to
benefit from these different perspectives and from these
different flavors, but all of it's still rooted in loving Allah,
trying to love Allah and grow that love and trying to fall in love
with the Prophet Muhammad peace be upon. So I try to to keep things
really grounded, and also be very open with my children, about my
spiritual struggles, because sometimes I think that's what
creates part of the distance is when they feel like all dad, a mom
is just trying to ask us to do all this and that. And it's like,
well, what about Dad? And Mom?
Do they have struggles? Are they going through anything. And that's
something we try to be really open with, you know, in my, my family,
and my daughter, Marian was here. And I'm glad you know, she chose
to be here today. And so she's what I call the fact checker. And
it's, you know, for anything I say, that's not truly
representative of the realities on the ground. She can call me out on
that, but also that, you know, she can participate, as well as each
of you. But I just wanted to bring that out that it's, you know, I
try to make it a group effort, and that it's challenging for parents,
and kids. And that's one of the reasons that we're all here
Hamden that Thank you. All right, so we'll go on to the next
question. Michelle, there's quite a few. And again, please, I'm
going to keep reminding you and so you don't forget to turn in any
additional questions you have. So another question that we have that
we've received. And again, I'll leave it up to the panelists who
want to address it, to answer. This one is a hot one that I've
heard quite a lot as well. And it's regarding smartphones and
social media. And I'm sure a lot of the teens and the parents here,
here or watching will agree that this is probably a big topic of
debate and contention in the household. So the question is, how
have you or how do you and your children navigate? How can we
navigate the slippery slopes of smartphones, devices and just
social media in general?
So I do have some comments, but I'm going to allow the panelists
to speak on this first, so anybody want to jump on this? Okay.
Well, smartphones, and social media, this is a big one. So I'm
sure everybody in this room has a smartphone. And how many people in
some platform or another are engaged in social media? Anybody
besides myself?
Okay.
Most of the folks here, so what's the dominant app or platform that
you're on?
Facebook?
Instagram, WhatsApp.
Anybody else? What about the gentleman here? What's kind of the
dominant?
LinkedIn?
YouTube, okay.
Facebook,
Instagram,
WhatsApp, so WhatsApp thing is a big one. I'm actually new to that
I was really trying to be the last holdout on planet Earth, who was
not on WhatsApp. But
2019 was the year that I gave.
And I can't remember was for some type of assignment as they always
started. So four project. And now I have WhatsApp. But for myself,
it's mostly Instagram, Facebook, and especially for zaytuna
college.
I'm on all of those platforms, as well.
Now, one thing I'll say up front, and this even has to do with is
related to one of my book recommendations, which is the
disappearance of childhood by Neil Postman, I highly encourage every
family to have that book and to read it as a family, or at least
one person in the family read it, and share what they've learned
from it. The disappearance of childhood by Neil Postman, it's
kind of a difficult read. It's a very thin book. But the language
is very dense. And the concepts are very dense. So it's not an
easy read. But it's one read that really was influential on me as a
human being. And especially as a parent, just by the title, the
disappearance of childhood in sight. What do you mean by we
still have children in the world, right? So what does he mean by the
disappearance of childhood? And technology has to do a lot with
that disappearance. And one of the things that he articulates in that
book is The he gives the analogy of the parents door, the door to
the parents room. And what that
represented, you know, for him, you know, growing up as a child
and the period of time that he grew up and it made me think of
what that represented for me. The door to the parents room
represented privacy. Right? If the door to your parents room is open,
you kind of know you as a kid, you kind of maybe have a general
permission to kind of wander in or peek into something. But if the
door to your parents home is closed, do you feel like you can
just barge in yourself?
If your parents doors like closed? Do you feel like you can just
barge in anytime? Yes or no?
Honestly, kinda Yeah. What about you? Know? Are you sure?
Because he said it quick. He was like, No, like some battle
happening.
But do that. What about you growing up the parents door?
You're kind of represent privacy or just like swinging door you can
just walk in and out.
Privacy? What about you in the Grinch? Levi's shirt? This brother
right here?
Yes. Growing up did your parents door does that represent privacy
or all access?
Privacy, okay. Sisters, I
privacy,
or all access?
Any door close? Okay, good point, any door closes privacy. So same
here, that as a kid growing up, if the door was closed, like you
definitely had to knock. And even coming up to knock I had to, I
felt like a sense of like, as I got closer, like,
like my heart, you know, would be. But he mentioned the analogy of
the door. In the in the in the book that he said, what the
parents door represented in terms of that barrier between the life
of the child and that stage of development as a child. And where
you are as a parent that door because of all access technology
has been removed. So now, even though your parents door could be
closed, because of the nature, especially of a technology, such
as the Internet, and then especially since the internet that
you can have a pocket sized device that can give you access to that
portal. Now the door, the parents door doesn't mean anything in
terms of what that would prevent in terms of there's intimacy that
takes place privately. Now you can see anything, all forms of human
interaction on something that's in your pocket. So you said the door
to the parents room has been removed, even if it's closed.
Number two,
one of the challenges that we have is the new technologies are
happening at a rate faster than which we have the capacity to
analyze its effects for good or for bad. So we're just technology
is happening to us at a rate faster than which we have the
capacity to analyze its effects. And that's why always hearing
about things coming out Oh, later you found Oh, now this is causing
cancer. Oh, now this is causing this. And now this is causing
this. And that's what we're dealing with here. So my bottle,
and I'm sorry to start to be long, but it's a big, big issue. And
really part of my answer is the jury's still out on this thing. We
can talk about some of the effects and challenges that we have. But
it's still affecting us in ways we don't even realize. And so one of
the ways that we've chosen navigators is we didn't start our
kids out on smart phones, if you will, because we wanted them to be
smart first, before we just dumped smartphones, so we had just normal
dial flip phones, you know, they didn't have to have the latest and
greatest. So we started them out on that and you shouldn't feel
pressured. Okay, we have to start my kids out on the latest iPhone
or the latest technology just because that's what you're using
as a parent, or excuses. Also, in terms of apps and things like
that, you have to navigate that with them. Whatever they're signed
up in, ask them about it. If they're asking to sign up, find
out what this app is about, what does it do? And why do you want to
join Instagram? Why do you want to join Facebook? Why do you want to
join WhatsApp and sort of everything is just you just assume
it's fine and innocent. And then you can end up with a disaster,
literally a disaster. So at least if nothing else, I just want to
encourage parents and children to like, take a inquisitive role with
this and just because your parents are asking you why doesn't mean
they just want to invade your privacy. But you should be
yourself have good reasons why I'm trying to get into such and such
we'll explore a little bit deeper. What I would call like the big
picture things that should influence questions we should ask
ourselves before engaging anything
I think social media is really something that we can't escape.
And it's pretty much all around us and kids are engaging with it to a
certain extent. So it's good really to be prepared and to help
guide our kids through it. So like, say the husband said, we
also in our family did not, our sons did not have smartphones in
high school, which, you know, they, it was an agreement and
understanding that we had and one of my sons said that in high
school people used to be amazed by his flip phone, because they
didn't even know those existed anymore, they would take pictures
of his flip phone. But when they graduated from high school, they
got an iPhone, that was like our graduation gift to them. So it
wasn't something forever, they knew that eventually it was
coming. But through the high school years, they didn't have a
smartphone, my youngest isn't in high school now. And he still
doesn't have a smartphone, he has an old smartphone that is at home,
and on which he can WhatsApp with relatives with the cousins. But it
doesn't have Wi Fi access when he leaves the home. Once our sons did
get smartphones, and they were on social media, we had a discussion
about it. And one of the understandings we had in the
beginning and this is not the case anymore. My older two are in
college, they're independent, we trust them to know the difference
between right and wrong, insha Allah. But in the beginning, when
they first started out on social media, the understanding was that
because we were paying for their phones, and it was because we were
paying for it, that they had access to this technology, that
they had to agree to friend, their mother on social media. And
also,
to respect my husband isn't that much on social media, I was on it
more. But the understanding I had with my sons, and they agreed to
it before they decided they were going to take on social media, we
told them, you can choose one at the time, and they both decided to
go for Instagram over Facebook. And
they agreed that if there was something that I didn't approve
of, of what they were posting, or what they were clicking like on
that they would respect
their their mother's opinion on that topic. So and then helping
them figure it out. Because like when you're first getting on
social media, especially with young men,
you know, clicking like on a girl selfie, they may think they're
just being nice that okay, somebody posted a selfie. So I'm
just going to click like, but then we will talk about the deeper
layer discussion behind that that what does it mean to click like on
a girl's self portrait? Right? Like, would you be staring at a
girl's face in real life and going, you know, I like the way
you look? Or would you look away and have modesty? And is it
appropriate? And also, if any of their friends were posting about
haram things like friends from high school if they're posting
about getting drunk? Or if people are posting pictures of themselves
dressed really inappropriately? Is that something you want to be
taking in on a daily basis, that becomes your syllabus, that
becomes your companionship. So having discussions about it at a
spiritual level, and getting them to think about how these things
affect them. But like I said, my youngest is not on social media.
My older two do have Instagram and Snapchat.
And we are not now monitoring how they use it. It's they're
independent. But in the beginning when they first started, like
right after they graduated from high school, yeah, there was
oversight on our part.
So we, you know, this, we're taking long on this topic, because
I think it's a very charged topic. We had specific rules that my wife
and I promised to monitor. One is that we don't use the computer or
the Internet related devices in our own rooms with the door
closed. So I sit in the lounge, we have a lounge room, family room
public spaces. Our younger son always does homework and his one
does homework in the lounge, one does work in the dining room. So
we're always in, in open spaces, and we model that behavior. The
other thing is, we see that, you know,
there's middle school kids want to aspire to high school kids high
school kids want to aspire to college kids. And this is the this
is where kids can get into trouble. Our our job as parents is
to understand where they're at and what they can navigate, navigate
successfully. So we've talked to our children and decided, you
know, no, we know them very well. They know themselves, hopefully
we're getting them to know themselves is to understand what
they can navigate successfully and where they're you
system knows are and then working with them to build for them to
build trust with us, and for us to trust them. And then there's
consequences if that trust is broken. So you know, it's working
together with the children, I believe for us, it was 16 was the
age for Shawn. Now I think social pressures, it's like I've heard of
nine year olds at work, who's to give their children's smartphones,
that's, that's so young, to be on social media. And they're building
social media platforms to addict smaller children, they have
Facebook for kids and Nickelodeon for kids, I don't know what's
going on. But this is just going to take them away from what they
need to do to be successful and be addicted. So it is an unpopular
thing that parents have to do, but we do have to do it. But you have
to work with your children and model good behavior.
Does that go ahead Emotionally, I agree with everything that's been
said. And I just wanted to add a few more tidbits, and then we'll
move on from this topic. As far as from the Children's perspective, I
think one of the things that we as parents have to understand is just
saying no, without really explaining, what you're about, you
know, restrictions isn't going to be effective children, we
sometimes underestimate them and their and their ability to
comprehend. And obviously, you have to speak at their level. So
young children, you know, you don't need to sit there and tell
them about all the dangers necessarily of technology, but
rather, you know, make it clear to them that these devices will
actually hurt them in terms of their, you know, cognition in
terms of their eyes in terms of their brain function, children can
understand that the same eye candy, for example, can hurt their
teeth, right? When we tell them, Don't eat too many sugary things,
you will get cavities, being on devices, whether it's social
media, or television screens, in general, literally hurt them, and
you can even see it from them, I mean, give your child you know, an
opportunity to watch a young child, a toddler, anything for
more than 2030 minutes, they themselves kind of come out a
little, you know, they're affected by it, but point that out to them,
so that they can themselves see you're not just being restrictive,
you know, for no reason, you're actually doing your job as a
parent to protect them from things that they don't understand. And as
they get older at different phases, and this is why it's so
important to understand child development and how children
communicate differently at different stages. before the age
of seven, they're in a land of total, you know, just fantasy and,
and creativity and imagination, and they don't really understand
you know, abstract thoughts. So speaking to them gently and being
you know, firm, I mean, like, you know, zhi Shan said, there are
parents who capitulate to the whining of a toddler and go, Okay,
fine, you can have it for two, three hours, you know, go watch
your videos, because they think that the child is so sad. And I
need to, you know, make them happy, when in fact, I mean, this
is, you know, yes, you might be emotionally giving them something
that they want, but you're not making your it's not a good thing
to do that. And you as a parent should feel confident that when
you say no, you're not harming the child, you're not scoring the
child, the relationship between you and the child is not going to
be fractured permanently. Yes, they might throw a tantrum, yes,
they might be upset, but that's okay. Because they don't
understand at that age that when you put those restrictions out
there, it's for their benefit. They just like anything with
anything that you take away from a child. It's knifes, right? It's a
natural respond response for a child to wind for it. But just you
know, we wouldn't allow them to do, for example, to operate a
vehicle when they're young, because we know how harmful that
is. And we would never be like, okay, sure, go take the car for a
spin, because you're waiting for it, we have the presence of mind
to know how dangerous that is, in my opinion. And I say this without
any, you know, hesitation. Social media is far more dangerous and
these devices than a vehicle than an operating in a motor vehicle.
In terms of our children's safety, I really truly believe that it is
very, very dangerous. So you have to just kind of know at different
stages, how to talk to your children, and how to appropriately
explain to them your reasonings as they get older, have them watch
certain things so that they understand for example, with my
children, I very early on, explain to them the word addiction, like
what does the word addiction mean? And that was part that I created
this week. And that if we don't learn how to self regulate, like
stop ourselves, then we can fall into behavior that we can't
control. And that can come in different forms. And you can
explain, and then letting them know that this is one way that
these devices they're made to literally addicted so that once
they understand the concept of addiction, and then you put some
boundaries around certain things they'll understand. This is just
generally good advice. It's not specific to me and this thing, but
it's actually you know, just again, make sense. I don't want to
harm myself. First of all, I don't want to be addicted to anything.
And then as they get older
older and it's age appropriate again, now you can start having
really serious conversations and let them know that Listen, your
brain, for example, the adolescent teen years, it's really important
for children for parents to know this, which is why I applaud the
panelists for knowing this, that before a certain age, you know,
there's three stages of adolescence, before the late
adolescent stage, children's prefrontal cortex is not fully
developed, this is what controls their input, it gives them impulse
control. So when you give a child something that they themselves
don't have the mechanism to self regulate with, you are putting
them in a position to self harm. And that's what we do when we
don't realize that, you know, these giving access to these
things to children well, before they're ready, they are going to
be affected by that negatively. So just to you know, kind of end
this. I did a presentation yesterday on, you know, coming of
age, and just the different stages, stages of adolescence, the
late adolescence phases between 18 to 21. So this is for teens, this
is when really they fully fully develop and become, you know,
adults in every sense of that word. But what are the benefits?
Or what happens? What are the milestones of the stage, firmer
identity, ability to delay gratification, ability to think
ideas through ability to express feelings in words, more developed
sense of humor, stable interests, greater emotional stability,
ability to make independent decisions, ability to compromise,
okay, self reliance, greater concern for others. So again, your
when you finally make that decision, and as Hannah said, I
agree 100%, we cannot escape these things. Let's be real, Be
practical. This is the world that our kids are inheriting. They need
to be able to be a part of this world. But we as their parents
have the responsibility. And it's we will be asked about this, to
make sure we don't put them in a position where they're going to
harm themselves. So delay these as much as possible. And I'm going to
my children are 10 and seven years old, I haven't yet. And that's why
emotional. I'm so grateful for the panelists, because they actually
live this. I am speaking as someone who talks to teens who
talks to parents, and in my own way, yes, with my kids, because of
their age, I have already implemented everything I'm saying
in terms of having those open conversations, and making sure
that they understand why the restrictions are there. But I very
much plan to delay any type of social media and internet
connection as long as possible. And Hamdulillah, you know, I'm
grateful for the opportunity that I'm with my children, and then I
educate my children at home. I know for a lot of parents, it's
not necessarily easy, because schools now require so much
interaction online. But we still have the choice as parents to make
sure that we don't give them access to things, like I said
before their brains can do exactly what we want them to do, which is
to self regulate, right? When their brains have developed those
skills. As much as the examples that were shared, they themselves
have an Inshallah, the internal mechanism to realize, you know
what, I don't need to be on this for 45 minutes straight, I can put
it away, or you know, what my prayers are coming in, I better,
you know, stop. Because before I really get distracted by this,
that all of that comes with age and with, you know, the, again,
this this, it's a spiritual process, but it's also very much
physical, physical development. So let's be smart as parents and know
these things about our children before we say it's okay, they're
waiting for it, all the other kids are doing it. That's the kind of
rhetoric that gets us sold onto being to giving them things and
capitulating to their whiteness, not realizing we're actually
causing a lot more problems for them. Because, God forbid, God
forbid, we're lucky. And I've heard horror stories. I know my
fellow panelists have well, horror stories of parents freaking out
about things that their kids young kids have been exposed to, on one
of my iPads, for example, I have I've removed the browser
completely, no browser, no YouTube, if they want to watch
anything, it comes through the only you know, the apps that I
know that are safe, we have to be able to think like this, think
outside the box, remove certain things. Why do they need an
Internet browser when they're four or five years old, because it just
takes one accidental hit on that one accidental letter. Sometimes
you don't even need to write a whole word. Sometimes it's just a
couple of letters. And I'll tell you once upon a while, and this is
just my own personal experience. And when I really got hit with
with the fear of God, this is the it's just such a scary time that
we're living in, I was doing
a search for an idea that I have in the Quran. I can't remember the
reference now. But you know, to hold on to the rope of Allah. I
did a search for this. And I was trying to look for an image that
would go with this idea by doing a search for an idea of the Quran,
the rope of Allah. And I don't recommend anybody to do this. But
I actually did this and I did an image search. And as I was
searching out of the law, there was a * image in the
search results of an idea of the Quran Do you see because the
people behind these systems and the way that that
algorithms work, they're made, they're it's intentional, they
want you, they want our children to get something where it's like,
you know, they just click on it. And next thing, you know,
Pandora's box, and it's over, they want that. So they're going to
find ways to make sure that words that you type in, connect to
things that have nothing to do with anything that you're looking
for. Because that's that's their intention. The more addicts they
have, the more pockets, their pockets are filled, be smart, and
know that that these are the dangers and what we're up against.
Yes, please. Just a couple of quick short comments, inshallah.
Um,
so one of my sons was here, actually, at MCC. And one of the
uncles in the community approached him and he said, I just recently
became a parent. And I tell me something that your parents did
with you guys that you think was really, really beneficial. And my
son was like, I don't know, I'm just a kid, go ask my parents.
They're the ones again. And he was like, no, no, no, I want to hear
from the kids perspective, honestly, just tell me the truth.
What do you think, was one of the most beneficial things that your
parents did for you while you were growing up? And this uncle told
me, the, the young dad told me that my son told him that,
honestly, it was not allowing us to have internet enabled devices
in the privacy of our bedrooms. So that was probably the most
beneficial thing that they did, because I've actually personally
witnessed what's going on with some of the people in my
generation, the addictions and the problems that they're suffering
that their parents don't even know about. So I thought, you know,
it's interesting, because at the time, it might be painful, and it
might, it's not fun, and you might be the bad guy, but inshallah
Inshallah, one day, your kids will thank you. And hopefully, you
know, they're going to have all other issues they're going to be
dealing with with their own children, but they're going to see
that you sometimes have to go against the grain of what
everybody else is doing. The other quick comment, comment I wanted to
make was I wrote an article called how to protect your children from
the P word. I think, I think that was the name of the article that
the editors chose the title. So I sometimes have a hard time
remembering titles of my own articles, but
how to protect your children from the P word. And it's about
* addiction. And at the time, when I wrote it, I wrote it
when my kids were still pretty little. So a lot of the focus of
the article was about prevention, it was a lot of about, you guys
need to be aware about what's out there, you guys need to be worried
you need to protect your kids. And the analogy I used in the article
is that you have to treat the internet like a loaded weapon,
that the way you would treat a loaded weapon in your home is the
way you treat the internet. And you keep it under lock and key.
You don't leave kids alone with it, you know where it is at all
times. Anyway, it made it onto a Reddit thread. And I was I was
looking through the comments that people were leaving about the
article, and somebody left a comment saying, this lady who
wrote this article, sounds like she's the worst parent in the
world.
And what is she planning to do follow her kids to college? And
that kind of like took me aback. And I, you know, there's a lot
that we can learn even from our critics. And I thought about why
was that the reaction that this person had to the article, and
then there was a whole debate between the commenters and based
on that person's criticism. And what I realized was that, that
article, so much of the focus was about prevention, that
it didn't, at that time, the focus because my kids weren't older,
wasn't really about how to navigate it once you are around
it. So those of you parents who are here whose kids are teens,
it's I think the time of like, making sure they're not using the
internet or don't have privacy with it, is pretty much over, it's
really until age maybe 14, that you can you can even do that other
hobbies have has with other you read the Allahu Anhu is just
perfect, where he said, to play with your children for the first
seven years, teach your children for the second seven years, seven
to 14, right? And then be their friend for the third seven years.
So 14 to 21. And it's very true, whatever you want to teach them,
you really have until age 14 After 14, it's pretty much maintenance.
You're just maintaining whatever you've taught them. So what I was
explaining about our kids, when we gave them the smartphones when
they graduated from high school, at that point, then it was just
maintaining the other of how to interact with one another on
social media, what's appropriate, what's inappropriate, what's not
good for your heart to look at, to be reflecting about what is it
that my eyes are taking in? And how is this affecting me? And the
last thing is, I personally will admit that I have a social media
addiction problem. So I can lecture my kids all I want
On, but I'm on my phone a lot looking at WhatsApp looking at
Facebook looking at Instagram.
So I personally recently made the decision to cut myself off from
Facebook and Instagram for 40 days. Because I was told by a chef
that anytime you want to make something part of your nature, you
do it for 40 days. And if you can do it for 40 days, it becomes part
of your nature and Sharla. And I've been going through ups and
downs, I won't lie. It's I'm an addict, I'm an addict. And I have
to admit that and my kids are seeing me go through that process.
My My son was looking at his Instagram yesterday. And I was
like, Oh, let me look over his shoulder. And he's like, no, no,
no, no, you, you cannot be anywhere near this, you're trying
to quit this cold turkey, you should not even be glancing at
what I'm looking at. But anyway, you know, our kids can also learn
from our struggles, too. We sometimes focus so much on
teaching them and lecturing to them, but how they should be. But
we also have to look at ourselves to like, what are we looking at
all the time? And how are we keeping ourselves busy? You know,
the amazing thing about the human brain and eyes that you can't
unsee and you can't unremember what you saw. So my first look at
* was by mistake. I actually walked into we did an
exam, kids were on break, they went and got a VCR a bunch of
stack of videos, when I was in college, just just entered
college, and I walked into the room. And I turned walked in and I
turned to the right. And I saw the image on the television. I didn't
know what I was gonna see. And I've never seen it before. But I
remember that image right now. To this day, if I close my eyes right
now, I can remember that image. I know exactly what was going on the
scenario, the place. What was happening. That first image was 40
years ago. Okay, it was 25 years ago making myself older. Sorry, I
should be subtracting. Anyway, the problem is, you know, we were not
like a computer, we can't go and delete our hard drive. And the
worst part about it is that when you're in solitude, when your eyes
are closed, when you're trying to think about your Lord, and when
you're trying to pray. That's when it gets you. It's not sitting here
right now, you know that I would have that image pop into my brain.
And humbler one of the things I realized that some of those kids
that were my friends, once they got a taste of it, man, they would
make a straw as long as the as long as a mile wide to get more.
And for me, I looked at it and hummed a lot. I swear I make dua,
I do sugar to a lot of it this day that I my initial reaction was
disgust. Because had it not been. You don't know you're just rolling
the dice. You don't know if you're gonna get a one or a six. And a
six means you're in man, you cannot get out of that you're
gonna fight with that for the whole life. i i I was disgusted by
it. And I still remember it. I humbler whenever I came across it,
I didn't need it. I didn't have to affect it. But those kids that I
that went into it. I didn't. I couldn't be friends with them
anymore because they were on a track where they wanted something
different. And let's be real boys want boys on the internet? It's
it's visual, and it's *. Girls, what they want is validation.
Friends, you want to be with 17 friends? Oh, does she like me?
Does she think I'm her friend? Does she liked my picture? How do
I look? Do I get validation? So the addiction is very different
for girls and boys. So we have two different things that we need to
watch. So I wanted to show this perspective. And my perspective.
You know, we what do we do it when we're not looking at would check
sports stores for it's not that harmful. But the * is really
very dangerous for boys. And the social interaction is very
dangerous for girls. So I just wanted to share my story. So if
we're getting personal here, I thought that would that would
benefit this topic
sorry, but this this is a huge this is probably one of the most
pressing issues that we're up against in terms of technology and
smartphones and how do we deal with it and that's why I'm glad
that we're still talking about it because I think there's a lot of
silence suffering going on. There's a lot of silence sinning
going on. And one of the biggest things that we're dealing with is
dealing with is we're dealing with a bigness
and that's what we're up against, we're up against our own knifes
and when you have a kid now you have all these other knifes that
you have to deal with. And that's hard.
You know, and I just wanted to mention there is a documentary
called social animals
on Netflix doesn't have any * or anything thing
God, but that's a good way, you just have a series of teens
talking about how they use social media. And just like the brother
said, and its sister said, actually, it's an addiction, and
how that addiction has played out in some of their lives for good,
and how it's played out, you know, for some of them in the negative,
sometimes it's helpful to look at things that can help you analyze
your own situation, but I just wanted to highlight that what
we're up against ultimately is a big knifes. And everything that
we're doing as a family, is what do we say we're Muslims? So what
does that mean that we're Muslim? Okay, that means there's supposed
to be a set of principles that we're aspiring to live our lives
by. Okay? It's different if we don't have Islam. Okay, so
everything that we're gonna talk about in this panel, at the end of
the day, it has to be rooted in divine principles, guidance that
we're referring back to, or else it's easier for the kids to be
like, Okay, that's just Mom, that's just dad.
No, it should be, it's a law. It's the Prophet son, the law.
It's this righteous person, we have to as parents ourselves, be
dipping into that guidance, or else like they say, you can't give
what you don't have.
And they're always just going to be pointing at you and blaming you
as parents, if you're not bringing it back to a higher non human
source, you know, for inspiration and guidance.
Does that go further? That's an excellent question. And I think,
mashallah henna has shared her own example, and if she wants to speak
more on that, but I think just taking from what she said, as a
general rule of not having double standards, you know, having one
standard for yourself, and then having a different standard for
your children is going to solicit that response, right. But if you
implement a culture in your family, where we all follow the
same rules, because I see the header and said, This is all about
all of us are on the same boat, parent and child, we are all
servants of God, we're all created with the same, you know, reason we
have were accountable to him. And he's the one that we have to, you
know, be mindful of, it's not about so you know, I've written
about this before, on just, you know, different posts that I put
up. But we as parents have to kind of remove our ourselves from the
equation sometimes for our children, I feel like we get in
the way, because we become the ultimate authority of everything.
And we and that's called, you know, authoritarian parenting. And
it's not, I'm not a fan of it at all, because I think it causes
these very negative exchanges and dynamics where trust is broken,
and the relationship just becomes a tit for tat situation. Whereas
when you actually have, you know, the correct Islamic model of
parenting, its authoritarian, authoritative, where you are,
you're in a position of control and leadership, but you also
recognize that you are like them the same, we're just at different
phases, right? And so have the same standards have the same rules
for yourself. And that way, your daughter can't make it about you,
but it's rather listen, just like I don't trust myself. Because you
know, Allah, you know, that there's actually laws about this,
you know, it's like, protect me from my own self, you know,
because we have weakness, we're all made weak. So we ask all those
parts that are always to protect us from our own lower selves, and
from shaitan. And Wes was, and so have that type of, you know,
dialogue in front of your children so that they understand this
isn't, I'm this, you know,
I'm impervious to these things, and you're weak. When you explain
it that way. You're gonna get you know, that rebuttal. But if it's
like, listen, we're all weak. This is a really dangerous thing. These
are the rules of the house. Everybody has to follow it. And if
topic, right?
Sure, okay. Sure.
There's a there's a question online about struggling with his
job. But the second part of the question is that, along with
phones, they're used everywhere. And the teacher automatically
assumes that you have a phone. So for example, when you're in a
group in order to communicate at home, in order to communicate with
your co workers and with your students, you need a phone, how do
you tell the teacher my whole and my whole group that I don't have a
phone, and it's very embarrassing, and I need it, and people assume
that I need it. So this is the second portion of this question.
We'll address the other one. But maybe we want to just touch on
that now.
I'm sorry. There's something that the sister said I think is really
important, which is
your potentiality of your child, when you're restricting them from
something saying, why don't you trust me, right?
That you have to remember that's that question goes both ways. You
could also ask that same question, why don't you trust me?
You know, why, why don't our children trust us? Because
generally speaking, trust is something that's built over time.
Okay, so that's what I mean about, again, going back to a big thing
in my family is making it a group effort, you know, because I made a
deal with my wife, that we did not want to religiously traumatize our
children.
Because I had seen a lot of that, you know, as a young convert
working with a lot of Muslim youth, I know you all have
experienced it.
Maybe even in your own lives, and in the lives of others religious
trauma that happened in the home, you know, we're talking about
external forces, but there's also internal forces that are
traumatizing, religiously, that are happening right in our own
home. So trust is something that's built, it's built over time. And
so again, don't be afraid to, to counter some of their questions
with the exact same question. And to to even if that trust is not
there, then you can use that as a mom to say, You know what, maybe
we're not very trusting of each other. And let's work on that. And
it takes doing activities with each other, going out and
experiencing mutual mutual things together, finding out what other
types of things your son or daughter interested in, and
participating in those things, being there for them and reaching
out when they are vulnerable. When you notice that when you pick up
on something that you engage them, that's something that if you don't
get anything you you cannot check out as a parent. And I've told my
daughters that, you know, sometimes it feels like
overwhelming, you just want to check out sometimes because it's
hard. But we we have kids, like we have to be there. It's a full time
job until we go to the grave. May Allah make it easy and help us.
But do not check out of your children's lives, engage them and
build that trust. So when it gets to a point where you have to
restrict them from something, even if something they'll always get
it, you're doing it just in spite of them themselves. Because like I
said, we're dealing with the big knifes at the end of the day,
build that trust work on building that relationship. It's not too
late.
That's Zhi Shan had asked the question, I guess somebody asked,
How do I tell people that I don't have a phone, I've found that
people surprisingly respect you for being different. But we it's
our own insecurities. And we feel like, oh, we just want to fit in,
we want to go under the radar. We don't want anyone to notice us.
But more often than not people respect you for being different.
That's what American culture is all about is really just being the
maverick being unique doing your own thing. And so to just say,
with confidence, you know what, I don't have a phone. So you're
going to have to email me that information for class. Or you're
going to have to give me a printout or whatever it is, but
being unapologetic about it. That was one of the things when our
sons went to high school. And we told them that one thing I used to
do back when I was in high school, which I realized doesn't work. And
so we taught them a different tactic, that if somebody would ask
me, like, Why aren't you coming to the prom? Or why don't you have a
boyfriend? Or why don't you drink? I would always answer I can't
drink. I can't date. I can't go to the prom. But what we taught our
sons is to say, I don't drink. I don't date. I don't go to the
prom. To say it as if it's a choice you're making. It's not
something big. Yeah, take ownership of it. And it's not
something being put on you. And people. If you say I can't, the
reaction is Oh, you poor thing. Oh, I feel so sorry for you, oh,
your parents are such losers. But when you say I don't, then it's
like, Okay, that's cool. All right. Well, let's see how we can
work around it. That's something you don't do. I have to respect
that.
Thank you. We 100 I have received questions online and also here in
the audience. So I'll read this one from the audience inshallah.
As someone who wants to be a parent one day in sha Allah, how
do you gently teach your kids about Islam, especially in today's
world, there are a lot of bad influences that can take us away
from the deen
Anybody want to take?
So
as far as the bad forces that can take people away from the Dean,
something that I'm with Edie, who is a very respected scholar, uncle
in the community here, one of my friends asked him, you know, what
do we do with all the horrific horrible things that we see in the
world that are going on around us, that cause us to be afraid cause
us to worry for the sake of our children? What do we do about
that? And he said something really interesting. He said,
in every storm that Allah subhanaw taala has created. He's created an
eye, the eye of the storm, right where everything's calm,
everything's safe. Nothing's flying around. So pray that Allah
keeps you
In the eye of the storm, so it's true. There are things going on
all around us that are horrific. There's also a lot of beauty all
around us as well, Mashallah. And we pray to Allah every day, and
our children see us praying for this as well, that Allah keeps us
in His protection keeps us in the eye of the storm. I mean,
as far as how to gently teach the children about the theme, the
children have to see a lot of joy in the practice of the theme. And
they have to see that Islam works. They have to see that Islam gives
you a dignified life. And it gives you a clean life. And it gives you
a better option for a way of living than what others may be
choosing all around them. And
eventually, they will come to see the difference between right and
wrong because of what's right has been presented in such a beautiful
way to them their entire lives. So I had somebody once say
well, I don't want to say anything that sounds like.
Well, okay, I had somebody once say to me that
you're one of the only happy Muslims I know. So you know, and
they were saying, that's why they wanted me to speak at a public
event. So they were like, you're happy Muslim? You're a happy woman
who's a Muslim. And I thought that was a very sad statement to make,
because why don't we look happy? Why I know that we're worried
about the next life and we're worried about how to get through
this world and safety, jello, but our deen gives us so much beauty
and so much dignity and so much grace and so much hope. There's so
much hope and there's so much beauty around us. So instead of
just focusing on all the negative that's out there also get our kids
to see all the positive, right? So if kids see that Islam is the
reason that parents treat each other with respect, and Islam is
the reason we smell nice. And Islam is the reason our homes are
clean. And Islam is the reason we treat our elders with respect and
Islam as the reason we pay our bills on time. Islam is the reason
we keep our promises, they will eventually choose it for
themselves Inshallah, we want them to choose it because they
recognize that it's Dino Huck, obviously, but when they also see
that it gives you a dignified life, they will choose it for
themselves in Shama, and teach it with a smile.
Sure.
Again, sometimes the, the answer is in the question. So if the
question for in this case is how to gently teach Islam's Be gentle.
It's as simple as that. Be gentle. Don't teach them Islam.
You know, yeah, be cranky. And
yeah, and it shouldn't be. It shouldn't be a bunch of nose. But
you're and expose them to gentle people, expose them to people that
exhibit the type of qualities that you personally admire and aspire
to. And like I said, in this community you had like, when you
think of, you know, a teacher, a gentle teacher, you know, expose
them to a gentle teacher, all of us, I think, at this table, have
someone in mind we think of like, the gentle, smiling teacher, we
all have someone in mind. When we think of like, very some of our
teachers are very like Jalali and majestic. They have more serious
tone, we have people in mind. So expose them to one on one in
persons that you know, just to make it very real and tangible,
when I think of is Dr. Ranya. My show Dr. Rania Owen, may God
preserve her and increase her and what he's blessed her with. Like
she teaches she has like an embedded smile. She's always
smiling. And the interesting thing about that is, I know one of one
of her teachers. And I used to live in a community where one of
her teachers live. And she's constantly smiling to the extent
that this particular
female teacher that I'm talking about, she started actually
wearing a niqab after some time. And every time I see her since
she's even started wearing the CA. I still see her smiling through
the niqab. Like you say, sometimes you say like, their eyes are
smiling. So even though she's she's covering her smile, even at
this point, I still see it. Whenever I meet her, somewhere,
she's still smiling hurt her, the way she speaks is still like in a
smiling tone. And that's made an impression on me to the extent
that's why I'm talking about it. I see their smiles, literally right
now, as I'm, as I'm talking to you. And next time you see Dr. Dr.
Rania, or you're at one of her sessions, take note of that,
between her sentences, and while she's talking, there's always this
smile, and that makes an impression on you. And sometimes
it's it's, it may sound strange, but sometimes you see
Do their faces when you're thinking of doing something you
shouldn't do. Sometimes there's been moments I'm thinking of doing
some I know I shouldn't be doing. And I see the face of one of my
teachers, and I'm just like, suffer like, it's I feel
embarrassed. You know? So sometimes again, the answer is is.
So the raising children talk, there's a HollyWell center
introduction talk that was done at MCC. It's on the MCC East Bay
YouTube page. And it's Dr. Rania going through the four stages of
child development. And there's one stage that's, you know, the infant
till two, there's two to six, there, six to nine. And then
there's the age of a teenage. And then beyond that, and she talks
about the hadith of Alia, the thing of early Ramadan, about the
seven years, seven years, seven years, so if you want to reference
that we can also link it to page afterwards. But it's about child
rearing, and the child stages of development. And she's a trained
psychiatrist from Stanford. So she's also faculty at St. Louis.
So just plugging her some more.
All right, Pamela, we have some more questions here. So another
question for our panelists. And again, anybody feel free to jump
in. And this is something that I know too happens a lot on to our
boys and girls, but I think, especially with boys is the issue
of bullying. So this particular question is I get bullied and
harassed at school all the time, by parents do not get how hard it
is, I feel like I might be able to make a few friends at school. But
my parents won't let me meet with my friends outside of school,
they're over protective. And think only Muslims are good people. On
weekends, we just go to their friend's dinner parties, or they
forced me to get along with kids whom I don't even like, I am so
stressed and lonely and don't know what to do.
So probably common problem, I think in our community. Anybody
want to take it? Yeah. Okay.
So,
growing up, growing up, here having friends, is very difficult.
It's very, it's a question that that speaks to my heart, I
actually felt that way quite a bit.
Again, I was raised, pre 911, not post 911. So I'm sure things are
ramped up quite a bit with 911. And then ISIS, and then now the
killings in, in in New Zealand, and there's been killing, I mean,
it's just ramping up. So I'm sure it's getting quite, quite intense.
And I remember Sean, talking to us, and he didn't tell us at the
time what was happening. But he said that, once the ISIS video
came out where where the guy, I think, beheaded or slipped the
throat of a journalist, one of his friends, you know, teased him and
said, Oh, are you going to they had a little disagreement. And he
said, What are you going to slit my throat now, you know, so it's
not just bullying. It's just this constant sort of psychological
teasing that goes on all day. And I think as parents, now we have to
really understand what our children are going through,
they're going through a very stressful life, we're going
through a very stressful life trying to raise them. And we have
to be really, really good partners. We're one team, and
we're not going to survive without being great teammate. So talking
about this issue, I felt very, very lonely. And what it did, what
I did was I was I kind of shut down, I shut down, stop
communicating, my relationship with my parents deteriorated,
because we weren't connecting. I felt alone, I had some good
friends, we played outside a lot. So that's kind of saved me. But
this was definitely going on in my brain. And then the same thing is
a lot of our family friends, they had, you know, little girls, I was
the only boy, my sister and then all these little girls, I didn't
have anywhere to go, I didn't have any friends. So it was it was a
period of loneliness. And what I would say is to try to have your
son a
do taekwondo, do sports, that gets them out and gets them friends
that are connected, because the best way for children or boys
especially is to connect on a team. And once they share a ball,
they start becoming friends. And I think with a girls might be a
little bit more complicated, and rather how to speak to that. So
number one is get them activities that get them connected to other
people. And when they want to have friendships, you know, in the
parks, sports days, things like that, that you can do, or maybe
even find one or two good children that you think are good friends,
have them in your home, under your watch with your children. So they
can see that Islam works in the home, and their friends are there
they can watch a movie night that you can approve of things that
they can do together to try to build that friendship for your
children. You can't leave them just shutting down. So there has
to be the parent has to find a way to answer this question for the
child, which is give them friendship and give them
camaraderie that they can that both the parent and the child are
happy with. And it may not happen overnight.
also connecting them with good young poles good older people who
are going to take them out, take care of them. I would say that
that needs to be done. But this is something that the parents, I
would, I would, I would say the parents need to work with this
child to, to fulfill those needs, fulfill those needs, because
it's a very serious problem. And the and the child needs need help.
Because you can't, you can't grow up in a vacuum like that.
Yeah, just saying no is not going to work, it didn't work with me,
it shut me out.
It caused a lot of different problems. Because once I was out
of the house, I fulfill those needs different ways that those
needs go somewhere. And then you have to adjust your life, and it
sends you on a different track. So you want to help that child, and
you know, just religion and all that stuff's not going to work,
you have to teach them, okay, that teach them love of the Prophet and
give them good friends, whether they're Muslim or non Muslim,
there's a lot of good kids out there, and sports and other
activities support them.
It's also easy to think about the danger of the non Muslim
friends, which obviously I'm Sis Sis, you know, sensitive about
because there was a point in time when I was not classified as a
Muslim. And I still thought I was pretty decent guy, you know,
I was liked by my friend's parents and considered pretty respectful
guy. But there's also Muslim friends who can be an even bigger
problem, then the non Muslim friends, because usually the
biggest harm is the harm that comes from within within your own
self and within your own community. So still, the solution
or one of the remedies to both is, is still being engaged?
Regardless, it's not just Okay, once you have no, almost no
friends. No, it's okay. If you find that they have an interest in
associating with someone invite them over. You know, one of the
easiest ways to get to know somebody is through a plate of
food,
bite them over, feed them, see what they're about, engage their
friends, don't just let the friends come in the house and they
run off upstairs to the room, shut the door or run to the basement,
shut the door. No, they come in, you know, you got to check out I
mean, that's even one of our jobs as parents is you're supposed to
be the guardian of your door. You just don't let anybody coming out.
Somebody's coming out. So who is this? How are you doing? What are
you into? That's always one of my favorite questions to ask you is
what are you into? Okay, because usually, that gives me some
insight into their personality, but also gives an opportunity to
expose them to what you're about the values of your household. You
know, there's households that still stick out for me for my
youth that I went to that every time I went to so and so's house.
I was treated well, you know, they fed me they looked after me if
anything was going home, anything was going wrong. I knew I could
talk to someone so his dad knew I could talk to so and so's mom. I
knew if I was locked out of my house, I can go to so and so's
house. Okay, so definitely beware, in general. And again, engage,
don't check out just don't assume, Oh, my son has a halo or my
daughter has a hijab, and hijab is a halo or forcefield doesn't work
like that. Okay, but be engaged, check into these people check into
things and bite them, ask them questions, not just to be the nosy
nagging parent, but even find things that you all may have in
common that you enjoy doing together.
It's funny, one of my sons was telling me about one of his best
friends and who I'm getting to know they became really close over
the last year and I was asking him what he really likes about this
other young man, I like him to martial law but I wanted to know
what my son liked about him. And he said, you know, he's the only
he's one of those few people that he's the same in front of adults
that he is in front of kids. And he's the same with us as He is in
front of our parents. And that kind of gave me a little bit of an
inside look that I just assumed all his friends were what at how I
saw them you know, but that comment showed me that you know,
you may think somebody's perfect or you may think somebody needs
some work but you don't really know what the full story is right?
So but never underestimate the power of the law. Do a lot of dua
for your children to have good friends and for you to have good
friends on this one fella brings them from out of the blue once you
start asking him for good Sahaba inshallah
hidden so I we're kind of we've been going much off for a while
and I don't know the conversation is so fluid. I don't think it just
dawned on me that we've been speaking for almost an hour and a
half straight. So I'm going to ask the audience members do you guys
want to come
Can you just sort of skip the break? Or do you feel like you
want to get up and stretch a little bit?
Stretch? Yeah, show of hands if you if you think we should take a
break.
Okay, so the brothers are like, Oh, this is too much talking for
us. I'm gonna do that I'm just using, okay, maybe we can just
take a little bit 510 minute break. And please listen out,
because we will ask you to come back in just to wrap up and have
some, some address a few more questions yours, and then you're
their friend for the third seven years. And then you let them go.
So your friends from 14 to 21.
This goes directly in line with that had these?
How you answer that question really depends on what you've been
doing up until the age of 14, like what you've been teaching your
children and then based on what you've been teaching them, then
you have your response to this situation. And hearing about this
particular scenario where a parent found out about her son Son having
a non Muslim girlfriend in high school. I know of two people two
different situations exact same thing. One family, the son has a
girlfriend and the other family the son had a girlfriend and the
parents found out about it. So family a
the mother told me and I witnessed this myself. I had seen it the
entire time the kids were growing up, they did not teach their
children the religion. They did not teach their children. Fifth
and Shatila was not a priority in the home.
And so, the mother admitted that she was disappointed that that was
a choice her son made and now he's been living with his girlfriend.
He's in college. But there are Muslim family.
The mother said that I kind of feel like my hands are tied. My
husband and I did not teach our children the deen at all. So how
can I now tell him that he needs to fear Allah? Or that this is a
sin? Or that it's haram? So fair enough. Fair enough. The other
family, I learned a lot from their situation. So the other family
actually always taught their children about Allah subhanaw
taala. And they taught their kids about fit and Sharia and what
Allah's rights are and what the Sunnah of the Prophet son, Nadia
Salam is and they themselves followed the rules of the religion
in the home. Despite all that, the son
took a girlfriend in high school and the mom found out about it,
the parents found out about it. And I learned a lot from their
response.
What the mother told me they did is they sat there sundown, and
they said, Okay, so here you have a girlfriend. And
they had found out from
siblings in the family had had let out the secret. And the son
confirmed it that he did, indeed have a girlfriend. And so the mom
said, Okay, well,
what are we going to do about this? Because you know that, even
though she's not Muslim, she has rights. Your girlfriend has
rights. And I'm not going to ask you like how far you've taken your
relationship with her. I'm just going to ask you how now do you
want to make this relationship Hello.
And he was in high school is 16 years old. And the sun's like,
What do you mean, make it Hello, mom's like, well, you know, that
we, in Islam, that there's no premarital relations. And if
you've decided that this girl is important to you, and important
enough that you're going to cross this line, that we need to do what
we need to do to make it Hello. And here are the options. Your dad
and I can go to Mr. And Mrs. Smith's home.
And we will give a marriage proposal on your behalf. And the
son was horrified
by it, he's like, What are you talking about? And the mom was
like, I know their address this, this is not a problem. And she was
actually speaking very respectfully to her son. And she
said that I know their address. And we can go and have a talk with
the parents and explain that you're Muslim, and we've raised
you Muslim, and these are the rules of our religion. And she
said to her son, don't worry, honey, this is you don't have to
live together. You don't have to be a husband and wife, the way
your mom and dad or husband or wife, you just have to make your
relationship Hello. And if you decide to break up with her, then
you're going to pay her her met her and she's going to have her
rights fulfilled and then you guys will go your separate ways. But
she needs to know that she has rights according to our religion,
you're not going to hide that from her. And so the parents made it
about really about compassion and caring towards other people. And
she said I know that in you know other religions or other cultures.
It's Okay boys and girls can get together before marriage and do
whatever they want. And they can have their hearts broken and
there's no justice and everyone goes on but you
No religion, we have rules. And so the son was like, obviously not
going for that he was completely terrified at the idea of his
parents showing up to his girlfriend's home with a marriage
proposal. And the mom even painted a like a lovely scenario, she's
like, you'll be able to go to the prom with her, you know, you'll be
able to do all the things that you want to do. You don't have to do
it behind our backs. And the community can know about it, it
will, nobody will say that oh, look, Mr. And Mrs. Muhammad's son
is has a girlfriend behind their backs, and they don't know this,
we will have dignity, we will have respect. She like painted it as
something that was actually doable. But what she did tell her
son was she said,
you have, let me see if I remember this correctly, she said you have
three options. She said, one, you can end the relationship with your
girlfriend, and there are going to be tears and it's going to it's
going to hurt, it's going to hurt her, it's going to hurt you. But
in the end, you'll be choosing Allah and you will be choosing to
do the right thing and have a halal relationship.
By breaking up, you can choose to get married, and then continue
doing what you're doing right now. But it will be out in the open and
it will be approved by Allah and it will be halal.
Or the third is you can choose something that is going to take
you to the hellfire. And she was very, very blunt with her
language, she didn't say you're gonna choose something we're going
to cut you off, we're gonna have nothing to do with you and we
disown you She said you will you can choose something that is going
to take you to the hellfire, because you will be committing
haram. And she's like, we have always taught you the rules of our
religion. These are your three options in front of you. And she
told him
she had this talk with them. And then her husband had a talk with
them. She said we're gonna give you a week to decide.
And he said, Okay, I need a week. He said, I'm not going to just
give you the answer you want right now. And she's like, that's fine.
And they set a date, they set a time they went out for brunch, and
she said, in a week, we're gonna go out to brunch, and you let us
know what you want to do. And we will facilitate.
And he was not happy about it. He met with them a week later. And he
accepted that he was going to end the relationship. And it was not
easy.
The mom told me there were a lot of tears. And after the son ended
the relationship with his girlfriend, the mom cried with
him. She cried with him, which blew me away because I was trying
to think about how I would react if this was my situation. And I
don't know if I would have had that kind of empathy or sympathy,
I think I would have been like Serves you right. This is what you
got yourself into now deal with the repercussions or the feelings.
But Marshmallow, this mom had a lot of compassion. And she held
her son as he wept because it was so hard for him. But what I loved
about that example that I saw, was, she empowered him to make the
right decision. But it was only possible after a whole lifetime of
showing that this is where the buck stops. Everything ends at
Sharia and Fick and what Allah expects of us, if you haven't been
doing that your entire life, then then it's like the family a, the
First Family I told about they their hands are tied, what can
what can they tell their kid now about what he can and can't do
when they've never said anything? Before? Right.
Thank you does that go okay, and that was a wonderful response
Warshaw for all of us, I'm sure to reflect on. I just wanted to make
a point, though, about the family that does feel like oh, is it too
late for my family make because sometimes, you know, parents may
or may not have been doing a lot of these things in the beginning
with their children, but at some point, you know, reality hits and
they realize I have to catch up on my parenting is all hope lost? No.
If you find yourself in a situation where you haven't been
really teaching your children, Dean and, and a lot of these
things are kind of now coming to the surface and you want to
reestablish your relationship with your children. I think having
really open honest communication is the key.
As, as we've talked about throughout the panel, speaking
from your own perspective and vulnerability, and actually
admitting your own shortcomings and your own failings is a
wonderful, amazing way for you to connect with your teens. And I can
say that as someone who works a lot with teens. And one of the
issues that is very common in our communities, and in our in our
community in many of our cultures, is this idea that parents never
show weakness to their children. And they are always they don't
even apologize in some cases. And I've spoken with parents and teens
where the teen will tell me in with the parents standing there
that my parents never apologize for anything, even when they make
mistakes.
And this is a really big problem in our community, we have to get
over this sort of ego to stick very self centered type of
parenting, we are all in the same boat, our children are really, I
think, I mean, Allah knows, but in throughout history, I feel like
the issues that they deal with are unprecedented, we really got the
easy, you know, path, I'm so grateful that I'm not a team, I
really am, I swear, when I, when I hear what they go through, and I
see what they're up against. I'm like, Y'all, thank you for saving
me from the insanity that our poor children have inherited. So we
have to be more empathic, more sympathetic to what they're going
through. And the only way that we can receive or that we can, you
know, have more open communication is for us to kind of, you know, be
Be humble a little bit, bring ourselves down, admit that you
know, what, I didn't do my priorities, or maybe off the first
567 10 years, 15 years of your life, I'm sorry, I was career
oriented, I had this going on that going on, and maybe I didn't give
you the attention that you deserve. Maybe I wasn't interested
in what you were doing. I'm so sorry, if I felt if I because of
my distractions or my other, you know, lack of maybe focus, I
didn't make you feel important enough that I want to redo that,
can I reset that please let you know, and start from that place of
owning what you didn't do that should have been done as a parent,
and then asking for a read a renewal of your relationship, I
feel like children would probably really much more respect you and
actually really see you in a different light. If we were to do
that more as parents, as opposed to letting the distance continue.
And and, you know, just the relationship, because a lot of
parents feel like, well, there's nothing I can do. The doors are
slamming in my face. You know, I've lost my child, and it's my
fault. And they kind of think, hope, you know, there's no hope.
No, that's from shaitan, it's Western. So there's always hope
with Allah, we are not a religion of despair, where religion of
hope, and it sometimes it does come down to something so basic as
you apologizing, and saying, I am sorry, I'm not perfect, I'm human,
I failed, but I love you enough to want to have a redo, please join
me in this, and just from there, inshallah.
So yeah, one of the issues is, you know, I didn't do X, Y, and Z for
so many years. And now I want to my kid, and to do to do, you know,
start praying and this and that. And so for someone who's lost his
way, and came back to Islam pretty late, I feel like I took shahada
in my heart with Sheikh Hamza at one of his talks when I was, you
know, well into my adulthood. I feel like that's when Islam came
back to me. And so it's exactly what Sister has I just mentioned,
which is the real genuine brotherhood and mentioned really
gently say to your child, and your family, this is where we're at.
And this is how we didn't do it. And now we want to move forward
together, together. And I want you by my side, and I want you to
learn the deed with me, because I didn't do it. And so, you know,
again, it's the 40 day lesson, they're not going to all everybody
like, okay, yeah, let's go and pick up, pick a topic and say,
either we're gonna go to Italy, or either we're gonna go to a
conference, or either we're gonna go to a speech, or something that
advances our deen so that we can all learn. So, hazard Ibrahim's
spoke to Allah. But then there's an eye on Surah Baqarah, where he
still wanted to know, he still wanted to increase his Yaqeen. And
Allah said to him, you still don't believe
Musa sorry, you still don't believe. And then he said, Take
four birds and train them. And then cut them into little pieces
and put them on four parts of the mountain and call them. And He
Allah brought them to life. And they all came back to him. Because
it was Abraham. Okay, sorry. I'm not a scholar. We did that.
Pleasure. So anyway, but the point is, is that even even the prophets
had wanted to taste Yaqeen better than they had before. And you go
up and down, we're up and down your prayer and in the afternoon
is different from we pray in the morning. And so you have to engage
your children and say, let's do this journey together. Let's go
somewhere and then watch them. I can see with my children which
event they like and which one they're bored. Okay, you know,
let's go to this conference. And there's going to be someplace
where they like it, and then go there with them. Give them what
they need, and get what you need. Inshallah together, it's never too
late.
That answer is actually really perfect. And it goes well with a
question that we got online that I'm just going to read. I'm moving
from an area with a relatively good Muslim community to one with
a high school that has absolutely absolutely no Muslim youth in that
high school. How do I get my son to be a proud Muslim in that
environment where he will be the lone Muslim in
The School. So just to piggyback off of what Zhi Shan was saying,
it's so important that we engage our kids in these types of
community activities and actually grow an attachment to our
community centers or massage, it's, I cannot emphasize emphasize
that enough, the research shows that kids that are actually
attached to their religious community center are protected
from, I believe there's six, high high risk behavior of teens that
fought that they fall into. But when you see kids that are, you
know, attached to their religious institutions, they're protected
from those things. So it's even if they're in a high school
situation, or public high school, or they're, you know, most of
their friends might not be Muslim, by giving them something regular
not like you know, Eid only Ramadan only, or certain, you
know, times where, because it's convenient for you, but actually
giving them a sense of, of belonging to a community center,
or Masjid that's close to your classes or something, but
regularly feeling that it has to be regular, it will really, really
help from, you know, confirm their identity, strengthen their
identity, and inshallah help to also repair the, for those, again,
families that have are maybe getting a late start into this
path, it'll help repair some of these, you know, the issues that
that that you're experiencing, by having a place for your team to,
to go to, to maybe talk to develop relationships with other people,
find mentors, and learn from other people, there's so many, I mean,
here in the Bay, mashallah we have honestly nothing to complain
about, we have an every corner that you can go to, there's really
no excuse. And then for places like MCC, may Allah reward the
organizers here, because they not only provide these types of
programming, but then they also allow for people to be in the
comfort of their own home, watching these things. But we have
to keep it regular as my point, don't just, you know,
underestimate the value of bringing your kids to the Friday
youth, for example, help us here, or bringing them to panels like
this, or any type of events that are targeted for youth, make it a
priority, look at the newsletters, planted in your schedule, skip
going to the movies, please like you could do that any day now with
Netflix and all that stuff. Prioritize your life. And that's
one of the rules that I always tell my children about in terms of
our practice, that for us, our lives are completely planned
around our rd. And I take that very seriously. So our prayers
come first, no matter what I'm doing, I have to know where am I
going to pray? Are we gonna be able to make well do you know i
That's how I work. And that's how they now work. But we do
unfortunately, the opposite. A lot of times we plan everything else.
We're very good at planning social activities. We plan a lot of fun
things, but we don't think about Dean and how important it is to
cut, you know, what are we created for? Why are we here. So our
prayers have to be our priority, our children's identity has to be
our priority in our life. Forget all the other stuff. If it's
distracting you from that objective, it's really again in
our hands to make sure that they know that these are priorities
that being Muslim and living Islam not just being you know, nominally
Muslim, or you know, like a, you know, Muslim during during
different seasons of the year, but we actually have a way of life
that we commit to, and that is where, again, being active in your
community center invested and regularly bringing them is really,
really key inshallah.
I'm Scott one thing before I hand it over. So we were talking during
the break right about just do not underestimate the importance of
the value of the village. The village is very, very important
and raising our children in this day and age we, we can't have
little bubbles or little shelters. It's just not possible in today's
society. But we can have communities of like minded people
like minded families, where your kids know that they even if they
feel like they're alone, or they feel like they're the strange ones
in school, they know that they have a network of support or a
community that gets them even if they're not best friends with
everyone, that we all kind of get each other and we get what our
struggles are. And I know of a few people who mashallah we've been
raising our kids now in the Bay Area's for the past 2122 years.
And I've seen a lot of different types of parenting styles come and
go and a lot of different choices that my friends have made as
parents and I have a few friends who are you know, introverts. They
didn't like going out in the community. They didn't like
socializing. And they would make these choices when the kids were
younger, to forego big community things or gatherings because they
preferred being just home with their family or just with their
kids and, okay, that seemed fine. Like, I didn't know what was right
or wrong, but if that works for you, good enough, but what I'm
seeing now with some of those families
is now that their kids are older and they're in college, it is much
easier. For those families that didn't choose to engage with the
village with the Muslim community, it's much easier for those kids to
check out. It's easier for those kids to go their own way. They
don't feel like they're disappointing anyone, they don't
feel like they're leaving anybody. They don't feel like they're
shaming themselves. There's no one they're really accountable to,
obviously, we don't want to live our lives thinking What will
people say? What will people say, but there is a value to having a
community and a village that goes beyond just your parents, who you
are, you know, accountable to you, you want them to, like you and
respect you. And, and, and consider you when it comes time to
getting married, that they will consider you for their sons and
daughters. So these are things to think about.
Thank you for that. One. And I'm still thinking about the
parent trying to figure out a letter now they're moving to a
place where they don't have that village that we have here in
Missoula, like in such abundance, and I really feel for that
situation. And one of the things I wrote down, when I heard that
question was pray for it, and make a way for it. So pray for it and
make a way for it. Just because that is the situation doesn't mean
that it has to stay that way, if you're going through this, this
community, and they don't have a thriving Muslim community, they're
perhaps or you should make that intention to be that spark, in
that community, most likely, at this point, the growth of Muslim
families here in America, most likely in that high school, I'm
sure there's probably one other Muslim at least. And so you go
there and do a little investigative work, you know, find
out, you know, from the administrators about the Muslim
population, or other Muslim students that may already be
existing activities that you're just not aware of yet, because
you're not there in that community just yet. But also be proactive
yourself along with your, your son or daughter can't remember what it
what it is to initiate those things, initiate a relationship
with
staff, they're at the school that, okay, if they can have this
particular room to pray in, you know, if need be, and then you
never know, just by doing that, that now you have other Muslim
students kind of like Olson appear. You know, they didn't even
realize that they existed, but now that you've made this opportunity
for your child and becomes a magnet an opportunity for for
other people's children. And one of the things that I realized, is
even in talking with my children is that it's only in terms of like
practicing Islam and making it work here with the particular
responsibilities that we have, such as the prayer is, it's only
as awkward as you make it. A lot of times, and one of the things
that we do we know we're going to be out and about. And so we know
that we have a very beautiful understanding in our religion,
that prayer is actually light, prayer is the source of light. And
the places where we pray, where we make that sedge to and leaves a
mark, you know, that will testify on our behalf on the day of
judgment that worship and remembrance of God was established
in that mark. And so it's nice to know like, on the way coming here,
we pass by the shopping center, where the Hacienda theater is,
we've been to that theater. But like the sister said, We scheduled
it around prayer times. And we literally like, I feel good
knowing that we left the prayer mark in that shopping center on
several different spots in that parking lot. He left the prayer
mark. And so I tell my daughters when you know, I have a lot of
slogans in the house, because they'll make principals easy to
memorize. But that's just one of them. You know, it's only as
awkward as you make it. And so, be creatively righteous. That's one
of the things I say we have to be creatively righteous. We can
establish these prayers, they always tell me stories of, you
know, leaving a you know, having to pray in the Nordstrom
Nordstroms dressing room, you know, all kinds like it's, I mean,
how many parking lots, you know, are you going to end up bringing
in balconies, all these different places, you end up praying, we can
do it. We can establish, and it's only as hard as we make it
sometimes. There's just a lot of fears we put in our own hearts.
And not I'm not saying you got to get up in the middle of the movie
theater and go to US there's a platform down for you to go down
on the platform and pray right there. Again, give me a day.
You know, go pray but make it work. There's times Marian was
right here as witness. We've sometimes the timing is calling a
prayer time. We even said okay, this is where we're going to pray.
And we pray right there we get up, right and even take turns pray on
a relay. So we don't lose our seats and stuff. Have we done
that? Right? We've gone in corners in theaters and pray right inside
the theater. And so far we're still alive. Nobody said anything.
Nobody kicked us out.
Are the theater. So again, you have to look at it in the positive
don't always take the responsibilities as a negative.
You got to know we're leaving marks of light across the earth.
We're making sedge the marks of light on the earth that Allah was
worse for you in a theater you remember the line of beer?
You may have been the only person you know always think about them,
we go certain places, we may be the only people in this mall and
this wherever, who remember God. That's why the DUA that you save
when going into the marketplace is so huge. Right? When you go to a
mall, you should there's a specific one, I'm going to tell
you what it is because I want you to look it up yourself.
That you something, don't we say that you won't go to store and go
to Safeway target, coming to door making dua because it's used
because this is a place where people aren't thinking about God,
just think about what they want to get for themselves. Okay, and
that's something I appreciate as a convert, is that Allah has helped
us to remember it. But sometimes you just feel so tongue tied,
like, what am I supposed to say to God? Think of God, when I say, we
just give us all these things to say, what to say when you get up?
What to say, when you go to the restaurant, what to say when you
put on your clothes, I didn't say before you eat, what to say, when
you leave the house, what to say when you get in your mode of
transportation, what to say when you go to the store, what to say
when you enter into a house of worship, let's say we leave and
say when you leave the bathroom.
Right? What to say when you greet someone,
all these different devices, like we can definitely get out of
there.
Okay, and again, it's it's we should take an empowering and a
positive attitude, this is awesome. I can talk to God with
his own words,
write his own word. Of course, he's going to hear that and love
that. So a lot of times is only as awkward as we make it. So we have
to find creative solutions to some of our challenges, but be
creatively righteous.
We are the Jedi
in the world of CIS.
Believe in the force of law.
Zack, Marshall, you bring such a beautiful perspective, especially
I think for many of us who are born into this faith, we sometimes
lose that zeal and that appreciation for all the beautiful
things that you had mentioned, I'm always in awe of converts of who
this language Arabic especially is not easy for a lot of them to
learn. And yet, mashallah, if he can sit there and commit and
commit his family to learning these laws, and many others.
There's so many examples of people who strive because they really do
see the value in these things. And they look at it with that I have
like, wow, this is a true gift from Allah for some of us because
maybe we've heard it our whole lives, but put on was playing or
we know these balls from childhood, we've we we've lost
that sort of just awe and appreciation. But we should
recapture that. And I think that's part of, you know, really going
back and making our tradition very personal instead of just, you
know, looking back on what we did as children and kind of, you know,
having that, that that sort of experience when you personalize
your path for the most part that you go to it with a very renewed
eye, and you start seeing things the way mashallah that you know
him and so many other people will come to this Dean see it, which is
really like, wow, these are treasures. So just go ahead. And I
really think you need a book because I want to I want to know
all of your sayings and slogans. I personally will, I seriously would
buy that book in a second. Marshall if you don't fall into
the 100. He's a poet. He's an artist. He is so talented in so
many ways. Very, very humble. But follow him on Facebook because
sometimes the gems he drops are just much on my mind blowing. So
does that go off him? I wanted to just get back to some of the
questions that we've received. We received another one online that
brother Zhi Shan mentioned earlier, but he mentioned the
second half. Now I'd like to actually read the first half. And
it does tie into a lot of this, what we've just been talking about
as far as identity, I am all set to wear hijab. But there's one
question holding me back. What if something happens to me when I
wear hijab? My mom, what if someone judges me for wearing it
or someone hurts me for wearing it? I am the only one. Okay, so I
know that. I have some comments on this, but I'm going to turn to my
panelists anybody? Yeah. My turn my fellows, female panelists.
I think it's natural to feel anxiety and to feel some fear,
especially in today's political climate, when going out wearing
anything that visibly identifies you as a Muslim.
But I think it's really really important to remind ourselves of
the concept of the brother of Allah, which is that what hits you
was never going to miss and what misses
Z was never going to hit, that we as Muslims actually believe that
we believe that whatever is going to hit us, it's because Allah
willed it and there was no way it was going to miss us, and whatever
misses us was never going to hit us, no matter how much we may even
have wanted it. And the truth is that
you can be harassed, whether you're wearing hijab or not. And
we're all going to die when they, whether we're wearing hijab or
not. So that the fear of what if is really something that chiffon
does with us to get us to put off doing something that we want to do
for the sake of Allah Subhan Allah. So whatever step we take
towards Allah, we should believe that he's going to come running
towards us and response. And we should ask Allah to protect us
because he's the ultimate protector, right? And
when it's our time to go, what more beautiful way could there be
to go than to go as a Muslim, visibly identifiable as a Muslim
after the Christchurch tragedy I, I do not pray to go to leave this
world in an act of violence, I don't want to die a violent death.
But at the same time, I really
envied if I can use that word in a positive sense, not that I was
jealous of them, but envied the people who were martyred that day
that they were martyred for being Muslim, they were going to leave
this world one way or the other, but to leave as Muslims to leave
because of their faith.
on Juma in a state of withyou, in the state of prayer, the last act
of being an act of worship on the law, there were so many lessons to
be taken from what happened in Christchurch even even the name
Christchurch paddle, but trust in Allah trust in Allah he's the
ultimate protector, no one else can protect us.
So so we're we're living in a world now where people are shaving
their heads tatting themselves out, like crazy. And I you know, I
ride the train every day to work work in San Francisco work in the
corporate world. It's, it's every now and then I'm gonna head to
mobile get on the train, and or walk in downtown San Francisco.
And I'm telling you as it's not because I'm Muslim, it's, it's,
it's, it's, it's like a person of light.
People are disfiguring themselves, self mutilating pink hair, all
kinds of weird stuff. It's like this freedom that's gone amok. And
it really shows out when someone is protected, and protecting
themselves protecting their modesty and protecting their
beauty and protecting their gaze and they know where they're
walking, they're not distracted. And I see this lady sit on BART
every now and then she'll do her work in the morning. And I'm just,
you know, I'm ready to I'm ready to anyone says anything. I'm ready
to kill someone if someone says something to her. So there's
people someone around, you know, there's Muslims around you that
are going to mashallah step up. Because you we know, you look
Muslim, and I don't look Muslim, you know, when I'm on the train.
So we're there, we're there. And, you know, I just think it's very,
very amazing to wear that. It's like a crown now. It's really like
a crown and, and I listened to other issues with, with men and
women and feminism and things like that. Men are being turned off by
that, by that masculinity and that hardness that some women want to
have now. So you stand out in terms of beauty. So I just thought
I would share that. I think, you know, it came to my brain as as I
was listening to the question, but it is it is a struggle, it's a
fight, and we don't have to wear that crown. You know, I don't have
to wear a goofy. So I definitely understand the fear and the
anxiety that's there.
One of the things again, as a convert,
jab was something that was very fascinating to me. And I had I had
the I had seen nuns, no, I was I was from the Baptist tradition.
And so covering really wasn't part of Baptists Christian practice.
But you know, obviously, we all were aware of nuns. And so when I
became Muslim, I was like, Oh, cool. It's like, I can marry a
nun. You know, that was something I really don't was like, really
honorable, and really high. And I was like, wow, what's it gonna be
like being married to a nun and I really of that caliber, I can be
married to him.
And that was, that was just my, my view of it, but it's very
beautiful. We have a very beautiful understanding about
this, in our tradition in the Hadith, and paraphrase that Allah
has a hijab. You know, he doesn't wear a hijab, but we are told in
one of the narrations that Allah has a hijab, meaning a type of
barrier. You
It's made of light. Because each hizzy jab is light. And so how's
it Subhan? Allah like,
everyone, you know, all these women who have taken that on as
part of their practice, it literally is a source of light.
And you should take inspiration from the light, Allah and see your
hijab literally as light, I am wearing light. And I have no doubt
that that's Inshallah, how you're going to see that, you know, on
that day is as light.
I know the thought came to me, did you guys all see the pictures of
the New Zealand women, the newscasters and everybody who put
on a job, did you notice how different they looked? The same
women, when they put on her job, all the ladies seemed elevated. It
was weird. I mean, I I, I asked you to go back and look at those
pictures. But that immediately came to my mind that they look
more elegant, they look more elevated, they look more
distinct, distinguished with the hijab on it was just amazing to
see that and that's part of the martyrdom and that Allah shows us
that, that Islam can show this thing to people even in the midst
of an amazing midst of a tragedy, you can have these amazing
epiphanies and things going on. So anyway, I just noticed that about
the women when I when I saw those pictures
thank you so much. It's always really nice to hear our brothers
supporting
sisters, because in relating to them even though that they can't
necessarily relate in, in the in the wearing of the hijab, but they
still do observe certain things and, and are able to, to support
us. So does that go Okay, then.
There you go. Exactly. You don't wear hijab, but inshallah The
beard is the hijab, right or the is a substitute?
It does I agree.
So it's not a real website, I think someone needs to buy that
domain, we need to get that rolling.
Michelle, we've received some really great follow up questions
from the audience. Thank you so much for turning these in. This
one is, I think, a really important one. And I personally
have heard this time and time again, how important is it for
both the parents to be on the same page in terms of religious values
like hijab praying during travel, for example. I mean, obviously,
Mashallah.
It's, that's an ideal situation, that you have harmony in the
household, and everybody's on the same page. But even if that's not
the case, and I know from speaking to a lot of these sisters, in the
community, that many of them do struggle with this very dynamic,
where they may be wanting to really, you know, have a more, you
know, sound Islamic household, but the resistance isn't coming
necessarily from the children is from their partner. Even if that's
the case, I think it can be vice versa. Sometimes it's vice versa.
I think maintaining your own practice, and really creating that
bond with your children. And just being in this having a spirit of
love and compassion, in in instead of harping on rules and being
really sort of militant in terms of practice. And, you know, I had
someone actually, just I think yesterday, the day before, I can't
remember, I've kind of been doing a few different events this week.
But someone did ask me about prayer and like, how that they can
approach the topic of prayer with their family members and not come
across. Like they're, you know, micromanaging other people's
practice. And I just said, you know, we have to this is where
thinking outside the box a little bit, and really coming up with
creative ways to as I believe city has grown. And I think all the
panelists mentioned, having Islam being a group activity, if it's
like everybody kind of fend for themselves. And then there's one,
you know, sort of drill sergeant who's gonna go around with a, you
know,
what is it called a clipboard and kind of check off whatever he's
doing. That's not a good spirit in the household. We shouldn't do
that to each other, or we're checking in on each other. But if
you kind of make it a collective experience, where everybody
mutually benefits, and you want to do things together as a family,
and that's the spirit with which you approach the topic of, let's
say, prayer, for example, like I really think it's very, very
important that families pray together. But let's say and this
is advice I've given to sisters before, if you are, you know,
wanting to establish prayer in the household and with your family,
but your husband isn't quite there yet. Instead of making him feel
bad, and like, you know, there's something wrong with him and we're
all praying and you don't, I think it's really important sometimes to
boost the morale
of your spouse and remind him of his own, you know, importance in
the family and the fact that he is
Given the Imam you know that the role of Imam in the household and
to honor and uplift whenever we speak with language like that, I
feel like it's really an even if he doesn't agree the first time,
because maybe he's engaged in something or he doesn't have will
do and it's inconvenient for him just keep coming with those types
of positive reinforcing messages, like you know, we look to you, the
children look to the boys, you know, they want to hear your
beautiful recitation, whatever it is, that will somehow spark a, you
know, an interest in the activity instead of just guilt. And you
know, kind of creating a rift where we're the practicing good
ones, and you're the one that's still behind you're, you're
engaged in this x y&z Haram or whatever it is, don't do that
create that spirit of family and love and connectivity. And
remember, you know, there, I mean, that's, like I said, going back to
my, I have a lot of our convert, Muslims, may Allah bless them,
some of these people in their own homes, they have to deal with
people who not only don't practice the faith, and many times they
reject the faith altogether, but they still have the sense to know
to be able to create harmony in their family and not cause
division. Because they, they know what it is to be on the other
side. So sometimes you have to remember, you know, guidance is
from Allah. Sometimes people become wayward because of things
that you might not understand, but not to become self righteous. When
it comes to deen and think like, well, I'm better than this person.
Because I practice and I do this and I, you know, I, I know better
and my spouse doesn't or my relative doesn't just remember,
we're all on this journey together. And people get, you
know, pulled this way or that way. But the best way to keep them
tethered to Allah subhanho data, and tethered to this deen is
through compassion and love. Keep that always on your tongue, speak
with love and just bring them in that way. But not that, of course,
please.
It's not really, it's not super crucial that the husband and wife
have exactly the same interests, or the same personalities or even
the same ways of teaching their children. What's really, really
important, however, is that the husband and wife have the same
goals for their children, that they have the same goals for what
kind of Muslims they want to raise, and how they want their
children to turn out. Inshallah. So this is a discussion that has
to happen between husband and wife privately, about what are our
goals for our children? What kind of Muslims do we want them to
develop into? And what are we going to do to get there? How
what's what's the game plan? What's the roadmap? And what do we
have to bring into our lives? And what do we have to get rid out of
our lives to make this happen. And the other agreement that husbands
and wives really should have is that they're not going to
contradict one another, or nag one another lecture one another in
front of the children, because that isn't very conducive to
raising children who believe that Islam works, and that who come to
it with a spirit of joy. And unfortunately, I've I've seen this
more often than not where even in my own generation of people that I
grew up with, where there were families where the mothers were
very pious and very practicing, and the dads weren't. And
especially in the young men, many of them grew up to not necessarily
choose the practice of the dean. Unfortunately, it was hit or miss.
But I have seen majority of families where the fathers were
pious and practicing and loving and engaged with the kids and the
moms maybe were kind of loosey goosey. lackadaisical that many of
the kids have chosen to practice the theme and to practice it
seriously. The dads have a power over their kids that really cannot
be explained. And I think it might be the reason why Allah Subhan
Allah has made the religion a patriarchal religion, that the
theme comes down from the Father because I don't think fathers
realize how much value and how much importance they
bring to the practice of the dean and their kids. And for many
years, I used to say this, and I used to say, Oh, this is just data
collected. This is just what I've seen in the community. I don't
actually have science to back me up. But now we actually have
science to back up this assertion. There's a book called families and
faith how religion gets passed down across the generations. It's
by Vern Bankston. He used to be a Christian minister. He started
studying 2000 families in 1972 2000 families, Jewish and
Christian, and he followed them till 2006. So for 34 years, you
would meet with them like every five years and he wanted to see
specifically what was it that caused the next generation to
continue practicing the religion of the parents. And there are all
sorts of factors that came into play that he looked out but the
overwhelming factor that decided whether the next generation was
going to going to continue being Christian and Jewish
or not, was if the father, practice Christianity and Judaism
ad was engaged with the children. What his studies showed was that
it wasn't enough for the father to be pious. You can be someone who
has the misbehave in your hands and goes to the mosque, we're all
five prayers and has a long beard. But if you're not engaged with
your kids, if you don't know them, if you're not taking time to get
to know them, if you aren't having fun times with them, if you don't
know their friends, if you don't know their stories, then it's hit
or miss. But fathers were engaged with their kids, and practice the
religion. The majority of those the religion then continued in the
next generation.
Yes, and shall I just, I'm sorry, I just want to make a quick
analysis, we have about 15 minutes left. So we do have a couple of
questions that we don't want to forget from the actual online
survey. So I'll put those questions out there and then see
the other one, if you want to tie in your comment, after, you know,
with the question, the response to the question, that'd be great. But
the question that we received, one of them was how to talk to a young
child of 11 years old, about things like you know, kind of
following a fall following or falling into
what would you call it a certain behaviors like dyeing the hair,
right, dyeing their hair after a certain cartoon character or
character that they that they like, kind of, you know, wanting
to emulate, people that they like, as a young child, so how to talk
to young children about things like that, as well as music. So,
you know, music is a big topic that a lot of parents are, and
children, it's causing a lot of rifts in families, because
sometimes, you know, the genre of music isn't something that parents
want children to listen to. So how do we navigate those types of
discussions? I guess it would be like popular culture ideas that
children want to adopt, or want to, you know, kind of take, and if
they, anyway, conflict with us on how would you navigate those
discussions? So if you can take that question, Inshallah, and then
please put, give us your comment as well.
Wow, Bismillah. Um, one thing I wanted to say, again, it comes
back to those reinforcement of core values, I'm looking for any
type of meaningful change that has to be based on essential core
values. And like I said, in my household, I love to come up with
slogans to help us remember certain things. And so I have
what's called the mantra of the House of Horrors. That is our way
is to build up. Miriam, can you imagine?
There you go, our way is to build up and not to tear down that is
literally the mantra of my household. If you see any of my
other daughters feel free to test them on that asked him, hey,
what's the mantra of the house of our own, they will say, Our way is
to build up and not to tear down. And they could sound simple, but
just repeating that over and over. And making that the foundation
upon which we discipline is huge. So it means that we have made a
commitment to never discipline out to because is going to happen, not
always gonna be, you know, what you can do, there's sometimes you
just have to draw a line on certain things and, you know,
prohibit certain things, but still doing it from the perspective of,
we're still trying to build you up. Even with the tone of voice,
that the use of my children, everything is still designed in
Institute in a way to to build them up, not to tear them down.
And I've just seen too many of the tear down parenting. Like, I've
seen parents, like go into their kids. And at the end of it, it's
just like, that kid feels like he's just ready to fall off to the
edge of the earth. Like, forget it, like, why should I even exist?
If it's like this? You know, I felt like that before my parents,
you know, it's like, oh, man, if I got to get this one bad grade, and
this one semester was like, it was over. I'm not gonna get into
school now. And I was like, Well, geez, why should I even exist? My
whole purpose is to go to school to get, you know, to get into
college and I'm not doing a good job. It isn't, why should I exist?
You know, the 100 love we have a merciful Lord who makes us realize
our value is much bigger than that. So again, having core values
that you can tie yourself back to. I've also seen this scenario,
something that the sister both sisters brought up as the value of
again that that head of household role and taking serious there's
also a negative side effect. I've seen too many cases where there's
a divorce, and now different father figures not there. Now all
of a sudden the kids aren't practicing Islam anymore. So
unfortunately, you also see situations where everybody was
practicing Islam because a dad so all this religion
Assa tea was actually just fake. You're just doing it to put on a
good front, you know, or mask to your parents. So, because I had
seen so many situations like that, again, what I, what I do to help
remedy that is I speak very interactively, to my children. I'd
specifically told them very early if I die anytime soon, I do not
want you to throw your dean in the grave with me. Don't do that. You
have to take this on yourself. So have I tried to do that,
practically speaking, engaging them in Fudger sometimes is going
to be me. It shouldn't be me as the leader of the House or waiting
nearby for 5g. I say look, sometimes it's not going to be me.
And so I need you all the steps and you all need to have 5g lines.
And Hamdulillah. I really like it's been a pleasure seeing the
results of that in my household. Sometimes it's dad knocking on the
door, right Mary? Sometimes it's Miriam knocking on the door
sometimes pretty repetitively and really loud. But Maryam make sure
I get up.
And I appreciate seeing her take ownership. Another story is Sunnah
prayer. I'm doing I've you know, I feel like sometimes the stats, you
know, our prayers and devotional acts, they have stats to them.
9099 Or, I was like this, you know, this year was like this same
thing. There was a year I was really felt like my son, the
prayers, which is low, but marry him and my daughters always
noticed they're always still trying to do those Sunnah prayers,
regardless of whether that is doing in regards or the mom's
doing that. And recently humbled after hearing a very good reminder
about the value and importance of praying the Wizard of prayer, like
the two and then the one. after Isha, I was like, you know, I just
gotta get my winter back. Well, it's as simple as that, like, I'm
just gonna get back, get that step back up. And I'm gonna marry him
didn't have that problem. She's been praying with her, God,
preserve her in this and increase her in it and all of our kids. I
mean, she's been doing consistently on her own, even when
her father has not been that witness for her to do it. himself.
And smaller, I started doing with her. What happened that day, you
know what you did after right after I pray with her? The next
big hug. You know, she just came up and just gave me this big hug.
And she's
she was so happy. Yeah, like, I was ready to get some stickers and
cookies.
Myself, like, I was just like, wow, now even thanked her for
thanking me, like, thank you that you value this enough yourself
that you've been establishing it. And regardless of whether I'm
doing it or not, and that even when you saw me do it, you give me
a hug. And it's like, that hug just made me feel like, I got
this. I'm gonna continue doing that when I feel lazy and
thinking, Okay, maybe not tonight, I think Miriam's own. And that's
what I mean about making it a group effort as opposed to a top
down. Now about this issue of music. This is a big one,
especially for me, because I wasn't musician. I was in a in an
alternative rock band, and an r&b group, and hip hop groups, I still
write songs. But it's a big, big issue. It's one of the things that
has a huge if not one of the hugest impacts on the human psyche
and on the human heart, that you can understand why it can compete
with God.
Right?
That combination of sound and words, it can compete with your
heart, it can go into certain crevices, deep crevices of the
heart, that myself, I'm like, I get it, why there's warnings,
where there's cautions about this. And it's not in my in my place and
my expertise to get into the different 50 aspects of that
issue. But I can tell you, even as the person who's sitting here
today, who's still very much feels very impacted by music, who still
loves different certain types of music, I can still tell you, with
all honesty, I really appreciate the cautions that we have, and our
religion, regards to music. I think it's medicinal, and I think
we need it. Having said that, we know that there are certain
situations where I appreciate Elvis Ali's approach to these
things. There's certain situations where the the concise
orchestration of melody and sound is medicinal, we can consider that
okay, a person needs to be even treated with song. And there are
certain certain situations where a person already has a sound and
balanced constitution. If you introduce that to them, it will
actually cause sickness in that person. Like they don't need that.
So why are you giving it to them?
You know, and then there's the type person who's just they're
fine without it. So you just leave it there type of person, if you
give that to them, it can be actually brought on for them.
Okay, so I would definitely say it's no doubt we live in a
situation where this has a huge impact packed on us. And again,
take a group effort with it. We know your kids are listening to
music, engage the morning, sit down. One of the things I did was
As one of my daughters, make me a playlist, make me a playlist.
Let's sit down. I want to know what you listen to. Why do you
like this song? Some say, Oh, we just listening to the beat. Now
you hear the words do even if you'd haven't memorized, lose,
can't recite, they get in there. Okay, and that's the sound just
opens up the portal for the implanting of the words, which is
a lot of times the words is even more dangerous than the sound.
Instead of just saying stuck for like yanking the earphones out of
your ear, what you listen to during the visit that cat for
music, and bla bla bla bla bla bla, I didn't take that approach.
What are you listening to? Is that your favorite song? Who is this
artist? What are they about? What is their lifestyle about? Why do
you like this song? What is the song sang it all the lyrics
printed out. And I actually sat down and have full hour long
listening sessions with you know, my daughter, and we just sat down
we listened to had all the lyrics printed. And it was for her was
actually the first time really seeing the lyrics like that, you
know, and we just listened and we talked to why was impactful. I
even shared songs with her songs that were very impactful for me in
my life, and navigated to so then you don't feel this, like, you're
not trying to create hypocrites in your house. Okay, you don't want
like the clock syndrome, okay, they look one way when around you
to get around the corner, you switch into a totally different
constant.
You know, you don't want to raise hypocrites, so just choose that
engagement. And don't just make them feel like ashamed of
everything. Okay, there is things you know that shame has a place in
our religion, and there's a good place for it, because it helps us
to be people of modesty. It helps us to be people of God
consciousness. But again, we are in a situation living in this
culture in this context, where we cannot pretend like we have a
forcefield and that our kids have a forcefield engage them in these
things with creative righteousness, engage them and
find the beauty all that is a beautiful line. That's great.
Sometimes you hear a song, and it literally makes you turn to God.
Literally, you can hear someone's like, it'll make you weep.
And change your life. How many times have you heard stories of
people I heard I was gonna kill myself. And I heard that song. I
did it. Also the opposite. Here, somebody was thinking about it.
And they played the song as they went ahead did it. Like Cypress
Hill song, I can just kill a man that was a song. I knew a friend.
He wanted to go and do something like commit harm to somebody. And
that's the song he would play the fuel to give him the confidence to
do this violence, he played the song.
So it goes both ways. And, again, I can't tell everyone what to do
in your house, but just give you some advice. And that is again,
make our goal is not to destroy our children. And we live it I
think we have parents really destroying our children. Okay,
home was supposed to be a refuge.
Homeless refuge home was supposed to be a place of mercy, of ELP of
aid. Okay, so be there to navigate these things. Sometimes it's not
just as simple. You can't do this and can't do that. Sometimes you
may have to put that law down like that. But in most things,
especially something as sensitive and as hard capturing as music,
find out what they listen to engage them on and ask them
questions. Always, again, from the perspective of how can I build
them up, make them feel honorable, so that they may act honorably?
music, movies and video games, you've got to know what's in
there. There's a lot of crazy stuff in there. And there's stuff
that's good. So navigate with your children, what's reasonable,
what's good. There's stuff that you need to absolutely stay away
from. Absolutely. And you've got to know what it is and talk to
your kids about it and they get navigated. So Inshallah, best of
luck, or toys are with you and work with them.
One approach that I think helped us a lot when we were talking to
our kids about what they were watching what they were listening
to. What they were doing is an example that was given a
chimpanzee uses purification of the heart class, he talked about
how the heart is like a castle. And it's a castle in the heart is
a castle or fortress that you need to protect. And on the Day of
Judgment. It's only the people with pure hearts are going to get
to enter Jannah. So what do we do to protect our hearts? And he
explained that there's seven inroads to the heart, right,
there's seven avenues through which chiffon comes and attacks
the heart. So we talk to our kids about that. So the seven avenues
that affect the heart are the eyes, the ears, the mouth, the
hands, the feet, the stomach, and the genitalia. And so each one of
those avenues requires us to protect that path to the heart and
make sure that we're not
Not letting those things get to the heart that's going to cause it
to rust and cause it to get polluted. And so whether we're
looking, it's what we're looking at on Instagram, or whether it's
what we're listening to or watching on YouTube, we talk about
okay, well, how is this affecting the heart? Is it purifying the
heart? Or is it actually causing it to rust? And if we are doing
anything that's causing the heart to rust? And how do we remove that
rust, through thicker, right thicker remembrance of Allah and
through Toba, asking a lot of forgiveness and in shell so that
our kids don't despair, they know that there's always a way back, no
matter what mistakes are made.
I once had a mom come up to me after a talk, and she said that
her son had gone off to college. And he was, you know, normal,
typical teen. But when he came back, he started slowly,
expressing his interest in a particular genre of music, which
was goth music, something that she clearly she just knew nothing
about, but it really bothered her began to bother her because he
would wear, you know, like, the dog, what is it the studded
bracelets and sort of take on, you know, some of these
physical sort of expressions again, of the, the music that he
was listening to, and she was really caught up. And she was
like, I don't know what to do. I feel like, you know, she was
getting upset with him every time he would come to visit. And then
what would happen is he would stop visiting. So I, when she came to
me, she was like, I don't know what to do. And I said, Well, you
know, exactly like cityhood said, I said, I think what you need to
do is you need to show an interest in his music, you can't if you
continue to push him away and judge him and make him feel like
he's doing this dirty, horrible thing by listening to this type of
music, instead of trying to at least reach out and come to a
place of understanding of why that music appeals to him, then you are
going to lose your son. And I was just very clear with her. I said,
he's just not going to come on weekends anymore, you're not going
to see him anymore. And he's going to go further further into that
world, which means less into your world. But the best way to keep
the door of communication open is to at least express some interest
and say, Okay, I have no idea what this music is why you like it,
tell me about it, just like to the 100 said, Let me you know, listen
to the lyrics or read the lyrics. I mean, listen to this, and find a
way to, to really kind of again, bridge bridge some understanding.
It was I remember, you know, she went she was staying there. Her
daughter was with her, she was just kind of startled by my
response. It never occurred to her to do something like that. She was
maybe looking for a different answer, like, how else can I
convinced him and a lot of times with parents and I'm sure hinda
might have the same experience because we both talk about
parenting a lot. Is that parents when they come to us for advice, a
lot of time it's about how can I how can I reprogram or control my
child? Like help me give me a give me a quick answer to reprogram and
control. And for me, that's really heartbreaking because my thing is
exactly a city huddle and said let's not please raise hypocrites.
And let's go back to the roots of our deen, which is really about
honor, respect, love, compassion, it shouldn't be about control.
Parenting is not the end all of parenting is not controlling your
children. It's raising responsible God fearing God loving individuals
who will carry this tradition forth. But you can't do that. If
it's just, you know, looking at them, like, you know, robots that
you need to have a remote control in hand all the time. How about
engaging with them, talking with them, finding ways to inculcate
respect, mutual respect, this is how I think we just have to have a
total paradigm shift about parenting and I think a lot of our
ideas of parenting are from back home cultures. And the way that we
were parented which was very again authoritarian, let's go back
because it's not Islamic model Islamic model is not that it's, it
really is about respecting love and, and just understanding and so
with that said, Inshallah, we do have a couple more questions. Now,
you're coming through now at the end towards the end of this, but
you want us to go on well, I'll take that as a compliment.
Inshallah.
Did we did you read these? This one, so go forth with this one?
Okay. Bismillah. All right. So how do you approach a father who is
rigid in his deen and doesn't really understand what the youth
struggle with? What do you struggle with today? He wants kids
to just listen, because he says so. One daughter wears hijab but
sometimes wears it in a rap style when she's wearing but when she's
home nearing home, she will change the style back. She feels like he
will get upset with her How can kids find the courage to talk to
dad
that's an excellent question.
Fathers I'm gonna let you guys handle this especially father with
daughters are both of you but I think the father of the daughter
can help us
Hear it inshallah. So I'll pass the mic.
Okay, so she's feeling like that. It's just like, too rigid, hard to
talk to you.
Well, sister, I doesn't want you know, just give it a try. I want
you to have the courage to at least say to yourself, I actually
tried talking today.
Because, as opposed to staying in a state where you feel like I just
can't because he's this way. Sometimes you just have to break
through that. Say, look, Dan,
I'm having a hard time talking to you.
But we need to talk, I need to let you know that I literally
sometimes change my hijab style, right before I come into the
house. Sometimes you just have to break that bubble. Got to pop that
bubble.
Just tone Exactly. Like the question was meant presented.
Maybe okay, you feel like it's too intense to, to go say that face to
face, then write it down just like it was written and put up here.
Write your dad a letter.
And say, Dad, this is how I've been feeling. And again, it's
always just like, we're told when we want to ask a lot from
something there's like etiquettes to do, you should praise Allah.
Thank Allah sin, prayers on the Prophet peace be upon him, then
ask, right? Because now we're opening away, don't just start the
letter saying, Dad, you know, don't just start being wrong. Just
say, Dad, this is your daughter, this is me. I love you. I want to
thank you, for what you've done for the house and what you've done
in my life, the support, you know, the protection, you've given the
provision you help, but I'm really hurting.
It really I'm struggling religiously. Because if he really
cares, like, if you're really like, Bob was girl, he can't help
but feel a sense of like, Hey, maybe I need to, I need to rethink
how I'm doing. Because him a lot of times, you don't realize a lot
of parents are just repeating the way they've been taught by their
parents. So we're just repeating the way we're taught. And that's
why again, in your household, you have to decide when you have your
own household, take the best of what you got from your parents,
and leave what you know, was not working. Don't just repeat the
same old way of doing things. So maybe he's you feel too
intimidated to approach him directly, then write it down. But
you cannot just let that feeling simmer and fester. That's not
healthy.
Yeah.
So then, look,
if you actually have an interest in helping your daughter, make it
in this life, and the next, just take a deep breath and realize
that you are not where, you know, ultimate control in charge and
judgment rests. Okay, the fact is, your kids are going to make sense.
Sometimes we have that's one of the first things we have to come
to terms with as parents trying to raise religious children. Your
kids are gonna do some sins. Okay. That's why we have such a
beautiful idea. Again, it goes back to having principles to fall
back on the Prophet peace be upon him said and when maybe translated
as keep God in mind wherever you are, and follow a wrong with the
right that offsets it, and treat people courteously.
hulless
treat people courageously. That Hadith I just love it so much is
from the translating compiled in the book, The Content of
Character, which is one of my primary books. I hope at the end
of this, we'll get into sharing some actual resources that have
really been we've each found really helpful. One of them from
my household has been the prophetic character, the Content
of Character sorry, the Content of Character, translated by Sheikh
Hamza use of the full version and the copy book. So they have a full
length book. And then they have a summarized book that Sheikh Hamza
sister produced, just selections. And it even has the Hadith in
Arabic and English so you can copy it in English, copy in Arabic and
memorize, okay, but there are foundational IDs that I just love
because they're all the deeds about character. And that
particular one that I've just mentioned, I have it posted on the
wall, it's in my house. It's also in my office. Keep God in mind
wherever you are and fall away wrong with a right that offsets it
you're going to do wrong, but don't be stuck in shame and guilt.
Do something bad, followed up with something that offsets and then at
the end of it was a and treat people courteously. God, it's so
easy to leave that out. Just be nice. Just dad be nice. Nice.
Okay. How do you feel when would whoever treated you the way you're
Treating them. Just how did you feel about that?
Okay, and you'd be surprised you have a lot of parents holding in a
lot of trauma themselves. And they're just passing on the
trauma. Okay, so that's what I'm advising, like, look, I have, I
believe most parents actually genuinely do care about their kids
at the end of the day. Okay, so for that sister again, just try
writing your thoughts out, but be blunt. Okay, start nicely. Make
your parent feel loved and honored. But look, there's
something that is not working for me. And it's driving me crazy, and
is potentially driving me out of this religion. Do you think your
your dad wants you to leave Islam? If he's that particular? Do you
think he wants you to leave it? No. So be frank. You know, if you
can't talk to him that way. That's tough. But I believe you can do
it. Just try it. You know, my own daughter is here. One of them is
here. And you know, I tried to make it an open write, dialogue.
If I've said something that didn't sit to write. I said, You got to
let me know. And she does sit as long as you talk to me still with
respect, with dignity. Please feel free to speak up for yourself.
Defend yourself, let me know. I don't have it all worked out.
Guaranteeing is a work in progress is on the job training. Okay,
we're still trying to figure it out. But I don't want to
traumatize my kids. I don't want to be the means of my kids leaving
Islam.
And for a lot of people is their parents. I've just heard a story
before I came here brother was telling, you know, my my wife,
she's she uses the Quran as the hammer.
said My daughter told me she hates Quran. Because when she thinks it
wants to even she hears it now. She thinks about how every time
she did something bad. Her mom would just turn it up really
really loud in the house and lasted so long is gonna get you
what is that?
Does that glove hidden? It's so disturbing. But I'm glad you
brought that up because it reminded me of a story
of a girl that came up to me after one of the talks. And she you
know, sometimes people will come up and they'll use the My friend
is going through something. You know, like lying. I don't know if
she was speaking about herself, Aloha them or if this was truly
her friend. But she said that her she was 13 years old young girl.
She said, I'm really scared. My friend has been cutting herself.
And she has suicidal ideation. She's thinking of suicide. I don't
know what to do, how can I help her. And I said, what's going on?
Please explain. And she said her ever since she was a young girl
from the age of three, she, her mom has been very difficult on her
in terms of her religious practice, and she one of the
things that she would do is chase her around the house. If she would
to make mistakes reciting Quran, I want you to imagine a three year
old toddler, memorizing maybe sort of the class or some you know, one
of the shorter sodas. And because she made a mistake, her mom would
run around the house with a knife in her hand scaring her. So this
poor girl has trauma from from a young age and all through up until
she's 13. Now 10 years of this kind of life, and she was she was
forced to wear hijab, and then she would leave the house without it.
But she got to a point where in middle school, she's done, she
wants to check out and her coping mechanism was to self harm and
cut. And now she's speaking of suicide. This is a serious stuff
for a while.
I mean, I you know, I was of course, shocked and overwhelmed
when she was telling me this and I gave her some advice. But I just
I've always thought back on that story as far as how we can see the
horror and said we can really destroy children, when we don't
ourselves have the right balance. So back to this question or, you
know, as far as about, it's really about balance. If you approach
your children's practice with that sort of iron fist and you want to,
you know, constantly shut down conversations do as I say, Do as I
say Do as I say you are destroying the line of communication between
you and your children. And what is the positive end of that? Yeah,
you might get someone who had a fear, capitulate to what you want,
and, and what you demand in the moment. But as you said, if you've
just created someone who all the beloved, becomes accustomed to
living a double life, you know, or you know, just finding ways to
wear different masks based on the circumstances situation, you have
essentially destroyed their spiritual journey. So we have to
be very careful as parents with how the expectations that we have
of our children to be realistic, to be practical, practical, to be
fair, and to pace ourselves. And then Islam came in 23 years. It
didn't come overnight. And and they hadn't and this was during a
time when the process was alive. He was there he
He would, you know, they witnessed miracles and yet it took so long
for the deen to be complete. And for many people to actually really
come to, you know, to full, you know, full circle with their
practice of being people were still, you know, having adultery
and committing sin and fornicating and doing all sorts of thing while
the prophesy centum was with them. So what are we doing here? 2019
when we have our children bombarded with every message that
says don't, you know, basically, forget God, and then we are
creating households like this, it's just, it's insane. So we have
to really step back I think and, and look at ourselves, and that's
why, you know, when I was doing my parenting sessions here at MCC,
one of the first points that I tried to make, actually, during
every session, was that parenting really starts with us as parents,
you know, sometimes we think it's always just about how do I, you
know, how do I guide my children, but it really comes back to us,
are we fit guides? Are we the right guides? Can we do this or
not, you know, the processes Hadith, you know, on a clinical or
clinical, either click on Run or clinical Missoula, Lanre Yeti, you
know, every one of us is a shepherd, and we're all
responsible for our flock. What is a shepherd? Am I a qualified
Shepherd? Do I even know how to lead a flock? Do I know the role
and if you don't know the role, get to know the role first before
you start, you know, falling into this hype of becoming a parent.
And that's, you know, that's a whole other conversation for the
young generation about, you know, wanting to get married and wanting
to sort of start you know, getting having a family right away hope,
you know, just slow down a little bit. Prepare, prepare, prepare,
before you take on that role, because this isn't a man Oh, you
have souls that you're responsible for. So, you know, just balance is
so important. Mashallah, so we have so many really good, you
know, questions here and comments, I want to I think, because in the
interest of time, want to make sure that we just hit some of
these or get to everything that we can, there was a comment here from
one of the kids and I want to honor this, this question because,
mashallah, yes, yeah, let's try to be as brief Exactly. Yeah,
exactly. Speed. Thank you. So I'm going to try to go as fast as
possible to this question, or comment came from someone in the
audience who said that, whenever my mom drives me to school, she's
slow. Sometimes, I have no problem because my school bell schedule is
good for me. The problem was that I wonder what people think,
mashallah, my mom wears a hijab. But if people see my mom driving
slow, and wearing a hijab, I think those people might hate Muslims. I
heard many people like Muslims, but if they see a Muslim driving
really slow in front of them, they might change their minds of liking
Muslims. What should I do whenever my mom drives slow? Again? Thank
you, for the child who wrote this. It's such a sweet question, may
Allah bless you. Your concern is valid, you know, you're worried
obviously, about protecting your mom's image, but also the global
Muslim community, thank you on behalf of a woman who wears hijab,
for being so concerned, very sweet of you, I think, you know, I'm not
sure why your mom drives slow. If she has maybe fear or trepidation
driving some moms, you know, they might have had an accident, God
forbid, or something in their past that makes them a little bit more
cautious. But maybe if you could talk about this with your mom, and
just let her know, that you're worried about how people at school
are observing her and maybe that it might affect, you know, because
I mean, the reason why I say your concern is very valid is because
there are people who are very unhinged, unfortunately, in our
society, you know, car, you know, road rage is real, when people
don't get what they want, while they're driving, because they need
to get somewhere they can be very, very unhinged, and there are
people, they've caused accidents, they've harmed people, they've
literally shot people. And I'm not trying to scare anybody. But I
think there's valid concerns of worrying if someone might react to
a slow driver, when you know, if they're going really slow. And
again, I don't know all the details. But if that is a concern
of yours, I think you should have a conversation with your mom, and
tell her how you feel if she's here in the audience, and you
think you know, that this is your child speaking, than just maybe
talk to someone about your fear of driving, it might be something
that you need to work on. Personally, you know, there's some
fears there that you have to overcome. And then, you know, have
encouraged dialogue further with your child about his beautiful
question. Thank you.
Oh, sorry, we still have more questions. So I'm going to
actually refer one to or read from one of the questions that we got
from our survey. There was a question about a teenager who
really wanted to get a job. But his parents were or her parents
were not on board. They were resisting, they were not letting
them have a job. So does any do any of the panelists want to take
that on? Yeah.
So So real quickly, I mean, what I infer if you read it is that it's
a girl who wants to get a job, I think, you know, in this society,
we are culturally we have sort of over protective inclination.
shins towards our children. And that's kind of a theme that's
coming out. But the children have their own personalities, their
own, some are outgoing, some are ambitious. Some people want to
have their own,
you know, sort of freedom with money in their pocket. So this is
a valid issue that that could be any one of those things that this
child is feeling that, you know, I want to have some freedom, maybe
money is tight in the family, and I want to have a little bit of
freedom to buy the things that I want. Hopefully, it's not wrapped
records, you know, but
the child has a need to sort of grow outside the house, and some
children are very comfortable in the home. And some children have
this personality, they want to kind of explore the boundaries of,
of what they're doing as they get older. So I want to keep the, the
answer real short. But we need to watch from being over protective,
if it's something that isn't breaking the deen is within
reason, you know, within commute, and doesn't put your child in
danger, or they're not selling alcohol or doing any haram, it
will probably help them like like learning a specific subject, they
may want to go towards a business or be doing something artsy, like
you should let that child a little bit, they're letting you know that
they want to explore the world in a different way. And you should
let that child within reason have their boundary expanded, as long
as they can be trusted, and they can be safe. It also teaches them
very good values about earning money. And knowing the value of
$1. And how much how much you have to work in order to buy, you know,
an iPhone or a coffee and how you waste it. These are things that
they need to learn. So in sha Allah, I think the advice I would
give is to is to loosen the boundaries. Yeah, and have an
agreement about
Yeah, maintain a GPA, I think that's great. 10% of your income
might be going towards sadaqa, what are you going to do with your
money, half of its going to go into savings, half of it you can
spend on certain things,
those kinds of things. You know, I think I think it requires a family
meeting and a negotiation. But I think the child is asking for
something very reasonable. And the parents should be open to doing
that and making sure that they grow in the right way. I think I'm
proud of the child for wanting to expand a little bit.
Yeah, and the parents get better eat gets right.
We're gonna take one more question. And then Inshallah, what
I'd like to do is, how many of you have actually looked at the survey
questions that we put out for the teams?
Yeah, just to, okay, we have results from those that I think we
should like to disclose to you, just to, again, leave you really
thinking, you know, some food for thought about the gravity and the
seriousness of many of the issues that our teens are facing, because
sometimes they, they don't have the opportunity, or they're not
comfortable talking about certain things with the adults in their
life. But one an anonymous survey they made, they actually do have
them that when they do participate, they reveal things to
us, and we should all of us in this room should really reflect on
what's going on in their worlds just to at least to become more
aware and to inshallah increase in our empathy. So I'm gonna get to
those and then inshallah we'll end at that point. But before that
last question, which I think it would have been, I missed it until
now. But I really think it's a relevant one because a lot of our
young girls do struggle with this. And it's relevant to our
discussion with social media and the influence that it has over so
many of our teens. But one issue or topic that I know I've heard a
lot from our young girls are related to body image and, and
self confidence and issues of beauty. So the question is, how do
I
convince my daughter that she isn't ugly, she's constantly
comparing herself to celebrities, and influencers, beauty
influencers, that's what it references to, no matter what she
does, she never thinks she's good enough. And this is, you know, a
very deep issue that a lot of our youth Our girls are dealing with,
or dealing with body image, like I said, and just self confidence
issues because of the magnification of,
of sort of, of everything really about teen life. When it comes to
social media, everything is on display, right? And people and
these kids feel like they have to put it on display and if it's not
good enough, compared to so and so then they don't get as many likes,
and that destroys their confidence and morale. So there's a lot of,
you know, it's just so many layers to this, but I'm going to turn two
panelists in it. Yeah, he was okay.
I'm gonna put this again on the dad's one of the things I have
seen across the board with the most confident young women that I
know who have really strong positive body image, they have
strong self esteem, they
know who they are, they're unapologetic muscle.
So one of the things I've seen across the board with all of these
young women is that they have very, very strong, positive
relationships with their fathers. And the fathers have been
investing in their daughters from a very young age. And I know of a
young girl who her dad has taken her out to brunch once a week,
since she was a little girl, and when they were little, when she
was little, you know, maybe there was no big exciting conversations,
but it was time just being spent together. Now the daughter's in
college, and she openly will tell her dad, if she has a crush on a
guy, or if she's interested in somebody, or if she's got
questions about marriage proposals that are coming her way. And the
dad is, you know, being taken into confidence. And one of the things
this young woman once told me is,
that had a big impact on her as she wants felt uncomfortable
around a certain uncle in the community. And that uncle was a
good friend of her father's. And she just mentioned it to her dad,
the uncle hadn't done anything, it was just kind of a sixth sense
that she felt around him. And she told her dad that, you know, he, I
just feel uncomfortable around uncle salsa, or whatever. And she
expected her dad to defend him to tell her not to think like that to
not, you know, make any kind of assumptions. But instead, she said
her father said to her, always trust your instincts when it comes
to men.
And that really had a huge impact on her. And so there have been
valuable conversations happening with the father over the years.
But getting back to the original point, these young women who I
admire who don't seem to be following the greater trend of
like, wanting to change the way they look and wanting to use 100
different filters before they post a picture and worrying about what
guys think about them. Across the board. These young women have very
strong relationships with their fathers. And if there isn't a
father in the picture,
they have an uncle, or an older brother, or a grandfather,
somebody who takes time out to be with them. And the mother has made
sure that there is a strong father figure in the daughter's life. And
Dr. Leonard Sachs talks about this in the book girls on the edge. He
said that girls in high school who don't engage in premarital sexual
relations who don't engage in risky behaviors who don't engage
in drug experimentation, smoking cigarettes, he said across the
board with those girls had in common was they had a father who
showed up to all of their events. Father who showed up to their
spelling bees and their sporting events and their, you know,
cheerleading tryouts, whatever. So same thing if there isn't a father
than an uncle or a grandfather or an older brother, somebody who's a
mentor to the young woman letting her know that she's valued.
Oh, yeah, I have a friend who grew up in a small town where there
weren't many Muslims. And she and her siblings grew up to be amazing
Muslims, Mashallah. And her father was a very pious man who every
town he ever lived in, would build a masjid. They're very respected
in the community. And I asked her once, how was it that you, you and
your siblings grew up to be such amazing Muslims? Considering that
you grew up in this little town where there were no Muslims around
you? Pretty much, how didn't you? How did you not get sucked in by
the siren called the culture around you? And she said, I love
this quote of hers, she said, when you feel love in the home, you
don't look for it anywhere else.
When you feel love in the home, you don't look for it anywhere
else. And she felt that love from a strong male figure in her life.
It's exactly 530. And I will not keep you much longer. I want to
thank you all again, for being here. I'm just going to quickly go
over the results of the survey. So the questions if you didn't see
them, I actually didn't count exactly, but I'll just go through
them. A lot of them are pretty heavy subjects. If you have young
children, you don't want them to hear the subjects that I invite
you to please have them leave the room. But for the parents, oh,
sorry. Yeah, for the parents who are okay with it, and I, you know,
they can remain, Inshallah, but I just want to give you that sort of
disclaimer in the beginning. So the questions that we asked teens,
this was specifically for teens to give us their answers anonymously.
How often are you exposed to or do you hear about depression in an
average week at school? We had mashallah 37 and a half percent,
say that at least once a week, or once a year, once a week they,
they get exposed to that 25%
also respond
did four times a week
12 and a half. So there's Mashallah. I'm sorry. Wait, I
might be actually. Yeah, I apologize. Just 37 and a half
percent said once a week, so let's focus on just the bigger numbers.
Have you ever been offered drugs at school? 50% responded? Yes. So
50% Yes. 50%. Now, how many times have you been offered drugs at
school?
At least one time 75% of the respondents said at least once.
Mashallah, so three times was 12 and a half percent and five times
was 12 and a half percent. So this is, you know,
have you ever been in? Have you ever been invited to view
* at school? 25% of the participants said yes. And 75%
said, No, how frequently? Have you been invited to view *
in an average week? 100% of the respondents said at least once. So
once per week, the ones who did they, that's how often? Have you
ever been invited to engage in any type of sexual behavior at school?
At school? 12 and a half percent said yes.
Have you ever been invited by the same gender to engage in sexual
activity?
But all the respondents said no to that one.
How often are you exposed to or do you hear about suicide in an
average week at school 62 and a half percent said at least once
12 and a half percent said twice. 12 and a half percent said three
times and then 12, and a half percent said five times? This is
during a school week.
It's pretty frightening.
No, this was a matter of how often you hear about suicide. So six,
yeah.
Yeah, it's about Yeah, in an average weekend, nobody said no.
Do you know someone? Or? Or do you know someone or more than one
person who regularly cuts or engages in self harm? 37, a half
and a half percent said yes.
How many times have you heard about someone at school who wants
to change their identity? One, one time, or at least one time is
25% 12 and a half percent, or is at least two times 25%, at least
three times 12 and a half percent for at least four times 12 and a
half percent, at least five times 25% At least six times. And then
12 and a half percent, at least seven times.
To hear this, nobody said no. This is a matter of changing their
identity, this how often they hear this. So these were, we kept it to
these issues. Because these are the issues that we in our line of
work and what we do in terms of our engagement with the community,
we hear these issues a lot. And we wanted the teens to actually give
us their feedback about what they experienced. So that we can,
again, bring this to to our to everybody's attention to all of
our attention, become more aware that these are the things that our
teams are struggling with. And that's why these types of
discussions are so so important. And Inshallah, if we're able to do
more panels like this and MCC puts out surveys, I really hope that
our families out there, we'll take that seriously and actually ask
their children to participate in those surveys. And to give us more
feedback, because the best way for us to heal is to be able to at
least recognize where the harm is, where the where the pain is, and
where the suffering is. If we just turn a blind eye and pretend like
everything's going to be fine, and miracles are just going to happen,
we're going to actually really be in for some very unpleasant, God
forbid, issues coming up in our community, in our family, may
Allah protect all of you and all of our children. I want to again,
thank all of our amazing panelists for their wonderful insights
throughout this. This panel, I'm sure we all have learned to duck
and will fit into all of you any parting words or remarks from
anybody? Before we leave? Sure.
I just wanted to
end the session by just reminding everybody that
parenting feels overwhelming. And sometimes we find ourselves
feeling really disappointed by what our aspirations were, what
our hopes and goals were, and then seeing the results maybe not being
what we had hoped for. And I think it's really, really important for
us all to remember that the wheel is still turning. It's the story's
not over. Right? The person is on top today could be on the bottom
tomorrow and the person on the bottom today could be on the top
tomorrow and
What we all want for our children and for ourselves is for snow hot
them a beautiful ending. And we want them to die with the shahada
on their lips and in their hearts and with their eemaan intact. And
that all begins first and foremost with the law, everyone should just
be praying for protection. And for Allah subhanaw taala to put
politica bofi In our time with our children, and nobody should be
despairing. Because in the end, no one loves our children more than a
less amount of Bella, right? We don't love our kids more than he
does. And they are in his protection. And we just pray that
we can fulfill the roles that Allah subhanaw taala, the
responsibility that Allah Spano Bella has given us and let's all
pray for each other, because we're all in it together.
Just in conclusion,
I did want to always like to leave some good takeaways, some
something tangible, that I did, pretty much everything I've been
talking about. I didn't give a lot of citations, specific verses of
Quran and specific Hadith. But everything I've said, it's, it's
inspired from those sources, textual sources, and also living
sources that I've had the good fortune of witnessing in my life.
But I did want to mention a couple of specific textual resources that
has been that have been very, very helpful in my life, personally, in
my family's life. And that is the book our Master Muhammad. So just
write down the book, our Master Mohammed Salman Longley was salam,
but you can get from Rumi bookstore, you can get from the
zaytuna College Bookstore, just that title, our Master will have
some long leave some, a lot of the cure for what we're going through
is literally falling in love with the Prophet Muhammad sallallahu
alayhi salam, and it takes work. But that's one of the books that
found that really just bringing the prophets of Allah, someone's
life and character, and specifically, it just really bring
it to life in a very special way. And that's a book that we read
completely as a family. Also, the book being Muslim, which I was
happy to see that there's a group of converts, who have a book club
and they're going through the book being Muslim by Dr. Assad, Tyson,
may God bless him. That book I think, every Muslim should have
that not just converts. It's a great book, I went through that
book, we went through that as a family from beginning to end. And
it's awesome. The other book is the purification of the heart book
by our dear Sheikh Hamza Yusuf, may God bless him and his family.
Because you got to know what you're made of what is this thing
we call the soul? What is its properties? What lowers it? What
elevates it, knowing those basic principles is at the root. You
know, that's, that's where you start.
The other one is the Muslim supplications. Throughout the day
and night, those things, literally how you start your day and the
particular app car that you should say in different situations, that
is essential. It literally has been an indispensable aid for
myself as a conference, one of the first books that I was given his
supplications for the night and day what you say in these
different situations, and it really, really has been helpful to
like you said, we don't we don't know when we're going to die or
how we don't have control over that. But we can at least be
people of F car so that when we do go we can feel comfortable that
ourselves and our children and shallow people have vicar
when they went out also take some touch we've with Kerry Omar or say
that it was my Husseini there we have many people, our community
come to love and are qualified in teaching the science of Tajweed.
That's something I regret not sticking with. As a convert. It's
something I started and that stick with that too late, right?
But get that in your system to be fluent in reciting his word. And
then after that work on the meaning, the meaning.
Finally, I just wanted to remind everybody that Islam is not an
annihilator of culture.
We're live in this thing called the West in Western culture, and
you hear about Islamic culture and Western culture, and always feels
like there's this tension. And sometimes there are areas where
there are clear lines of tension that are understandable. But Islam
does have bring its own aspects of culture, in terms of its own
unique practices, and ideologies and so forth. But there's also
good things in the culture that we find ourselves in and Islam is not
meant to just do away with all of that it's an enhancer of culture.
So one of the big remedies I found for us and even parents is just
get a hobby. Find a hobby find something else. Some people think
the only expression
And of Islam is the rituals, the prayer, reading Quran, there's
other things you can do and by doing them with a certain
intention, they become devotional acts, or the they elevate those
things. So find hobbies that you all can enjoy and do as a family
collecting things, fishing, hunting, whatever it is my family,
for instance, we all enjoy Star Wars. So my family we cosplay, we
all literally have custom homemade Jedi outfits. We have custom
lightsabers even custom lightsabers that have Islamic
calligraphy inscribed in them that have the Bismillah in the
soundfont of the lightsaber. Like we really we take it serious, so
But that's something we enjoy. We already have Jedi like outfits
Naturally with These jazz and like outfits his brother has on long
robes, or he just needs a lightsaber on the side. That's it.
But we have something we enjoy, and we mixed with a whole other
community of Star Wars fans and cosplayers as Muslims, and they
love that. Many people have been exposed to aspects of our practice
through that, that medium. Okay, so get a hobby, go get some Legos,
that's another thing we do. We love buying LEGO sets, we build
Lego sets together as a family, my wife, my daughters, we build
things together. Because that ties into my little mantra, right? Our
way is to build up, not tear down. And I feel that by building Legos,
we're interacting with that metaphor. So please don't feel any
sense of despair. That's only a quality of the devil, the devil
gave up all shades, all I had to do was say sorry, when he made his
mistake. So we don't want to take that quality. You know, it's a
beautiful thing to be Muslim. It's a beautiful thing that Allah gave
us life period. So let's make the best of it and try to make it easy
on one another. Let's treat each other how we want a lot of treat
us. You know, we want a lot to be gentle and merciful and be
merciful and gentle with each other our children our trust. And
we just need to begged the Lord daily to give us access this trust
and to make it easy. And to everybody who's called in and
Ramin written in and given us questions, just May Allah heal
everybody and give everybody what we need. And make it easy for us
and give us off in Topeka.
Yeah, yeah, I do have a dua as a matter of fact, I will tell you,
this is my favorite DUA and I hope somebody comes up and takes a
picture of this. This is what I call the superhero power up dua
because we also live in a culture where superheroes is very popular.
We know what a big Avengers movie is coming up Avengers endgame, but
for us, we have a different idea of what the end game actually
really looks like. But when I read this dua, it's an authentic dua. I
felt like this dua is like, it's like a hidden treasure that Allah
sent down for whoever really wants to get it. Okay, because you don't
hear recited a lot especially like this. It's called the supplication
for light. It's not authentic supplication and the Prophet
sallallahu alayhi wa salam has recited it in a few different with
a few different variants. And
one of the scholars has compiled all those versions of the
supplication of light into one tech, so I will close with the
supplication for light. That's very important for myself, and I
hope it becomes a part of your lives as well. Bismillah
Alhamdulillah wa salam Allahu ala Sayidina Muhammad Ali, he was
happy he was salam. O Allah, please, and our hearts light. You
know, when our tongues light, and then our ears light, and then our
sight, light, and above us light and below us light and to our
right, light, and to our left, light, and before us light and
behind us light placed in our souls light, magnify for us light
and amplify for us light. Make for us light and make us light. Oh
Allah grant us light and placing our nerves light and in our body
light and in our blood light and in our hair light and in our skin
light. Oh God make for us a light in our grave and a light in our
bones, increase us and might increase us in light. Increase us
in light. Grant us light upon might mean
that there'll be light may the force be with you, Allah and
Muhammad in light sallallahu alayhi wa salam salam Wa alaykum.
And there's a book here if anybody wants to take a picture of it
called positive parenting in the Muslim home. It's a book I
recommend for establishing routines.
Some communication methods in the home so I'll make of everybody
thank you again for coming out
just like love hadn't said I wanted to come