10 Reasons to Homeschool

hamdulillah Halabi datamine or salatu salam O Allah Nabil Karim, Allah Allah He was happy about. I'm just going to share my PowerPoint. I think this should be a more practical presentation with some slides. So just get started with that. Okay.

So firstly, how did thank you all for joining me on a Sunday afternoon, right? It's, for many of us, this is our family time, this is our resting time. It's the only time of the week where many people get a break from, from life and from stress of work. And the fact that you were here to attend a webinar about homeschooling shows that you have a concern for your children, and you have a concern for the future. And this is a good sign, this is a good start. This shows that you are in the right place to learn about the right topic. So thank you all for taking out your time today to join us and I hope you're going to find this presentation beneficial.

And of course, before we begin, we make dua for our brothers and sisters in Palestine that Allah eases their suffering and regards to victory and makes makes a way out for them soon, that is on top of all of our minds. That is our number one concern at the moment. But nonetheless, we have to also focus on our education of our children because as you will see from this presentation, our children are the future. Our children are the future. And if we start now, with a strong foundation, then Inshallah, that future could be brighter, they could be capable of doing more for the OMA, then we are in sha Allah.

So today's presentation is called Raising pious Muslims 10 compelling reasons for Islamic homeschooling. Now, before I get into the 10 reasons, just a short background of how I got into homeschooling and why. And that will give you a bit of the glimpse at some of the reasons that I'm going to cover.

So my journey into homeschooling was not straightforward. It there were many bumps along the way. There are many different routes that I considered first.

In my own life, when I was in school, my mother was not happy with the environment of school. And so when I was 13 years old, she encouraged me to leave school and pursue the RME program instead. And I continued schooling from home while doing the Olympia program, and I completed both around the same time, right. So in 2006, I completed the Olympia program, and in 2007, I completed my high school and then I did University online as well. But then eventually, I got married and had my own children. And at that point, I had been a school teacher for two years, and I had dropped out. And I kind of lost faith in the school system, right? Just two years of teaching in school made me lose

faith in the school system. And I was worried for my own kids, like, how am I going to educate them? What am I going to do? I'm not happy with what's available. And just like you are doing now, I about 12 years ago, attended a webinar on homeschooling

by someone who eventually became my mentor, and homeschooling and that webinar blew my mind. It was the first time I ever heard about these reasons, and these methodologies of homeschooling. And I said, this sounds workable, this sounds reasonable, too. Sounds like something we can do. And my wife and I decided to give it a try. And now

you know more than 12 years later, two of my kids are at the verge of graduating, they all homeschooled all the way Hamdulillah. And when we look at our teenagers and the people they are growing into and we look at how their Eman and their other than the clock has been shaped. We can only say Alhamdulillah, we made the right choice. And I'm hoping that today's presentation will help you to make a similar choice for what's best for your children. And I want to start by getting into what is homeschooling. So it's a very broad term, right? It doesn't refer to just one methodology of education. homeschooling in the broadest sense means that the parents take the lead in how their

children are educated, and the majority of education takes place at home. But this does not mean that there's one way to do it. There is actually far more methodologies of homeschooling. Then they are methodologies of actual schooling because what you will find and this is one of the 10 compelling reasons we're going to get there

into is that homeschooling is very flexible. It's a very flexible system, it puts the power and control back in your hands. And that means you can be creative, you can think out of the box, you could invent an entire new method of, of education that others didn't think about before. This puts the power in your hands. And this makes it something that a lot of people today are desperate need of a lot of people do they feel powerless with the school system, right? People feel like if I put my child in school, they're going to be brainwashed. They're going to be force fed liberalism, and hedonism, and LGBTQ and all of these things, how do I protect them, yet still allow them to grow up

in a way that they are able to contribute to society and get a good job. And homeschooling allows you to do this, to be able to achieve all of these goals. So there are many different methods of homeschooling, right? The most common is school at home, that you essentially replicate the school system, and the school curriculum, and you do it at home. And this is what most parents do that they will have a room in their house that's dedicated to be the school, and they will have dedicated hours, and they will do math and English and Science and Arabic. And they will have the school system at home with mom and dad, as teachers, those who can afford it, they may go into private

tuition, where you will hire someone to come home and teach your children. Right. This is the classical way of the kings of the past. When you study the lives of royalty, you'll find that they never went to school, they'd have private tutors come home and teach him whatever they needed to learn in order to become the next great leader. So

private tuition is another method of homeschooling, I know some families where instead of sending their children to school, they have, they would hire someone whose full time job is to teach their children to come to the home and teach their children. Now we have online schooling, right, which is what my older children are doing at the moment, which is they are Islamic online schools that you can enroll in, where your child can be at home all the time. But they can study through the internet, they can take the exams on the internet, they can graduate in a regular way, these are registered schools, accredited schools with proper examinations and certificates. But they don't

ever have to leave the home. You can do everything while at home. So one of the things I'm going to

explain a bit later is that when it comes to homeschooling, you don't have to stick to one system for life. They have, you can always change up whenever you feel something's not working. Or if you feel like your children are in a different phase of life, and they need to try something different. Right. So I've tried many of these different approaches at different points in my children's life. Another type of homeschooling is self directed learning. With the children initiated, they decide what subjects they interested in what careers they want to take what they want to pursue, and they choose the subjects accordingly, and they study accordingly. So,

you know, these are different methodologies. And of course, cottage goods also count as homeschooling. And what this means is, for example, just so you have a neighborhood in which there's like five families that want to homeschool, but the parents are busy, one of them has time. So all the kids go to that house and that parent, she homeschools everyone's kids, so this becomes like a little,

a little school at home. Right? We have five or six kids from different families study together. So this is a another type of homeschooling. I've seen this in some Muslim countries, where the, you know, Muslims were migrated from from the west into a Muslim country. If the kids don't know the local language, it's easier for them to form cotton school so that children can study in English. Right. So the main point I wanted to get out of this slide is number one, there is no singular definition of homeschooling. Aside from the fact that the parents are in control, and the bulk of the education takes place at home. Beyond that, there are many different methodologies to explore

and to try. So if you are someone who feels that school is a waste of time, school is a brainwashing facility. School is taking your children away from you. Right slowly is is breeding atheism and hedonism and, and Zina and all of this and you're looking for alternatives. Homeschooling doesn't just open the door to one alternative. It opens the doors to many alternatives. And this is where the true value of homeschooling lies, that you now have the freedom to decide and to realize that hold on. There's more than one way to

Do things, I'm not limited in my choices. There are many choices that Allah has given us control to be able to make these choices. Now a point to note before we jump into today's today's main topic,

note that there are legalities around homeschooling. Different countries in different states have their own rules on what's allowed and what's not allowed. There are some countries where homeschooling is completely illegal. So please ensure that before you embark on this journey, that you do your research, ask locals about the homeschooling. Find out from your government, what's the policies, what's the procedure, and make sure that you are working within the bounds of what is legal so that there's no trouble for you and your family? Right. And again, I can't give you any advice on that topic, because that really changes from country to country and state to state. So

please do that research before jumping into homeschooling. Okay, so our main topic today, I want to share with you 10 reasons why I believe homeschooling is the future and why I believe that

with our current list of options, homeschooling is the best option for Muslims. Right. And I want to make a couple of disclaimers first, disclaimer, number one, homeschooling is not easy.

Homeschooling is not easy.

In fact, I feel it's probably the hardest thing I've ever done in my life. It requires a lot of time, a lot of patience, you're going to have to learn a lot, you're going to have to be around the kids all the time. It is not easy.

But it's an investment. It is hands on parenting, it is something that you only go to see the benefits of 1020 30 years down the line. So you have to be prepared for the fact that this is not easy. Anything worth doing is not easy. And that includes homeschooling. Disclaimer number two, not everybody can homeschool. Not everybody can homeschool, right? Some don't have the time, some don't have the skills, some are living in countries where it's not legal. So this isn't for everyone. It's not a one size fits all solution. It's the best option for those who are able to do it. But if you're not able to do it, you should go to the second best option. Right. Number three, when we talk

about the benefits of homeschooling, we are not demeaning or putting down Islamic schools at all. No. Rather, I believe that Islamic schools are the second best option. Right, Islamic schools are the second best option after homeschooling, which means that if

if you are unable to homeschool, the best thing you can do is put your child in an Islamic school. And also Islamic schools have different levels in terms of the quality of teachers who the board of directors are, how much emphasis they put on the Islamic studies what their budget is. So some Islamic schools are better than others, and some of them may even be better than homeschooling. Right? Again, that depends where you live, and what options are available to you. So I'm not talking about homeschooling versus Islamic school. I don't want to put put these two against each other. Rather, these are two separate solutions for the same problem. Rather, we are looking at

homeschooling

versus putting your children into an Islamic environment to seven sending your six year old your five year old, your seven year old to a public school or private school where it is essentially the kuffar who are educating them and where they are learning about LGBTQ and they're learning about the freedom to commit Zina and they are learning about atheism and how religion is backwards and they are not equipped yet to deal with this. They are too young, their minds are not formed yet they are not ready to handle this. Right. So this is what we are talking about that if your option is public school, or homeschooling, then you need to figure out a way to do homeschooling because this is what

is best for your children to such an extent that some of my teachers said that if you're living in a non Muslim country, some of them actually believe that it's haram to send your children to a public school. In fact, some of them call it spiritual suicide. Right now, I don't agree with the fact that I don't believe it's haram. But I understand the logic. I understand the logic, right? That it's spiritual suicide, you killing your child's Imam by dumping a six year old into an environment of suffering for 13 years where the kuffaar have more saying what your child learns than usual. You are essentially killing get him on. You are sending them into a battlefield before they are armed and

ready to fight. That's what you're doing when you

Put a five, six or seven year old into a public school environment.

So

why should you homeschool? Let's go through 10 of these reasons. And we have about 25 minutes, there should be enough time to go through our 10 reasons. Reason number one, to fulfill the Amana of parenting. Now I want every parent to listen to this point carefully. Parenting in Islam is an armada. It is a trust, Allah will ask you on the day of judgment about how you raise your children. Allah subhanho will ask you on the day of judgment about how you raise your children, about how you educated your children. Now, once they grow up, and they make their own choices, you are not responsible for that. But you are responsible for everything you did to that point.

So as a Muslim parent, you need to think about what is the best way that I can fulfill the trust of parenting.

And I don't think it's putting your child into a public school. You could send them to an Islamic school. That's one way to fulfill the Amana of parenting. You could

you could put them into afternoon Islamic classes, you could send them to school in the daytime and teach them Islam yourself in the afternoons. But I personally believe the best way to know that you 100% gave it your all that you went all in with parenting is to homeschool. Because when you homeschool,

you are now the primary teacher, you are now the one who is shaping their worldview. And we'll get to that in point number two, you are the one

who knows the child's weaknesses, who knows the child's strengths, who knows who their friends are, who knows what, what direction your life is heading in. Your children are not strangers in your home, you know them and they know you. And you now have an opportunity to do the best job you can apparently.

And once your children grow up and leave the home, your job is that. But while they are with you, you want to do the best job possible. So the question every parent has to ask himself is what is the best way for me to fulfill the trust of parenting, which is the trust of tarbiyah of raising my children properly?

And for many of us, the answer will be to homeschool. Yes, for some people, there'll be other answers. But for many of us, this is the best way forward. Number two,

to shape the world view

when your child goes to school, and they spend 13 years of their life in that school, that school is shaping the way they think the school is shaping the mind to think in terms of hedonism in terms of hyper individualism, in terms of liberalism, in terms of feminism, in terms of pro LGBTQ. And then one day when you tell your child this is haram, like how can you be haram? You know, everyone's doing it. How can we around the school say that these people are oppressed? Now there's a clash. You have a completely different worldview from your children. Why? Because you took a sponge, and you put it in that school for 13 years and expected it not to absorb everything around it while they are

in the school understand that schools do not just teach you English and maths and science. No. Anyone can teach those things you can teach. I think that's the point of homeschooling. Anyone can teach those subjects. What schools do is they they push out propaganda, they push out their worldview. They want to people to come out of the system, believing what they believe. This is what they told us they want people to come out of a system believing what they believe now which an Islamic school inshallah they come out of there believing in Islam. If it's homeschooling, they come out believing what you believe. But if you put them into a pro LGBTQ feminist, liberal hyper

individualist public school, guess what, there's a 90% chance they're going to come out exactly like the factory that's shaping there. So if you want your children to have an Islamic worldview, you cannot just be dumping them into an Islamic environment and expecting everything to be okay. You need to be hands on with the parenting and education. You need to be teaching them about the purpose of life, about our primary sources, the Quran and Sunnah about how Muslims view the world in terms of our responsibility that in the giant ardley Khalifa Allah creatures as Khalifa as representatives of Allah on earth.

We have to believe we are responsible, morally responsible for how we live our lives, that we are answerable to Allah, the morality comes from Allah, you have to shape all of this. And it's not something you can do in a day. You can't have once a week of Islamic Studies, and the rest of the week of them being brainwashed by other people, I think that's going to balance it out. Now, if you really want your children to view the world, through the lens of Islam, you have to pray you have to play a more hands on role in how you educate them. And this is why homeschooling becomes very crucial. Homeschooling allows you to dictate and to the education in terms of how they view the

world, that if you want to protect them from these forces, from these incorrect ideologies, especially in the early years, especially when their minds are formative in that at that point in time, homeschooling is the best way to shape how they are going to view everything around them. And you want them to view the world through the lens of Islam, to the to the purpose of life through a connection with Allah subhana wa Tada to understanding that morality comes from Allah to understanding the Quran and Sunnah our primary sources to understanding that the Sahaba with the best of generations, all of these points I just mentioned, the public public school system teaches

the complete opposite. So you if you want to give them a correct worldview, homeschooling is one of your best options, right? Number three, is to ensure a proper therapy. So do you want your children to have the morals and the manners and the character of Islam of other cultures? Think about this right, a HELOC? What other ways your child learning it? How is your child learning it?

For me, when I teach people to homeschool, one of the primary things that I focus on, especially in the early years, is I say teach them other before. Have you heard about this thing? Right? There's this thing amongst the early Muslims teach them otherwise, before I take that thing. And I turned it into my homeschooling methodology, that if you are homeschooling your children, teach them other before ill. And what I mean by this is when your child is 456 years old, the Islamic Studies curriculum should be primary as of one o'clock,

primarily a double o'clock shaped it'll be at the youngest age possible. Then once they have the other of a Muslim once they have the lack of a Muslim. Now you can go into fake and Akita and Tafseer and Hadith and all the other things, but the other ballclub has to come first. Very often in the modern curriculums. There's, there's almost never a study of other war club like this subject is, it's not there, right? And then we wonder like the children pick up the worst of character from their friends at school. How do we counter this? Teach them other before we need to go back to the methodology of the early Muslims of teaching other first, this will be the beginning of the

education process. Now it's difficult to do this. If you're going to school, if you're homeschooling, you have flexibility. So you could make this a primary subject, right, number four, number four, to form strong bonds with your children. One of the biggest complaints that I hear from parents today is that

we have, you know, like they have no relationship with the children. It's as if the parents and the children are strangers in the home.

Right, the kids are at school, mom and dad at work, they come home, maybe they have one meal together. But they don't really converse with each other and they don't really have a connection with each other. They strange they only know what's going on in each other's life. Some children don't even know what work their parents do. Some parents don't even know who their children's friends are or what they're learning at school. There's like complete strangers. Homeschooling fixes this because I have yet to meet a homeschooling family that does not have a strong family bond. Every homeschooling family I know. There is this deep muhabba deep, deep love between the parents

and children. Because they are together throughout the day. They are there for each other. Your children get to witness the parents lives. Like if your children at school and there's some kind of trial going on in your life. They do get to witness you don't get to be a part of it. They might not even know it's happening. But when they homeschool, you end up dealing with it together as a family. And this helps to build bonds together. When mom or dad or the parent is the primary educator this build stronger bonds when you know your child so well that you know which subjects they're good at which subjects

They are weakened, what a personal weaknesses are, when you know all of these different things about them, then there is going to be a stronger bond, you're going to spend more time together and you're going to get to know each other better, you're going to inshallah to this have more love for each other. And those bonds of love, they last a lifetime, that this is really the foundation upon which a strong family is built.

Number five. Now, this is the reason that a lot of people choose to homeschool. I didn't put the number one, I put it as number five, because it should not be the primary reason, but it's an understandable and an important reason. And that is to protect your children from bad influences. Now, when I was younger, bad influences meant friends. Right now bad influences aren't just friends, it's the school itself, that we living in a time where the school itself has become a negative influence. Now, how do you protect your children from bad influence? There's this there's two extremes here in how parents think one extreme is that, oh, my children can handle it. I'll send

them to school, they'll figure it out on their own. So basically, you are gambling with your children's email. That's what you're doing. If you say that, Oh, they can figure it out on their own, I'll just send them to school, you are gambling? Would they email, you taking a roll of the dice. Maybe they'll stand up and be strong and be the outspoken voice in their school. Or maybe they'll want to fit in and be a cool kid and believe what everybody else is believing.

That's a huge gamble.

The other extreme is to shelter them so much that they cannot interact with the world at all. And this is the fear that people have when they hear about homeschooling. Right. This is the negative stereotype that is attached to homeschooling, that when people hear about homeschooling, they assume that you are going to cut your child off from the world in such a manner that they can't deal with the world. And I have seen this not very often, maybe only one or two cases I've actually dealt with like this, but I have seen it once or twice. And this is not how most people homeschool. And this is not how I homeschool. And this is not how I would advise you to homeschool homeschooling is not

about over sheltering your child to a level that they cannot interact with the world. Homeschooling is about gradually preparing them for the world.

So the idea that your six year old is ready to handle all of the propaganda from atheists and LGBTQ with the sexual revolution and feminism. The idea that your six year old is ready to handle all of that is ridiculous. But hold on, what if you take it step by step? What if while homeschooling every year, you introduce your child to one or two ideologies that explain why they are wrong. So by the time they are 12 1314 years old, they are informed about the world. And they understand the world and they understand what's going on. And they know how to talk to people and they know how to do Dawa. And they know how to interact with people. So it's not about cutting them off from the world.

It's about gradually preparing them for the world. Right. So when we say we want to protect our children from bad influences, we are not saying to shelter them to such a level that they cannot deal with the world. We are simply saying a six year old is not ready for this. So let's gradually educate them in such a way that by the time they are 1213 or 14, they are ready to deal with us. And that is the method of homeschooling that I

that I use and that I advise other parents use as well that you are preparing your child for the world. You're preparing them to handle bad influences, and to be the one doing Dawa not the one to whom Dawa is being done. So that they are able to deal with the world properly. Because understand as parents it is your job to protect your children from evil and to prepare them to be able to do Dawa to others and to interact with others. Right. So you have to find this balance. And I really believe that this extreme of just throwing a child in there and expecting them to figure it out for themselves. This is it's just taking too big a chance. That's what it is. It's taking too big a

chance.

Okay, so we have about five more things to go through

link to the topic

of protecting them from bad influences.

is the importance of preparing them for the real world.

And homeschooling allows you to prepare your child for the world

in ways that school does not.

Now,

when you look at the modern school system, one of the complaints that a lot of people who go to school or graduate from school have is that school did not prepare them for life in any way. Right school, did not teach them the skills they need to actually succeed in the real world. School teaches you about getting good grades, right about not working with others about sitting quietly, right school is all about coming out first in class and getting good grades. It's all about following the rules, working independently. It's not preparing you for the real world. So someone graduates from school, and suddenly they need to pay rent, you need to pay taxes, they need to find

a job, they need to be responsible for the lives of other people's lives. And many people feel overwhelmed. And that's why nowadays we have problems like the manchild problem, we have problems like people have to go for adulting classes, because they don't know how to be an adult, because school didn't prepare them for life.

But what if you plan ahead and you say, Hold on, I want my kids to be ready for life. So number one, you do the Islamic thing? What's the Islamic thing? Yeah. And Islamic thing is that, you understand that when your child hits puberty, he or she is now an adult, and you raise them accordingly. Right? What is the school do the school treats them as children, right until they graduate. So if you take a look at grade 11, and 12 students,

they physically look like adults, they talk like adults, they think like adults, but their parents and the school and the government treat them like children Islamically, those are adults. But they are now confused, because the body is telling them they are adults, but the school is telling them that they are children. And this creates a very unhealthy environment. And it can cause a lot of confusion. And it can cause some people to, to never grow up to be stuck in that phase of May they physically feel like an adult, but they mentally feel like children, they can be stuck in a phase for a long time.

The Islamic way is that when you are educating your children and raising your children, you do it with the goal in mind that when my child attains puberty, they will be adults in the sight of Allah, I will treat them like adults, I would expect them to behave like adults, right, I would expect them to grow up quickly. So what you will find is that homeschool children tend to mature faster, they tend to be much more mature than other children, they all age, right? Like, when I look at my own kids, my 12 year old daughter, she can cook, she can clean, she can take care of her house, she wears hijab, she, she's able to do all of that already, she can run a home by herself by age 12,

right, my 14 year old 15 year old son, I can leave them home alone for a couple nights they can take care of themselves. They know how to how to cook basic stuff. They know how to keep a house clean, they can defend themselves, they have weapons, they they've learned martial arts, they know how to look after themselves and look after a home and look after a family. So I can actually trust my children to be home alone. Because they are very mature for the age because we raise them in this way. Right? And you compare that nowadays, some people who are 21 or 22 and still behave like two kids, they can't do anything for themselves. So problem. So major problem. Homeschooling allows you

to prepare your children for the real world to teach them real world skills, right? You can actually teach your children to cook like I, my wife start teaching all my kids, my sons and daughters how to use the kitchen when they were like eight or nine years old. Right? They can prepare their own meals now.

You know, you can teach them

about other things that the schools don't teach. Like, we'll come to this a bit later. But that's the topic of financial management. How do you make money? How do you invest? How do you save? How do you stay away from debts, these type of things you're not going to learn in school, you have the ability to teach it to your kids to homeschooling.

So you want to prepare them for the world. And when it comes to the bad influences, you want to prepare your children to have a strong knowledge of Islam, a strong practice of Islam and you want them to have a dark II like mindset that they are doing Dawa to others, right? Instead of being the because we're in this world if you are not doing Dawa to others they are doing Dawa to you. If you are not calling people towards righteousness, they may be pulling you towards them. So you want to raise them to be to art you also want to raise

He's going to be responsible and mature, and you also want to raise them to be able to work hard and to unwell. So homeschooling allows you to do this. And to do this number seven, homeschooling lets you have a balanced approach to education. So you can decide how much your child learns of each subject. Because in some schools, there's like only emphasis on math and science, but there's no real emphasis on life skills, on

finances, on history, or religion, on banners on character, you can now shape the curriculum as you want. And that takes us to point number eight, you have a flexible, flexible schedule, and a flexible education method. A flexible schedule, right, one of the things that I can't stand about school, and one of the reasons why I probably wouldn't even want my kids to go to school is the idea of waking up early in the morning and sitting in traffic every day for 13 to 15 years, just drop your kids off in that building, where you know, they're going to get brainwashed.

Just sitting in traffic light every morning, you don't need that. You don't need to homeschool your kids, guess what your kids can wake up at 8am and start school at 9am. Right, who's gonna stop you from doing that you have flexible times, you can do things your own way, your own time, you want to take a vacation in the middle of the year and just travel with your kids for two or three months, guess what you can do that no one's going to stop you, you now have freedom. This is one of the most amazing things about homeschooling, you have a level of freedom that other families don't.

If you feel like you just want to spend the day outdoors, you can do it, you can drop everything and just go to the park with the kids. So you have flexibility, you have flexibility with your child, you have flexibility with how you teach them. If you feel a certain method of education is not working on one of your kids, you can try a dozen other methods until you figure out what works for them. Maybe along the way, you'll invent an entirely new system of education. Who knows. But the point is, you're not stuck. You're not stuck with specific subjects, you're not stuck with specific styles of teaching, you're not stuck with a schedule, that you have to be out of the house at 6am.

And pick the kids up at 2:30pm. You have the power, you have control, you can do things your way. Right. And this is something that is liberating for many Muslims. And for many people who may previously feel like, you know, there's only one way to live live to do what everybody else is doing.

Number nine, is that you can focus on the subjects that the schools overlook. So I mentioned for example, finances, schools will teach your children about finances, right? History. I spend a lot of time with my kids teaching them history. And not just Muslim history. I'm the I've taught him as much as I can about Western history. Right. But also about like the history of Europe, the history of World War One and World War Two. Right now I'm teaching them as because the teenagers now I'm teaching them about the sexual revolution and how that impacted the West. And you know, all of the harms that came out of that. So you can teach him about subjects that the schools are not going to

cover at all right, other more o'clock manners and good character, your your Islamic studies, you can teach them another thing I taught him was entrepreneurship, how to start a business how to build a business.

So you now can fill in the gaps. You can fill in the gaps if you feel like, I wish I learned certain things in school, guess what your kids can, you can teach it to them. And if you don't know how to teach it to them, they can do an online course on the topic. They could watch a YouTube series on the topic, they can read a book on the topic, right? The point is, you're not limited, you're not limited to just the school subjects, you can expand way beyond that into things that are much more important and relevant to you and your family. And this, to me is like the main most important

benefits that I got out of homeschooling, that my kids were not limited in what they learned that they were able to learn things at a young age that others could not write. And so at a very young age, my kids learn how to invest in how to save and how to build up money and how to start a business. And they also learnt Islamic history. And they also learned about the history of the of the modern world. And they learned how to do Dawa, and all of these things that did not go into learn in school. They were able to learn it because we were in control of our time and our education method and our subjects. Finally,

a reason for Muslims to homeschool is to produce leaders for the next generation.

I want you to think about this, right? If we want the next generation to be better than us, if we want them to be leaders of the righteous, right. If we want them to be people who

do things differently, we are not going to get that result by doing what everybody else does. If you go into put them into the exact same system and everybody else is going through, you are going to produce a cookie cutter, copy and paste

your new version of whatever everybody else is producing. There's not going to be anything different about them. Historically, whenever a amazing leader, rose up amongst the Muslims, it always came from embracing a unique education method for that individual. And I'll end off with a couple of stories about this. And then we open the floor to q&a. For example, Omar Abdulaziz

who have written an entire book about he was the eighth over yet, Felipe

he was a Romanian Prince. Why did he end up so different from the other OMA yet princess? Why was he not a rich, spoiled brat like the other Omega princes of that time? What made him so different? Right? What made him so different was when he was a little boy. His father was the governor of Medina. And his mother made sure he was studying with the Sahaba in Medina, but the Sahaba some of them were still alive, like 100 years old and stuff at that time. And he was she made sure that he spent time with them. And when his father was appointed to become the governor of Egypt, his mother made a very tough choice. She left her son in Medina and moved to Egypt with her husband, because

she felt in Medina was a better education environment for southern Egypt. And so he grew up in Medina being raised by the Sahaba instead of his parents. So you said growing up as royalty instead of growing up in the palace, he grew up with the Sahaba grew up to be a righteous person and became the greatest belief of that generation. Right? You have all these parents finding a completely unique method of education for him. We see this too with Imam Malik Imam Shafi, would you have already been humbled, Imam Bukhari all of them have very unique stories of how they were educated. And what this shows us is that a unique education produces an extraordinary leader, but just doing

what everybody else does, is just gonna produce what everybody else is producing. So if you are serious about raising children, you know, we make this to obviously, watch all Nollywood the inner IBAMA make us the leaders of the pious, it has to do our we make for our children, right? We serious about the DUA that we need to start thinking out of the box, we need to start thinking of new education methods, extraordinary education methods, new subjects, new ways of teaching these subjects, so that our children will be empowered and equipped to lead the next generation, rather than just being followers and just doing what everybody else does, and believing what everybody else

believes they will be the ones to lead and to do Dawa and to call towards Allah subhanho wa taala. With that we come to the end of my presentation. I hope you all found this beneficial. And for the remainder of the time, I will take some q&a inshallah.

So with a few questions here, I won't be able to take all of these some of these aren't

aren't. Some of them should be answered more privately. But let's just start with this one because I actually answered this one. I'm not sure they came

late. But the question What about Islamic schools? Right. What about establish schools? I mentioned that in my opening statements. And I, I said that.

I said this is not a this is not to put homeschooling against Islamic schools. For some people. If you have a good Islamic school in your community, they're not hungry. Now you can send them there. But not everybody has access to Islamic schools. And not every Islamic school is on the same level. Some don't have a good budget, some don't have good teachers, some are just Islamic name. So you can't just put a put them all together. Right. So I don't want to put homeschooling against Islamic school. I said this, this was homeschooling against public school.

Right? If you have a good Islamic school hamdulillah there's nothing wrong with that.

Okay, here's a good question. What is a

good age to

start homeschooling your child? What is a good age to start homeschooling your children?

My response to that is when your child feels ready, when your child feels ready, most likely, at the age of five, six or seven, even with a seven that's fine, right? That early phase of life between zero and five, where children can be carefree and just wandering around and playing and having fun. They never gonna get that phase of life back. And in the modern world, we we push them into education too early. I see people dropping

three year olds off at school and expecting them to memorize bodies and learn how to read. I believe this is unnatural that Allah didn't create children to learn in this way. Until the age of six or seven, a child learns primarily to play. So let them play, let them play and enjoy life at that age. Give them educational toys, so they learn through the process, but let them play, let them

let them enjoy their lives. And then at the age of five, six or seven deals are asking, they'd be like, Mom, Dad, can you teach me something? Okay. I want to know how to read out how to do this. That's, that's the age when you start with the actual formal education.

But I would not recommend formal education younger than that, unless you have a child who's like, exceptional, right, but in general, five, six or seven, or when they feel ready.

Okay, Marshall, there's a lot of questions and a lot of beneficial questions.

I'm not sure which order to take him in Colombia, a lot of you are asking really good questions. Okay, I'll take these two. Next. They're related to each other.

How can working parents plan for homeschooling?

So this is difficult, right? This is difficult. I said in the beginning, not everybody can homeschool.

They always It depends what you're talking about Yamini Mom and Dad I'm overworked. And they both already coming home tired and stressed out and they don't have the time.

You know, to to educate the children, then it's not going to work, then it's better putting them in an Islamic school or something outside, if you have the money, maybe hire a private tutor. So I know one family does that both both parents work. So Mum and Dad just

they they hired a private tutor to come home etc. Children everyday, but they can afford it most of us can't afford a private tutor. Right? It works out cheaper to send them to school. So it depends what you mean by working.

When I teach this course, one of the advice that I give is that if Dad is earning enough to support a family, then mom should make the sacrifice of being a stay at home mom and homeschooling the kids, that the best. The best gift that a mom can give her children is their her full time, time and attention.

That's the best gift that she can give them it's more valuable than any extra money that she can bring in. So if no mother is able to no in some cases, you can't some cases you are completely dependent about income, especially in the current economy. And honestly, for some people, it's not possible to homeschool, just because of economic reasons. But this is my advice. If If dad is earning enough, mom should make the sacrifice of being a stay at home mom and focusing on homeschooling, that's the best gift that she can give her children. But if both mom and dad are working, and they both have to work and have no choice but to work, then homeschooling might not

always be possible. You could do one way is you could give them their work and then check on it when you come home. You wouldn't be able to do that with very small kids, maybe the teenagers, nowadays a private tutor and other ways to focus in the evenings or early mornings. But for many people, there isn't a way for some for many people in that situation. They just can't do it.

Okay, linked to that, how do you homeschool as a single parent say? Right, same as what I mentioned before, not everyone will be able to homeschool. And it's even harder for single parents than it is for

for married couples. Because honestly, homeschooling requires teamwork. It requires a lot of teamwork.

It's, it's, it's going to be much harder to do on your own. Especially if you're working. If you're like a single mom who's working and you're going to homeschool. I don't think most people have the emotional capacity to do that most of us will just have a breakdown, right? It's going to be too much. No humans meant to take on that much. Right? So you have to look at what you are able to do as an individual and know your limits. And for some people, homeschooling just isn't possible. Now if you're someone who works from home, if you're single mom who works from home, then yes, you could be able to manage both. If you work short hours and you still have enough time at home that you could

manage both. But if you're single parents with working full time job, two jobs, and you're already coming home tired and exhausted, then no there's no way you're going to manage homeschooling as well in such a situation. Like I said, it's not something everybody is able to do. But then Allah make things easy for us. I know it's hard being a single parent is not easy.

Write, it comes with its own challenges. And this is one of those challenges that sometimes you will not be able to do things that you want to do like homeschooling.

Because it definitely requires support. They say it takes a village to raise a child takes a village to raise a child. Now imagine to homeschool a child. So now let make it easy for all of us.

Okay, there's a lot of good questions. Let's see.

Okay, here's a good one, right? In some countries to get to college and university, you need traditional qualifications. How can we achieve this if children are homeschooled? In any country, where homeschooling is legal, there are ways to get traditional qualifications through homeschooling. Right in every country where homeschooling is legal, there are ways to get your traditional qualification through homeschooling. They are online schools, they are corresponding schools. They are one year grade 12 programs. They are online GDS, there are many different options, right? Just research in your country what's available, because 90% chance if your country has made

homeschooling legal, it has made it has set up systems for homeschoolers to graduate and to get into college. Right? You just need to figure out what is the system in your specific country. So for example, where I left South Africa, there's multiple routes for homeschoolers to graduate. I myself, I did my high school from home and I just went to a school to write my exams. But that was 20 years ago. I don't know if that system still around.

My kids are studying through an online school that is accredited so they get the certificates through that school. A third method is we have a system in South Africa called the online GED, which means you can homeschool however you want for the first 11 or 12 years. And when your child is ready to graduate, there is a one year online program that they can do, which gives them the GED, which allows them to get into most universities around the world. So there are ways there are lots of ways just see what's available in your local community. Okay, now the good question, how do you nurture your child's social development,

make sure they are enrolled in a lot of programs outside the home. So over the past 12 years, my kids have been for soccer, they've been for

martial arts, they've been for swimming classes, they've been for youth camps, they go for teenage holocaust. So they are involved in the community. Right. They're part of the community, they have friends, they have social circles they have people they met with and studied with and learn to. So homeschooling doesn't mean keeping your child at home 24/7 It doesn't mean cutting them off from the world. It doesn't mean they have no interaction with other people and other children. No, you will have to take the initiative to set up these things for them. Right, enroll them in sports, enroll them in art classes, enroll them in Islamic classes, enroll them in these things, and they will

develop their own social circles in this way. You don't have to go to school to learn how to socialize. There are many other ways to do so. Humans have been socializing since the beginning of time, and schools only been around for 200 years. For all those other generations. They figured it out or do right. It's not like school's primary purpose is to teach you how to socialize. If anything, when we school, our teachers shout at us and tell us you're not here to socialize, you're here to learn. And that's what they tell us to do in school. So yeah, set up these extracurricular activities for them. And they will have a healthy social circle while being homeschooled.

Okay, my shows a lot of good questions. How much time do we have?

Mike go with overtime? Because a lot of good questions. Hope that's fine with the organizers.

Okay, how does homeschooling become beneficial to the child if parents do not have the level of education to teach? So I didn't mention this. Another benefit of homeschooling is that you grow through the process. You learn through the process, you become a better person through the process. And

what you will find is that teaching your child for the first five or six or seven years of homeschooling is easy, right? Really the first 567 years is easy. After that, you have online schools, you have private tutors, you have YouTube videos, you have online courses, there are many ways to supplement your own level of learning. If you are teaching your child and you come across a module of science or maths that you don't understand, guess what? You and your kids can watch a math a YouTube video about it or learn about it together. You could do an online course about it, learn about it together. So it becomes an enriching experience for you. You gain knowledge through this

you bond with your children by studying together and learning together. And as Muslims we should be continuously growing in knowledge. So we shouldn't use our lack

have knowledge as a reason not to get involved. Rather, we should use this as a way for us to learn and grow with our children. Right? Think of this as an intellectual journey for yourself, that you and your children are going to learn about the dean and the world together. You're going to teach him whatever you know, whenever you come across something that you don't understand. You can learn about it together. And we live in a time with these resources where everything, almost anything you don't understand. There's some uncle on YouTube who explains it. That's the world we live in. So don't be worried about this. There's many ways around us.

Okay, any resources to prepare parents for homeschooling? That's what our upcoming courses right our blog Academy has a course starting soon on homeschooling mastery to teach you how to homeschool. I also have a course on this topic on my website, Islamic self help.com called how to homeschool like a pro. I have a book on this topic called homeschooling, 101 and many other resources out there as well. There's a lot of good resources on homeschooling. Many, many books have been written on this topic, many online courses, many video series.

It's really becoming quite big all around the world, not just amongst Muslims, even amongst non Muslims, even amongst the elite of the non Muslims, people are beginning to realize that the school system is broken, it's outdated, it's not working. And many people are looking for solutions. And homeschooling. Honestly, when I started homeschooling, it wasn't popular at all people thought I was crazy. And now all those same people come to me for advice for homeschooling, like the world's changed a lot in the past decade. It has changed a lot. And homeschooling is a lot more socially acceptable today than it was a decade ago.

So you will find many resources for it online. Okay, let's see what else okay, so someone asked about names of Islamic online schools. I don't want to do that. Because

if I mentioned some names, they forget others. And I don't want to make any Islamic schools angry. So I'll simply say, do your research. Every country has their own schools, every country has their own school systems that are available, it may be that there's a nice online Islamic school, but it's not available in the country that you're living in. Right. So that's another reason why you want to answer this question live online.

Parents are not experts in every field, how can they teach their children about every nursery subject, like I think I answered this already from a different person, right, you can learn, you can outsource, you can hire a tutor for that subject, you could study an online course to get over that subject. You could watch a Youtube series, you could put them in online school, there are many different ways to work around this. Every family figures out their own way, but it's not the end of the world. There's always ways to move forward with this.

How feasible is homeschooling if both parents are working? It's very difficult to see why I only recommend homeschooling if at least one parent is at home. Right? If either mom is a stay at home mom or she's working from home, or dad's working from home, if there's something there's some way for someone to be at home focused on the kids, then that's the best way to homeschool. But they both mom and dad are working and they both stressed out and they were tired, then I don't see homeschooling being feasible for that family.

Okay, I'm just gonna take two more questions and they'll be done

is a very important question. I'm going to read the question out loud. It's very important. It really deals with the masculinity crisis in our community. And so, the question is, is many of my clients want to homeschool, and it will be great if Albula could direct a cause for men or fathers to show the importance of homeschooling and creating ease in family life. All the men in Scotland push their wives to work and constantly push to look after family, that they are all exhausted. The role of men is diminishing year in relationships, but you attend most lectures, all they discuss is the rights of the husband. Okay, so there's two sides to this.

I guess it's different countries have different problems here. But

men are supposed to provide the supposed to protect because in Islam, the role of a mother in raising her children, that's supposed to be her most important duty. But a woman's single most important duty in life after worshipping Allah is raising her children. This is why the status of the mother is higher than the status of the Father. This is why gender lies under the mother's feet because she has a very important responsibility in raising children. And the role of the father is to facilitate that to make it easy for his wife to focus on raising the children.

by taking care of all of the financial responsibilities, so men are supposed to build themselves up to a level where they can provide for their families, they can handle the bolts, they can take care of the finances. So the wives don't have to think about this at all. And they can focus primarily on raising the children and making the house into a beautiful home.

And modernity has ruined us. Right? modernity has ruined us by asking men and woman both to work, and outsourcing parenting to nannies and daycare schools, it has really ruined us and for us to take back this power. And for us to reclaim this privilege of homeschooling and being stay at home moms, the men also have to man up and find ways to better find ways to finance their families better.

Men should not be asking their wives to work, really, Muslim men should not be doing this. As we're seeing the lectures in the masjid all about the rights of husbands, I don't know where you live, I've had the opposite problem.

But nonetheless, I think what we do need you what I think would be a solution to this. And this is something I am working on and many other people are working on is we need courses and books on masculinity, to teach Muslim men how to be men, because this generation have forgotten how to be in this generation are very effeminate. They are very laid back. very childish, and they need to man up. Really,

amen. Well will not push his wife to work, a man who take care of the emotional needs of his wife so that she is available for the children,

that she can focus primarily on the children. So what will be the solution here? I think a good cause of masculinity can help fix this, so that men become more aware of their role as a one. A one means you are the leader of the home. But it also means you are the provider and the protector of the home. And they are personality traits that men need to have to succeed at all three levels. So that's an important question. And that's a solution on those pairs. Will the child be missing in some practical subjects in school after high school, for example, chemistry practical, I mean, that's something you can emulate at home.

There's different ways to do that. I know, some communities, one family would set up like a lab at home and other families would send their children there to study. Others would just do by experiment kits and do things I know, I will do things in the garden.

It's not necessarily that you have to completely miss out on any of these things. You could just order them on Amazon and have the whole thing delivered to your house and you can set up these things in a room in your home or in your garden. And then you don't end up missing out. Right. So there are ways to work around this. Okay, last question because we are gone over time.

Let's see, which is the most important question.

Got a quick question. I feel bad to leave everyone's questions, but

okay, there's a question I get asked all the time. Is there any kind of curriculum or syllabus to follow for homeschooling? Sadly,

I would say no, there's no specific curriculum that I would suggest. Simply because every curriculum has their pros and cons. Every curriculum is good at something and other areas it can be better. As for other books o'clock, there are many books available depending on your child's level. So if you go online, you will find the books on Islamic manners for like five six year olds, I like coloring books on rhymes or written in very simple and fun ways. Those are excellent ways to teach other men o'clock at that age. When they get older. The book I like to teach them when they are teenagers and I actually teach this to my community my local halacha as well. Is Imam Bukhari is other Alfred

right Imam Bukhari his book of manners. So most people know what Mr. Buhari say that's his most famous book. But his other Hadees book is all about manners. I just say different Hadith book written by Imam Bukhari. That's all about manners. And for teenagers and young adults, this is, to me the best book to study on the topic.

Another way to teach them other than o'clock is to teach them the Syrah teach them the life of Rasulullah sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, teach them the lives of the sahaba. So that these become the role models. These become the people they emulate. These are the people they learn their character and manners and demand from and this should be an important part of your curriculum, but as to specific curriculums like to say, Do this one or that one. I can't really, really say that because, you know, I myself I mix and match. I may take a history curriculum from one school and take a Aqeedah curriculum from a different school and a free curriculum from another school. And now I

think

Support wages teach him the primary texts myself, I just teach my children directly from her, these books have QuickBooks, instead of using a curriculum because they are older, and they are able to understand the primary texts. So, yeah, that's the main reason why I don't follow a specific curriculum. But they do have a layout, which I do teach in this course of what you should teach them at each age, right to have a layout that for each age of development, what you should be teaching your child, like from three to five, you focus on other Wallclock, and how to speak and how to write the basic of language and learning the numbers. And then I have like, from six to nine, teach them

basic pick and nakida, and some Hadees. And things like how to recite Quran with Tajweed. And then from 10 to 12. You teach them deeper Aqeedah Islamic history, you go more in depth into fear.

And then like for teenagers, you teach them or marriage, you teach them about puberty you teach them about the major sins about the fickle business. So I do have this this layout. Not sure if I have it available publicly anywhere online? If not, I'll try to set it up later this week. But that's a general guidelines as for specific in terms of what books you will use and what curriculum to use. I don't have that laid out anywhere. Here. We have gone over time with this and

is a lot of important questions here.

So

you see that there's one question here about how do we convince your in laws really your

in laws don't have any say in how you educate your children? I hate to say that right, but it's true. When I started homeschooling, nobody in my family supported it. Everyone thought I was mad. Really, the whole family that make my uncles, aunts in laws, nobody who understand what you're doing, I don't care. I was doing what I believe is most pleasing to Allah. Right? It's not their business, how I raise my children.

I mean, they themselves have like all their children turned out perfect, right. So it's not like I have to do things their way. You be well mannered, you'd be polite about it. But one of the things Muslims need to learn in this generation is to be assertive while maintaining family ties. So you have to be assertive about certain things. If you want to homeschool your kids homeschool your kids and be assertive about it. But the other people have the mic, it's our choice. And we believe this one is best for them. And that's that that's the end of it. It's very important for Muslims to learn to be assertive, otherwise, other people will bully us around and they will dictate how we live our

lives. And if we do that, then we will not end up accomplishing what we need to do. And with that, we come to the end of this discussion. I hope that you have all found this beneficial. And I hope I've convinced some of you to look into homeschooling, or at least to consider it to have the discussion with your spouse

and to see if it's a viable option for you. Hamdulillah we have this course coming up and I hope to see many of you in that course. JazakAllah Ferran for giving me your time and attention on a Sunday. Work with Awana and Hamdulillah. robic Alameen wa salam alaykum Warahmatullahi Wabarakatuh