Khalil Hendricks – Responsible Technology Usage Parenting
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We thank and we praise our creator and
our sustainer for all our blessings.
And I want us to focus on one
blessing in particular today,
the blessing of our beloved children.
And if you don't have children yet, may
Allah grant you
healthy, pious children, inshallah.
If you don't have a partner to make
the children with, may Allah grant you a
a beautiful, pious partner as well, inshallah.
Alhamdulillah. I'm blessed to be a father myself,
a father of 3 young daughters,
aged approximately
3, 4, and 5.
Can't keep up sometimes with the ages.
And when you're with them,
it's beautiful.
And a bit of hard work also sometimes,
and a bit of patience sometimes.
But when they are away from you, when
they go away from you,
a part of your heart always worries about
them,
always thinks about them,
always prays for them.
Yeah, Allah. Look after them.
Yeah, Allah. Let me see their faces again.
It's one of the thing that Allah has
put into our hearts. If you think about
your children now, they have a special place
in your heart.
Just the picture of their faces
evokes a deep emotion in our hearts.
It's something that is put there by our
creator.
And, one of the challenges that I experience,
and I'm sure you can relate,
is how to find the balance
in parenting.
I'm going to describe 2 ends of the
scale.
How do you find the balance in parenting
on the one side?
On the one side,
I want to keep my child or my
children, my son, my daughter, I want to
keep them safe.
I want to keep them protected.
I want to keep them in a good
environment.
I want to shield them from the harms.
That's on the one side.
On the other side,
as a parent, I know that the world
is not safe.
So I want to also, in a sense,
prepare them for the world.
I want to give them the tools to
deal with the challenges of the world. I
want them to help them navigate
navigate
this challenging environment.
So on the one side, there's the idea
of protection,
of guarding, of safe keeping.
On the other side there's the idea of
education
and preparation
for the world.
And if one goes too much in either
extreme, it's negative.
If one protects and guards too much,
and isolates your child too much,
it becomes unhealthy because they won't be able
to function in this complex world.
On the other hand, if you expose your
child too much
at the wrong age,
it could cause damage to them.
It could cause harm to them.
So this is the balance that we struggle
with as parents.
The balance that we struggle to find, where
is this balance?
And the prophet
spoke about this. Waheed salallahu alaihi wasalam, he
says,
All of you are shepherds.
And all of you will be asked about
your flocks.
About
your those that you guarded.
And if you think about the metaphor of
a shepherd, just think about it. Does a
shepherd normally tie the sheep to a to
a pole?
No.
What does the shepherd do?
He lets the sheep out,
and he takes the sheep out into the
world to where?
To a safe space to graze.
So in other words, the sheep has some
freedom, they can graze, but while they are
grazing in that space, what is the shepherd
doing?
The shepherd is looking out for the wolves.
They're looking out for the wolves that might
come attack his flock.
So this is the balance of a shepherd.
The shepherd doesn't keep the flock locked up
all the time. The shepherd takes the flock
out into the world, but keeps the flock
in a safe space.
My child, you can graze here.
This is a safe space to graze. I'm
watching, I'm looking out for those wolves,
and there are many of those wolves today.
And
there are universal
standards.
There are Islamic standards and there are universal
standards of degree.
100%
agree.
Everybody in this dunya practically agrees
that there are certain spaces
that are not suitable for children.
Everybody agrees.
For example,
for a young child to get exposed to
explicit sexuality,
everybody agrees it's unsuitable.
That's why they put a rating on the
on the media.
In fact, this
comes from some work I did for the
former publication board,
some consulting work I did from them, and
it alarmed me some of the things that
I found.
But we all agree,
Muslim, non Muslim, everybody agrees there are certain
things
like explicit sexuality
that is not suitable for a young child.
There are certain things like gratuitous violence,
extreme violence, it is not suitable for a
young child to view.
There are certain things that young children should
never experience.
Physical abuse,
emotional abuse,
they shouldn't experience these things.
So what I want to say is that
in our battle,
and in our struggle to find the safe
grazing space,
there are spaces that we all agree,
we all agree are not safe spaces.
And I hope you agree too.
There are certain spaces that are not healthy
for your child.
And today I want to address one of
those spaces,
and it's this space here.
This space here.
This is the space I want
to address,
technology usage.
Because now your children,
they have smartphones,
and they have tablets,
and they have laptops,
and even the school says you have to
buy 1.
And they have their chat groups.
Is this a safe grazing space?
And what type of shepherd are you?
That's the question.
What type of shepherd are you?
I want to address 4 things today, inshallah.
The first thing I want to address,
I want to address 4 of the wolves
that lie in this
Four wolves.
The first one
is called cyberbullying.
Now, if you're a bit old,
you know bullying without the cyber.
In other words, you know about the you
were on the field one day and a
few guys came and they beat you up
for your lunch money,
or they just made some fun of you,
you know that bullying.
But now you get something else with that
bullying called cyberbullying.
What is that? That is when
your child,
your son, your daughter, our sons, our daughters,
when they are not being bullied physically, they
are being bullied emotionally.
And how are they being bullied? They are
being bullied online.
They are posting photo photos of your child
and a string of comments about them,
insulting them, mocking them.
Now you think, what is worse?
On the playground, a few guys beating you
up for your lunch money,
or on your child's Facebook page,
hundreds of comments insulting them?
Trust me, the second one is worse.
The second one is worse.
I want to quote you some stats in
case you think that this is not prevalent.
There was a survey done by Onisa
on this.
Teenagers,
54%
of them
reported receiving
upsetting messages.
49%
of them, almost half of them, suffered
from being exposed to rumors and gossip.
48%
of them were called names.
30%,
1 third, received threatening messages. 25%,
1 quarter,
receive sexual remarks about our children.
13%
had other people posting photos about them that
are unflattering.
9% of them were bullied, recorded, and posted
online.
Do you know how damaging this is
for your child and my child and our
children to be publicly humiliated?
The Quran speaks about humiliation, calls it kizyun.
You know what kizyun is? Kizyun is something
you suffer on there of qiyama.
And qiyama, one of the punishments of qiyama
is not just fire and heat and all
these things, one of the punishments of qiyama
is what? You stand before all of mankind
and you are humiliated
for a life wasted.
Our children are experiencing Khizyun right now on
this dunya,
and it's not uncommon.
It's becoming the norm.
The second thing I want to address so
the first wolf,
cyberbullying.
The second thing I want to address is
something called sexting.
Sexting is when people post naked photos of
themselves and are sent to each other.
There was a young girl in the USA.
Her name was Jessie Logan
from Ohio.
She sent a semi naked photo of herself
to her boyfriend
Because they are in
love? That's how relationships work. If you want
to stay in a relationship, you've got to
do what the guy says. So he wants
the photo, he must send him the photo.
That's how the deal works nowadays, if you
didn't know.
After the breakup, because these things come to
an end,
this young man starts circulating these photos about
this young girl.
This young girl
suffered
cyberbullying because of this,
abuse because of this. This young girl couldn't
deal with this and eventually she killed herself.
Nothing happened to another girl, 13 year old,
Hope Whitsell.
She liked the boy, she sent a *
photo, because that's how the young people think.
The boy that she liked showed it to
her whole class via the social media.
After weeks weeks of taunts,
this girl committed suicide.
How common is this?
There was a study by
by UCT,
a study in Cape Town at 4 private
schools.
They surveyed all the teenagers in the school.
Of those who are in a relationship,
which is almost every teenager nowadays,
of those that were in a relationship,
20%
of them, 1 in 5,
have sent naked pictures to their partners.
I want to put that into context. If
the school is a 1,000 a 1000 kids,
which many schools are, and if they are
all in relationships, that means there are 200
kids sending naked photos of their bodies up
and down.
It's a good chance it could be one
of our daughters and one of our sons.
It's not a good chance it is definitely
happening in our community,
and some might reach the headlines,
and most won't.
Why? Because this is the pressure of the
young people, especially of the young females. They're
under pressure to please their partners. Even if
they're 13, 14 years old, and they know
nothing about life, if you want to have
some approval from the other gender, you need
to expose yourself.
And you know what's worse?
What's worse is maybe you grew up a
long time ago and you used to have
a film and take it to
the film shop for development. It's not like
that anymore.
The photos, if you send it out once,
it gets multiplied a 1000 times.
And you know what's worse? When the device
dies, the photo doesn't die because now all
the devices are linked to cloud storage.
It's going to your Dropbox account and your
Google Drive account, which means that those photos
will never
die
of your son and your daughter, our sons
and our daughters. What are we doing?
Just imagine our sons and imagine that daughter
of yours, imagine that son of yours
exposing themselves
in a moment of foolishness because they're young.
Imagine that. It will never die. It will
be sent to 3, 4, 5 people, and
they will send to 5 people, and it
will be
on different cloud storage. You can't get it
back
and to lie there forever.
This is this is the seriousness of what
is happening,
and I do a lot of youth work.
Why? Because it burns my heart. It hurts
me to see a child who is 14,
15, 16
destroy their life when they're so young.
They have their whole life ahead of them.
Why destroy your life now?
They are wolves.
The 3rd wolf
I want to speak about
are cyber groomers.
Cyber groomers are generally males between 25 and
40.
They prey on mostly young girls and sometimes
young boys.
And they enter into your children's chat rooms,
and they read your children's Facebook profiles,
and Instagram profiles, and they see they like
this group, and this band, and this movie,
and they strike up a conversation
with your sons and your daughters,
and they have a 4 step process. They
have a 4 step, they have studied these
things, they have a 4 step process.
The first step is they introduce themselves.
They make the connection,
and they often do their research.
The second step is that they start building
trust
with our children,
with these young girls, these old men coming,
pretending, and they often pretend to be younger.
They post a fake photo and they pretend
to be younger, and they start building trust.
How they build trust? They start complimenting the
young girl. You're so mature. You're so beautiful.
You're so this. You're so that.
And you know which girls especially fall for
it?
The girls that don't have a strong relationship
with their fathers
because they have a vacuum in their heart,
and anything will fill that vacuum.
And they build up this trust
until this person and they tell this girl,
keep this a secret, don't tell your parents.
The third step is they arrange a meeting.
They arrange a meeting with your child.
In the park, in the mall,
they meet your child, they flatter your child,
they buy them gifts.
And the 4th stage is manipulation,
seduction, and abuse.
The abuse is either physical or it's virtual.
And once it starts, the child is in
a trap because they threaten the child, blackmail
the child.
That's not uncommon.
That's not uncommon.
Another survey by UNISA,
17%
of children, they were asked for sexual in
sexual information.
31%
of them received unwanted
messages about *.
23%
of them were asked online to do something
sexual.
23%,
1 quarter.
We are the shepherds,
and there are wolves out there.
This is not some light matter. This is
a serious matter.
The 4th wolf
is exposure to *.
In a South African survey,
64%
of teens between 13 17 have viewed *.
64%.
38% of them intentionally,
and the rest unintentionally.
They did a survey of young people. Amongst
young people, 42%
of teens
don't view it as something wrong.
So, if your child goes to a school
of 1,000 people, 420 of those children think
there's no problem in viewing it.
It's something completely normal.
That is not even suitable for an adult,
let alone a child.
I bring this to our attention why.
I bring this to our attention why is
because all of our children are starting to
engage in this,
use these devices,
and in these devices lay a great danger.
And one of the first steps you have
to be as a father and as a
mother and as a parent, as a guardian,
as a custodian, is be aware of the
dangers you are exposing your child to.
That's the first step. Don't be naive.
Don't just
abscond from your duty.
All the children have it is fine. I
have a responsible child.
You don't have a responsible child.
One of the worst things that parents do
is they overestimate.
They overestimate
their own children.
My, no other children, my children, no, no,
my my child never.
She would never message a boy.
No.
Don't over underestimate your own children.
In fact, scientifically they have felt that the
prefrontal cortex,
this part of your brain in Arabic called
the Nalsia, the front part of your head
here, this part here is made for rational
decisions. It thinks about consequence.
This is not fully developed in teenager.
Teenagers cannot
process
fully consequence of the action.
That comes later.
Even biologically, it comes later.
I want to end the jumwa,
and I want to say I didn't come
here just to
to scare you. I brought I brought the
facts.
If you want, I can give you the
references.
We can Google them. They're freely available.
This is not some sort
of anecdotal evidence. This is empirical evidence. This
is these are real dangers. My question,
my my appeal
is let's be responsible shepherds.
I'm going to mention 5 things quickly, briefly,
just to start the discussion.
Number 1,
you're finding the balance?
Guarding and exposure.
I understand that your children need to you
need to interact with us. I understand they
need to check their projects and do their
research and check YouTube and Google things and
chat to their classmates. I understand that. Number
1,
you need to educate your children on what
is responsible use,
And one of the most important things you
need to do about your child is what
is appropriate use, what is public, and what
is private.
For example, my dear child, posting yourself in
your pajamas,
that's not appropriate
Because that's the latest trend, take a photo,
post it, just walk up like this
in my pajamas.
It's a thing.
Number 2, my child,
it's not appropriate for you to chat to
strangers on this. Number 3, my child, it's
not appropriate for you to meet someone who's
a stranger.
You think your child has common sense. The
lines are completely blurred.
There is no idea of what is public
and what is private. There's no idea, but
because we're just hooking up, we're just meeting
up in the mall quickly.
It's a problem your children don't understand what
responsible use is, so between yourselves and your
children, before you even give them access,
agree with them what is responsible use.
You can Google it, look on the intent
for Internet contracts, cell phone contracts, not some
MTN, contracts between you and your child
that gives you guidelines
on how to help them, educate them, and
they must sign the contract, they must agree,
and there must be consequences.
Number 2,
when you give your child devices,
alhamdulillah, there's lots of filtering software,
safe search software,
monitoring software.
There's lot there are a lot of parental
tools that I guarantee that 99%
of this masjid are not using,
because remember, this is more dangerous than the
handgun.
It's probably safer to give your child a
handgun than to give them this.
This can destroy someone's ema.
This can can destroy someone's dunya and akhirah.
So at least have some tools.
Have some tools.
There are tools available, we don't have time
to go into them. Number 3,
I would advise also that you locate
your devices personal and it's very personal, yours,
your choice. My choice
is my children are not going to bed
with devices.
You're not going to lie under the blankets
there in your room in the dark chatting
to anybody.
That's my choice. I'm not saying it's your
choice. You, a parent, you make your choices.
So, Insha'Allah, one day if my children need
to use something, we're gonna buy a nice
big screen
and put it in the lounge,
and there's no passwords on that account.
And if you want to do any research,
Bismillah, there's the research
with the appropriate software on there.
There are options.
There are options.
Because the question is, do you know your
children's passwords?
Like, just for example,
the fathers of old,
if you want to get to the daughter,
what must you come?
Who's standing at the door?
Depas, very dear.
You're quite walking to the house.
The fathers of old, if you had to
get to the daughter, you must the father
is there. Who are you?
What are you doing in my house? What
are you looking for?
The question is,
who is speaking to your daughters? Do you
know?
Who have they met in the last few
months?
Where have they been meeting up?
What have they been chatting about?
Which pictures have they been sharing?
The idea of privacy between you and your
children is personal,
But my child, if she's 13, there's nothing
private about your phone.
That's my choice.
If you're a 13 year old girl,
private, what do you mean private? Daddy, it's
private.
No, it's not private. You're in a private
conversation, call your friend over and you can
talk in the room private. That's fine.
That's private.
Again, that's your choice.
That's your choice.
4th thing
is, I believe, we need to limit the
use of this.
For example,
Ma'rib or 8 o'clock
and in your devices.
No one goes to bed, no device time,
put it in the room here.
Or you have a family phone, we share
it if we go out. Or you have
a dumb phone, not a smartphone. Dumb phone
is just SMS phone, that's alright.
You can go to soccer practice, take this
phone with you.
Less airtime also.
Less data.
I want to end and I want to
say there's lots lots to discuss.
The Prophet of Allah
he said, all of you,
and especially your fathers and your mothers and
your guardians,
all of you are shepherds,
And you need to take your flock because
you are the man of the house, and
you are the woman of the house,
and you need to take charge of your
flock.
We are not a nation here of absent
fathers.
We are fathers who are present. We are
fathers who care about our children. We are
fathers here to guide them and to protect
them and to educate them in a healthy
space about this world.
Don't fool yourself.
All of you are shepherds,
and every single one of you, you will
be asked, you will be questioned about what
did you do with this great gift,
this beautiful gift Allah has given you. Allah
has given you a ruh
and a soul to nurture.
Allah has given you 2, Allah has given
you 3, Allah has placed them under your
care.
It is a great responsibility.
It's an enormous responsibility.
So it's time that we as a community,
we take it seriously,
And collectively
we find the balance.
Collectively we find the balance. May Allah guide
us, may Allah protect all of us.