Living Islam – Raising a Muslim Child #05

Bismillah R Rahman r Rahim Al hamdu Lillahi Rabbil Alameen wa Salatu was Salam ala Shafi Lumbee were mousseline Muhammad Rasulullah, sallallahu alayhi, WA salatu. Salam does live in the film cathedra firmado. My brothers and sisters, we are on the

class on raising a Muslim child.

And we were talking about the importance of demonstrating values, demonstrating values.

One of the biggest

values to demonstrate

is discipline.

No.

Now Sad to say, there seems to be a misunderstanding about this word discipline.

On the one hand, you have parents who in the name of discipline

at an extreme level, literally brutalize the children.

By beating them and by screaming at them, and by creating an atmosphere in the home, which is extremely toxic, extremely threatening.

Where a child hates to come home.

I'm talking about the extreme level of that, but

anything trending towards that, anything tending towards that also is highly, highly avoidable. So this is one unfortunate thing of,

of discipline that people think that discipline means to be nasty discipline means that you will never smile. Discipline means that you will never play with children you will never love and you know, roll around on the ground, or whatever it is that you always have this

deadly expression on your face.

So this is one extreme, the other extreme is absolutely no boundaries at all. The child can do whatever he wants, or she wants. And usually the

child gets his impression that as long as the as the rave and rant enough, they will get whatever they like, right? This is a completely

the other end of it. So you have children who are literally with you, sometimes you have you you wonder why such a child, you know, even exists, because they're completely and totally.

I mean, they're horrible. I mean, there's no way of I'm sure many of us have encountered so children, hopefully they don't belong to. So this is the other the other extreme.

I recall,

many years ago, I think almost probably 20 years ago or something

in I think around 2017 to 2020.

I was

I was speaking at a function, I won't mention the city and the country and so on. I don't want to you to try to identify who it was. But I was speaking at a function

at it was a little ladies, I think that it was on hold already that many of them were very high society kind of women.

So I was speaking on this function on on Islam and on raising children as one. And after the whole thing finished.

One lady who came up came up to me. And I could see that she was from one of the wealthy families of the place. By the way, she was just and so on.

And she said to me, Jeff, please,

I really need your help with my son.

So I said, What happened to him? What happened to sir?

She said to me,

she showed me her phone. She said to me,

I just bought him a phone for the seventh time.

So I said what happened to

phone number six and phone number five and so on?

She said, Well, he breaks it or he loses it or something. And this is a seven time and

so I said

How old is your son? She said he was some 21 or 22 or something?

I said Is he all there? I mean it does he have any? You know, issues, mental issues or something? Is he

is he is he in need of some psychological help? He said no, no, no, of course not. My son is beautiful and my son is okay. I was asked I said tell me.

How does he study the school and call me colleges? Not very well. Okay.

Obviously, I'm not surprised at any of this. Then I asked her I said what what car does he have a car? He has? Of course, okay, which got and she told me the name of the top of the line car in that country.

I said Does he have a credit card? He says yes. I said is it linked to your credit card? Yes.

means that effectively he can spend whatever he wants on the mother food sports the bill

so I said you want me to help you with regard to the son? She said yes sir please I'm so tired of this I'm really suffering. I say let me suggest you something. And this is an absolutely sure fire cure. He says please, please tell me what is it I said please adopt me.

And I'm willing to be your son, please adopt me as your son.

So she looked a bit shocked and of course he didn't agree unfortunately for me. But my point is I told her I said look, if I had a free credit card to spend as much as I want, I have the top of the line card.

I have obviously my clothes and you know I I wear the best clothes the all brands I have I live in a beautiful house. I can eat what I want I have so anxiety I said if I had all of these things, I would probably do the same thing like your son is doing.

Right? What comes free has no value. This is unfortunately human nature.

What comes free has no value.

In one of the teaching stories, they say that there was this boy who inherited a pashmina shawl from his father you know very expensive pashmina wool shawl from his father. And somebody one day saw him cleaning his shoes with a shawl.

And the interpretation of that was that the shoes he paid for by himself so there were issues and the surely got an inheritance. So he has no value for them. Although the shoes are, you know, compared to the shop, they're worthless.

My brother this does really you have to ask ourselves what are the standards that we are

giving to our children? You know, the the oldest tree in the world

is the bristlecone pine.

And if you go to the if you go to Google and search for it, the bristlecone pine is a tree which is more than 5000 years old, and it is alive, it's still growing more than 5000 years old.

That means that this tree was over 1000 years old.

When he primary Salam was building the cover, even when Rama is when they were building the cover this tree was over 1000 years old.

Right now.

Why?

Why? What is the secret of longevity, the secret of the hardiness, the secret of the strength of the bristlecone pine

read what they say what the bottle is say. They say that tree is so strong and so long lived. Because the conditions around it's where it lives where that tree is located. The conditions are extremely harsh,

very, very difficult conditions,

long droughts, very cold winters.

huge, massive gale force winds and so on and so forth. What is the result of that? The result of that is that that tree grows a root system which goes deep into the bed of the earth

and accesses water from way down

from natural aquifers.

The result is that the tea tree is so strongly rooted that there is no Gale that can be strong enough to pull it out properly.

Its growth is very slow.

And it has very long lived the pine needles, you know the leaves of the pine to the core pine needles, the little needles, the pine needles of the bristle cone pine live for 30 years or more.

They don't live live for 30 years or more

secret

adverse conditions

adverse conditions, greenhouse trees may look very nice.

But take them out of the house. One gust of wind will knock it flat.

Because the root system is not developed.

The tree is growing on artificial

on fertilizers and so on so forth. So it's going in artificial conditions, the conditions which have been created for it

and it grows looks nice. No doubt about that.

But unfortunate fact of life is that a greenhouse tree cannot remain inside the greenhouse forever.

Just like your little mollycoddled *cat cannot live in your house forever.

What happens? When that little mollycoddle *cat

hits the word comes out in the open?

What happens?

Right, think about that. Think about it.

And you don't have to think too deeply about this. Because if you just open your eyes, I'm sure no matter which country you live in, you will find plenty of examples

of little mollycoddle *cats

now, running around the world, in a daze, it don't know what hit them.

It's a pathetic situation.

The school that I went to,

is one of the best schools in India, they, they had their own public school.

And it was built by our King.

That is

primarily for children of the nobility.

And, of course, later on, it was it became a noble school anybody could join,

provided to pass the test. And so

the point I'm making is that therefore, we had in my, in my task, for example, I had one of the grandchildren exam,

I had a grandson of one of the premium novels, and I had several other royals and semi Royals

in my class and other classes,

some of them today, when I look at them, I can only feel I feel very sad

that these are people who came from such wealthy families,

families, which was so powerful at one point in time.

And today, they are literally living in penury.

They have no you know, literally nothing going for them.

And only one reason. And that reason was this kind of

false parenting,

living in a greenhouse.

My brother and sisters, please understand this. The greatest wealth is poverty.

The greatest strength is hardship.

I'm not saying throw your children out into the street. No.

I don't mean that I have the law has given you well, may Allah protect it and keep you protected. But if you are seriously interested in the welfare of your children, and if you are seriously interested in being able to hand over that wealth to those children,

and have those children continue with that wealth,

and just like you brought them up in the level of luxury, if you want them to continue to live in a lap of luxury, and for their children and their children to live in the lap of luxury,

they must go through a period of hardship and they must learn the rules of the game.

And the rules of the game are

that hardship

is a strength

like somebody said, discipline is freedom

you know, there is a joy in working hard and achieving something

that is not given. That does not happen if that thing comes to easily.

I recall I was teaching a course I think it was it was for GE or

either for GE or for Microsoft or something in Bangalore, and one of the I was staying in the company guest house and my one of the other guests that

was a man who was a clinical psychologist

and he was a counselor for children and youth

I got interested over dinner we were sitting and chatting and asked he was in counseling for children what kind of constantly do you do? He said I counsel children of super wealthy parents.

That was super wealthy parents children need car what kind of cars do they need?

He said many of them are suicidal.

Now and you know from to me it doesn't didn't make any sense because

I went back to my own

childhood where

from the time I was

18 I did not take a single Beisa from my parents

I mean I ate at home so they didn't judge me they didn't charge me money for that but point point being I never asked them for money for anything for myself I didn't say I need this toy I need this thing or whatever

I earn my own money I did my own stuff.

The rule in our house was I'm very fond of animals and the rule mouse was keep what you want but you will look after it nobody else will look after it for you and neither the servants nor any of the family so whatever animals you have, you take care of them including cleaning them and tilling their pens and whatnot, whatnot everything

and if that interfered with your you know, school or social life and whatnot do or don't have the pets or if you have the pets deal with that also and there was no I wasn't given the luxury to say okay, it doesn't matter if you don't study what you had to study. Well, you had to get straight A's and what not all of that was there right?

So I'm going back to that I'm thinking to myself and what kind of counseling do these supersede this man tells me? He says just last week, there was this girl who was in deep depression, because of other gave her a Mercedes

300 SL sports car

as a birthday gift.

And it she was she was depressed because it was the wrong color. She wanted some color. And the father couldn't find that color. You were out of the car.

I'm not talking about I'm not fairytales. Right? I'm not telling you very good. I'm telling you. This is what happens when you have this kind of overindulgent parenting, you need to have discipline is very, very important. That's why I said discipline is the secret of success.

At the same time in the name of discipline, brutalizing your children, creating a toxic atmosphere, creating an atmosphere of threat in the house, this is completely insane. Right now, any adult, whether it's a teacher, or whether it's a parent, who hits a child to me is has failed, they have failed in their role as a parent or as a teacher completely failed, because you have reduced that role now to plain animal brutality.

And you are saying to them, you will obey me because I have to be stronger than you are physically.

Not because I have a moral authority, not because I what I'm saying is right. None of that just because I happen to have more physical force, which I will bring to bear on you, if you don't do what I tell you.

This is a failure, this is a complete failure of

the parent or the teacher.

By discipline, I mean

helping them to understand that success comes from effort, success does not come without effort. Success does not come because you think you should be successful. Because you have this very high opinion of yourself. Because you have grown up in a world, especially like where I live now, in America, this is a very, one big problem of, of raising children here is the is the super little language that is used in schools and in homes and everywhere. To describe children and their work and their and their

their situation. Right.

So little, the child isn't Oh, you are awesome.

You are awesome. And he brings up bras of work. Oh my god. Fantastic.

Mix big question is the what is beyond awesome and beyond fantastic.

So when you are like six years old, you're already awesome and fantastic. So what happens to you afterwards?

What happens to you afterward is depression. What happens to you afterward is despair. What happens to you afterwards is what one of my

dear friends and brothers who is a psychiatrist here in America, he tells me that and he's a children's psychiatrist. And he tells me that he has patients who are

suicidal.

He has one patient came to me who wanted to commit murder wanted to kill somebody. So I said, this is like, you know, the jailer a second isn't Oh, this is a psychiatric clinic. I said Who are these? Who are these patients?

The one who wanted to commit but is six years old. The one who is suicidal is eight years old children.

Right now whether the six year old can actually do it or not is a different issue. The point is that this is what the society is creating.

It's creating children who have

got the

trappings of success too early to easily

and I say traveling because this is not real success this is not real success Do you want the product to submit in school is not real success

real success is what you will do with yourself in your life

so

that's why I say to you I say this all the time he said number one be very careful what you praise children for.

Never praise them for beauty because Allah created that.

Never How many times have you heard this the oh my god, Wow, fantastic. You're so tall.

So what?

So what

he's told because those are the genes

which is so beautiful. So what?

Praise, effort, praise, action. Praise hard work. Praise good manners.

Praise, good speech.

I'm not saying don't praise of course you must praise you must praise you must show appreciation. But be careful what you show appreciation for

show appreciation for effort in any field. Whether it is work whether it is good behavior, whether it is you know a purse has a how many people have you seen who are very beautiful, but they have all they always have this very, you know, disgruntled expression on their face.

Completely this that kind of beauty is worthless.

Once vile is worth all the beauty in the world.

What more than all the beauty in the world?

Praise o'clock. Please effort. See Allah subhanaw taala said when I lay saline in San Isla Masha, Allah said there is nothing for a human being other than what he works for.

Now think about this. And another way of looking at it is Allah did not even say that you will always get the full reward of whatever you work for in this world. Allah said this is the upper limit Allah said you will not get more than that.

But you might get less.

So what if you don't work?

That is the reason I say that poverty is the biggest strength hardship is the biggest asset. Because only when you are poor and hungry

and you are living under conditions of hardship that you make effort

Hila Mashallah.

And that's why what you must do is

make it a rule number one, set boundaries,

what works and what does not work, what is okay and what is not okay. And all of these boundaries, remember have to set at home?

Could it be where a lot of people complain about this or society say Oh, this there's so much fitna in the in society. So many problems is it as your draw, you write it there are,

but none of that is in your control.

What is in your control is what is in your house?

So what does your house look like?

Is your house full of fitna? Or is your house, a place of tranquility,

a beautiful atmosphere of safety,

of love or affection

of honoring each other, have good manners good o'clock.

A place where children feel safe to talk to parents about the real issues in schools and colleges. You know, and I know how

almost everywhere parents are the last people to come to know about any problems with their children.

It was a complicated, totally tragic incident that happened here in America in Texas,

where they were these two boys, Muslim boys, Muslim family.

Two boys

who were in Ivy League schools. So they were doing academically they were doing phenomenally well.

Both of them were.

However, they were in deep depression.

And

it's a long story. But to cut the long story short.

They decided to commit suicide.

And they're in their thinking they said we don't want our parents and they were their parents, their system, their grandmother who are all living the same house. So we don't want them to feel sad because we are dead. So what's the best way to ensure that is also to kill them?

And they did it.

They did it.

The younger boy

wrote it all out.

Boom. And somebody sent me that that note.

My first reaction I read that note was that how can somebody who is intelligent enough and articulate enough to write this whole note? Do what he did? How can this How is this possible, but it happened

and Dan family went to

Milan sisters, it's a very serious matter.

We must create

systems in the in the home, where boundaries are set. And they are set with love and with respect, but they are set. If you want your if your child comes to you, one, explain two ways of setting boundaries, your child comes to you and says, I want this. So okay, first of all, if it is something which he or she should have you agreeable to that. So okay, so what are you willing to do to earn that?

Hey, that was it. What are you willing to do to earn that?

Also what you can say, all right, all right. So now we had

last night, two feet of snow. So if you go and shovel the driveway,

and clean all that snow, then you will get this

make them

help them to understand that just asking for something is big. It doesn't matter even if you are begging your mother or your father, you're still a beggar.

When I was 18 or something?

Yeah, I think those days you got a license at age 80. So when I was 18, or 17, or 18, my father

got the his driver to teach me to drive our car. My father had a fear 1100

So I was taught to drive a car I learned to drive and I went to the

the equivalent of the DMO and I got myself a license.

All very well I was very happy.

Then one day I wanted to go out somewhere. So I asked my father I said please go and take the car. He said no. Because

I was shocked.

So I said to him, I said but but I can drive and I have a license Yes, of course your license, I know that I I arranged for you to learn to drive.

So I said Then

when can I? When can I drive? And why? Why Why? Why am I why are you not allowing me to take the car? And when can I when can I drive a car? He said you can drive a car when you when you have your own car.

I said why did you learn? Why did you teach me to drive them? If I'm not allowed to drive this car? Why did you teach me to drive? He said because driving is a skill you should know.

Driving is a skill that you should know about. He taught us to swim so so I can swim and so on. So so he said driving is a skill you should know driving. So I arranged for you to learn to drive a car.

I think about that it sounds hard. But it gave me the importance of understanding this thing to say that things don't just come out of the blue.

Privilege is not just something because I happen to be born in a house where you know, in those days, the number of cars on the road were very few.

A car was not something that everybody had.

So we had a car so it was a big thing.

My father used to take, he always took us even when he went shopping he would take us we went to buy groceries sometimes not all not every minute our groceries someone brought but sometimes we used to go and buy fish in Singapore and so he would take us

so we were in that car the whole time, but not really. He will drive when you have your own car.

Now, discipline

is therefore, as I mentioned somebody else's quote, discipline is freedom. And how discipline freedom because discipline teaches you this

respect for boundaries

that you have to get up at a certain time. You make your bed, your room has to look neat. Shoes must be polished. We used to sit May Allah bless my father abused to sit

on weekends. I may have mentioned this before and forgive me if I did.

On weekends, the rule was that and weekend was only Sunday because those days we didn't have this today we can only Sunday. In some places Saturday was a half day otherwise Sunday.

It was a full day. And then we worked. We were home on Sunday. So Sunday mornings, the Sunday morning ritual was that all of us, my father, and the children would sit with our shoes. And in those days, you had only three kinds of shoes, you had black shoes, brown shoes, and you had white canvas shoes, which were for,

for sports. So we would sit all of us with these shoes, and we would polish the shoes. Now, you might say, well, you know why, why were we polishing the shoes, and we didn't we have sovereigns who could do that. Of course, we had. I mean, in my

when I was growing up even seven summits, so it's not for lack of manpower. But it was discipline to say that you take care of your own things, I would not do it.

You can't throw things around the house and leave them around, somebody will pick it up no is your thing you pick it up, take it to your own keep it and it has to be kept neatly in its proper place not thrown anywhere, you there is no past concept of saying this is my room nobody enter you no doubt is I see sometimes in people's homes.

So there's also room and on their door, you've got this big thing saying nobody enter here and skull and crossbones and whatnot. And this is so and so's room and none of this was there. This is all nonsense.

It was all treated as the house was the whole everyone your room, yes, if it was your own, but parents came in and they looked and they saw and they if they needed something to be corrected, they corrected and we took care of it. And this was part of being a member of a family.

So I want to end with this and say that one of the most critical things to do in your life is to help your children to understand the meaning of boundaries, set boundaries in the home, in terms of do's and don'ts in terms of behavior, in terms of what

is permissible or not permissible. And in terms of understanding the issue of privacy.

Because whatever they are doing, Allah subhanaw taala is watching and teach them the value of this that if if you can do that with Allah watching, that is something that your parents also have the right to see and they can see it.

There is no privacy between parents and children. Keep this and help them to understand this so that you don't create

problems for yourself and for them when they grow up. What's Alana will carry while he was away member Africa