Mirza Yawar Baig – Turn a mistake into a learning opportunity #2
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AI: Transcript ©
We continue with our
answering the question that Omar Abdullah
bless him and keep him protected.
Asked me
about the
permissibility,
the advice with regard to.
Basically, is it
permissible to reprimand,
especially we're talking now here about children.
Maybe you're coaching
a a team of some sports team. Maybe
you are
a teacher in school.
Maybe your own children and your neighbors and
nieces and grandchildren and so on. Is it
permissible
to
reprimand them if, they need that? Is it
possible to correct them? Is it possible to,
you know, to tell them
that they are doing or they have done
wrong? Is it permissible to ask them why
they did what they did?
In the light of
the hadith of Anasid
who
said that he served
for 10 years,
and never even said oof to him, and
he never asked him,
why did he do whatever he did.
So this is the second part of the
answer. 2nd part of the answer, I'm saying
here that,
in the case of the hadith, we're looking
at an exceptional human being,
who was in 24
hour immersion
program
program with himself.
His
was never even handed over
to another person.
There's no narrative to say,
yeah, Abba Baqal
of the Al Anwar, take over the of
this young man
or this boy. Never.
Was under the direct,
of Rasoolullah.
So my question to myself anyway is how
many times do you think he did anything
in the first place which required,
Rasool Allah to every mandate? So that's the
first thing to keep in mind.
Second thing to keep in mind is that
when we are looking at,
we are looking
at the responsibility
of parents.
Parents do not have
and teachers do not have their position because,
parent don't have that position just because they
happen to be biological parents.
Teachers don't have that position just because they
happen to be appointed,
as a teacher of the mother's or the
class or the school.
They have that exalted position. They have that
position of honor
because of what they do and what they
are supposed to do.
And that is.
And
consists of,
when required,
of
connecting,
of
guiding, of mentoring,
of, if necessary, reprimanding.
So there is nothing to feel apologetic about
that. The question is, how do you do
that?
Now one of the things that I, for
example and I'm not placing myself as the
ideal model of, of.
I'm just sharing my personal experience of having
done that for,
several,
unfortunates,
in my life.
There's a rule that I follow. The first
rule I follow is that I treat the
child with respect.
I never abuse the child. I never call
him names. I never curse
him, or her no matter what they did.
I always treat them with
respect. Second thing is that
I always operate from
the,
belief and from the position that
let us find the reason why something happened
before we decide to judge that thing.
So I always ask the question, why did
you do this?
Whatever the thing is. Right?
It doesn't matter what it was. Why did
you do this? Why did you behave in
this way in this way?
Number 1. Then second thing I do is
and then I lead the child
through is
a
a,
system and through a process of
reasoning,
which shows them that
at the time they did whatever they did,
they had other alternatives.
They could have chosen to do something else.
The way they dealt with that situation was
not the only thing
that was available, that was not the only
option available to them. They could have chosen
equally easily to deal with it in a
different way. And I don't tell them what
that way is. I just tell them, okay.
So when you for example,
you you you had a fight with your
with your,
you know, classmate.
He beat you up. You beat him up.
Whatever whatever the case was, you cussed him
out.
So why why did that happen? So there's
oh, no. No. No. And I usually get
the other person there as well, if I
can possibly do that. So then I'll get
this one. No. No. I'm not talking about
the fight is over. Right? Now we are
analyzing that.
So think about that.
Why did this fight happen? So these are
the reasons. Okay. Fantastic.
What
were the options available to you at that
time? Was cursing and fighting the only option?
Could you have dealt with that in some
other way?
What were you trying to achieve
when you went into this thing? Did you
have a a goal in mind, a plan
in mind, and were you trying to achieve
something?
Or this was just, you know, just got
angry and it blew.
What was it?
And then I finally come, I say, okay.
Now now that this is over, now that
we have learned the
lessons, now that the,
the the thing is over,
what do you wanna do?
Do you wanna make up? Do you want
to be friends again?
What are the options of, and and the
benefits of making up? What are the benefits
or harmful
facts of not making up?
Believe me,
this whole
process of
what happened,
why did it happened,
what were the options,
and what do you want to do about
that now
going forward?
This is a process incidentally I also use
in my corporate consulting,
in my coaching.
It's not only restricted to children
because this is the real learning process.
It takes time.
It takes far more time than calling both
the kids and giving each of, you know,
both of them whack on the behind or
something. That's easy. Like it that takes like
10 seconds. One whack to this one, one
black to that person.
All that would have been achieved is that
you got rid of your frustration.
The children learned
to avoid you. The children learned to run
away from you. The children learned that
what I did was not wrong,
but getting caught was the problem. So next
time, I'm gonna make
sure that I do not get caught. And
since I'm not God, there's no way that
I'm going to be able to,
supervise those kids 247.
So now I've got a bunch of youngsters
who are resentful, who have learned nothing,
and whose focus now is on not getting
caught, not on
correcting themselves.
They see no value and benefit in that.
They consider themselves to have been right.
Maybe a bit stupid because they got caught
not because of what they did and that's
an entirely undesirable outcome.
But when you follow this process, you'll find,
and I've always found invariably
that there's a huge amount of learning both
for them and for me. I'm saying for
me because one of the
salutary facts in my life is that when
I ask do this question of,
asking the kids,
why did did you do something?
Sometimes, I'm not saying all the time, but
sometimes I find answers that are so
refreshing. They're so absolutely
out of the blue.
It wouldn't it would never have occurred to
me to say what the child is saying.
I would never have seen that thing in
that light. And the reason is very simple
because
my,
perception is colored by my conditioning. The
child does not have that conditioning yet. So
before that child gets the Right?
And
Right? And then the result is fine because,
you know, they've learned the lesson and they
won't repeat it again. They're not stupid. Now
the same thing as I said I do
also in my corporate consulting, I
teach this so those,
owners of corporations and people working corporations and
managers and leaders, you're getting this for free.
They learn the lesson
of how to correct their subordinates.
Sit to the person,
ask them, first of all, what happened?
Actual facts,
not opinions.
Where there is, you might be working in
a in a situation where there is some
camera
footage,
see that. Just watch it. No praise, no
blame. That's the key thing. No praise, no
don't say you did wrong. No no, hold
on. We we won't come to that. Right
now, we're examining the data. This is the
data. Once we have the data clear, is
the data clear? Yes. It's clear. Now, therefore,
what do we learn from this? No. Before
that, what were the options? So you behaved
in a certain way, what were the options?
What else could you have done?
Now remember, in that heat of the moment,
the person did what they did, they weren't
thinking straight,
you know, their brains were clouded with emotions
and so on. But now, you're having this
conversation later, so they're also full headed. They
will be able to see and once they
realize that there's no praise, no blame, they're
not gonna get punished for this. The only
thing here is, can you see
the lessons in this thing and can you
extract those lessons? And as long as they
will do that, there's no praise, no blame.
So therefore, people will actually look at things
objectively, which is our object, which is our
goal. So therefore, now you say, well, now
what were the options available to you at
the time? You did
this, but you could have also done number
2, you could have done number 3.
Maybe there were more than 3 options available
to you. Which do you think was,
or would have been the best option? Which
would have been the better option than whatever
you did?
Then saying going forward now. Now we are
plucking the holes. We're saying now going forward,
what would you like to do in this
kind of a situation? We are not saying
the situation will never happen again because it
will happen again. It will happen again and
again and again. And obviously, the first time,
the way you dealt with it was not
good.
Going forward, how would you like to deal
with that? Now this is the way to
go about,
Turbiah,
Wotaskia,
of Akhlaq, of, whether it's children or adults,
turn it into a learning opportunity.
Turn it into a learning opportunity. Unfortunately,
especially in our Madaris,
in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh,
And I know also in Egypt because
there are people here in America who are
from Egypt and who,
have told me this in so many words,
that, you know, this is what happened. And
what happens is beating. It's common punishment, beat
the living dead right out of the kid,
put the fear of God into him. He's
not put you're not putting the fear of
God, you're putting your own fear and the
kid will do he'll just wait for an
opportunity to do it again when you can't
catch him and you are not god. So
you are there will be that opportunity.
The kid learned nothing except that you are
stronger than he is, and that's a pure
animal,
reaction and animal response. No use. So that's
not what we're talking about. We're talking about
turning every
mistake,
every
even including, you know, something which is not
just a mistake, maybe, within courts of crime,
into a potential learning opportunity.