Mustafa Khattab – Good Tom Bad Jerry
AI: Summary ©
The speakers discuss the benefits of maximizing free time for children, including learning from the environment and improving understanding before asking questions. They stress the importance of learning in the formative years of one's life and explain the concept of "has been made out of" in Islam. They also discuss the prevalence of violent children in the US and the need to help children in their mental health, including balancing mental health with behavior.
AI: Summary ©
I bear witness that there is none worthy
of our worship except Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala.
And I bear witness that
Muhammad is the seal of the prophets and
the final messenger to all of humanity.
Whoever
Allah guides, there is none to misguide, and
whoever Allah
leaves astray,
there is none to guide
alight.
Today's huqa, inshallah, will focus on,
the free time for our kids. We spoke
before about raising our kids in Canada,
and the challenges they face,
about 2 months ago we spoke about this,
but today inshallah we'll talk about how can
we maximize
the benefits of our kids,
in their free time. I know tomorrow the
March break is gonna start, and they would
be at home for 10 days. 10 days.
What are they gonna do with this time?
And after 2 months, they would have the
summer vacation
from June till August. That that's 3 months,
or even more. They will be sitting at
home. The easiest thing to do is just
give them a phone, or give them a
laptop, and tell them, okay, enjoy life,
so you and the rest of the family
can go out, or go shopping, enjoy your
life. So we're basically trying to kill the
time, and while we're doing this, we don't
use it in a very,
in a very good way, so we end
up using this time and, and wasting the
life. Learning nothing. Useful or beneficial.
So this is the formative years of their
life. Whatever they learn now, this is what
they will take with them, to the rest
of their lives inshaAllah.
Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala,
says in Surah Anahm,
Allah
brought you forth
out of the wombs of your mothers while
you know nothing.
Then Allah
gives you the ability to hear
and see, and
comprehend.
What does that mean? You come out, no
knowledge whatsoever,
then He gave you the tools to learn.
What are the tools? The eyes, because we
are visual, we look around and we learn.
And he gave us the ears, we listen
to Khutba, to the teachers, to our parents,
and we learn from the society around us.
And Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala gave us Afida,
the intellect.
So we can
understand
and reflect
and perceive knowledge.
And this is why during these formative years
in the life of your kids I hope
we can turn off the lights at least
in the front, please.
So during this time your kids ask a
lot of questions.
From the age of 3 till the age
of 6 and 7 they ask many questions.
Some of them are, you know,
are funny, but some are really logical questions.
For example,
they will say okay,
who created this phone? You say some guy
in China.
They say Masha Allah.
Who created this guy from China?
You say Allah.
Then they say, who created Allah?
Assar Haag wakaf ifrasal alal. Some people do
this, right? Get out of here and they
throw a shoom at you and you know,
sometimes.
But some people,
they do the right thing, they try to
explain to them, in a logical way, that
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is not like us,
we're not able to see Him at least
in this world, and Agha and Jannah InshaAllah
will see Him, Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala is
the creator of everything,
but He was created by no one. He
is beyond our imagination
and our comprehension.
So this is one way,
this is one question they commonly ask, where
is Allah? What does Allah look like? Who
created him? Like, they have these questions,
and they deserve to know because this is
the formative years of their life, and they
want to learn.
Also other questions are, you know, sexual in
nature. They will say,
okay, where did I come from?
Of course,
same thing. Some are very,
like,
un or illogical in their approach.
They will either tell the kid, shut up,
Alil Adha, don't ask these questions in my
house, you're not my kid anymore.
And some try to explain to them.
With with this sense of shame that we
should have, but they deserve to learn. We
learned these things after Azhar growing up, we
learned about maturity, we learned about Tahala,
and so there's an answer for every question
in Islam, but it depends on the approach,
how to put the answer.
Some will dumb down the kids and they
don't explain to them. They say, oh, they'll
just little kids, they don't understand anything. Just
tell them anything to keep them quiet.
But these kids know.
They are logical, they understand, they ask logical
questions, and they deserve to learn.
So one kid, for example, asked his mom,
where do we come from? And she said,
honey, she tried to dumb him down and,
you know, to give him an evasive answer.
Not knowing that the kids are intellectuals
in their own world, little world.
So he said, where did we come from?
And she said, honey,
what happened,
at night I had some sugar, I got
some sugar from the kitchen, we had a
carpet in the living room, so I lifted
the carpet, I put the sugar, and in
the morning I lifted the carpet and there
you were, I found you then. So you
were made out of sugar.
Okay. So that night before the kid went
to bed, he tried to do the same
experiment. He went to the kitchen, he got
some sugar, he put it under the carpet,
and in the morning before his mother woke
up, he woke up and he went there
and he didn't find kids, he found, sure
enough, roaches.
They were all over the place, under the
carpet in the living room. So So he
went to his mom in, in her bedroom
and he was like terrified and he said,
Ma, look what I found. I put the
sugar just like you did and I Look
what I found, I found roaches.
So his mother was worried, she said, I
didn't know we had roaches in the house,
why? Did you kill them? He said no.
And she said okay why didn't you kill
the roaches? He said how can I kill
my own kids?
These are my kids.
These kids are logical man, so they know.
So don't try to fool them, try to
explain to them in a logical way
inshallah and and and they will understand.
So every question they ask is a step
towards learning.
So try to explain to them inshallah in
a very logical way and using analogy and
different things, like the plants, this is how
Allah created us. And Allah says that in
Surah Anu Wa Allahu ambatakum minaqartina baata. We
are like plants,
there is the seed, there is the fertile
land, and we come out of the land
like a plant. Using analogy is an effective
way.
Also,
during their free time, because they want to
learn, and sometimes,
this is the problem with many of us,
we don't have time to explain to them
and sit with them, The easiest way is
to give them a DVD or a video
game, go and watch this, and leave me
alone, because they don't have time, you know.
So they go and watch,
and
during my years of learning English, I used
to watch a lot of movies just to
learn English, and I came across some terrible
things in the movies. I love cartoon movies
and stuff, and there are some horrible things.
These are three observations from some of the
movies I have seen in the past, long
time ago.
So, we start with Akida issues.
Tinkerbell for example. These are some of the
very popular cartoon movies out there, and there
are also, there are video games. And we
think, while protecting our kids when we keep
them at home, and they watch things not
knowing that some of them are are terrible
in nature.
In terms of theology,
in terms of violence, in terms of sympathy
with criminals and wicked and evil people.
So we'll share some examples with you. So
Tinker Bell, I saw one of those,
you know, they they have a series like
several movies under the same title, Tinker Bell
and something.
So in one of the movies, in the
like 3 4 minutes
into the movie,
I saw some of those fairies,
so what they were saying to each other
basically, let's go
and bring about spring. So there was winter,
ice and the snow and stuff, they said
okay, let's,
bring about
winter.
So they started to sparkle things, magic things,
and the spring came, and the flowers were
blooming,
and and the fruits and everything, and they
brought about sun and heat, and, someone was
praying for a kid, so they send a
stork with a baby, you know, in the
back. So, if these fairies, in the movie,
they bring about
wintertime,
and they make the trees
bloom,
and they give kids to people.
What is Allah doing? Like, if they're doing
everything,
you know,
They do everything, what is left for the
creator of the heavens and the earth? Right?
So we need to explain to the kids
that this is not true, this is just
like, they stretch their artistic license and they
do things that are not appropriate. Allah is
the creator of everything. He creates kids, he
creates flowers, everything.
There was also another movie by the name
Hercules, and it's a very popular cartoon movie
for kids, and in that movie there was
the God of evil, and the God of
good, and the God of life, and the
God of death, in in in the movie.
So all these Gods, and the kids are
watching me, ah there are so many Gods,
and they are in control, and everything.
Again, Allah is the only God. The Quran
talks about this, there are no other gods,
there's only one God. But because they watched
this at a young age, it's ingrained in
their brains now that, yeah there are so
many forces in the world, they are in
control.
So this is something we need to explain
to them.
The other problem is violence.
I remember one time, a few years ago,
a sister came to the masjid with her
son and she said my son is very
violent, like he is out of control. He's
always jumping and kicking his brothers and biting
his sisters, and he's he's out of control.
And my first question was, does he watch
violent cartoon movies? And she said, yes. The
whole day he's watching Looney Tunes,
the what is his name? The, you know,
the coyote,
and the what is the speedy rider? And
they are beating each other, bombing each other
all the time, explosions all the time, and
Tom and Jerry explosions biting with an axe
and killing,
and and people are laughing. And this is
also ingrained in their personality, and the store
the, studies show that the kids who are,
watch violent cartoons and video games are 80%,
more likely to be violent. Because they see
these things all the time,
and they think in real life, I can
do the same thing because,
Jerry
is giving Tom a hard time. He's always
hitting him with a stick or an axe,
and he gets away with it all the
time. He wins all the time.
Same thing, if you play video games,
the more people you kill, the more people
you shoot in the game, the more points
you get. So I was talking to my
kids this morning,
before they go to school, I talked to
them a little bit, and I told them
I've never seen a video game where if
you help a homeless person in the street,
you get some points. If you find a
blind person in the street, you help them
cross the road, you get points. There there's
no such game. Why?
If you play in a mouse on time,
you get points.
Why is it all about shooting people and
killing them and getting points?
And and this is why in any place,
especially in the US, the kids will go
to the school with guns,
and they shoot 15,
of their college, or they shoot their teachers
because this is they do every day
and you know it is fun. They think
it is fun,
right? It is not fun. Violence is not
fun. But again, this is something that our
kids are exposed to every single day, and
this is something that we need to consider
inshaAllah.
Also,
this is something that I have seen in
many,
movies, especially for kids. They get you up
to a point where you sympathize with evil
people very easily.
Like,
Rapunzel,
Flynn Rider, this character this is a very
popular cartoon movie, and this guy basically,
beyond the good looks, this guy's a thief.
He's a thief,
a wicked person in the movie, but they
get people, especially the kids, who love this
character, and whenever he got in trouble, the
officers are about to capture him because, You
Allah, I hope he would escape.
You Allah, I hope he is able to
steal the treasure from the palace.
I hope he will be able to steal
the horse or the bag from the 2
other evil guys. So they get you subconsciously
to side with evil and wicked people.
And they show in cartoon movies like Donald
Duck and Tom and Jerry, and some other
new movies,
that the evil person always wins at the
end.
The evil and violent and wicked person always
wins in the end.
So what kind of world do we expect?
Like, when you ask kids in,
like,
kindergarten
and grade 1 or 2,
every single one of them, what would you
like to be when you grow older?
They say, well, a doctor, a teacher, an
engineer, all these beautiful jobs. And SubhanAllah, we
wonder how come
that
in many communities, not Muslim community, but in
general, there are so many thieves,
there are so many crooks.
Right? So if everyone started off at the
same point with all these high expectations and
wishful thinking that I'm gonna be a good
person, how come that so many people drop
out of school, they become violent, they join
gangs and drug dealers,
and why?
I don't know, maybe
this has something to do with it. Like,
in their brains,
it is good to be an evil person
and wicked person if you smile and, you
know, cheat people. This is not nice.
Come on. This is real world here.
So, this is what we are talking about.
We ask Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala to help
us raise our kids in a good way,
so make sure inshallah before your kids play
video games or watch movies,
make sure what is the content of the
movie. What is it talking about? Shirk or
violence or, you know, sympathizing with evil people?
And we need to talk to our kids
and try to keep this balance that this
is not acceptable, this is not right. We're
good people, and and in real life we
try to help people and not shoot them
for for points, for example.
We ask Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala to give
us the best in this life and the
best in the life to come, missAllahu Wa
Ta'ala.