Parenting Today’s Technological Kids

Bismillah Alhamdulillah wa Salatu was Salam ala rasulillah ala alihi wa sahbihi wa rahmatullah wa salam. aleikum wa rahmatullah wa barakato. To everyone joining me today, handling that it's good to be here, it's good to

talk about a topic like this, this is a topic that I know is on a lot of people's minds. It's it's not only something that, you know, we have concerns about, but it's something that we're living through right now. Being a parent and myself, and, and specifically a parent of younger kids, I have two boys. One is six years old, and the others two, I'm not into the trenches of like teenage years yet with my kids. But I'm at the stage where like, everything is frightening, and you're concerned about everything in the future. And, and you want to like do everything you can to make sure that they turn out fine. And especially when you do what I do, and you speak to a lot of people, and you

speak to a lot of parents who are very concerned about their kids, and they're concerned about, you know, their teenage kids or whatever it may be, it's really easy to get into a place where you're just worried about everything all the time. But as a parent, first and foremost, and yes, you know, stomach education, and counseling is important. But I first relate to this topic, as a parent, as a parent, I've had to make some very conscious decisions, and try to educate myself on this topic, because of because of how concerning it can it can be. So I'm glad I'm glad we're talking about this topic.

I'm going to try and share some advice inshallah had to order and and and tried to cover some of the concerns that parents have, I had pre submitted to me some some some comments or questions that parents had regarding this topic. So I picked some of the more potent ones, some of the ones that seem to be more common, and I'm just going to address them head on inshallah had to add on. But starting off, not only this a technological age, we're living in a time where we're dealing with a very, very

strange environment, and that is COVID. And being quarantined. So that's, that's where we're at right now. So if it wasn't challenging enough to begin with, you know, having to raise our children in an age where technology is just another aspect of life, it's a part of life, I've come from a generation where we were introduced to technology. And even though I was exposed to it quite young, but still there was I do remember a time where, you know, our interaction with technology was mostly just TV, like the biggest concern people had, or parents had, when it came to technology, and their kids was TV and video games. And then the internet came along. And then from there, it was just, the

ball started rolling really fast. But this is the generation that is dealing with, you know, kids,

being born into technology. And one of the small examples that I share about my kids and my firstborn, is that when he was born,

I had it I had an Apple Watch. I don't have an Apple Watch anymore. I'm not I'm not, it's not really my thing. It didn't didn't work out for me, I don't really like it. But back then I think that was like when the first Apple Watch came out. And so when my son was born, he was born in a world where his dad was wearing something on his wrist that you can interact with. And so you know, as he got a little bit older, he would tap the watch, and he would swipe and this and that, or whatever. And then one day he was my mother in law was holding him. And she was wearing a watch. And his reaction was that he started like tapping and swiping right, even though it was a traditional watch. And

she's like, What is he doing what's going on? And I'm like, wow, Subhanallah for him, like his definition of a watch. His watch is a type of watch, that you can interact with that you can tap you can move around, in that's his world like that in his world. That is what a watch is. And so for me that was like a, as a one of those moments that it you know, this point was really highlighted of, you know, the world that this generation is is is this is the world for them, right? This is where they are. We can talk about the old times or whatever, but that's not the reality for them.

This is the world that they're in. And then if that wasn't challenging enough, if that was new enough, then we were challenged with COVID and you know, being quarantined, being being at home. And you know, having less things to do and less, less human personal interaction. And so there are, you know, new challenges that have

come about because of now the COVID world that we're in. And not only that, I also think that because of COVID and being quarantined, some of our older challenges regarding technology have also come to the surface, we've had to now face them, maybe, maybe we, we weren't really as Cognizant as aware of them before. But now they've kind of come to the surface, and we have to deal with them.

So, so that's, that's where we are right now, that being said, anything happening in the world, any, any, anything that we deal with anything new will come with its challenges, and it will come with its benefits as well.

Any new technology, anything that's new, from from an Islamic perspective, we, you know, unless it's just outright something, which is how to hum and bad or whatever, you know, and actually, there's very few things in this world.

And, you know, when it comes to like, new technology, and inventions, that, or even in general, there's few things in this world that are purely good or purely evil,

obviously, that which Allah has legislated from Salah, and so on, and so forth. Purely good. Of course, things that are lost to Allah has defined as being evil, yes, evil. Yes, of course. But when it comes to, you know, these new things that we're dealing with, very rarely are, as I said, are these things purely good are purely evil, even though there is a tendency to fall into those extremes. That's just human nature, it's easier to put things into nice clean defined boxes and categories. And that's why we live in a world where there's, you know, the the right and the left, there is, you know, liberals and conservatives, there's Democrats and Republicans, and there's this

and there's that, you know, because it's just easier to put people in these nice categories. And, and, you know, make all these assumptions about them, and they just fit nice and well, in our mind. But the reality is that that's not exactly how the world is,

you know, not everyone not, we cannot put everyone in, you know, in a nice, clean category and say, This is everything about them. And this is now that we've defined them, this is who they are 100% likewise, you know, with with everything else, we live in a polarized world. And like I said, there's a tendency to do that. And there are people today, who will look at technology and look at the Internet and say, you know, oh, you know, those religious people, they just think everything is hot off, and, you know, look at all the good that comes out of it, and this and that, and, and so there's no room to even criticize, and to evaluate the dangers of the internet and technology. On

the other hand, you have those who look at technology, and the internet and social media as just purely evil, right? Because they're just evil does exist. And as earlier, you know, good does exist as well, they may look at the Internet, and you know, social media, whatever, say, this is all bad. And that may work. For some people, there may be some, like, there may be a minority of people who can say, you know what, I'm never going to go online. Right, I'm never going to have any social media, I'm never going to not going to own a TV and not gonna have any screens in my house, etc, etc.

When some people say that, I'm going to, like, as a Muslim, as a fellow Muslim, I believe you right, like, I'll take you at face value, okay.

But there, but, but I do understand, and I know that it is it is a it is a small minority that that can actually truly live like that

the vast majority of us cannot live in that black and white, you know, world. And so we are face to face with with the challenges and at the same time, you know, we can recognize that there are there is goodness, there are benefits in in, in this in this technology. And so, not only by the way, not only do we you know, look at the harms, which is important, and you know, it's to stay vigilant, but also we want to look at the good. And sometimes it's the good that can help us overcome or or deal with the bad. So the more we highlight the good of technology and what it can do for us, it can it can quickly become positive and good alternatives for the bad and I'll clarify a little bit of this

as we move forward in gela data. And so, with that being said, like also we have to understand that, you know, as I said earlier, this is all very new for us. And so, there will there will be

there will be a lot of trial and error. You know that there are no you know, clearly fixed answers and you know, there's no advice that I can say if you do X, Y and Z that's it like you'll be able to deal with things

analogy and you'll live a perfectly balanced life.

You know, we just because all this is new, we're still learning the true effects of technology on us. And even the benefits, we're still learning about how to benefit ourselves, our lives, even our faith, our Eman our relationship with lost parent data we're learning, we're still learning. And a lot of it is trial and error, right? So we have to, we have to, you know, try something and see what works and then and then try something else. And, and that's how it's going to go. And, and also, very, also, another important point here is that everyone's relationship with technology is not the same. We're all different. Even as, as, as adults, we're not, we're not all the same as you know, we

have, we have a different relationship with technology, then, of course, our children are going to be different. And we can't treat all of the kids all of our children exactly the same.

You know, in their strengths and their weaknesses and their challenges. Kids are different. And that's a, that's a that's a vital point when it comes to parenting. And even if you're in a teaching space, a teacher has to recognize that not all the children are not all children are the same. They have different needs. And they Some even the way we teach children, you know, we can't treat every child the same. So all of this starts the, you know, for if we're trying to deal with this, and we're trying to look for solutions, the first place that we start with is the evaluation process. And so that's step number one. So before we start talking about solutions, before we start talking

about alternatives, before we start talking about what do I do, we have to understand where we are, and I say we not as in we as a society, because I think we're pretty, that's pretty well known. But I mean, on a on an individual level, where do we stand right now in our relationship with technology? And and so we is very personal here. And when I say we, I know you're thinking about your family and your kids, but even before that, when I say we I mean me? I mean I? So first and foremost, we don't start with our kids, we don't start evaluating our you know, our kids, we don't evaluate our spouse, we don't evaluate whatever else our community is that we evaluate ourselves.

What does my relationship with technology look like right now? And some of this is very simple. How much time do I spend online? How often do I look at my phone? When I'm having a conversation with my kids? How much time do I spend online, doing things that actually helped me grow spiritually and in my dunya, as well, versus just pure entertainment or pure, just passing the time. So that's, that's an evaluation of ourselves, then we move on to our family in our in our kids. So first thing if you're, you know, in this part of this evaluation is even How old are my kids, as I said earlier, every every child is different, and in the age of a child can can can make a drastic difference in

how ingrained they are in technology, what type of effect technology has had upon them, even the age of the child. And even what we need to do,

will definitely vary depending on the age of the child. Just to give you an example, we know that kids that are

two years old and younger, that is an extremely, extremely vulnerable time for kids, because

most of a child's brain development happens in the first two years of their life. So if there's ever a time that we're going to be the most careful about screen time and what they're exposed to and all of that those first two years are absolutely vital. So part of that evaluation process is what is the what is my kid's age, you know, a three year old or four year old, the way we work with a three year old or a four year old is not going to be the same as how we would work with a teenager who has completely different challenges when it comes to the online world or screentime. Or, you know how they entertain themselves online. So so that so breaking that down as well. So this evaluation

process, it is about

taking out Leno being very specific, being very detailed about the effect that technology has on our lives, the good and the bad, by the way, the good and the bad. So so I know we immediately think negative we think about all the bad effects, but even the positive so we can take a look at our kids lives and say what positive effect has technology had on my kids and sometimes it's you know, people think there's no positive you know, effect

Technology, I will beg to differ, maybe not a lot. But if we really think about it, there are ways that our kids do benefit from from technology technology that is a part of their lives in our lives. Now, the next step is adapting, we have to learn that we are going to have to adapt, we're gonna have to adapt to the new world. Once again,

you know, we can look at it as all or nothing, we can be absolutist about it. But, you know, extreme extremism, and absolutism doesn't last very long. It's it's not sustainable, it's not a sustainable way to live.

One of the one of the questions that was submitted or the concerns that was submitted was someone said, How can I improve family family relationships with my children, when they're so preoccupied with the digital world? Okay. So that's one of the concerns that one of the parents had. And in response to that, I would say, how do we adapt? Right? So instead of saying, okay, technology is bad, or it's, you know, it's, it's, it's had this effect on my children? How about something like, how do I use the digital world or technology to actually improve family relationships? Right? So can we use the internet? Can we use technology? Can we use our access to screens to improve

family relationships, I'll give you just two examples, even though I'm sure if y'all are just if you would just think about this for even a few moments, you'd come up with plenty of examples.

But they have online like, you know, I'm sure everyone's familiar with board games, right board games. For me, I always consider them a positive thing. Obviously, there's better board games, and there's worse board games. But you don't talk about let's just for the purpose of this discussion. today. We're talking about the better ones, the headed ones, the Java two era, board games, you sit and you interact with someone you're talking to, you're interacting, you're playing a game to get together, you're doing something to get together, you're accomplishing tasks together, obviously, it's going to build the love and cooperation between

you unless it's monopoly, then everybody just hates each other. So but that's that. That's a separate issue. But other than then then monopoly. Ai brings people together. Well, now we can play games with people who are not in the same household as us. And I'm talking about like board game style games, where you know, you have family and like, I have family, for example, in in Texas, right? Very far away. my nephews are in Texas. I can get online set a time where my kids get online there, you know, my nephews get our nephews and nieces get online. And we're all we're all on our phones, right? But we're interacting, and we're playing a game together. And we can even have a

screen open where we can, you know, FaceTime and see each other and real time interaction. And to me, obviously, it's not the same as being with them. But when you're quarantined, and you're separated by by distance, and you can't be with them. Does that not build family relations? Isn't does not does that not build love.

And if you're talking about we're talking about in our own household, just give you one personal example.

One of the things I did when when my kid, my older son, who's who's six years old, he wanted to

he wanted to go, he wanted to make a card for my wife for his mom. And he knows that I'm on my computer a lot. And sometimes when I'm on my computer,

you know, I'm doing design work, because my secular education is in design, and I enjoy design and, and even even fashion design. I have my own clothing line, all that so there's time that I'm spending online, or on my computer designing. And so I said to him, I said, Hey, would you want to design a card for for mom, and said, what does that mean? I said, Well put your crayons aside, put your you know, color pencils aside, let's get on Photoshop. And let's see what we can do or we can come up with and that was the most exciting thing for him. And I sat down with him. And you know, we started moving text around adding colors, adding shapes, and I showed him all this stuff that we

could do on Photoshop that we couldn't, you know, really couldn't do with with it with it with a crayon or something. You know, that's, that's that has its own beauty, obviously, like hand drawn handmade stuff is beautiful on its own. It's not to replace that. But it's just this new world that opened up for him and I got to spend time with him designing something. And and you know, that was beautiful. 100 I enjoyed it. He enjoyed it. We spent time together. Yeah, we were online. We were on the computer. We're staring at a screen. But we are now improving our family relations with with the use of this technology. So once again, it's about adapting

And really being creative with what we have what what is available to us. So instead of just looking at the negative, and just looking at the ways that it may be destroying, or hurting family relationships, there are ways that we can come up with that can help us build and strengthen our family relationships. So adapting, you know, is part of the process. It's about, you know, making changes, making changes to, you know, if we evaluated ourselves. The next step, you know, is we're willing to adapt, and we said, How do we adapt? How do we change? Well, you We can't just say things like, Oh, I, you know, even what I mentioned, you know, using technology to improve family

relationships. That's a great sentiment. But what does that actually realistically look like? Well, in order for that to happen, we have to start setting goals, realistic, progressive goals, consistent actionable goals, actionable changes that we want that we want to make, what does that look like? Well, some of you may have seen this before, but there's a there's an acronym for, you know, the type of goals we should set. It's called SMART goals, or smarter goals. And you have it here on your slide. But what do we mean when we say smart or smarter goals? Well, number one, it should be a specific goal. It shouldn't be something just, you know, just generic or vague, right?

So an example of a goal that is not specific is I want to improve family relationships, or the family relations by using a technology. Okay, that's cool. That's not specific at all. Right? That's just it's way too general. It's way too broad, very specific goal. We want it to be, we want it we want the goal to be measurable, right? How do you measure the progress that you've made? For example,

a person sets a goal where they say, you know, let's go back to you know, what I said, playing a game, playing a game with our family members who are, you know, across the country? You know, so I want to, you know, so it's not, yeah, we'll improve family relationships, but I want to do it, the specific goal is, once a week, for an hour a week, we're going to call everybody up, and we're going to set it up, and we're going to spend an hour together, you know, us and our cousins and whatever, the kids, everybody, and we're going to play for an hour to improve family relationships. Okay, that's a specific goal. Is it measurable? Yeah, you can say, did we do it this week, or not very

simple. This week, we spent that hour with our with our family. Number three is achievable, or attainable.

If it has to be something that is realistic, if you say I want to spend, you know, 10 hours a week,

you know, speaking to my family, online, for some people that may be achievable. But I can tell you like on a personal level, that's not a that's not a it's not an achievable, realistic, attainable goal. So the goal has to be something which is attainable as well. So so maybe an hour a week, so a person may say an hour week is too much for me, I don't have time for that. Okay, half an hour a week, is that doable? Is that achievable? For you say yes, it's achievable. Okay, it meets this requirement. time bound, right. So we don't want

something that is just open ended. So you say, you know, for the rest of my life, I'm going to spend an hour a week playing a game online with my family? Well, there's no limit, there's no end to that time.

You know, it's, it's going to be harder to achieve that goal. How about we start off by saying for a month, okay, so as as, as insha Allah, hopefully, we're, we're getting out of, you know, COVID. You know, and until, let's say, you know, we're looking forward to summer break until summer break. Okay, so we're talking about March, April, May, maybe two months, right. But the next two months, every Sunday or every Saturday, from this time, to this time, we're going to meet online as a family, and we're going to, you know, spend time together now that is time bound.

And then so that's a SMART goal. And some people add to that exciting, it should be something that excites you. If it's something which is boring, something that's not, you know, not exciting, we're less likely to accomplish that goal. And also slightly unrealistic, which is kind of part of being exciting. You want it to be challenging as well. If it's too easy, we may give up on it, right? So somebody sets a goal that is not exciting. It's just an easy thing to do. If there isn't a challenge involved in it,

then we may not stay motivated. So we want that what the goal to be difficult enough to the point where we don't lose hope it's too difficult, but difficult enough that it keeps us keeps us motivated. So so those are the types of goals.

That we need to start setting for ourselves so and that and what are that we know what those specific goals are, will depend on our our evaluation that we have made for ourselves. One of the things that I want to share with you

if you're looking for specific goals

and and all of these, what I'm about to say right now is can be adapted to become a smart or smarter goal.

So if you're looking for a specific goal, have specific goals when it comes to screen time, the American Academy of Pediatrics created some guidelines for parents when it comes to screen time, right? So this is like this, like a national set of guidelines that if you don't know where to start, you don't know what to do. You don't know how much screen time is too much or to lessen. And mind you, I said, I did say everyone is different, every child is different. So this is not like where are you from? Allah subhanaw taala is not revelation that is this or nothing, right? This is not keep that in mind. You know, this is a recommendation This is if this is for if you don't know

where to start, you don't know what to do. This is a good guideline. So just keep that in mind angelic data. But what do they recommend? Well, when it comes to children younger than the age of 18 months,

they should not have any spare time. And I know a lot of parents are like, what is that? That's crazy, that's insane. that's unrealistic, understood, I get it, but this is something that we should at least try our best to get close to as close as we can get as close as we can get to this this goal. inshallah, right. But the point is to minimize, this goes back to what I was saying about, you know, the, the how the first two years their child's, you know, the development of the brain, you know, it's heavily affected by, you know, screens, and there's so many studies on how it affects children and affects their, their ability to pay attention, their ability to stay focus, so on and

so forth. There's, there's a lot of studies out there of how detrimental screens can be for children look, you know, at that age, you know, especially those first two years, children are learning about interaction, they're learning, they're learning new things. And they can learn new things, either through us through through human beings to through talking to human beings, or they can learn them by these flashing images that are in front of them. The problem is that sometimes, you know, kids get desensitized, and in order to feel entertained, they need those flashing images. So, you know, our kid is bored, we hand them a screen. Well, their brain gets rewired, it gets rewired to to only

feel like they're being entertained, when they see these bright colors, flashing images, you know, pumping music, and even if you look at, you know, the the music that they have for kids, and you know, pasttime Baby shark, insanity, like Baby shark is heard someone say like, they can play that in a club, and people will start dancing, like he's just so like, intense. But that you know, that intensity, it's made for kids to keep them entertained, to keep them motivated. The problem is, when they get used to that, it's no longer interesting to them to sit in front of their parent and their parent try to talk to them. Or, or to read a book. I mean, you know, our generation this, especially

this generation is having a tough time with books, because compared to screens, and cartoons and animations and things like that, a book is boring, because people they're not moving, they're not talking, they're not doing anything. You want me to just look at these pictures. And the pictures aren't exciting enough, right? So we don't want that. We don't want to have that effect on our on our children. Because it does affect their schooling as well. When they have they have no choice but to read. Right? At some point in school, they're gonna have to read that they're gonna have to do stuff that is boring. I heard one. Someone say that,

you know, we we were actually blessed like my generation, the generation before mine, we were blessed.

To be bored.

Because that actually taught us so much.

If you if y'all remember some of the, you know, the parents in the house, if you ever went on a car trip, you know, a long car ride you we didn't have any screens. We didn't have any you know, tablets, phones, nothing. You know, we're talking about an eight hour drive. You have no choice but to look out. Right. You took a look at you know, Allah's creation. You had no choice but to interact with your siblings, you had no choice but to come up with games, you had no trick. Like we we learned to appreciate the small things because we were bored. And I remember saying to my parents, like, I'm bored. And then my parents would say, Okay, what do you want me to do? Like there's

nothing you can do. Right? There were no options. Now children like I'm bored. Okay, cuz here's a tablet. Here's a phone. Here's that

And so like, once again, adapting, right, so kind of kind of, you know, slowly, slowly making those changes were one of the rules I set for my, my car, mother rule in my car is I tell my kids, I mean, my younger ones too. So he's not really, he doesn't care about this stuff, my older one is six, no screens in the car. And then he'll say, but it's boring. I said, 100, let's say 100. And now that you're bored, look outside, look at all this stuff. And Subhanallah it's just a matter of paying attention. There's so much information out there, especially for the younger kids.

You know, I you know, in an 18 month old, or, you know, a one year old or a two year old, those bright lights and the traffic lights and the cars and the trees and everything that's happening, right. That's all new information for them, right. And even us talking to the child and, and having a conversation with them. That is stuff that they absolutely, absolutely need. So, so yeah, so 18 months,

under, you know, I'd less under the age of 1818 months, ideally, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics, there should be no screen time, the exception that they make is something like video chatting. Because there's like human interaction there, you're interacting with someone they're talking to you. From the ages of 18 months to 24 months.

They say introduce digital media by watching a quality programming, right, so educational programming, you know, things like I don't know, it depends, there's different stuff out there. But a well known example would be like things like things in the line or in the vein of Sesame Street, meaning they're learning numbers, they're learning letters, it does occational. And so so that type of programming. And obviously now we have so many slamming alternatives as well. There's, there's Islamic, educational shows for kids and all that. So that's that that's the age where we start introducing that ages two to five, one hour per day. And it should be once again, quality

programming, where they're actually learning something, it's just not, it's not just like mindless forms of entertainment, ages six and up, limit media use and device type, and ensure media use does not interfere with sleep or physical activity. So setting goals for for kids, for my,

for my son, my older one, my six year old, we have a we have a time limits on how much screen time is allowed. And obviously, I do my best to keep track of what he's watching. I do understand that there there has to be a level of entertainment in it. But also we can learn something in the process. That'll be good as well. Now that he has started school, I try my best to implement a no screen time during the week. And on the weekends, he can have some screen time, not just open. But it doesn't always work by the way, you know, being quarantined, and so on so forth. There are days where I'll be like, okay, fine, you know, UK, yeah, you can ask for screen time. But at least that's

something that I aim for. So So adapting something like this into the smart or smarter goals. Is, is where we want to be headed. In sha Allah had to Adam.

So one of the other concerns that would go to the next slide here, one of the other concerns that I saw, and I hear from a lot of parents is, I can't always monitor what my child is watching on the computer.

in there, this question was asked in many different forms, some people said, How can we monitor that? How can we monitor the technology, if we ourselves don't understand the technology fully?

You know, some people and this is this is a source of a lot of anxiety for parents, where they're like, Look, technology's changing so fast. And obviously, this depends on the age of your child as well. But technology is advancing and changing so fast. And like how do we, how do we monitor our kids? How do we keep track of our kids, if we don't even understand what they're doing?

First of all, I will say, and this makes this you know, it's a maybe a hard pill to swallow. But I will say that we have to come to terms with the fact that sooner or later Your kids will know more than you. That's just a reality that we have to accept. There's no going around it right.

You know, as smart as we are, and as much as we know, and as much as you know it no matter how young your kids are, and, and it may be true to a certain age that you've got control. And my kids are still at an age where I'm like, Hey, man, I know exactly what you're doing. And I know what you did, and listen that whatever, but I know that time is coming, where there's things I won't understand or he'll be able to do things that I you know, just beyond me, even though I think I'm pretty pretty much you know, I'm in touch with what's going on and advancements in technology and so on and so forth. But the reality is

That we, there will come a time if it's not already here. For a lot of parents, it's already here. The time where you know, we can't, we can't really we don't understand it, how are we going to monitor them. So this is where a very important principle, very important parenting motto needs to be understood and lived. And that is that it is imperative that we teach our kids correct principles and morals, we give them the correct therapy, we give them the correct upbringing.

We teach them right from wrong, we teach them Islamic morals, we teach them about ethics, we teach them what Allah has made, how long and what life made Hello. And we we educate them. And and I'm going to get to this in a bit. But I'm going to say right now as well through leading by example, right, so we have to live that life, but I'll get to that, but teaching them principles and morals, because that is the really the only thing that can stay with them, you physically cannot always stay with them. Right? Maybe at a young age, you can stay with them, you know, if they're 234 year old, what happens when they start going to school? What happens when they you know, get older, what

happens when they start making friends, you can't control their environment 100% and people who try to do that go insane, right? They go insane, because they try to control every aspect of their children's lives. And especially when their kids become teenagers, and, and the temptations and the trials become more severe, and the kids become more vulnerable. And if our strategy is I'm going to control everything, and I'm going to monitor everything and I'm going to watch everything. I'm letting you know right now it is not going to work. Oftentimes by doing that we push our kids away even more. Instead of you know, bringing them in, we push them away even more. So what do we do?

Well, we teach them right from wrong. We give them the tobio give them the proper upbringing, we teach them the Quran we teach them, the sooner we teach them what is good and what is bad. And then there has to come a time where we trust in Allah host Panama, where we put our tawakkol in Allah, that Allah will take care of them and that indeed, as Allah has kind of the other told the Prophet sallallahu I knew he was selling them in the culatta demon, but you don't guide the people whom you love. What I can Allah hi Yah, demon Yeshua, rather, it is Allah who guides whomever He wills, meaning you cannot force someone or make someone be guided. You can you can, you can, you know, last

time data, click the prophets I said I'm in charge of delivering the message showing them the guidance in Nicoletta de la serata. Mr payment lotto prices and you guide to the straight path, meaning you show them the straight path, you teach them the straight path, but their hearts, they're not for you to guide and likewise, they're not for us to control. We cannot control their hearts, we cannot decide where our children will end up whether they will be guided or not. We have examples in the sun in other parts of send them his own uncle. The pastor center was not able to bring him to Islam. We have other prophets knew it said, um, whose own son, Mr. Swift, so many examples, right?

May Allah protect us and protect our children. But that is a reality that we have to live with. So we do our part, we do our part in doing our best. And you know, I'm going to get to this later on, but we have to do our best we try our best. And then they're part of our token is we take the means that Allah has given to us and then we we rely upon Allah Subhana Allah, and that trust in Allah has to be there. That's the part of the process. So you know, when it comes to younger kids, and you know, what do we do? Right?

There has to be certain things that are well, I would say three categories. Number one, when we're teaching them morals and principles, and we're setting rules for them and there has to be certain absolute no no's like a red line red line that we do not cross that has to be very clear, then there has to be things that we discourage, right things that are not so good, we discard, we try our best. And then the third category things that we try to avoid the problem that a lot of parents have is they do not distinguish between one two and three. And you can think of it as how Tom McCall and mobile right that there are things that are hot on absolutely they are prohibited they're wrong a

person is sinful, if they indulgent it or if they take part in it. Then there are things which are mcru they are discouraged that we are rewarded for leaving those things in there things that are lost her data has made it permissible there mobile and if but if we indulge in the mobile too much it can take us away from that which Allah has made good for us. So spending too much time. on on on the on the mobile on the perimeter

matters is also can be bad. But the problem is, as I said, When parents treat everything exactly the same, everything is no, no, no, no, no, you can't do this. And you can't do this. And you can't do this. And you can't do this again, and they don't distinguish. And so for the child, there comes a time where they don't understand the seriousness of some of certain matters. I often think about kids who yell at their parents for everything. If we yell at our kids for everything, then everything is going to have the same importance for them. If we reserve yelling, right, and that and yelling, by the way, in Islam, or raising our voice, I should say,

it has to be done with the intent and the purpose of bringing about positive change, it should never be done just to relieve our own frustration. Because a lot of times when we yell, and when we scream, we don't we're not doing it for the child. You know, we because we know in the back of our mind, a lot of times we know, yelling at the child is not going to change their behavior. It's just going to make them more frightened. Or just sometimes we yell at our child cry, if they're crying, we're saying stop yelling, and they cry even more, because they're afraid of the yelling. So we yell, because we want to get our own frustration out, right? That's not the purpose of raising our

voice or yelling. It's to it's to show the students so yelling or raising our voice or being Stern, it should be reserved to show our child that this is a serious matter. Right, that this is something we do not cross, right? And then, you know, there are there are matters that are less serious. Yes, we are staring bananas third, and then there are things that we are more a little bit more more lacks in, our kids need to understand the difference between those three, otherwise, we may lose all of them. Right. And once again, I'll give you another example of yelling, a parent who's always yelling at their child, don't do this, or they say, Come downstairs for dinner right now. And

they're always yelling, and laughter that Allah the child is playing in a in a,

in a in a in a in a in a field, or they're playing in a in a park, and the park is right next to a main road. And the car is coming by and the child goes on the road accidentally. And the parent says, Come back, wait, watch out. If the child is always used to hearing yelling, they're not gonna care much right? Allah protect us and protect their children, because they're just they've always heard yelling. So now they're desensitizing. Yep. Right. So now it's kind of loud, that yelling has has that that seriousness to their child, they, it doesn't do anything for them. So likewise, when we are teaching our children, these principles and these, these morals, we have to be able to

differentiate for them, that there are certain things that are indeed there are very, very serious, we don't we these are, we don't cross that line, right? These are absolutely things that we don't cross and then there, you know, as I said, step two, and step three. Now, regarding everything that I've just said, we have to lead by example, if we don't do it ourselves, we cannot expect our kids to do it either. That's why when I talked about evaluation, we evaluate ourselves first. And for most, this is the Sunnah

of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, and all of the profits, they always lead by example laqad can unlock compute rasulillah he was what he has, there is for you in the Messenger of Allah, a prime example. Right? This is why Allah sent prophets and messengers so that we could imitate them, so that we could follow them though and this is one of the reasons why Allah sent human beings as prophets and messengers, you know, their Quraysh is one of the one of the problems they had one of the issues that they brought up with the process elements, they said, why didn't Allah send angels? If Allah is going to send a messenger? Why did Allah send angels? Why did Allah send a human

being? Right? But one of the reasons for that one of the wisdoms of a long spread to Allah is so that we have a an example and a model that is the best of us, but still a human being. So we know we can we can strive to be like that. Right? And this is why the profits, they lead by example, we want to tell our kids, we got to cut down the screen time, we got to cut down the screen time, we want to tell our kids Listen, no phone at the dinner table, we got to be the ones that say, no phone at the dinner table. We want to tell our kids, hey, if you spend too much time doing this, we like we have to lead by example. Otherwise, it's not gonna work. Kids, especially at a younger age. They don't

they don't really hear what we say. But they learn from what we do. They imitate the they imitate even mannerisms. SubhanAllah there's videos on YouTube, I'm not encouraging you to go on YouTube. We're like, three year old. There's a three year old talking like a grown adult. And people are like laughing like wow

It's so funny that it's not it's not it's shouldn't be surprising, because kids at an age, they imitate their parents, they even talk, even the mannerisms, they even behave. You know, sometimes we find it very amusing when a child does something that adult would do, or it says a statement,

you know that that that an adult would say, it's very amusing presses children, because it's weird to see somebody in a small body thing, something that an adult would say. But the reality is, that's how they learn. Right? So so it has to, it has to it has to start with us.

The next thing I'm going to cover, I'm almost done here until like to add up, but the concern that people have when they say I don't have time, right? I don't have time. That is a reality.

And once again, this is one of those issues where I will say, there is no magical answer to this, that we can solve this problem. We have to try our best. And the best, the best is different for everyone. A last panel at Dallas is for duck law, Mr. Bartel had the typical of a lot to the best of your ability do as much as you can write the life of for example, a single mother who is working two jobs to support her children is very different than someone who lives in a more well off life. And they work from there, they work online, from home and you know, they have, you know, so to that person, we would say you have time, like you got to make time.

And to the other person, we would say, yeah, it's difficult, can we look at some places that we can look that we can look for some positive areas, or where we can fit in something, but their life is very different, we cannot judge them by the same scale.

So So I hear you, like I said, When parents say, you know, I, you know, I'm so busy that I have time to monitor my kids, I don't have time to watch them. Once again,

quality is paramount. So the time that you do have the time that you do have with your kids, make sure that is the best possible time, don't waste that time. So if you're short of time where we're short on time, don't let the time that we do have We cannot let it be time that we're not building something, and developing something with our kids that we have to make sure that it's actually quality, time.

Post COVID. And I'll end with this inshallah, to Allah post COVID

is going to be a time for re evaluation.

Because of all the changes that we went through, our habits are changing, and some of our habits have changed. How we you know, how even you know how kids are being educated and learning and learning online and all of that. What I would say is that it is very important that just as right now inshallah tada after this discussion, we're all going to take some time to evaluate our lives, and make you know, realistic, you know, smarter goals and smarter choices and smarter changes in our lives. Likewise, you know, post COVID, we're gonna have to sit down and say, Well, what is the world look like right now? And how do we now make those changes that will help us benefit from technology

and keep us away from or protect us from the harms, or potential harms of technology and being online and the online and the online world. And once again, I'll say this again, it is going to be trial and error, right? So we cannot expect that everything you do is going to work 100% the first time. Number one, it's probably not going to work the first time number two, it's not going to work. 100% does this that's the reality of who we are.

There is no perfection in these matters. There is no perfection and actually parenting some how to love in the end of the day, we are human beings and we are limited. And so we have to try, try our best. We have to try our best and leave the rest upon Allah to Allah as salaam. He said, they'll her with what can be said tie your camel and have to work that we take the means right we do our best tire camel in the best way possible. But we have to welcome our last product to Allah.

But we have to be willing to listen to learn and to make changes as I said first and foremost for ourselves, but it will take time and it will take patience and ask Allah subhanaw taala to make it easy for us and guide us to that which is beloved and pleasing to Allah subhanaw taala for ourselves and for our children and our for our communities. And Allah has pointed out and knows best subhanak Allah Allah will be a shoo in and still critical to relate with Zack Manuel