Live Discussion
Saad Tasleem – Parents – How Strict is Too Strict?
AI: Summary ©
The importance of parenting and parenting in Islam is discussed, along with the need for balance and finding proof for extreme behavior. The speakers emphasize the importance of guidance and sharing responsibility in learning and teaching children, as well as the need to educate oneself about Islam and show guidance to parents. The importance of being aware of children and the need for parents to be aware of their children is also emphasized.
AI: Summary ©
Tila Bismillah Alhamdulillah wa Salatu was Salam ala Rasulillah ala alihi wa sahbihi wa. Salam alaykum Warahmatullahi Wabarakatuh. To everyone joining, joining us here live today. And also, if you are watching this later, if this is your first time here, I do live sessions on my YouTube channel pretty much every Sunday, around this time. So if you're subscribed to my YouTube channel, you'll usually get a notification if you have notifications on. Usually on Sundays for our live discussions, I usually put a topic out there that we can discuss together, we can have a conversation about so I welcome everyone to contribute in the comments. Let me know your thoughts on
this issue. And so I want to begin in sha Allah with actually hearing from you. I see we have some people here. Where are you from? Where are you attending from? Were you listening and watching from insha? Allah data, your name and obviously what city? What country? What part of the world? I personally I am in Maryland in the United States of America.
So, okay, we have I see one person. Poonam Qasim. barrique, Mr. Murata luck. So yeah, so let me know where you're from where you're attending from. What part of the world Farhat from Sri Lanka Masha Allah have been very nice to have you thought of actually, any if we have any cricket fans out there. I know we have a few we've discussed the T 20. Cricket before that. A little known fact actually probably not even little known. It's probably not known at all. I actually saw a Sri Lanka play in the World Cup final. I believe it was 1996 If I'm not mistaken, they were playing Australia. And I believe they won that world cup so I was there for that I saw it happen back in the day had
the sister Ayesha or it was Sarah ricotta from Jersey. Masha Allah Jersey. In New Jersey many times I enjoy the people in Jersey had been I'll leave it at that hadn't been very good. I'm Zack lucky to everyone sharing your location. It's good to have you. So there was such a setup from Canada from Ottawa mashallah been to Ottawa as well. All these places have been no, you know, I usually I, I think I said this last week as well. But when I hear a place, I usually attach people to locations. And so normally I'll have a fond memory attached to a place regardless of how the place is, or how I fit well, the way I feel about the place is based off of how I feel about the people. So if I feel
good about the people, then generally I feel good about the place, as well handed enough. Alright, so the topic for today is really about parenting. Last week, when we had our live discussion, a few people wanted to discuss parenting. And so you know, I thought this would be a good time to do it. And also, I posted something recently on my Instagram and Facebook and all that. And I think some people, you know, there were some comments as I normally don't get into the comments too much. But I think some people had some comments, and there's a little bit of disagreement or misunderstanding some people had regarding the issue of strict parenting. And I said, you know, I was, it was a
little bit of a criticism of people have parents who are overly strict. And that was really the key word there. I think some people missed out on the key word, which is overly strict. So I wasn't really saying that you shouldn't be strict, or, you know, the point was, you shouldn't be overly strict. But also, really, the point was that too much of of being strict, can have adverse effects, and it can be problematic. It doesn't mean that in that, you know, as parents, we should not, it doesn't mean that we shouldn't set any boundaries, we shouldn't set any rules for them. We shouldn't hold them accountable. Like obviously, like any parent in the world, really, I would think,
understands that, that it's impossible. You cannot parent your children without setting boundaries for them and without setting rules for them. But the question is, how much? Alright, so if we're talking about being strict, like how strict is too strict? Now, I want to start off this discussion.
Authoritative versus authoritarian parents, as our salon said, different types of parenting. So I want to start off this discussion by getting a couple of things I think out of the way it's it's, you know, a principle discussing a principle in our deen and that principle deals with
what's helpful. Yeah, what's our three year is, you know, the middle path and the balanced path. One of the main characteristics of our faith of Islam is that it is Dino WASAPI. It is the middle balanced religion. And this is why Allah has Panama
actually describes our OMA as being that balanced OMA, what Kinetica. Jimena Amata was Hapa. Allah says, and so we have made you eight was sort of a nation that and you know, this was not the year has a few different meanings. But they all go together. One of the meanings is that it is the middle path, right, it is middle, the middle, the center path, also it is balanced. And also it is the best, right. So what would make this ummah the best among? Well, one of the things that makes it the best OMA is that it is balanced. And also from that, from that balance. By the way, in that middle path. Our scholars also mentioned justice. So being just in being fair, and the other, the other
benefit there is that if we want to be just as we want to be fair, then we also have to be balanced. Right? And also that the the outcome of being balanced of taking the middle path is that we become Justin, we become fair. And so this applies to our deen as a whole and anything that we go back, we take it back to the dean, we see that we strive to be on the middle path. And that middle path is the best path. So regarding this issue of parenting, without a doubt, we look at this principle and we say, well, we need to exclude the extremes, right? And we talk about extreme SubhanAllah. People often not only think of one extreme, they think about too much, right? They don't sometimes think
about the other extreme, which is too little, in reality. They're both extremes. And one of the examples I usually give when talking about this understanding of extreme ism is taking a shower or taking a bath. So if you know someone who says, you know, I take a bath, I don't know, 20 times a day, 20 times a day I take a shower, I take a bath? Well, would we consider that to be extreme? I think the vast majority of us here would say, you know that is extreme. I mean, that's that's too much. Regardless of how how far you live, how, what type of place you live in, no matter how hot it may be in that place. And I've lived in some very hot places 20 times a day, taking a shower 20
times a day would be too much. And so we'd say that's extreme. That's not, you know, what, what is Islamically good. On the other hand, you meet someone who says, you know, I only shower on our aid, right? So once or twice to AIDS, right, we have to filter out how to showers in the year, good enough for me. Now, we would consider that to be extreme as well. But it's not the same extremists as towering 20 times a day, it's the other end of extremism. So on one side, you have doing too little, on the other side, you have doing too much. And both of those are considered extremism in our faith, we want to find the balanced middle path Hassan Anakin was set out on how to lay out the
cycle ahead, good to have you. So we want to find that balance that middle path in our faith. And that applies even to parenting. So in parenting, we have those parents
who are let's take the less one first who are overly lenient, who do not set any boundaries, any rules for their children, whatever their children want to do, they say do it. You know, so, that is definitely extreme. But that is we would say the type of extreme extremism which is too little, and that is what is called,
you know, negligence doing too little. On the other hand, you have parents that are overly once again to go back to my post overly strict parents who are too strict, and that is also the extreme that is going too far. Another way to understand this, is by looking at the Sunnah of the Prophet sallallahu I knew he was selling them was the prophet was the prophets. I send them too strict. No, was he too? Was it was he not strict at all? What did he How did he have no boundaries? No, he The Prophet said to him was the perfect balance. And this is why I love how to add and describe parts and send them
as the best example Nakhodka Leconfield Rasulillah He sweat on Hashanah, that for you meaning for all of us. There is in the Prophet of ALLAH the messenger of Allah The best example the prime example. So if you look at the way the process Elon was with, with, with, with people as a whole, he was he was balanced, right? He stood up some of them he stood up for that which was right. At the same time, he was also gentle and he was in he had leniency and that is why there are people who sometimes and this is a very important point I want you to pay attention. People who are looking for one extreme or the other. They will actually find it in the Sunnah. Let me clarify what I'm saying
here.
Someone who wants to be be too strict. They'll say here the person send me saying this, this and this. Okay, so I'll give an example.
There's a Hadith of the Prophet Selim, in which he said, if you knew what I knew, you would laugh very little, and you would cry a lot. It's hadith is authentic. And so a person who says, you know, you shouldn't laugh, you shouldn't joke, you shouldn't do any of that. This is wrong. Look out, look at the precipice element saying, if you knew what I knew, you would you cry, basically, you you'd be all the time, you'd be serious.
That's one. On the other hand, someone who says there's, you know, why do you why are Why are muslims so concerned about, you know, the ACA and you know, we should never take life too seriously. They can look at the Sunnah. And we have narrations of the companions who say that, whenever I would look at the prophets of life and limb, I would see him smiling. There are authentic narrations of the process. And I'm joking with the Companions, to the point where the Companions they would say, you know, one incident, they said, O Messenger of Allah, you joke with us, like they were surprised to hear that I said, I'm joking. And he said, Yes, I joke with you as well. Except I only say that
which is true. Right now. Aku Illa hubco. Except I only even when I joke, I'm telling the truth. I don't I don't tell lies. Now you can focus on one or the other. And you can take the religion into an extreme right? It is only when you take a full look at the Sunnah of the Prophet satellite sending them that you find the balance, right, you find you find the balance. Same thing with clothing SubhanAllah. If you take a look at clothing, someone wants to say, you know, you should never care about what you wear, you should wear the cheapest clothes, though, whatever, like you should never even pay attention to our clothing, you're wearing torn clothing, what old clothing
whatever, like cut us, it doesn't matter. Like your concern should be the upgrade now should not be this done yet. And then they can if they want to, if they want to push that, they'll find proof for that. And the sooner the person sell them, because we know I sent him was not wealthy at all. Because the law did not give a lot to the person I'm actually Allah gave very little to the person sent them. And there are times where the person His clothing was extremely simple, extremely simple. We know he had very little possessions in this life. And so a person can quote that part of the sermon and say, Look, you know, this is the way we should live, we should live. If we If Allah has
given us anything, we should give it away, or we should throw it away or we shouldn't live. We shouldn't wear nice fancy clothes.
On the other hand, what this person is not telling you. So that's one extreme with the person not telling you is that yes, that is true of the participant. Absolutely. But also there are times requested to send them more nice clothes when he had the ability to we have multiple narrations and with the companion software, send them wearing a red hula hula is like
a cloak, right? It's like, almost like a shawl. It's like it's like an outer garment. A red hula, right. And the reason why the company is mentioned because they they're like, wow, like they looked at it. And they they saw they, you know, one company I believe is honest. Don't quote me on that. But But these narrations are authentic. No, it wasn't until about the Allahu Anhu made that statement, mono the companions. He made the statements. He said O Messenger of Allah. Like, he saw that he saw the red cloak and he said, Oh, must have a lot. Can I have it? Like he liked this so much? That he said, Can I have this red cloak? And actually the person gave it to him? And then some
of the companions, they got upset at him. They said, Why didn't you ask the President for his red cloak? You know, when I was asked for something he always gives it in this companion. He said, You know, it's not because I wanted it for myself in this dunya. He said I wanted to be buried in it. I wanted as my cousin, right, I wanted to have a garment of the President's emblem to bury myself in. Right. So he this companion, he had a good intention. But the point is, the person was seen, he was seen wearing that red cloak. And it was some narration mentioned, it was an it was a garment that was exported, that was imported. It was brought from outside. And it was a nice garment. And so
there are times if I send a war, nice clothes, that wasn't the norm, right? The norm was he wore clothes, basically, whatever. He had very, very simple, very unique things that are not expensive. But it doesn't mean the person didn't wear now if he had it. He worked and look at his look at the heart of the person send them his heart wasn't attached to the dunya. And that's the main point. By the way, when it comes to clothing. It's not bad to wear nice things. But we should always check our heart is our heart attached to it. Meaning and if we didn't have it, how would we feel? Or if Allah took it away from it, how the person didn't care, right? He liked wearing it, but somebody asked for
it. He said short you can have it. That is the relationship that I've had towards the dunya that his heart wasn't consumed by the Dunya doesn't mean that he didn't like nice things. We know I said I would enjoy part of the part of meat that he would enjoy is that
The shoulder meat, right, of an animal didn't eat meat very rarely, his norm was not to eat meat. Why? Because he couldn't afford to eat meat. And this is why I saw the law. I know she said that months would go by, and all we would have to eat is a swidden the two black things, and those are basically dates and water. Right? That's all for months and months and months. She said, the law and had that the fire would not be lit in the household of the premises, meaning to cook some food. That's all they had. But Did he enjoy meat he enjoyed meat he enjoyed that particular part of the animal but he didn't have a lot right. So that is that is the balance that we look for. So when it
comes to nine circling back, you know because this is a big this is honestly a principle that applies to our whole life and you know, we can take this principle in this way I oftentimes in the classes I teach by the way
some of the some of the classes I taught a class called of chillin right entertainment and recreation in Islam. And we cover this principle in that that our that we need to make sure that we don't go into either extreme either too much or too little. Even with entertainment that people who are too much any they go their whole life is entertainment. And then there's people on the other end who are like you know what to have fun is hot on any type of fun is haram. Right? That's the other extreme, but we should be balanced. And then another class I teach regarding dress and clothing. And even in clothing, there are people who are go too far. They're just consumed by the way they look
and the way they dress and that's all they care about. And on the other hand, there are people who don't care at all right? There's your weather, they look messy, they look any grimy, you know, and they don't care. Right and they don't realize that the sooner the system is bound our Dean teaches a balance law says who Luzina to command the coolie Masjid
any take a take your adornment at every Masjid meaning look nice, beautify yourself, when you go to the mission, you're going to worship Allah, you know this, so that what this verse means is beautify yourself because you're going to worship Allah, you're entering the masjid to worship, Allah beautify, like look nice, right? Be careful, be aware of what you were. So that is that balance. So even in parenting,
our goal should be always to try to be balanced. And that means by the way, that we're going to make mistakes. And this is what sometimes people don't understand. No parent is perfect. And can say I'm a perfect parent. Yeah. And I'm just I have the perfect balance. No, we're human beings, we make mistakes, sometimes, we may get too strict. And then we need to be reminded, either we need to remind ourselves or we have somebody, hopefully in our lives and say, Look, you're being too strict here, perhaps you need to be too, you need to be a little lenient, you need to lay off a little bit. And sometimes we may find ourselves being overly lenient. And we need to be reminded to find that
balance, because they both have dangerous to it. In this thing that I mentioned, I you know, the thing I tweeted out and I posted on my social media is one of the dangers of being overly strict. And one of the dangers I mentioned is that sometimes when parents aren't sometimes and that's the other key word, and that is sometimes people read these things online, they think I'm saying an absolute statement that every strict parent is like this. No, it's not what I'm saying. I'm saying sometimes overly strict, right, sometimes overly strict parents, I mean, they're overly strict because they want their children to be perfect, or they want them to be a certain way. And the
children when they cannot live up to those standards, what they can, sometimes what can happen is that they just lie to their parents, right? Or they pretend because that's, that's what that's all they can do to keep their parents happy. Right? Their parents expect them to be 100%. Well, they'll just make sure that they put on that face, right, that they in front of their parents, they're like this, but they cannot maintain that. And so it's like Mila protector, sometimes they lead a double life. Right? So how so? You know, sometimes, and I've seen this happen, parents who are always getting angry at their children, right? Why did you do this? And why did you do this? And why did
you do this? Why do you do that? What they create is children who are very good at lying, right? Because the child is thinking now I don't want to get in trouble. I don't want to get yelled at. So whatever I have to do to get out of this situation, I'm going to do it. So the child starts lying. And when children are young Subhanallah parents can pick up on their lies and say Don't lie to me, blah, blah, blah. But as children get older, and when they're afraid of their parents, right? always afraid of their parents, they get better and better at lying. That's basically what's all that's happened. Right. That's one of the problems of being overly strict, that there's no relief for their
for the children. So so that is going too far. And obviously there's the other extreme as well. How strict is too strict. One of the one of the other things I wanted to mention today and we can get to some of this in in the in the discussion in sha Allah. But no two children are the same. Right? And we have to keep that in mind that you know, sometimes we have this general way for everyone and that's not how we are as human beings, but no two
Human beings are the same.
Even children change, right? So there may be times where we need to be strict on our kids. And there may be times when we need to lay off, you know, we need to we need to slow down, right. And so the way we treat one child may not be what works for other children. Some children require more attention than other children, some children require more attention in certain departments than than other children, right. So there is no exact like this is, you know, you should be 61% strict with all kids, that's this, this doesn't work like that. Because not all children are the same. But we need to be very careful, as I said, as a general principle, that we are trying to be balanced with
our kids, that we have that push and that pull, right, that sometimes if we're pushing them, sometimes we're pulling them we need to find that balance with with, with our children. The other thing I wanted to talk about Subhanallah when it comes to being too strict, why sometimes parents get too strict, is because they feel like and I get this question quite a lot. They feel they ask, you know, am I not accountable for what my children do? Right. So let me just put this out to the people who are attending live, are parents going to be held accountable for what they what their children do? So once again, you can answer this in the chat and shall I'm looking at the chat right
now. Do you think Allah will hold the parents accountable for the behavior of the children? Let me see any thoughts? Bismillah? Yes, yes. Yes. I see a few people saying yes. Okay. So this is something that we need to be very careful about. So, generally, we may be able to sit up to us. Okay, so parhaat set up to a certain extent, y two m two d z 97. I don't know if that's their real name. But they said no. Unknown caller said only until the age of maturity, are they met said yes, as long as as it is in their capacity.
before the age of maturity. Some Cena said, well, they are responsible until the kids reached the age of puberty. Okay. So I think we're circling the right answer. We're circling the where you know, where we're supposed to be on this issue, depending on what the parents have taught the kids, okay. So
to a certain extent, absolutely. We are responsible for the children we are responsible for teaching our children right from wrong. We are responsible
to teach our children with that which is within our capacity, right? Because they're able to responsibility for us the prophets I send them he said, couldn't Nakamura and what couldn't look on Massoud on a Yeti? Every one of you is a shepherd. And you're all responsible for your flock. Right? And then person I'm even gave the example that even a person in their household is a shepherd with their family. Right? So we have a responsibility. And also we have the statement and there's many evidences for then another statement Hadith in Sahih, Muslim in which the Prophet sallallahu Sallam he said Manson left Islam his son, Nathan, hacer una bella, who I drew how a German Amina be in a
yarmulke, Yama, that whoever does something good in Islam, then they will have the reward of that good. And they will have the reward of everyone who follows them when I mean, I mean, I'm gonna be a birdie, the one who follows them in that after them until the Day of Resurrection. So that's a beautiful thing and we do something good. We teach our kids something good. We share in their reward. Even if we have passed away until the Day of Resurrection, whatever good comes out of that had the luck we benefit. The second part of this hadith is Mullah, protect this min Seneff in Islam is SONET and say Gaea Bella, who withdrew her wisdom and Amelia be having by the ILA Yama, Yama,
that whoever does something bad in Islam, then they will have the burden of their own sin, and the burden of the sin of everyone after them until their resurrection, meaning those who follow them in that bad, right? So this tells us yes, we have a level of accountability, right? That if we teach something, if we if we do something bad and other people are affected by it, we may be held accountable for that. May Allah protect us. Right? And so, to a certain level, yes, we have that anywhere we are responsible for that. On the other hand, we also have the ayah in the Quran, where Allah says what it does, he was the one who is the author and I believe this has been mentioned
multiple times in the Quran. That one person is not one person is not held accountable, or they don't carry the burden of another person. Now, what does this mean? Right
What does this mean? Well, absolutely we we're not respond in general, we're not responsible for the sins of other people, right? So when our child commits a sin,
we are not responsible for that sin unless we were negligent in teaching our kids right from wrong. Right? Once again, if if if a child commits a sin, we're not responsible unless they commit that sin, because of our negligence. We didn't teach them but and this is very important. But if we taught them right from wrong,
then what they do is not upon us, right. And that is because we cannot make someone follow the guidance. We cannot force someone to listen to us. Parents try, right? But we cannot force someone to listen to us, even our own children. We cannot force them, we can try our best. And the problem is that forcing our kids and depending on their age, and so on, and so forth, especially as our kids get older, you know, late teens, and so on and so forth. If we try to force them, we actually push them away. Right? If we try to force them, we push them away. Because in our minds, we're thinking if they are they're doing it, we're responsible. But as we said, we're not responsible for what
other people do, we're not responsible for our kids do unless we just we were negligent. And that's it. That's a different matter. But in the end of the day guidance is in the hands of Allah who's Penwith to Allah, even the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam was not able to make sure people like turn people's hearts to guide them himself. He had the ability to show them the guidance. Allah says, In Nicoletta de la serata, Mr. Payne, you guide people to the straight path, meaning you show people the straight path, you educate them about the straight path, you give them the knowledge and the understanding, likewise, us as parents, that's what we have to do. Right? We have to, we have
to, we have to teach our kids we have to show them right from wrong. But also Allah instructed the process in them or told versus them in Nikola, demon, but
you don't guide those whom you love speaking to the process, and when I came to La Jolla and the main yesha, rather, it is Allah who guides whomever he wills, meaning if you think that you have the ability to change someone's heart, no, it is only Allah who can change someone's heart. Yes, you have the ability to show them the guidance. But you cannot make sure someone is guided that's not in your hand, it's in the hands of Allah subhanaw taala, even the process and them could not change someone's heart by himself. He could show them the truth, show them right from wrong. But in the end, it goes back to Allah subhanaw taala. That's why we have family members of the party, Selim who
didn't accept Islam. That is why we have no idea he set up his own son did not accept the guidance. Right, his own son did not accept the guidance, right? What does that teach us? That is even the prophets could not guarantee that their family or their children are guided, right, we cannot guarantee that. And so once we understand that, hopefully, this will help some parents chill out a little bit. Right? Because as I said, one of the big problems is that people parents get really strict because I have to make sure that my child doesn't do this and doesn't do that. I have to make sure my child and then they'll they'll become forceful. And as I said, obviously there's a there's
an age where Absolutely you tell your child you can you cannot do this, you know, when they're when they're young, and they're and they're
not becoming an adult, they're not an adult yet. And so you say, look, you're not allowed to do this, and you'll have to do this, and so on and so forth. But there comes an age as you're getting into adulthood, that you do need being that strict will only push them away. Right? And we don't want to cut off our children where they have no return. They have no path back to us. So those are some thoughts on this issue of you know, being overly strict when it comes to parenting. I do see a lot of comments. Sorry, I was kind of in the zone speakings I didn't pay attention to the comments. Let me do real quick look at what some people are saying.
Bismillah, someone said what if one parent is practicing and the other is not? For example, if the wife doesn't cover properly and doesn't guide the daughters to do so, or husband doesn't pray, etc, etc? Look,
once again, I think this is a wonderful question. Because the person the parent who is practicing has to try their best, right? There are times where you cannot force you cannot you can do things you can't do. Right, you can tell. So let's take the example of a wife who doesn't wear hijab. And so the father can tell his daughters Look, you're supposed to wear hijab, right? This is a commandment in Islam and so on so forth. They may say but Mark, but mom doesn't wear hijab. And to that you can say, look, none of us are perfect, right? Everyone has flaws, right? And for whatever reason, right? Your mom doesn't do it but that's
make it okay. Right? We need to teach our children and perhaps it may be in this, we need to be honest with ourselves here. Perhaps it may be that because of the mom's influence that the daughters end up not wearing hijab, right? But we did our part, the father needs to say I did my part, I wasn't rude. I wasn't forceful. I wasn't any I wasn't, I didn't basically do things that were honest. Namic, right, like yelling and screaming, and this and that. And I made sure I educated my kids. And I taught them to the best of my ability, and that is all Allah will hold us to account for what is within our ability. Right? That's it. We are not responsible for things that are outside of
our ability. I mean, come on. This is another principle of our deem fit. duckula. Mr. Bytom has the Taqwa of Allah, Be conscious of Allah be pious,
to the best of your ability? That's it, we're only responsible for what is within our ability, right? If we don't have the ability to and once again, we don't have the ability to force someone to be guided, but we only have a say we have the ability to educate our kids, we educate them. Right? We do the best with with what we have, and that is what we are responsible for. Excellent question Hamdulillah.
The practicing parents should pray for his or her spouse. I agree. Absolutely. And sometimes, and I'll share another thing with you. That's actually a very beautiful, beautiful point. mentioned by
Poonam, awesome, does that go? Okay? Excellent, excellent point. This is why there are and spirituality, our relationship with Allah Subhana Allah is so important. Because as we stated earlier, it is only Allah who can guide someone, right? It is only a law who can change someone's heart.
So why then, are we not relying upon Allah for that? Right? So we should never like we look at our kids, you know, they're not doing this and
turn to Allah. Right? You tried your best you did what is within your capability handler, now leave it upon Allah. Allah is the One who can change someone's heart. And that is why, however far gone, we think our kids are or our spouse is or our parents or whoever we care about, right? We're like, Oh, they're far from Islam. They don't do that which is right. But other than that, whatever it may be, never should we seize making dua
because we don't know when someone will lie. We don't know when someone can be guided. It could be at the end of their life, that Allah has penalty Allah turn someone's heart, and we've seen it happen. We've seen a person lived their whole life, away from Islam, and in their dying moments to accept Islam. So we never lose hope in someone. And you know, it, sometimes people get,
they get, they get kind of bitter, right? They get jaded. In this, like, you know, I told you 100 times and you don't listen, that's it. You're never going to be guided, you're never going to listen. That should never be the attitude of a believer, because we don't know we don't we're lucky we don't know. So why while we make the offer someone by the way, the other beautiful thing about making the offer somewhat is that it will keep our hope alive. Because our hope is not in the person. Our hope isn't isn't isn't Allah. So we may have given up on the person, but remember never to give up on Allah has power to Allah because Allah can change their heart. Right? And that that is
why our deen is a dean of hope, is not a dean of losing hope and saying, you know, nothing had happened and so on and so forth Mullah protectors, Mohammed, er, live attic feek. What should What should a parent do when his child wants to marry, but in your opinion, it is too young. I'm worried that I'm worried that this child would choose how long ways otherwise? Look, this is an excellent, excellent topic. Perhaps we'll dedicate a another live session to that very topic. I'm going to write that down. Right now. I'm going to I'm going to copy your comment Bismillah.
Command Z. Okay. And I'm going to put it in my I'm pulling up my notes right now, right now live, because I think that's a beautiful topic. And there's many issues related to that. I think, sorry.
Done copied. 100. Saved? That's that's a that's a very good question. But I think it needs it needs a lot more time to to go over that. So just go ahead. neuron sister, Nora, four for asking that model was that our parents responsible for their friends for the friends they have? Or if they copied different actions? Yeah, to a certain point? Absolutely. We are responsible for the friends that our children have. But look, this varies so much, depending on age, and circumstance and so on and so forth. Once again the ability and remember ability right? Or capability, what ability do we have? There are parents will lie their parent because we don't we don't sometimes we don't we don't
we're not we're not we're not able to empathize with people like their parents who cannot choose their friends. Because simply because they are working two jobs. They're trying to keep a roof over their children's head. They are trying to, you know, they just try to provide for their family. Right
And you know, so they they don't just simply do not have the ability to make sure that their kids have or keep track of their kids, friends, right? We don't know, we don't know what someone's situation is. And so it is a it is a mercy from Allah subhanaw taala. It is a blessing from Allah, mercy, the blessing that we are only held responsible for that which is within our ability, right? Yes, we have to try our best. But sometimes things are out of our control. Right.
Very good question.
Sister isis that it feels so peaceful when we know we can pray and make dua to Allah. Absolutely. Allah is Al Hadi, the ultimate guide is not luck. Excellent, beautiful, beautiful. Carmen, thank you so much for sharing that.
NADs Kay said, I think it's important for parents to be friends with their kids to an extent. Absolutely. I don't think so this has opened up a whole nother door. And I don't want to get into it too much, because that's a whole nother discussion. But absolutely, there should be an open relationship between parents and children. I'm not sure I completely agree with the word friends. Because we do want a level of,
you know, there should be an understanding of the authority of a parent, right? So you know, when parasitized parent say like, Oh, me, my kid, we're, we're best friends. And we're just like best friends. In my mind, one of two things is happening, either they're not really like friends the way you think they're friends, right? Maybe from your perspective, from the child's perspective, like you're still a parent. Or that means that perhaps you're not, you know, they don't see you as any type of an authority figure. And that can be problematic, right? In general, not always the case. But yeah, but I do agree 100%, that we need to make sure that our children are comfortable speaking
to us. And that means that we're not always criticizing them. That means that they, even though they, they may know that we're going to be unhappy with someone, they're not going to be afraid to talk to us. And honestly, this is not something easily done. And it's something that does take trial and error and parenting really, as I said, you know, there's no such thing, I don't believe there's a such thing as a perfect parent, because we're not perfect human beings, we just have to try our best. But we have to kind of see what works with our kids. Obviously, you know, with our kids, we don't want them to think like anything goes. But at the same time we don't want to be so we don't
want to come down conduct come down on them so hard that they're afraid to talk to us. And as we talked about earlier, that they just start lying to us. May Allah protect us? Is that
okay, let me take a couple more comments or questions, and then we'll call it a date.
Miss Mila, do what are good ways to discipline children good rewards and consequences. Good. So another good question. I don't think I can answer this question in a general format. Because as I mentioned, the beginning of today's session, no two children are the same. So what works for one child may not work for another child? In general, we do need to think about rewards and punishment. Right? It should not always be punishment, punishment should not always be reward Ward Ward, we should be looking for that balance in general. Right. But specifically, this is something that really depends on you and your relationship with your children to what your children are like.
Do you consider it being strict not allowing your kids in high school to join school parties where kids go as couples? It's the norm here, but my kids don't want to go? I should say Masha Allah. Yeah. So obviously, we have to look at what is Islamically? Correct. And what is this family appropriate? What is prohibited in Islam, those are definitely things that we need to pay attention to. And we are responsible as parents to make sure that we are talking to our kids. And, and I'll end with this final point, because this is also a very important point. So Zach,
for bringing this up. As parents, sometimes we only talk to our kids or not talk we tell our kids of the rules. And that's it. So this is how long you can't do this. And that's where the conversation stops. We need to start talking to our kids about why things are haram, the wisdom behind it. What are the harms? And what are the dangers, so our children can have not they may still not agree, they may still not listen to us. But these are conversations that we need to be having. So if we say like you're not allowed to do this, well, why aren't they allowed to do it? Yes. If it is a an adult with strong Eman, we say to them,
It's haram. Why? Because Allah said, so that's always the correct answer is because Allah said so and in the end of the day, that's it, we worship Allah, we submit to Allah, but a child or a young person, especially a teenager, right, who's a man may not be that strong in that moment. Right? They you need to talk to them, you need to talk to them, like what's the harm in this right, have that conversation? And as brother Muhammad said, also, it's good to provide alternative. Absolutely. Now that's the other problem is that, Mohammed, that sometimes we stop at you can't do this. And we don't give them an alternative what they
can do remember, our deen is Subhan Allah, the majority of things in the world are actually permissible for us. The problem is we only focus on the Haram, we only focus on what Allah has done to Allah has made, made haram.
Muhammad said host a party with girls boys only had Yeah, so maybe have a holiday party. So if you're like, you can't go to haram parties have a halal party with them where the Islamic principles and morals and you know, your guidelines are being followed, so that they you know, so it's not like they feel like they have nothing to do, or they cannot have fun because sometimes for a young person's in their mind, and you say you can't do this, you can't do that. It just translates into Islam, you can't have fun in Islam. Right. And look, the other thing I'll say here is, and I'll end with this, and I noticed that and with the last point, it is important for us to educate ourselves
about really what Islam says about what we can, we can and cannot do. Because a lot of times there are nuance to these issues, right, we may see something as black and white. That is why it's important to speak to people of knowledge, wisdom, or knowledge, understanding and wisdom. Right? Sometimes we may look at something as black and white well, but when we speak to a person of knowledge, it may be that there is something that maybe not exactly the same, but a an alternative that is close by that may be permissible for them. And that's where speaking to people of knowledge, speaking to people with experience, speaking to people with wisdom is so very important. And as a
parent, I often say something, you know, even if you don't speak to a scholar, speak to people who've been parents longer than you have. Because they've seen things, they've tried things and why not learn from what has worked for them and what hasn't worked for them. And we were all learning, right? Especially as parents, we all have a lot to learn, had to learn Zacco look at y'all made this session really awesome for me. I had a great time, I was love doing these live sessions. So don't forget, make sure you attend next week if you enjoyed this live session.
I'm not sure what the topic is going to be. But we'll we're going to set a topic. But I love these discussions to me when I post something online. And it's just like people like going nuts in the comments like that's, I don't know, like, that doesn't work for me, right? Because you can't talk to people. This is a case where, you know, we can have a conversation. And I said this last time as well. You're free to disagree. Absolutely. I have no problem with people disagreeing with me. But let's talk, let's have a civil discussion. And we can sort out some of these issues. So
if you haven't subscribed to the channel, and it still feels weird for me to say this, if you haven't subscribed to the channel, please subscribe and share with others as well. So you can attend these sessions live and you know, one of the good outcomes that came out of the pandemic. A lot of bad came out of it but one of the good that came out for me, I saw Mohammed's comment exactly lucky is that I've I have more time to do like live sessions and online stuff and I'm trying to do more online content, even though it's not really never really my thing. But it's good that I'm having more time now to do stuff online. So Zack Kamala Hannah for attending this session. Oh, it's been a
lot longer. I try to keep these under 30 minutes but how did they know? Exactly Okay. May Allah bless all of you and your children may Allah bless you, with,
with with families that live in the pleasure of Allah who's Penwith Allah may Allah forgive all of our mistakes. And may Allah who's penalty Allah grant us the best of this life and the next will LaHood to Allah Allah Subhana Allah Houma will be hammock eyeshadow and Illa Allah and stir Kuroko to Lake with Zachary Allah Hara was set up what a con what happened with Allah he will want to get to