Suzy Ismail – Guidance for Muslim Families Teens
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AI: Transcript ©
Salam aleikum.
I'm going to test this out and see if we are moving in the right
direction if you would just respond in the chat room if you
can hear me and if everything is clear, that would be wonderful
that way we can make sure we're all set and ready to go in sha
Allah
so they are not seeing anything in the chat room just yet.
So if those who are participating those who are from the Islamic
foundation of Lincoln if you can just type something in the chat
room just to let me know that you're able to hear me that would
be wonderful?
Right, somebody call my dad and
I'm hoping that if someone is here from the participants that I see I
see that we have four participants in the group so far. If someone is
here from the Islamic foundation of Lincoln, who is hosting this
program, please do type something in the chat box because as of now
I am not seeing any familiar faces and I would like us to be able to
begin so
okay, I see a message in the chat box so it hadn't didn't that that
is good to know. I think we'll just wait a few more minutes maybe
and then in sha Allah as others join us we'll begin shortly
Bismillah.
Okay, so since we said we would begin at 630 Eastern Standard Time
530 Central time, I don't want to delay I know I would like to get
us started and in sha Allah hopefully
Yeah, we can wrap things up before I'm out of time on the east coast.
So now we'll get going. This is the first time we're testing out
the live stream. For this type of a talk, we've done talks like this
on Zoom, and on some of the other online forums, we thought this one
would be more accessible for everyone. Since I know, there's
been some technical issues with zoom in certain situations. We
also thought that this would be a good fit, because as I'm speaking,
if questions come up, if there's comments, if there are topics that
you're you're interested in order, I'd like to explore if you can
just type it in the chat box, I'll be able to see it that way. And
then we can have more of a real time conversation. So I hope in
the lab, we'll be able to kind of work together during this evening
to talk about an incredibly important topic. And I do want to
thank sister Kara's I see that she's in the chat room now, from
the the Islamic foundation of Lincoln and Nebraska, for putting
together this program. I think it's very timely, in that many of
us as parents are at home with our children, and particularly our
teens and tweens. So it isn't Allah I pray that Allah azza wa
jal will put Baraka in this online virtual gathering in this halacha
that we're holding. I pray that Allah azza wa jal allows us to be
the best of parents to our children. And I pray that Allah
azza wa jal allows this talk this conversation, this discussion, to
be of benefit to all who are able to join us. There is a request in
the chat to clarify whether the questions should be in Arabic or
in English. The talk will be in English, the preference would be
that the questions be in English as well. However, if you do
provide a question in Arabic, I'll try to translate it, I'll do my
best to translate it, and inshallah we'll try to respond to
it in the talk as well.
Alright, so the bIllahi min ash shaytani R rajim Bismillah R
Rahman Rahim. So first of all, a sudden modicum to everyone who is
joining us in this live stream video. I know that for many of us,
you know, we're struggling during this pandemic. I live on the east
coast. So I'm in New Jersey, very close to the New York area, where
we've been seeing a lot of difficulty, a lot of illness. A
lot of people who unfortunately, you know, have passed away from
this disease. And I know it's affecting many of us in many
different ways. So we pray that Allah azza wa jal protects our
communities protects our families and protects our homes and allows
us to see Ramadan, enjoy Ramadan with our families, use Ramadan as
an avenue and a pathway to get closer and closer to him. And also
to lift this Bella from us so that we may be able to return to our
message and return to our lives of Ava and productivity outside of
this pandemic. So the topic we're going to talk about today is
raising our teens. And how we do that, in a time when there are so
many cultural influences, so many influences from society, so many
influences that surround our children that seem to sometimes
contradict what it is that we're trying to teach our children what
it is that we want to guide them towards, in terms of getting
closer and closer to Allah azza wa jal. So I speak to you today.
First, you know, in the role of a mother, you know, I have an 18
year old, I have a 16 year old and I have a 12 year old. So those
ages of the teenage years, the tween years, you know, I'm right
there with all of the other mothers who may be in this
gathering, who maybe they're in this chat room today.
I also speak to from the perspective of someone who has
studied communication and family dynamics for many, many years. And
as someone who runs an organization, cornerstone, which
focuses on relationships, on family dynamics, and on our teams,
you know, how do our youth kind of come to terms with who they are?
How do they build relationships? And how do those relationships
develop into something that brings them closer and closer to Allah
azza wa jal So tonight, I really want to cover three areas of
development when it comes to our children, and particularly our
teenagers. And those three areas are the areas of identity,
relationships and sexuality.
And the reason why I want to talk about these three areas is because
there is a prevalence among our teens, when they indicate you
know, what it is that they may be struggling with or what they may
be having difficulty in. These three areas tend to be the areas
that come to the top and what we see as almost you know, a an
outcome of struggles in these areas of identity, relationships
and sexuality.
For our teens is difficulties that are related to mental health
disorders, difficulties in dealing with anxiety with depression, with
addictions whether it's cell phone addiction, social media
addictions, substance abuse, addictions, *
addictions, or you know, a whole slew of other addictions that we
are seeing our teens getting sucked into. And what we see
again, as you know that the next level outcome or the next level
results of these negative kind of repercussions when identity,
sexuality and relationships have these types of struggles. We're
seeing issues such as self harm, we are seeing issues such as
suicide ideation, we are seeing issues such as distancing from
family from the Dean, we are seeing flat out rejection of faith
as well. So today, in short, a lot, we will use the next hour or
so to journey together into an exploration of those three areas
in the teenager, teenagers life, and what we can do as parents and
particularly as mothers and helping our teenagers and our
tweens through those three areas of life, and how we can respond
when we see negative outcomes and negative secondary outcomes, such
as mental health disorders, anxiety, depression, addictions,
or things that lead to self harm or suicide ideation.
So are the bIllahi min ash shaytani R rajim Bismillah. R.
Rahman Rahim, let's begin with the first building block our teenagers
identity for many of us in looking at our children and raising our
teenagers, we look to them, as you know, these are our children, you
know, we see them in our eyes, even in the teenage years, many
times in the same way that we saw them when they were age five, or
six, or seven or eight, you know, in those younger years in that
first stage of therapy, yeah. But the reality is, in those teenage
years, that process of young adulthood is kicking in. And it is
also a process of deep self exploration. It's a time where our
teenagers are trying to figure out who they are trying to answer that
question, you know, who am I? And as much as we, as parents, our
first instinct is maybe to respond, you know, well, you're a
Muslim, you're my daughter, you're my son. A lot of times, that
response is not necessarily what the child is looking for, or the
child, the teenager doesn't feel an affinity to those rules. And so
the rules may be questioned, the rules may sometimes be rejected in
many cases. So why does this happen? Why are we seeing so many
of our teens struggling even from a faith perspective, struggling
with the identity of what it means to be a Muslim, and in particular,
reconciling what it means to be a Muslim American, understanding
that the culture and belonging to the the country of America doesn't
necessarily negate the aspects of the faith identity of being
Muslim.
So from a very young age, we tend to teach our children the
importance of respecting the parent, we tend to implement in
them a bit of a higher power distance that there is this level
of respect toward parents, we teach them the verse from the
Quran, to lower the wing of humility to their parents, we
teach them not to say off to their parents, we teach them that, you
know, pleasing Allah azza wa jal, it's, it's part of that is
pleasing their parents as well. And so our children at a young age
and particularly in that first stage of therapy, yeah, if we are
providing them with a sense of security, a sense of safety, they
may gravitate towards this concept of, you know, my parents are the
role models, my parents are the ones that I follow, my parents are
the ones that I want to be like, and we'll see this often, you
know, with a child who's maybe you know, 567 years old, there'll be,
you know, typing on a computer, or they'll be carrying a briefcase,
and they'll say, you know, I'm going to work like My Baba does,
or, you know, putting on a hijab, or putting on a veil and saying, I
want to be like my mama. And so we see this role model initiating
from within the home in that early stage. But as our children move
into the second and third stages of therapy, which are those tween
and teenage years, we begin to see a shift in where the cues for
social identity come from. It's no longer looking to the parents for
guidance in terms of who I want to be. But now it becomes looking to
my friends looking to popular culture icons, looking to movie
stars, Hollywood and you know, pop stars, who's most popular at this
time? And today, of course, there's YouTubers and social media
influencers and you know, our reality TV stars and looking
outside the realm of the family for an understanding of identity
A lot of times with this turning outside, there are complications
that seem to the teenager to contradict what is being taught in
the home as opposed to what they are seeing outside. And so a lot
of times what we've taught them at a young age, for example, many of
us enroll our children in Quran academies, many of our children
attend Islamic schools, many of our children go to the masjid on
Sundays, and are taught, for example, the memorization of the
Quran. And as beautiful as that memorization of the Quran is and
as much as it's important to instill that tradition and that
ability to retain those verses of the Quran and our children, so
that they will continue generation for generation in that rote
memorization, sometimes our children will lose sight of what
it means to be a critical thinker. And looking at the Western
dynamic, or the western perspective of education, we see
that critical thinking is is very much stressed in the western
paradigm. And it's stressed because there is also a very close
tie to an individualistic perspective, meaning what do you
think? What do you believe? How do you see this situation? How would
you respond? And so when our children grow up in homes, in
which you know, when something for example, that they're not allowed
to do something, Mom, can I go out to this party or Mom, can I have
my friends sleep over? Or that, you know, can I do XYZ? When the
response that's given is simply no, you know, when the responses
that's given is a straight up disciplinary reaction. And the
question that may follow is, but why not about why out of
disrespect, but uh, but why that's rooted in that Western paradigm of
critical thinking, a seeking to understand. So when the child asks
why, and the response is, because I said so. Or the response is,
because that's the rules of the house. And that's it. A lot of
times, our children will kind of shift back into that shell of
feeling like, it's they have no say, a feeling like everything is
rote memorization, just as the teaching of the Quran, for
example, feeling like this is it's something that I memorized, but I
don't understand, we take away the capacity for critical thinking.
And so what we see happening with a lot of our teens is that when
they begin to enter high school, or they enter college, and they're
sitting in a classroom, for example, a philosophy classroom,
and the professor turns to the child and says, you know, what do
you think about religion? What do you think about God? What do you
think about a power that can create the entire world, the child
is suddenly put in a position where they're being asked to
critically think, yeah, if we've trained them throughout stage one
of therapy and stage two therapy and stage three of therapy, to
simply respond to rote memorization, if we've trained
them to expect power distance in that the one that is in charge, or
the authoritative person is the one who knows the answers. In that
moment when critical thinking is expected in the college realm.
Many of our Muslim American youth are failing. Because what winds up
happening is they turn to the professor, they turn to the
readings, they turn to what it is that they're being given. And so
when they're asked about their perspective of God, when they're
asked about the perspective of faith, they haven't been given the
tools in their homes, to critically think about the deen to
critically understand what is my faith? What does it mean, why am I
a Muslim. And so the identity receives almost like these, these
shocks, these electrical currents that go through the teenager in
those moments when they are put in the position to critically think
and they have not been prepared. So in order to help our youth to
help our teens, when it comes to the topic of identity, we want to
be able to help them navigate what it means to critically think. So
in teaching them the age from the Quran, and having them memorize
the Quran, are we also giving them guidance to how these ideas apply
to their life? And I'll give you you know, a simple example. One of
the first sutras that many of our our children memorize, for
example, is sort of the Las Kulu Allahu Ahad. But I can't tell you
how many teenagers and helicopters in different programs and
conferences when we speak about spiritual loss, come up with the
question of well, why is it called pseudo loss but the word loss is
not used in any of the areas? What does the word loss even mean? How
does it relate to me? And when we teach our children a short sort of
like pseudo class, right, getting them to understand the concept of
loss, sincerity, how does that concept of loss play into our
lives and why would a foundation
No chapter in the Quran, which focuses on Coolio Allahu Ahad,
focuses on towhead. Why would that have the title of floss, and
allowing our children even at a young age to understand the
connection between a floss sincerity and to hate that our
towhid our recognition that there is no God, but Allah is the core
of our sincerity. And without recognizing the supreme power of
Allah, the Creator, then we can't have that sincerity. Because
everything is anchored back to the worship of Allah and the worship
of that Supreme Being. That's how we begin to teach our children how
to critically think about the faith, not just to memorize and
to, you know, we ask and they obey, because when we train our
children, that we ask and they obey, that becomes habit forming.
So when they enter into college, when they enter into high school,
when they enter into a situation where it is no longer their
parents who are the authoritative figure in their life, they will
continue to follow that ask and obey pattern, but it won't be a
healthy ask and obey.
When we're teaching our children, for example, sort of the last
another very short surah in the Quran, most of our children tend
to learn it in their very early years, do we take the time to
explain to them what this these verses mean, and not just a
translation, but how they bring it into their lives. And we'll ask in
an internal of your host, Allah azza wa jal is swearing by time,
and reminding us that human beings that humanity is at a loss except
inland Lavina wahama, Lu saw your help, but also will help with our
service sub, except for those who believe. And it's not just enough
to believe, but those who believe, and those who do good deeds, and
it's not just enough to believe and to do good deeds, but those
who believe those who do good deeds and those who advise with
truth and those who advise with patients. And so, when we teach
our children, the understanding of the verses of the Quran, when we
teach them the understanding of the Sunnah of Rasulullah,
sallallahu alayhi wa sallam in their their daily lives, you know,
how does advising with truth and advising with patience, translate
in your child's lot life? How can you bring that to life to them
when they speak to, for example, about a problem that they've had
with a friend? Can you reference for them, this concept of advising
with truth and advising with patients? Can you bring those
verses of the Quran to life for them? When you are able to do
that, you open the pathway to critical thinking. We see this in
the example of Rasulullah sallallahu usnm, who was
responding to a teenager who came with a question or a request
almost, of something that we may see in our own teenagers today.
This team came to the Rasulullah sallallahu alayhi wasallam, as the
Roswell sat with the sahaba. And he said, Roswell, sallAllahu
wasallam, I want to commit Zina, I want to fornicator
now, the Sahaba Upon hearing this, you know got a little bit upset
because they thought how could you come in front of the blessing,
Messenger of Allah, and you know, talk about this, the sin talk
about such a lowly based desire. And yet the Roswell sallallahu
alayhi wa sallam kind of did this to the Sahaba told them to wait.
And he took the youth on a journey of critical thinking, how he
didn't just respond and say, you know, this is haram, this is
forbidden in Islam, as the way that for us as parents, many times
if our children come to us and say something, like, you know, oh, you
know, I want to date this person, or what's the big deal? Why can't
I have a boyfriend? Or, you know, why can't I go to prom? Or why
can't i i smoke weed or, you know, all of these why's many times our
first response is one of emotional intensity, where we might say, you
know, stuff for Allah that is, so haram, I can't believe you would
think that. But again, we look at the results of alojado Sanlam. And
we see that his response to the teenager is one that causes the
team to come to his own conclusion. So he tells that the
young person he tells the youth, is this something that you would
want to happen to your mother? And the young man says no, he says, Is
it something you would want to happen to your future daughter? He
says, No. Is it something you would want to happen to your
future wife? He says, No, is it something you would want to happen
to your sister? He says no. And so that a full SallAllahu wasallam
follows this line of questioning by saying, well, then the person
you would do this to is someone's daughter, the person you would do
this to maybe someone's future wife, the person you would do this
to maybe someone's future mother. And so why would you want to do
that to that person?
And the youth nods and understanding at that point,
because he has been taken on a journey of critical thinking,
which for many of us when we talk about our children's identity,
when we wonder why our teens
are struggling with understanding who they are. It's because we've
caused them to grow up in an environment or we've encouraged
them in a way to not critically think. And so when they are put in
a situation where they are asked to critically think they don't
know how to respond.
So bringing our children back to a place of critical thinking, that
when our child asked, Who am I, for us not to kind of scurry away
in fear and say, you know, what, what's wrong with you? Why are you
shaking your identity? You know, I sent you to Islamic school, I
taught you Quran, you know, you should know who you are. But the
reality is that that critical thinking is a process that we all
go through. But it's hard sometimes in our adult years to
think back to our teenage years, it's hard to remember the
questions that may have plagued us, it's hard for us to sometimes
compare what our children are going through as Muslim Americans
to what we may have experienced, if we grew up in a culture, if we
grew up in a country if we grew up in surroundings, in which there
wasn't any type of disparity between our ethnic or racial or
cultural background, and our religious identity. But right now,
our children are facing a tug of war, they're facing a lot of
pushback and pull back, not just from feeling that there is a
different perspective coming from the Muslim point of view, and the
non Muslim point of view. But even among Muslims, you know, we see,
for example, today, our children are exposed to more influencers,
online or on television or in advertisements who have made the
hijab almost mainstream, where we're seeing a lot more Muslim
representation. You know, I believe there's even on the
iPhone, now, there's an emoji of a woman wearing the hijab. And yet
within our Muslim communities, we will still hear, you know,
backlash, almost like, oh, you know, why are they flaunting the
hijab? Or why? Why is she wearing the hijab? That way, she might as
well take off the hijab or, you know, what does the hijab really
mean? Now, it's like a cultural symbol, it's, it doesn't even mean
what it's supposed to mean. And so our children are being pulled
through this tug of war, where their identity is being
questioned, not just externally by the non Muslim society, but it's
also being threatened and questioned internally by what they
are hearing from their Muslim community. And we see right now on
a lot of college campuses, there are a lot of groups, for example,
the Muslims for progressive values, a lot of groups that are
presenting ideas and concepts to our children, who if they have not
been kind of implementing the process of critical thinking, by
closely aligning their critical thinking to the Quran, and the
Sunnah, they may be easily swayed. And so we have to allow our
children to experience their own journey in answering who am I,
through encouragement, through guidance, through compassion,
through empathy, through understanding all of these, you
know, internal wars that they're experiencing?
You know, a few months ago, I believe it was back in October, I
had given a talk at a youth program that was organized, I
believe it was in Ohio. And, you know, part of the youth program,
one of the sessions was a youth only session, and the organizers
of the program, were very insistent that only you know,
tweens, teens and young adults were allowed in the session, no
parents allowed. And in the session, you know, I started to
talk about topics that were that we were talking about today,
identity, sexuality relationships. And I asked the teens, I told
them, you know, if you have any questions you can ask, um, nobody
stood up, nobody asked a question. So then I looked around, you know,
everyone has their cell phones out. And I said, you know, what,
why don't you text me your questions, instead of asking, so
that there's no embarrassment, And subhanAllah throughout the
session, it was about an hour long session. And then continuing late
into the night, I received text after text after text after text
until there were, you know, almost 100 texts, I believe, that I had
received from different youth asking questions. And the
questions were incredible questions, you know, things that
range from like, you know, is it haram to like a boy to things such
as you know, I think I'm gay, and I don't know who to talk to. I
think about killing myself all the time. What should I do? I have a
secret boyfriend. And I don't know how to tell my mother.
Questions that were very deep. Two questions that at times, so you
would think well, how do you not know the answer to this? But
SubhanAllah? You know, in answering each of the texts, I
think what broke my heart the most was? So many of the teams
responded by saying something like, Wow, I can't believe you
answered or I really didn't think you would actually read my
question and respond to it.
And it really made me realize that for a lot of our youth today, they
do have these questions. They do have these concerns.
They really don't know the answers, but they're also holding
it back. And they're not able to ask, because whether it's in our
masajid, or in our homes, whether it's us as parents or as community
leaders or as teachers, sometimes we don't necessarily create that
safe space for our children, where they can ask these questions. And
so the moment they find themselves in a situation where their opinion
matters, where what they say, is viewed as important, when what
they think is taken into account, they gravitate towards whoever is
the initiator of that type of approach. And this is why again,
we see that our schools of aloha to us I love being surrounded by
the youth, who, who consistently gravitated towards him, because he
had this openness. He had this compassion, he had this way of
responding to the questions of the youth that did not shame them,
that did not embarrass them. But that encouraged critical thinking.
So as we move forward from the topic of identity, it kind of
leads us into the next topic, which is the topic of sexuality.
Now, I remember when I was growing up again, this was the, you know,
80s and early 90s. There was a song that came out in the early
90s. And it was, it was called, let's talk about *. And for
those of you who grew up at that time, you may know that this was,
you know, something popular, you know, kids would sing it, they
bleep out the word * sometimes, but it was, it was on everybody's
tongues. And I know, in Muslim households, including my own. This
wasn't a song that could ever be played. This wasn't a song that
ever could be sung. And it was because it had a term in it, it
had the word * in it. And it was a word that we didn't talk about,
it was a word that, you know, Muslim families, Muslim households
message did not address. And yet in our public schools, and our
classrooms and the songs in the movies, this was a word that was
so prevalent, but because it wasn't talked about, in the Muslim
community, it wasn't talked about in Muslim homes, it quickly
became, you know, one way or the other, either a topic that was so
taboo, that nobody could ask questions about or a topic that
instigated interest. We see this happening today as well with our
children and our Muslim youth. And, you know, upon growing older
and looking at the lyrics to the song, you know, I realized that
the song actually approaches you know, the words of it kind of goes
along the lines of let's talk about all the good things and the
bad things that * can be. And it talks about the harms, and the
detriments that * can can cause if it is done in a way that's, you
know, inappropriate if it's done in a way that's not rooted to love
or a deep relationship. And yet again, because the word was so
polarizing, it just wasn't a topic of conversation.
Today, we see this in many Muslim households in our message and our
communities when it comes to topics of sexuality. You know,
we're almost scared to mention the word homosexuality in our homes.
We don't want to talk about the word gay, lesbian, we don't want
to discuss with our children what LGBTQ i A plus stands for. And
we're so terrified that if we talk about non binary gender, that if
we talk about transgenderism, when we talk about gender
nonconformity, we're going to plant the seeds of something in
our children's minds, that the reality is just as you know, in
the late 80s, and in the 90s, everybody was singing that song,
let's talk about *. And it was a word that was very prevalent among
us. Today, our teens are surrounded by images, by
conversations by books by popular popular culture that have
normalized concepts of sexuality that we as a community have not
even begun to understand. So I speak to a lot of parents whose
children maybe come to our office, you know, one of our cornerstone
offices, you know, identifying and saying, I'm pansexual, or I'm
demisexual, or, you know, I'm bisexual. And for a lot of
parents, you know, you bring up these topics, and they have no
concept of what that even means. And what winds up happening is
that if we don't understand the language that our children are
speaking, and particularly today, the language that surrounds
sexuality, we've already lost the ability to communicate with our
children, because this is what they're talking about in their
classrooms. This is what they're seeing in popular culture, you
know, you turn on any television show and the normalization of, you
know, sexualities that move past the traditional, you know, halaal
concept of heterosexual norms, is being challenged and it's being
presented in a way that is incredibly normalized. So as
parents, as community members, as leaders, as teachers, we also need
to get comfortable with the terms and the concepts that our children
are exposed to on a daily basis, not comfortable with it so that we
can actually
Yes and approve and simply say, okay, you know, I understand it's
okay if this is how you identify, but comfortable with it to be able
to have the tools to guide our children in that path of
critically thinking about the topic of sexuality. So being able
to differentiate for our youth, that sexuality does not
necessarily equate to identity, that you know, a child, for
example, and we see this quite frequently in our offices, a child
who is age 11, or 12, or 13 years old, who has never engaged in an
act of physical intimacy with someone of the opposite gender or
same gender, who comes into our office and says, I am gay. The
question then becomes, how are they identifying as being a
certain sexuality if they have never engaged in the act that is
linked to that sexuality. And so for us to truly have these
difficult conversations with our children, we first need to
understand, we need to educate ourselves, we need to be able to
speak openly about these topics. We need to have gatherings such as
these where we can discuss what's happening, because what our
children and what are teens are identifying with, you know, is
something related to transgenderism, to gender
nonconformity to identifying as non binary, what are children
identifying as pansexual, or bisexual or homosexual? We need to
understand why, like, where is this coming from? What would cause
them to begin to identify in this way? And why are they identifying
it as an identity to begin with? And how do we reach them? How do
we reach them with a language that they understand? How do we speak
to them in a tongue that isn't foreign to them? Not Allah azza wa
jal in the Quran in surah toolroom speaks to us. You know, in the
verses we often refer to that chapter of the Quran for the
marriage verse, you know that the verse that talks about melodrama
in a marital relationship, but we also see that in the group of
verses that surround that marriage verse verses 20 to 24, we see that
Allah azza wa jal also talks about how we have been created. And
there is you know, FTF l Sen calm, that there is a difference in our
tongues. And a lot of times with our children, it's a difference in
the tongue, that we're not connecting with them on. So that
when they are speaking about being pansexual, if we don't understand
what that means, we won't be able to connect with them using a
tongue that they understand. And so they will turn to Google and
look up elements of sexuality, they will turn to their best
friend, they will turn to the television, they will turn to
their professor or their high school teacher. And at that point,
those who are going to guide them in the path of critical thinking
may be doing so from a paradigm or an ethics view that is not aligned
with the Islamic perspective. And that's where we as parents need to
be able to kind of step in and guide in a way that is is most
productive and most beneficial to our children in short and long.
It also has to do with our response, you know, again,
sexuality is something that exists within each of us as humans, but
how do we convey to our children and to our youth an understanding
of our base desires and how we've been created with those base
desires, but we've also been created with the ability to
control those desires. So teaching them you know, as we teach them
the verses in the Quran, teaching them the levels of the knifes you
know, what is the Nestle, Amara, and the Neff, Silla wema, and the
neffs and whatnot in that within each of us, there exists that base
desire that Nestle Amara that may cause us to seek instant
gratification that may push us towards feeding our desires in the
moment, but the nest silhouette is that upper level that exists
within us our conscience that makes us pause that makes us stop
and ask, you know, should I do this? Should I you know, eat this
entire chocolate cake even though it looks so good and I really
wanted or is it not going to be beneficial for me, and then
reaching the knifes in not being able to be truly content with the
recognition of right and wrong with the understanding of halal
and haram and being content and following that which is most
pleasing to Allah azza wa jal. So when our children come to us and
identify or say something like, you know, I think I'm gay, or I
feel like I'm pansexual, arm demisexual and homosexual, if our
immediate response is to, you know, burst out in tears. If our
immediate response is to disown our children, then we are not
taking the opportunity to teach them that a desire may exist
within them, that they truly may be poor.
towards or feel a sense of attraction towards someone of the
same gender. But what does that mean? What do they do with that
desire? How can they as an enlightened being how Allah azza
wa jal has created human beings with an enum with the ability to
seek knowledge and to understand how can they control that desire?
How can they be in charge of how they respond to a desire, and the
more that we can educate our children and empower them in terms
of their identity of understanding how Allah azza wa jal has created
them with that unique ability to reason with that unique ability to
control the Nestle Amara, this is how we strengthen their identity.
And this is how we also guide them through the issues of sexuality
that we are currently seeing today. And I'm sure we could have
a whole other discussion just on the topic of sexuality. But it's,
it's a part and a piece of the way that our children are forming
their identity today, and it may not have been a part of our
identity 20 years ago, or 30 years ago, or 40 years ago. But today,
we are seeing acquainted with that part of identity, and we need to
understand it in order to guide our children through it.
Now that topic kind of leads into the next area of exploration with
our teams, which is relationships. When we talk about relationships,
a lot of times the first thing we think of is, you know, boyfriend,
girlfriend, sexual relationships, intimate relationships, physical
relationships, but the relationships that our children
develop, and what they model them after, begins very much so in our
own homes. For many of our children, the first relationship,
human relationship that they encounter is the relationship
between mother and father. It's two dynamics and how that plays
out between their parents. As we look at our communities today, as
we're seeing, you know, an increase also in the rise of
single parenting single mothers, single fathers, and the rise of
blended families where there is a step parent that's involved in the
rise of, you know, a shift in what would have maybe been viewed as a
nuclear family in the past, and we're seeing more extended family
dynamics, we're starting to see that the way our children, you
know, base their relationships isn't necessarily hinged to well,
this is my mother, and this is my father, and they're married. And
this is what marriage looks like. But instead, they're looking at
the dynamics differently. How does my mother speak to my father? How
does my father speak about my stepfather? How does my How do my
grandparents, you know, relate to my parents? How do my siblings
relate to each other? And so we're starting to see a net of
relationships that expands within the home, and not just within the
home, but also exponentially outside into the world? How does
my community interact? How does the measured uncle respond to you
know, the youth who are coming for a halacha in the masjid? How does
the neighbor respond to the the neighbor next to them. So a lot of
the relationship knowledge that our children are gaining comes
from within the home from real life from interactions. But
there's an added component, an added complication, a lot of the
relationship knowledge that our teenagers are getting and kind of
gleaning is also coming from the online world, from the entire
virtual spectrum, where they are watching, you know, hours upon
hours of YouTubers who kind of follow through their lives, and
they're looking at relationships that, in many ways are quite
dysfunctional. And yet they're learning that this is what a
relationship looks like. For many of our children. It's social media
that plays a huge role in relationships. You know, I
remember in those questions that I had received back in Ohio, there
were several questions and I believe they were coming from some
of the younger participants from the teens and tweens questions
like, you know, is it okay if I have a Roblox girlfriend? Or, you
know, what if my boyfriend is just someone that I play fortnight
with. So we're starting to see a different elements or
relationships that's mediated through the virtual world. And
that is also teaching our children how to navigate their
relationships in their teenage and their tween years. So when we look
at the impact of the relationships and online and what our children
are seeing online, we also have to ask ourselves, you know, what are
we doing with this whole online world? One of the common questions
I get from parents is, you know, how much time is too much cell
phone time? How much time is too much time on the computer? And I
know currently with the pandemic and with the current crisis that
we're going through, with everybody staying home. I know
there's a lot of parents who are saying that their teens they might
as well have their phone just like glued to their hand because they
don't put it down
out there spending hours and hours online, what could they be doing?
So I think just as a parameter, when we talk about our teens, and
particularly at home currently, you know, monitoring our own
online time can also affect the way that our children respond and
the amount of time that they spend online. If we're telling our
children, you know, put down the cell phone, put down the laptop,
and yet, you know, our entire life is encompassed by zoom meetings,
and by being on the phone, or posting on Facebook, or following
Twitter, or watching the news online, we also need to be able to
step back and give ourselves shutdown time, and teach our teens
the healthy way to interact with the online world with the virtual
world. So for example, having a shutdown time where everyone in
the family and that means mom, dad, teenagers, everyone plugs
their phones into a central charging station, maybe it's like
9pm, or 10pm, whatever that time is. And at that time, no one goes
online, no, turning off the internet. And again, it's so
critical that when we're guiding our children towards healthier
online habits, we're also implementing those habits
ourselves. So if we're going to tell our kids, you know, by 10pm,
there can't be any more online time than we need to also respect
that rule and make it a household rule between everyone that exists
in the household. So being able to guide ourselves, you know, as the
role model, in terms of online access, is critical in guiding our
children. You know, we often use the analogy of, you know, 20 years
ago, we would never have given a teenager, a stack of *
magazines, and told them, you know, don't look at the pictures,
just read the articles I trust, you know, but today, we give our
teenagers and even younger, you know, kids who are, you know,
910 11 years old, we give them, you know, a cell phone, we give
them this this device, and we say, you know, I trust you, I know
you're not going to go on to any bad sites, you know, and we let
them spend hours with this device in the room, the same strategies
that we would have implemented, you know, with a magazine with
movies with what we would want our children to have access to. We
also want to implement that with the devices that we're giving our
children, that doesn't necessarily mean that we're checking our
teenagers phone every night, you know, after they go to sleep. But
it means that we foster a relationship with our children,
where they feel safe and comfortable enough to approach us
where they also know that there's open access that you know, whether
it's my device or their device, that there isn't something that we
want to do or act upon that's hidden there. And how do we get
some to this point, it goes back to what we had started this
conversation with, when we talked about sort of loss, the concept of
Tawheed. The understanding of what true Taqwa means, knowing that
Allah azza wa jal is greater than, you know, parental supervision
that Allah azza wa jal, we'll see what it is that we do, and that he
is the one that we're answering to. So again, developing that
critical thinking and the identity and faith early on that we talked
about, it winds up playing a huge role in those other two
categories, relationships and sexuality.
So as we move through those three categories, and we start to enter
into outcomes, we are seeing today an increase in incidences of
anxiety, panic disorder, depression, and addictions among
our teenagers, and particularly among our Muslim teenagers. And
we're seeing a lot of this because of the stressors we just talked
about. How do we respond? Number one, if your child has a cold has
an ear infection has some kind of a physical ailment, we would call
a doctor. When your children exhibit signs of anxiety when they
exhibit signs of depression, when they exhibit signs of more severe
mental health disorders. Please don't ignore it. Call a counselor,
reach out to someone who is trained in this field to be able
to guide you and guide your child. Don't ignore it. Don't just
dismiss it as well. My child is being dramatic. You know, we've
all yes, we've all had our children go through a stage where
you know, they don't want to go to school one day, and they're like,
Oh, I feel sick. I have a fever. But a lot of times our first
response is like, let me take your temperature. We do something about
it. Yet when our children are sad when our children are worried when
our children are nervous, and they say I feel so anxious, I think I
have anxiety, or I'm really depressed. I think I'm struggling
with depression. We don't pull out the thermometer. We don't take
that next step to see what is going on in my child's life. A lot
of times we dismiss it and we say don't be dramatic, or you're just
saying that because you spend too much time on the computer or let's
try to approach these aspects as very serious problems in the same
way that we
would approach physical ailments.
When we talk about addictions? What are we seeing? Unfortunately,
when we look at * addictions, we actually see that
the Muslim world is ranked as the highest percentage of consumers of
*. So * is very rampant. And you know, we
can't ignore the fact that our children are probably exposed to
it one way or another, either accidentally, if they were, you
know, Googling a term that they had a question about, or from a
pop up that comes in, we know even currently in zoom sessions, there
have been hackers that have popped into classrooms with *, it's
prevalent everywhere. And so knowing that it exists, but also
knowing to an understanding that it can be an addiction, very much
like substance abuse, addictions, very much like alcoholic
addictions, and that we much treat it as such is an important first
step in that process. I see a question in the chat box about
what happens when a child doesn't want to go to see a therapist. And
I think, you know, that's, again, it's it's important that sometimes
we are seeing parents who are in that place of recognizing, you
know what, this is a problem, and we need to address this, let's see
how we can address it. I think it takes us back to that first step
of the critical thinking that our children are again growing in a
society that encourages that sense of critical thinking that
individualism, the identity, first of all, finding out why is the
child afraid of the stigma of going to a counselor or a
therapist, then if that's the why we work on on D stigmatizing it.
Is the child afraid of being put on medication? Is the child afraid
of, you know, being told that you know, there's something wrong with
them? Is this child afraid that this will go on to their permanent
records? Or is the child afraid of the therapist or counselor that
you will choose? And this is very common as well, you know, we'll
see a lot of young people who clearly do need some mental health
intervention, but they don't want to go to a Muslim therapist,
because that's embarrassing, or what would that person say about
me? Or they don't want to go to a non Muslim therapist, because that
therapist won't understand. So I think it's it's not a one size
fits all type of approach. The question why is so important when
we talk to our teams, you know, understanding what is the
hesitation, where is it coming from, and then try to address that
hesitation, and create a situation where the child can feel
empowered, because our teenagers are again, seeking that sense of,
of almost autonomy, that sense of, I have a say, in my life. And a
lot of times, if they feel like the parent is pushing the
therapist idea, they may outrightly reject that. So
understand why and try to respond to whatever that why is, and it's
going to be different in each child's case.
So now what happens when a child may be struggling with anxiety,
depression, a mental health disorder, or an addiction, a lot
of times we will see self harming behaviors, what are the self
harming behaviors look like? We will see children who are cutting,
we will see children who may be engaging in head banging, we will
see children who may be using substances as almost a self harm
outlet, we'll see children, you know, something like, you know,
vaping is a common question that I get from parents, you know, what
do I do about my child, you know, he was vaping in the bathroom. And
this, you know, we see it in Islamic schools, we see it in
public schools, we see it in colleges, smoking weed, these all,
we categorize them all under self harming behaviors, because they
are behaviors that are being viewed as an outlet, but they're
not a healthy outlet. Now, for many kids who do get involved in
vaping, or smoking weed, there is that aspect of peer pressure of
you know, social conformity. But there can also be a call for help
in that, but there is a serious kind of looking for a way out
looking for a way that they can express themselves or that they
can, you know, hide whatever pain it is that they're feeling. So
when we see these self harm behaviors, again, we go back to
that, why? What is the behavior link to if a child is cutting, why
are they cutting? And again, we get a lot of parents who will come
and say, oh, you know, he's just trying to imitate his friends or,
you know, she watched the movie 13 reasons why, and that's why she's
she's causing self harm. But again, you know, even that movie
13 reasons why I would encourage all parents of teenagers to watch
it. It's difficult to watch, but it's also important to understand
the themes in it, because so many of our teenagers have been exposed
to it. And many of our teens do say that they can relate to so
many of the ideas in that movie. It's it was a Netflix series that
came out a few years ago. So understand the why from the self
harm behaviors, explore it, you know, again, as a parent, your
child may not open up to you. You may
Need an interventionist, you may need a therapist, you may need a
counselor, you may need to bring in someone else. But just like if
you had a sick child who had, you know, 103 fever and was throwing
up, and you tell the child, let's go, we have to go to the doctor,
the child may kick and scream and cry and be like, No, I don't want
to go to the doctor, I don't want to get a shot. But as a parent,
you would still take the child to a doctor. Even when we talk about
therapists and counselors, sometimes it does have to be that
type of approach. If you are the parent of a minor, who has
expressed or indicated self harm, who has expressed suicide
ideation, who has threatened to harm themselves or take their own
life, it is your responsibility as a parent to escalate the matter
and provide the intervention that's needed. Don't ignore it.
Just like you wouldn't ignore the 103 Fever, because it's your
child's body telling you something is wrong. Don't ignore the signs
that your child is giving you when something is wrong internally,
emotionally, socially or mentally.
I see another question here that says what do you think about
accessing non Muslim counselors, especially in terms of values and
guidance, through counseling? So again, great question. You know,
we're blessed in the New York, New Jersey area that we do have access
to a lot of counselors of Muslim faith of Muslim backgrounds. But
also you want to understand the type of counselor you're taking
your child to. And if you are taking your child, for example, to
a mental health practitioner, if you're taking your child to a
psychiatrist, if you're taking your child to a DBT, professional,
Dialectical Behavioral Therapy professional, or CBT, cognitive
behavioral therapist, there's going to be certain types of
therapy that they follow. Many times those therapies do not
include any type of religious instruction or religious guidance.
So your first step would be talking to the counselor. And for
many counselors, when they're working with minors, the first
appointment is an appointment with the parents so they can understand
what the parental perspective is. So even if there are no Muslim
therapists in your area, do your research. I'm always you know, a
bit taken aback when parents were, for example, equate a psychiatrist
with a therapist or will use the term you know, psychologist and,
you know, an LMFT interchangeably. Each just like you wouldn't take
you know, a child who has problems with his foot, you wouldn't take
him to go see a gynecologist, right, you would take him to go
see a podiatrist. You know, we do our research on doctors, or
practitioners in the physical wellness field. But sometimes with
mental and emotional wellness, we don't necessarily do our research.
So do your research. Know the type of counselor that you are looking
for, for your child, know what they'll be practicing the paradigm
that they speak from, if you can find a Muslim practitioner that
you feel comfortable with. That's wonderful. And I know, there's a
lot of telehealth options. Now, there's a lot of practitioners
that are providing, especially in this time of Corona, you know,
video conferencing, Skype WhatsApp, see, see what works
best. But again, address your child's problem, not what you
think the child's problem is. Ask why and what let your child be an
informed, critical thinker in the process of his or her own mental
and emotional well being as well.
Alright, so in the last two or three minutes of my talking,
because I do want to have time for some more questions again, please
keep the questions coming. And, you know, we'll wrap up in the
last few minutes with whatever remaining questions we have.
The last area that I kind of wanted to explore now is you know,
what do we do? You know, so we've already established within our own
homes, first of all, modeling the behavior that we want our children
to understand and to recognize, really encouraging critical
thinking and encouraging critical thinking, by engaging with our
children with compassion and empathy, you know, emulating the
Rasulullah sallallahu alayhi wasallam in the way that we talk
to our children, learning their language not shying away from
topics like you know, that are linked to sexuality, you know, not
shying away from things that are related to transgenderism or, you
know, gender nonconformity, but truly understanding them and
understanding them with a form of empathy. That doesn't scream
rejection that doesn't, you know, throw haram in the face of our
children. You know, one of my favorite narrations about Brussels
sallallahu alayhi wa sallam was a time when he was traveling with a
one of the youth of the OMA was riding on his animal into the
desert. So he was riding in front and the youth was behind him. And
a beautiful woman approached and in the narration. She is described
as a beautiful woman, so we know that she wasn't necessarily
wearing a niqab that her face was
showing. And in the narration, it's that the young man turn to
look at the woman. And there are so SallAllahu wasallam reached
back and gently turned his head. And then again, the young man
looked at the woman, and again, he reached back and turned his head.
And a third time he looked, and again, he reached back and turned
his head. So we see that those who Salallahu Salam did not kind of
yell at the woman and say, you know, you're causing fitna go
cover your face. He didn't yell at the young man saying, you know,
lower your gaze, what are you doing, but it was a gentle
modeling of behavior, gently turning that the face away, that
guided the youth. So reacting to our children in our teens, no
matter what they bring home to us with that type of empathy, with
that type of understanding that they are on a journey of trying to
understand who they are. And it's not going to be an easy journey.
And it's going to look different for each of our children. So
shying away from comparing, you know, your sister never did this,
or your brother never gives me a hard time the way that you do. But
instead looking at each individual child as an individual, and
understanding that the way they process things, the way they
respond to things is going to be different based on their
worldview. And there's fear and and what they're experiencing in
their lives.
Seeking that counsel again, let's try together to de stigmatize for
ourselves and for our children, the idea of seeking you know that
the help of a counselor, a therapist, a psychiatrist, a
psychologist, depending on what the need is, the Imam is not
always going to be a catch all the youth directors in the message
should play a wonderful role, but they may not be equipped to deal
with the specific emotional trauma that your child is going through.
And at times, they may even make it worse. So be aware of who
you're exposing your children to, when you're looking for guidance
and seeking help.
The last thing that I would say in terms of what we can do with our
teens in helping them thrive in a culture that sometimes throws a
lot of
contrary concepts and ideas towards them. Going back to the
Sunnah of Rasulullah sallallahu today was engaging our children in
acts of service, allowing them to connect with others in a way that
brings them value. So encouraging them and guiding them to connect,
for example, with other teenagers who may be struggling, you know, a
lot of times we tend to close ourselves off, and we feel like
well, you know, I don't want you hanging out with so and so
because, you know, I heard that he was smoking, you know, behind the
shed at the masjid or, you know, I don't want you to be around this
person, because I don't like the way she dresses or, but instead,
you know, teaching our children compassion and empathy towards
others. And also teaching them compassion and empathy towards
themselves, through being of service to our community, being of
service to those who are in need, recognizing and allowing them to
identify that everyone has their own struggle, and that doesn't
minimize their struggle, or make it any less important, or, or, or
less critical and being addressed. But that is just a different type
of a struggle. And I think you know, as as parents, if we're able
to create safe spaces, comfortable spaces, where we can also talk to
one another, where we can reach out, you know, and say like, you
know, I'm struggling, my child is really giving me a hard time in
this, you know, I can't get my kid off the computer. You know, I
found out that my son was looking at *. My daughter is starting
to dress, you know, in a way that makes me worried. I don't know if
she's struggling with her identity right now. If we could kind of
lower our own inhibitions and start to open up about these
things. Instead of trying so hard to kind of hide the the
difficulties and the struggles our families may be going through
under the rug. We also teach our children to talk about what it is
that they're going through. And I think that's a critical piece of
conversation that we need to introduce. So I pray that Allah
azza wa jal protects all of our children. I pray that Allah azza
wa jal allows us to be the best versions of ourselves for our
children and for the sake of Allah azza wa jal, so that we may raise
them to emulate that as well. sallallahu alayhi wa sallam and to
follow the Quran and the Sunnah as the guidance in their lives.
So it's been just a few minutes over an hour, and I didn't want to
take up more than an hour of your time. So I'm going to just hang on
for another minute or two. If there are any last minute
questions, feel free to ask them in the in the chat. I know that
some of you may have questions of a personal nature that you may not
feel comfortable asking here. I'm going to include my personal email
address
here so that you are welcome to reach out to me directly
If you have a specific question about your child, if there's
something that's concerning to you, I promise I will do my best
to respond in a timely manner. I'm also going to include the website
for our organization, which is corner counseling.com. Where if
you are seeking some type of intervention, and we are not
mental health providers at Cornerstone, we are faith based
relational communication specialists, and interventionist,
which means we work with families, with youth, with individuals to
kind of help them through difficulties in their
relationships and their identities. And we do it by
bringing in the Quran and the Sunnah, along with communication
guidance in terms of rebuilding relationships. So you're welcome
to explore a little bit more of what we do. For many families, we
tend to be a good segue or a bridge to be able to introduce
them to mental health providers to get children and teenagers in
particular, more comfortable with the idea of seeking counsel as
well with a mental health provider. I'll also provide our
email address for our office, which is info at corner
counseling.com. We do have five offices in New Jersey. We don't
have any in Nebraska. I know many of the sisters on the group are in
Nebraska. But we do provide video calls. We provide WhatsApp, Skype
and phone sessions as well. So to the camallo here for having me for
hosting the session, Sister careers. I appreciate you putting
this together and facilitating this conversation. I do feel it's
a conversation that we need to have often over and over again in
sha Allah so that it isn't the mayor will be able to raise the
best generation possible in our teens who will carry on Kemet, La
ilaha illallah and can you continue to be role models for not
just the Muslim ummah, but for the society at home? Does Accomando
hair stay safe and please feel free to reach out to me Salam
Alikum