Raising good children is one of the best and most assured forms of investment if one thinks in commercial terms. One of the most pleasant things in the world is for the human being to see the fruits of his existence and the effects of his upbringing. He can see their positive effects upon the real world and upon real people, especially towards the end of his life. He sees that his role in life is nearly complete, so his children will start a new cycle towards perfection, the f! ruits of which will benefit him in the afterlife. There he awaits the slightest deed to tip the scales in his favor when the time of action is ended and the time of judgment has begun.
When the Holy Qur’an mentions how the Prophets (A) and others asked for righteous children, it describes them as a “gift”. The meaning of this is that the individual doesn’t ask Almighty God for this great blessing because he deserves it, but rather he wants God to grant him this favor. No matter how much he strives in raising his children well, he can’t guarantee success by his efforts alone. There are too many factors that are out of his control! What a great blessing it was for God to grant Abraham a son like Ishmael (A), or to grant Zacharia a son like John (A), or to Mary a son like Jesus (A)! It is highly recommended for us to call upon God to bless us with a child that will be a great benefit to Muslims in the future when there will be so few people to support th! e faith, for after all, Islam will become a stranger as it began!
The master of the family – whether one likes it or not – is really the head of the pyramid of upbringing. If the head is corrupted then the **** is corrupted. A child doesn’t know any guide in these early years except his parents. We can never consider parents to be showing off when they demonstrate good religious behavior in front of their children or to hide their disobedience especially if it is unexpected in order not to be disgraced in front of their children. It is truly unfortunate that when the child grows up he would feel a deep hatred for his parents which will lead him to neglect them both. He would even feel disgust for them because they are the cause of his corruption!
One of the most widespread mistakes parents make in raising their children is scolding the child to the point that he gets fed up. He would purposefully try and disobey them. The right approach is to give a positive alternative with every negative prohibition. The youth who lives with a spiritual and intellectual void will constantly try to fill that void. So the parents have to fill his time with what is good for him. For the child who likes to keep bad friends, the parents have to suggest good friends for him. For the grown child whose impulses push him to sin, we have to hasten to find him a spouse to “protect half his faith”, otherwise the parents would actually be participating in his sins, as is related in some of the hadiths.
Amongst the factors that lead to the corruption of children is the difference of opinion between the parents in the method of parenting. It is a big mistake for one of the parents to play the role of the pampering friend and the other to play the role of strict authoritarian. The child will naturally incline towards th! e first one and would therefore feel distant from the second. We have to balance between being too liberal and being too strict. Each of these two has its pluses and minuses, and every age has its own special requirements. We have to distinguish between the small mistake that doesn’t reach the point of sin – in that case we have merely to give advise – and the actual sin, in which case we have to draw a strict line. Otherwise the significance of sin would dissolve in the soul of the youngster so it would be easy for him to move from the smaller sins to the bigger ones, and from the bigger ones to tremendous ones!
If anyone could be considered a competitor to the parents, it would be the child’s friends. Closeness in age, common interests and desires, and the corrosive effects of media – all of these factors drive the child towards keeping bad f! riends by whom years of efforts and parenting are undone. It is strange that some parents pay such close attention to anything that would harm the child’s outward health. Some of them oven obsess over their child’s skin for example. The truth is, however, that they might even leave a bad friend to engrave the terms of corruption upon his soul. If the worshipper could see the truth of the matter, he would wish that he had never had children, as they would cause him misery in this life and suffering in the Hereafter.
It’s good for the father to remind himself that all the money he earned through years of hard jobs, would be for the account of his son. It’s logical to think of the one who would inherit all this money in one night, the night of his death, which he may use in moving from one pleasure to another, and forgets that his poor father is begging for one good dead he would send to his grave, to save him fro! m a painful torture.
It’s really strange to see that the growth of a seed into a fruitful tree needs knowledge a! nd years of specialization in agricultural engineering to grasp the secrets of the plants. So isn’t worthy to study how to raise the one who is like a part of the human being? Why don’t we, especially educated people, participate in this matter? How can we achieve ideal parenting without a minimum knowledge of the principles of this science, which deals with the most valuable thing in the existence: our own souls?!
