Connecting your child to Allah

The ultimate goal of parents should be to root the right Aqeedah and iman in the hearts of their children. Once that is done, the child will follow an internal reward system that will make the lives of parents much easier. The Muslim’s Aqeedah is belief in Allah, His Angels, His Books, His Messengers, the Day of Judgment, and Fate whether good or bad. 

InshAllah today we will look at the first and most important part which is connecting the child to Allah.

Here are 10 practical thinks you can do to connect your child to Allah:

1.    Teach your child the Shahadah.

2.    Let them hear you talk about Allah, his blessings, etc..Recite the Quran aloud and make duaa in front of them.

3.    Show them the signs of Allah through His creation. Foster in them the habit of contemplation. Ask questions like ‘Who created the sun?’

4.    Teach the child to thank Allah for everything He gave us.

5.    Teach them the names of Allah and their meanings. Teach especially the names that reflect Allah’s mercy, and love for His creation. Teach them the names that show Allah’s great power and knowledge of everything.

6.    Teach your child that Allah can see everything we do, and that He knows every secret. Instill in them a sense of maraqaba.

7.    Teach them sincerity (ikhlas), that every action they do is only for Allah and for His pleasure.

8.    Teach your child that he must obey Allah and that this may sometimes go against his own desires and wants. Remind him of what Allah has promised those who are obedient to Him and His prophet and their reward in the hereafter.

9.    Teach your child to only ask Allah when he wants something and that Allah is the only one capable of giving him what he wants.

1.  Give them simple Aqeedah lessons. This is a good document called المبادئ المفيدة في التوحيد والفقه والعقيدة that has simple Questions and answers and can be used with kids. 

Teaching our kids the Quran: Strategies and Resources

One of the priorities of many Muslim Parents is to teach their children the Quran. We all recognise its importance, and many of us having not learnt it ourselves hope that it will be our kids that will raise our levels and dress us in the crown that parents of Quran learners wear.

Not all the kids are the same though, so the question that many parents keep asking each other, ‘how much has your kid learnt?’ when they are only three can sometimes be more of a pressure question than encouragement. Some kids have an amazing ability to grasp sounds and letters.

But most kids are not like that. They may not be able to even articulate words at 3 yet alone learn whole surahs. So what should our Quran learning strategy be for our kids?

The first strategy is to understand what kind of learner your child is and to teach him in that way. Children may learn best visually, by doing things with their hands (kinaesthetically), or by listening (auditory) or by a combination of many techniques. My own daughter is a very visual learner. She loves to see pictures, read stories and imagine things in her mind. Teaching her to learn surahs from the Quran meant that I chose Surahs that could be shown through pictures. Naturally we started with Surat Al Fil. 

I want to share with you this great site that is dedicated to illustrating ayat (verses) of the Holy Quran using lego.

The blogger uses lego to ’illustrate’ scenes and incidents narrated in the Quran. He then takes a photograph of these scenes with the relevant ayah (verse) added in. This may help children to associate the verses with their meanings InshAllah. Helping children to recreate similar images will make the Quran much more alive in their minds.

http://readwithmeaning.wordpress.com  

Another way is the traditional method of listening to a sheikh and repeating after him. This software is one I particularly like because you can select from a variety of reciters and verses and repeat them for children to learn.

http://www.houseofquran.com/qsys/quranteacher1.html

For those of you who have ipads/iphones this is an app that I bought for my daughter for $0.99 that has all the surahs for juz' amma with the voice of Mishary Rashed. It highlights the words as they are read and is very easy to use.

http://download.cnet.com/Memorize-Quran-for-Kids/3000-20415_4-75361021.html   

Finally don’t forget to make it fun! Track your kids progress through a fun chart, and offer incentives every time they learn a new surah.

Looking forward to seeing other methods and strategies that anyone else is using :)

Visual Quran: Surat Alfil

Here you will find the link to the visual Quran Series. Below is the link for Surat Alfil. 

Please note that I do not own the copyright for the illustration:

http://www.4shared.com/account/file/TkqF_eNh/story_of_the_elephant_surah_an.html

Habit Training: How does it work?

When I first started looking at habit training with my kids, my first thoughts were I like the concept, but how does it actually work?

I found that the key point in habit training is: Take one at a time. 

Choose one habit and focus on it for six to eight weeks. Then just keep an eye on it while you select another habit to focus on.

This is my favourite quote on how we form habits:
You have neurons in your brain. Those neurons talk to each other. And if you have certain neurons repeatedly talk to each other in a certain sequence, your brain starts to make note of that sequence, or route. The more times you mentally travel down that neuron route, the closer your brain gets to running on auto-pilot.”

The more we practice and go through certain actions with our kids, the more it will become an automated habit that they will do unconsciously. I remember starting to teach my daughter the adab of the bathroom when she was about 3 years old. Every time she would enter the bathroom we would stop, put out her left leg and say the duaa. Now at 4 and a half she does it automatically, and even reminds me when I forget :) 

Al Ghazali talked about habit training in his book 'Golden Principles of Raising Children'. He talks about many habits that parents can build in their child through proper training. These include etiquettes of eating, dressing, sleeping, respecting elders, patience and many more. You can find a translation of the book and accompanying note on this blog InshAllah (Jazahom Allah Kheir).

http://alhidayastudent.wordpress.com/2008/02/06/goldren-principles-of-raising-children/


 

Habit Training for Kids

Assalamo Alaikum. 

I'd really like to begin my blog with the topic of habit training. Al ghazali said, “if good habits are ingrained in the child and if he/she is instructed in knowledge, then the child after gaining such excellent upbringing, achieves the real success of this life and of the life hereafter. And if bad habits are nurtured in a child and he is left unattended like animals, then he/she gets destroyed after becoming ill mannered.”

The fact is you can train your child by helping him form a habit in anything you want. A well known educator said, “The mother who takes pains to endow her children with good habits secures for herself smooth and easy days; while she who lets their habits take care of themselves has a weary life of endless friction with the children.”

So the more you work on forming habits when they are still young, the easier it will be for you when they get older. The habits that we are forming are an investment that will benefit them in the future InshAllah. Think of all the habits that you wish you had learned as a child and how much they would have made your life easier now.

Now the question is, what do you think are the most important habits we should work on...

Don’t limit your habits to routine acts that you want your kids to perform, brush teeth, comb hair, make the bed etc. Think of habits that will actually better their character.

I will begin the list with some of the most critical for me and would love to hear your ideas.
obedience
Cleanliness
Kindness
Neatness
Generosity
Patience
Respect
Thinking
Personal Initiative
Health

InshAllah I will attach a full document with different habits under different categories that would be beneficial to work on with our children.