2) Jangan gunakan tangan/anggota tubuh kita utk memukul anak dengan tangan dan jangan sesekali ...menampar anak pakai tangan kita. nanti anak jadi bertambah degil dan nakal dan tak boleh control
3) Rotan/pukul anak di telapak kakinya . Secara saintifiknya ada kaitan dengan refleksologi dan merangsang ke bahagian otak
...Sabda Rasulullah s.a.w. “Berguraulah dengan anak kamu kala usianya satu hingga tujuh tahun. Berseronok dengan mereka, bergurau hingga naik atas belakang pun tak apa. Jika suka geletek, kejar atau usik anak asalkan hubungan rapat. Lepas tujuh hingga 14 tahun kita didik dan ajar, kalau salah pukullah dia (sebagai pengajaran)”
4) Mulakanlah hidup anak anda dengan nama panggilan yang baik. Nama panggilan yang kurang baik akan menyebabkan anak anda malu dan merasa rendah diri. (Dalam Islam sendiri nama panggilan yang baik adalah digalakkan).
5) Berikan anak anda pelukkan setiap hari (Kajian menunjukkan anak yang dipeluk setiap hari akan mempunyai kekuatan IQ yg lebih kuat daripada anak yang jarang dipeluk)
6) Pandanglah anak anda dengan pandangan kasih sayang (Pandangan ini akan membuatkan anak anda lebih yakin diri apabila berhadapan dengan persekitaran)
7) Berikan peneguhan setiap kali anak anda berbuat kebaikan (Berilah pujian, pelukkan, ciuman, hadiah ataupun sekurang-kurangnya senyuman untuk setiap kebaikan yang dilakukannya).
8) Janganlah mengharapkan anak anda yang belum matang itu melakukan sesuatu perbuatan baik secara berterusan, mereka hanya kanak-kanak yang sedang berkembang. Perkembangan mereka buatkan mereka ingin mengalami setiap perkaratermasuklah berbuat silap.
9) Apabila anda berhadapan dengan masalah kerja dan keluarga,pilihlah keluarga (Seorang penulis menyatakan anak-anak terus membesar. Masa itu terus berlalu dan tak akan kembali).
10) Di dalam membesarkan dan mendidik anak-anak, janganlah tuan/puan mengeluh. Keluhan akan membuatkan anak-anak merasakan diri mereka beban.
11) Dengarlah cerita anak anda, cerita itu tak akan dapat anda dengari lagi pada masa akan datang. Tunggu giliran anda untuk bercakap (Ini akan mengajar anak anda tentang giliran untuk bercakap)
12) Tenangkan anak anda setiap kali mereka memerlukannya.
13) Tunjukkan kepada anak anda bagaimana cara untuk menenangkan diri. Mereka akan menirunya.
14) Buatkan sedikit persediaan untuk anak-anak menyambut harijadinya. Sediakanlah hadiah harijadi yang unik walaupun harganya murah. Keunikan akan membuatkan anak anda belajar menghargai. (Anak2 yg dtg daripada persekitaran yang menghargai akan belajar menghargai orang lain).
15) Kemungkinan anak kita menerima pengajaran bukan pada kali pertama belajar. Mereka mungkin memerlukan kita mengajar mereka lebih daripada sekali.
16) Luangkanlah masa bersama anak anda diluar rumah, peganglah tangan anak-anak apabila anda berjalan dengan mereka. Mereka tentu akan merasa kepentingan kehadiran mereka dalam kehidupan anda suami isteri.
17) Dengarlah mimpi ngeri anak-anak anda. Mimpi ngeri mereka adalah begitu real dalam dunia mereka.
18) Hargailah permainan kesayangan anak anda. Mereka juga dalam masa yang sama akan menghargai barang-barang kesayangan anda. Elakkan daripada membuang barang kesayangan mereka walaupun sudah rosak. Mintalah kebenaran mereka sebelum berbuat demikian.
19) Janganlah membiarkan anak-anak anda tidur tanpa ciuman selamat malam,
20) Terimalah yang kadangkala anda bukanlah ibubapa yang sempurna. Ini akan mengurangkan stress menjadi ibu bapa.
21) Jangan selalu membawa bebanan kerja pejabat ke rumah. Anak-anak akan belajar bahawa kerja pejabat selalunya lebih penting daripada keluarga.
22) Anak menangis untuk melegakan keresahan mereka tetapi kadangkala cuma untuk sound effect sahaja. Bagaimanapun dengarilah mereka, dua puluh tahun dari sekarang anda pula yang akan menangis apabila rumah mula terasa sunyi. Anak-anak anda mula sibuk mendengar tangisan anak mereka sendiri.
“Anak- Anak ibarat kain putih. Ibu bapa lah yang mencorakkannya menjadi yahudi, nasrani atau majusi”
New Harvard Research Reveals A Fun Way To Be More Successful
We all want to be more successful.
But everything you read probably sounds like a lot of work. Isn’t there a scientifically proven method that’s a little more… fun? There is. Shawn Achor is the bestselling author of The Happiness Advantage and for years at Harvard he studied exactly that: happiness.
He gave an extremely popular (and, in my opinion, the all-time funniest) TED talk.
And his ideas even attracted the attention of Oprah Winfrey, who filmed an interview with him. What’s so special about Shawn’s work? His research shows that success doesn’t bring happiness — happiness brings success.
He did what a lot of researchers never do: instead of scrubbing the freak outliers from the data he aggressively studied them.
He wanted to know what people with happiness superpowers do that we don’t.
Here’s Shawn:
Instead of deleting those people that are weirdos in the data what we do is we intentionally study them. We try and find out why it is that while an entire sales force has low numbers, we’re finding three or four people whose sales are skyrocketing. Or we’re looking at a low socioeconomic school in Chicago, where the academic scores are below average, there are a couple students whose grades are skyrocketing. By studying those outliers, what we’re doing is we’re gleaning information not on how to move subpar performers up toward that average point, but how to move people from average to superior.
Shawn believes (and his research shows) that you can do things to be happier. And being happier will make you more successful.
I gave Shawn a call to find out what he’s learned. Want more joy and success in your life? Here’s what Shawn had to say.
We all chase success hoping it will make us happy:
I’ll be happy once I get that promotion.
I’ll be happy once I get that raise.
I’ll be happy once I lose 15 pounds.
But the research shows that isn’t true. You achieve a goal and you’re briefly happier… but then you’re looking toward the next big thing.
What Shawn’s research showed was when you flip the formula and focus on increasing happiness, you end up increasing success.
Here’s Shawn:
If we can get somebody to raise their levels of optimism or deepen their social connection or raise happiness, turns out every single business and educational outcome we know how to test for improves dramatically. You can increase your success rates for the rest of your life and your happiness levels will flatline, but if you raise your level of happiness and deepen optimism it turns out every single one of your success rates rises dramatically compared to what it would have been at negative, neutral, or stressed.
MET Life saw such great results among happy salespeople that they tried an experiment: they started hiring people based on optimism.
And that was even if those people performed poorly on the standard industry “aptitude test.” What was the result?
It turns out that the optimistic group outsold their more pessimistic counterparts by 19% in year one and 57% in year two.
How can this be? Shawn explained that intelligence and technical skills only predict 25% of success:
If we know the intelligence and technical skills of an employee, we can actually only predict about 25% of their job success. 75% of long term job success is predicted not by intelligence and technical skills, which is normally how we hire, educate and train, but it’s predicted by three other umbrella categories. It’s optimism (which is the belief that your behavior matters in the midst of challenge), your social connection (whether or not you have depth and breadth in your social relationships), and the way that you perceive stress.
And students who want success in their future should worry a little less about grades and more about optimism. Shawn found that rolling a pair of dice was as predictive of your future income as your college GPA is. (And millionaires agree.)
(For more on how to be more optimistic, click here.)
So your attitude has a huge effect on how successful you are. What was the most powerful thing Shawn learned from looking at those happiness outliers?
2) See Problems As Challenges, Not Threats
Shawn did a study of bankers right after the huge banking crisis hit. Most of them were incredibly stressed. But a few were happy and resilient. What did those guys have in common? They didn’t see problems as threats; they saw them as challenges to overcome.
Here’s Shawn:
What these positive outliers do is that when there are changes that occur in the economic landscape or the political landscape or at an educational institution, they see those changes not as threats, but as challenges.
So those people are just wired differently and our duty is to envy them, right? Nope. Shawn did an experiment that proved this attitude can be learned.
Just by showing the normal bankers a video explaining how to see stress as a challenge, he turned sad bankers into super-bankers.
Here’s Shawn:
And we watched those groups of people over the next three to six weeks, and what we found was if we could move people to view stress as enhancing, a challenge instead of as a threat, we saw a 23% drop in their stress-related symptoms. It produced a significant increase not only in levels of happiness, but a dramatic improvement in their levels of engagement at work as well.
(For more on what the happiest people do every day, click here.)
But what about when there’s just too much to do? Maybe there are more “challenges” than you can handle.
Should we just give up on any chance of work-life balance? Cancel those plans with friends and spend more hours at the office?
Once again the answer is the exact opposite.
3) Twice As Much Work Means You Need Friends Twice As Much
After doing his undergraduate work at Harvard, Shawn was a proctor there, helping freshman adapt to the often stressful, competitive environment.
Many students would respond to the workload by living in the library and eating meals in their bedrooms so they could keep studying.
Did those students perform better? No. Those were the ones who burned out; the ones who ended up wanting to transfer to another school. Shawn would tell them what they had unknowingly done was cut themselves off from the greatest predictor of happiness.
Here’s Shawn:
The people who survive stress the best are the ones who actually increase their social investments in the middle of stress, which is the opposite of what most of us do.
Turns out that social connection is the greatest predictor of happiness we have when I run them in my studies. When we run social support metrics, they trump everything else we do, every time.
And what did we just learn about happiness? It predicts success. And it was no different here:
We found that social connection is extremely important for predicting academic achievement.
Want to resist stress, increase productivity and get a promotion? Then don’t just seek social support — provide it to others.
Confirming the research of top Wharton professor Adam Grant, people who provide social support get some of the greatest benefits.
Shawn saw this not only with his students at Harvard but he’s since advised over a third of the Fortune 100 companies — and it worked there too.
Here’s Shawn:
Work altruists were ten times more likely to be engaged than the bottom quartile of that list and the top quartile was significantly happier and 40% more likely to receive a promotion over the next 2-year period of time.
(For more on how work altruism can benefit you, click here.)
Some of you might be thinking, “Alright already, happiness makes you more successful. I get it. But how do I get happier?”
It’s simpler than you think.
4) Send A “Thank You” Email Every Morning
You might think happiness only comes from big wins or big achievements. You’re wrong. Research shows little things are more important.
So Shawn believes rather than focusing on big boosts like vacations, it’s smarter to build little, consistent habits akin to brushing your teeth. What little habit gives a big happiness boost over time? Send a 2-minute “thank you” email or text as soon as you get into the office.
Here’s Shawn:
The simplest thing you can do is a two-minute email praising or thanking one person that you know. We’ve done this at Facebook, at US Foods, we’ve done this at Microsoft. We had them write a two-minute email praising or thanking one person they know, and a different person each day for 21 days in a row. That’s it. What we find is this dramatically increases their social connection which is the greatest predictor of happiness we have in organizations. It also improves teamwork. We’ve measured the collective IQ of teams and the collective years of experience of teams but both of those metrics are trumped by social cohesion.
What other little daily happiness habits does Shawn recommend?
(For more on five emails that can improve your life, click here.)
Over 120,000 people receive my weekly email. And it’s sent from my real email address. People can reply. And they do.
What’s one of the most common things readers email me to say?
Eric, you suggest all these great things. I read them. I agree with them. But I don’t end up doing any of them. How can I follow through?
Shawn has a great answer for this too.
5) The 20-Second Rule
What stops you from making the changes you know you should? Shawn says it’s “activation energy.”
You know, like the activation energy it takes to initially get your butt off the couch and to the gym. The hard part is getting started. If you reduce the amount of activation energy required, tough things become easy. So make new habits 20 seconds easier to start.
Shawn would sleep in his gym clothes and put his sneakers next to the bed and it made him much more likely to exercise when he woke up.
Here’s Shawn:
If you can make the positive habit three to 20 seconds easier to start, you’re likelihood of doing it rises dramatically.
And you can do the same thing by flipping it for negative habits. Watching too much television? Merely take out the batteries of the remote control creating a 20 second delay and it dramatically decreases the amount of television people will watch.
(For more easy ways to build new habits, click here.)
So how do we pull all this together? And what was the most inspiring thing Shawn told me about happiness and success?
More work means you need more social support. And giving support is better than receiving.
Send a 2-minute “thank you” email every morning.
Use the 20-second rule to build the habit.
Some people might think it’s too hard to get happier. Maybe they’ve suffered from depression.
Or they’ve seen the research that we have a “happiness set point”, and our genetics ultimately decide how happy we can be.
You know what the most inspiring thing Shawn told me was? The latest research shows good habits might trump genes.
Here’s Shawn:
When you look at outliers on the graph, you find people who actually break the tyranny of genes and environment by creating these conscious positive habits that actually cause them to interact with life in a more positive way with higher levels of success, lower levels of stress, and higher levels of resilience. They do it by changing their mindset and changing their habits, and by doing so they actually trump their genes. Most people accept that they’re just born some way and that’s how they’re going to be the rest of their life, and whatever they were last year is what they’re going to be this year. I think positive psychology shows us that that doesn’t actually have to be the case.
Send a gratitude email right now. It only takes 2 minutes. And send another one tomorrow.
That habit will make you happier. And being happier will make you more successful and deepen your relationships.
Happiness. Success. Strong relationships. What else really matters?
Image Credit: Praveen R Venugopal:flickr[dot]com/photos/praveenvenugopal/
I’d met the eldest daughter at law school: a hafidhah who was fluent in English, Arabic and Malay, a bright student who’d studied 3 different syllabuses and was a remarkably disciplined girl for her age. When she told me all her other 7 siblings were or are becoming huffaadh and were being educated and brought up like she was too, I couldn’t wait to meet their wonder mom.
When I first met their amazing mother Sharifah Mastura Al Jifri – a petite, serene Singaporean woman; and the rest of her beautiful children at their house; I knew I’d never seen an entire productive family like this one in my life, mashaAllah.
I finally had the pleasure of interviewing Sharifah Mastura to share her arduous yet highly and continuously rewarding parenting experience with the ProductiveMuslim readership. So here’s how she’s striving to raise 8 intelligent, God-conscious children:
1) Let’s begin by introducing our readers to the role your education played in bringing up your children. After your A-levels, you attended a two-year teacher training course specializing in early childhood education, after which you obtained a bachelors degree in English Literature and Linguistics from the UK. You later attended a two-day workshop based on Glen Doman’s work that was pivotal in inspiring you to bring up intelligent children. Briefly, what fundamental concepts and practices about raising intelligent children did you learn and apply in achieving your parenting goals?
Basically for me, it’s putting into practice two principles:
a. Stimulate your children
It’s never too early to stimulate your children’s mind, be it through listening to you talking and telling stories, reading books, counting biscuits, smelling onions while you’re cooking etc. Start from the time the child is in your womb because the foetus can hear. Talk to your child, from the time he’s a baby. Stimulate his senses by teaching him everything he can hear, see, smell, taste and touch in his surroundings. Arouse his curiosity and stimulate his mind also by placing educational material in front of him: books, counting beads, charts, good educational toys, and don’t stop. I must say, reading tops my list.
b. Occupy your children
I must admit that being trained as a pre-primary teacher has given me an advantage in knowing how to occupy my children. Even if you haven’t been trained, it’s not difficult to find ways in spending and investing time in your children. I started drawing for them and telling them the names of things from the time they were babies. Give them safe, non-toxic crayons to scribble and draw until they can move on to colour pencils. Don’t just pour the bucket of bricks for your children to play with by themselves. Rather, sit with them, build with them, encourage them to be imaginative and creative by being there to help them out when their fingers are stuck or when they can’t find the piece that might just fit the hole.
Sitting with your children and occupying them gives you precious bonding time. This is when you discover things about your child, his character, his potential. With this insight, you understand your child, you are better-equipped to mould his character, to stretch his mind and harness his talent. With this strong bonding cemented in their childhood, your children will always turn to you as they get older. You will always be the person to turn to when the bricks won’t stick together!
The Core Factor:
Although these were the two fundamental basis I applied as a result of my learning, I was also very conscious of the need to bring up children who are pious and god-fearing. Intelligence alone cannot guide a person to be good or moral, rather it can mislead or even destroy its possessor. So I would consider the above two points as my methodology, whilst the core of my upbringing is always to do whatever I can so that my children will acquire knowledge and taqwa. In order to do this, you need to give them the knowledge of the Qur’an, Arabic and the deen. So, I made sure the baby in the womb hears a lot of Qur’an. So the time I spent with my children is really when I talk to them and try to give them the love of Allah and His book, the prophets and his companions and to teach them whatever I can of Islamic adaab (manners/etiquette).
2) You have 8 children of ages 12+ to 24+, each of whom were haafidh by the age of 13 or 14 MashaAllah! They have also all attended Arabic-medium schools while simultaneously being homeschooled by you in the Singapore and British curricula. What inspired you to have such an extraordinary vision for your children?
It wasn’t so much as having an extraordinary vision. Simply, my husband and I wanted our children to grow up knowing their deen and the Qur’an. In order to achieve this, the most obvious choice was to enroll them in the Tahfeedh school where they learn the Qur’an, the deen and everything else in Arabic. At the same time, we also wanted them to be able to benefit the ummah. We wanted them to acquire skills and knowledge that will make them bright and useful Muslims. So my children started memorizing the Qur’an from the time they were two. At the same time they would also be starting pre-writing skills, love reading and being read to.
From here, the progression was quite natural, Alhamdulillah. By the time they went to school, they would have memorized a few juzu’ of the Qur’an and were able to read from the mushaf. They would have also learnt reading and writing Arabic numbers and letters at home. Naturally, all these gave them a head start although they didn’t know Arabic. As for the Singapore curriculum, by the time they started their Arabic school, they were already independent readers in English and competent in Grade 2 English and Maths.
Alhamdulillah, in this way I managed to achieve three things:
First, the headstart meant that I never had to worry about their progress in an Arabic school because I believe that being able to read from the mushaf and understanding numerical concepts mean that, all they had to do in the first year of school is pick up the language. They didn’t have to learn new concepts in a new language.
Secondly, I was able to keep up with the English curriculum because I only needed to build on their early foundation. It wasn’t always easy to keep up with the Singapore and British curriculum, with the progression of Arabic education and having more children. However, as long as they continued to read in English, I was able to pick up and progress from time to time, during school holidays usually. I have seen parents struggling to do this quite unsuccessfully because the children never had a foundation before attending Arabic school. The children continued doing hifdh at home at their own pace and the school lessons were regarded as a kind of revision. In this way, they memorized the Qur’an much earlier than the school programme.
And lastly, the work we put in before they started school meant that they were already used to learning and were able to focus. They also loved learning,
Here , I’d like to mention two important tips for those who are considering doing something similar:
First, work hard with your first child. Everything that you want to achieve in your children, do it with the first child. If you work hard with the first child, the second child will follow suit with half the work you had put into the first. How? While you’re working with the first, that little baby on your lap (your second), would have picked up everything that you’re teaching the first one and by the time you need to teach her, she would have already learnt them.
Second, make the Qur’an the centre of family life. You can’t expect the child to want to sit and learn his surah when dad’s watching TV and mummy’s browsing on her iPad. Without the love of the Qur’an exemplified in the parents, a young child will be even less attracted to sit and learn.
3)How did you and your children manage to do all of this simultaneously? What was their and your routine in a typical week?
Well, we’ll have to start with a typical day. From the time I had my first, my husband and I have always been fajr parents. Maybe it was the baby’s routine but our day begins at fajr.
It’s breakfast, showers and learning time from 6:30-11am. The key to this is multi-tasking. Depending on the children’s ages, my life is full of setting one child some writing at his desk, sending one to the shower, helping one to get dressed, reading a book to a little one while breastfeeding the baby. It’s an endless stream of running around until everyone’s had breakfast, showered and changed. When everyone’s ready, the children then sit to listen to me reading them a book they’ve chosen. They take turns to choose a book every day. Because of this, the children can’t wait to start work with mummy. Then they all do their portion of reading, writing, learning numbers, Qur’an and Iqraa’ and we always finish off with some exciting craft work. It might be painting, sticking or making things. The children would take turns to come to me for Qur’an, Iqraa and reading Peter and Jane (graded reader) while I monitor the rest in their maths or writing etc.
An additional tip is to make learning fun. The worksheet I created, be it writing letters or doing numbers is full of drawing, colouring, gluing and sticking. Art and craft is naturally incorporated into the worksheets, so they never felt that it was work or in any way tedious. They couldn’t wait to do work in the way they couldn’t wait to do cutting and sticking. So those who want to do the same should consider familiarizing themselves with chidren’s art and craft.
By 10:30 they’re usually hungry and ready for a break, so we would have our snack. Since they’ve been up from fajr and actively learning, they’re usually ready to take a nap after their snack. At this point, I take them to their bedroom. They lay quietly and I read my Qur’an hifdh portion, while putting them to sleep at the same time. So this was how I struggled in trying to memorise the Qur’an while bringing up my eight children, mashaAllah. It was very slow but the benefit was that the children also learned my portion of the Qur’an and memorised them long before me! MashaAllah. This is also how I put them to sleep at night and whenever anyone needs comforting.
So this daily routine continued throughout in bringing up my eight children until they all eventually went to school. For me, it gave them a sense of routine. I always believed that if you don’t occupy your children, they’ll occupy you! They’ll do things that annoy you or annoy each other. Weekends are free and easy. It’s usually a picnic in the desert or playing in the park.
4) What books and other resources have you found to be indispensable in:
making children memorize the Qur’an
making children understand and learn Arabic
being a visionary parent
In all honesty, I have not read any specific books which guided me to being a visionary parent. All tawfeeq and fadhl are from Allah and making dua. Just have the right kind of intentions and make dua. Allah ‘azza wa jal has the power to do all things.
One book that I did use and found indispensable was Iqraa’. It’s a book that comes in a series of six small books which teaches children how to read the Qur’an. The approach is very non-Arabic and child-friendly and I have since recommended it to all my friends. Through this, my children learn to read the Qur’an from the mushaf from a very early age which automatically gave them a greater independence in memorising the Qur’an and also in learning Arabic when they started Arabic school.
5) Children and their parents are normally occupied the entire day with having to attend school, complete homework, pack lunches, do school runs and other school-related tasks. How can parents bring out their child’s full potential without them and their children feeling more overwhelmed than they already are?
Once you have children and as the family grows, your stamina grows too, believe me. You’ll be able to stretch yourself in a way you never thought possible. This is what diligent and sincere parenting will do for you. Because of my desire to see my children memorise the Qur’an and do well in school, Allah ‘azza wa jal gave me the energy to occupy them, help them and teach them. As a mother, it was the air I breathed, so being tired is a natural state but Alhamdulillah, I never felt overwhelmed. The secret to this is learning the Qur’an. In the course of busily bringing up my eight children, I was also trying to memorise the Qur’an. The book of Allah was the one single source of calmness and strength.
As for the children, it’s important to make them understand why they have to do what we, as parents, make them do. I always tell my children from the time they were little and working with me in Qur’an or writing that I want them to grow up to be bright and useful to the ummah. This is the way to worship Allah . As we need to have the correct intentions, so do our children. They’re never too young to understand that life is about doing things to please Allah . The second thing is to teach them obedience to parents. If your child understands that obeying you is pleasing Allah , then it is easier to get them to cooperate and do everything that they need to do. So once the children see that their day is busy with things that are pleasing to Allah and everything is rewarded, it gives them a true sense of purpose.
So it’s not a question of senseless slave-driving, which some families practice, all in the name of succeeding in studies and getting a good job. Worshipping Allah gives you strength and tawfeeq. The child’s potential will unfold itself, In sha Allah. I believe in this because this was what I found in my own experience. I never gave my children any ambition when they were little except to memorise the Qur’an and to work hard to serve the ummah.
6) Fulfilling the vision and goals you had as a parent for 8 children must definitely not have been an easy journey. I believe, the fundamental reason for your success after Allah’s help was your perseverance mashaAllah, because this is where most people fail when they set out to achieve their dreams. What kept you going all these years, especially through the hard times?
All tawfeeq is from Allah . I never stopped making dua asking Allah to make my children people who will benefit the ummah. That dua and vision gave me strength to never stop.
I was and still am struggling to learn the Qur’an. For as long as I was struggling to learn the Qur’an myself, I felt that I could demand the same effort and dedication from my children. So for me, learning the Qur’an was synonymous to perseverance.
Lastly, it was also born out of the desire to be just and fair to all my children that I persevered. I felt that I needed to continue teaching and giving the younger set of children what I did for the older set. So this kept me going. Our home-school routine continued even until all seven children had gone to school and there was only one child left to teach at home. In fact, I found classmates for her so she would enjoy her learning.
Sometimes as parents, we tend to move and make decisions according to the needs of the older children and neglect the young ones. It might seem naturally so. This was something I always tried to remind myself not to do.
7) How can people practically inculcate perseverance and patience, especially as parents?
I’m not sure how you practically inculcate the characteristics of patience and perseverance. My own answer to that really is, bring yourself closer to Allah . If this parenting vision you have is not connected to ibaadah, then there is no reason to be patient nor persevere. Be conscious of your intentions and beliefs. If you believe that as Muslim parents, it is our duty to bring up our children in a way that will make them the best of Muslims, then it is a cause worth pursuing. Like any other acts of worship, this kind of parenting must stem from the belief that it is something that is pleasing to Allah for which you will be rewarded. It is this belief that will give you patience and perseverance. Anyone who has a lesser intention or started out because of some worldly reasons will eventually get tired and give up. Last but not least, remember that the dua of your pious children will benefit you in your grave. This is enough to make you work hard.
8) Many of our readers (especially mothers!) will want to know what role your husband played in your achievements with your children. How involved was he in envisioning and executing your parenting goals?
Both my husband and I share the same vision and so it wasn’t a question of one partner having to convince the other, Alhamdulillah. I never expected my husband to take an equal load in bringing up our children simply because he is the breadwinner who has to be out of the house. What I do expect is that he supports me, fills in the gaps and lends me a hand where needed and is always ready and willing to spend time with the children whenever he can. This he did most naturally and willingly, Alhamdulillah.
As a husband, he was fully supportive and played equally active roles in stimulating and occupying our children. He would talk and play with the baby, read stories to the toddler, explain things to the three-year-olds, play with the children even when they’re a bit older, and always kept an interest in their development, whatever stage they’re in.
The greater help for me is that my husband would continually encourage the children to work hard with me, reminding them of the great purpose for working hard. He also had to step in as teacher from time to time. Once, I was really short- handed, so my husband took over my third son’s reading progress. He had to listen to him read ‘Peter and Jane’ everyday until he became an independent reader. He also helped in listening to the children’s hifdh portion and test them when I’m busy.
My husband also never shied away from helping me with parenting chores like changing nappies, washing the children, feeding them and cleaning up. I never drew up a duty roster. We just had to help each other.
He was also my ‘higher authority’ in the sense that if and when the children do not obey or cooperate, then I would refer them to ‘abi’. As I see it, it is essential to bring up children to respect their father as the head of the family. That same father who rolls on the grass with them will discipline them if he has to. Many times, just being sent to ‘abi’ to be talked to is enough for the children.
Where the learning takes place outside the home, I could rely on my husband to fulfil that role. He would take the boys to pray in the masjid and to attend Qur’an halaqas and talks. I fondly recall when my husband was presented a gift for being a dedicated father although he was never in the boys’ Qur’an halaqa. One teacher had noticed him waiting outside in the car every lesson throughout the semester and thought he deserved the recognition, mashaAllah.
My husband could not be my supporter and partner in the daunting task of bringing up our children if our goals and aims were not the same. Even if there were minor differences in a given situation when dealing with a child, we had a tacit agreement never to question each other’s decision in front of the children. As far as the children saw, we were always united in our sentiment. This is important for the children so they learn to accept the decisions of both parents without always thinking that they can get a different ruling if they went to the other parent.
9) Each of your children is also engaged in developing and mastering a hobby, mashaAllah! Tell us about their hobbies, and how did you ensure they each picked up something productive to do for leisure?
The truth is, I didn’t ensure that each child had a hobby. My husband and I had decided that we would bring up our children without a TV in the house, so I just made sure that the children are occupied from the time they were little. Hence, we spent a lot of time doing craft and being creative.
The early stages were sticking, cutting and gluing and making things out of play dough. Then as they got a bit older, we ventured into painting, clay modelling and making things out of anything and everything; origami, paper flowers, beads, cards, glass jars etc. We also made our own books, writing stories and making our own book covers. Except for really girly things, in many of these activities, I didn’t differentiate between the boys and the girls. The boys took part and had just as much fun. Then I taught the girls simple embroidery, cross stitches and sewing. Finally, as they became young teenagers, the girls learnt to use the sewing machine to make pretty things, re-purposed some things, sewed their own curtains and started a small business selling hand-made bag-sand hair bands in one cultural fair in Riyadh. People thought they were really pretty, mashaAllah.
At this current stage, they have become more advanced in knitting, crocheting and baking. One of my daughters, who is the artist, because of her love for colours, is also talented in doing make-up. Another daughter is keen in architecture and loves designing buildings from paper. Obviously, these are skills beyond my knowledge, so Youtube has been very useful.
I would like to stress that whatever the children have acquired in terms of skills and hobbies, mashaAllah, has been born not just out of the love to be creative. More significantly, growing up without television naturally gave them the mind and desire to occupy themselves. Of course they also discover the added joy that being skilful makes you independent. The boys also had hobbies like photography, graffiti art, T-shirt writing, carpentry and they are all keen football players, mashaAllah.
10) You were working as a teacher but stopped once you began having children and dedicated all of your time to them. After your last child finished her hifdh, you yourself became a haafidhah mashaAllah. You then went on to teach English at King Saud University in Riyadh, and enrolled in a post-graduate English-teaching diploma course (DELTA) at the same time while working, and you are now teaching at Prince Sultan University. What motivated you to continue pursuing your own education and career after all these years?
Unfortunately, it didn’t happen as gloriously as your question presented it to be. My motivation for going back to work was not to pursue the career I left behind for two reasons. First, I have always been happy and fulfilled as a busy and teaching mum. I never stopped teaching in the 19 years I was at home before I started working.
In 1998, when my number five was ready to start our home-school programme, I opened a school at the request of some friends who wanted to follow my teaching programme. We got together and turned every available room in my house into classrooms and taught our children. Each class had a 1:2 student teacher ratio and the results were amazing, mashaAllah. The school grew and other parents asked to enroll their children into our school and we started charging fees. It was a very successful school in terms of inculcating spiritual and academic excellence in the children. We called it Dar alQur’an and I was both teacher-trainer and the ‘head-mystery’ (as one child once called me) of the school. The mothers who came to learn from me became the teachers who were very committed to the cause and made the school a success.
As the students graduated and had to go to primary school, sadly, the teachers had to leave the school too, to be at home for their children when they come home from school. After five years, I continued running the school by myself until my last daughter went to school. In the last year of Dar alQur’an, I had the joy of training my eldest daughter who joined me to teach in the school. It was only after that year that I started working at the university.
With my children all in school, I took up a new job because it was very close to my house and I could leave after the children and be home before them. Again, having a career was far from my mind. It took me a long time to adjust being a working mother.
As for doing DELTA, it was a requirement that came with the job. It was both mentally and physically strenuous; working and studying while trying to run a family. For the first time in my life, I felt unhappy in not having time for my children and husband. Working and studying took up most of my time and energy. Alhamdulillah, the older children stepped in with the Qur’an of my youngest who enrolled in the intensive mubakkir programme. It was a hifdh programme wherein the child finishes memorising the Qur’an at grade 4. The most painful thing for me was when I find myself being too tired to listen to the children talking about school or when I had to sit by myself because I was trying to study or had an assignment to submit. Alhamdulillah, I completed the DELTA after two years.
I decided not to pursue further studies after my DELTA because I don’t want to neglect the family the way I did. I am now teaching in Prince Sultan University and here I feel I could combine motherhood and working in a much better way, Alhamdulillah.
11) I recall a profound statement you’d made at a gathering once: “the education of a child begins twenty years before it is born.” Do elaborate this for our readers.
It simply means that before you can teach your children, you need to gain knowledge yourself. Some of you may think it’s too late and too difficult at your stage of parenting. It’s never too late to seek knowledge and to correct ourselves. Furthermore, you have every opportunity now to make it right for your children. Prepare your children to be upright parents by giving them knowledge from now. Don’t just focus on excellent university degrees and the means to earn a good job. Give them sound knowledge in their deen and make sure they know the Qur’an. This means the knowledge to read, to understand and to live by it. Prepare your children to be educated and pious parents.
12) Do you and your husband follow any particular spiritual routine that you feel increases the barakah in your day?
I don’t think we do anything different or special to merit any mention here. However I do remember reading a book about bringing up children in Arabic many years ago, forgot its author and title. He said, ‘Your children will not do what you tell them to do. They will do what you do.” In other words, you need to set the example in everything that you want them to be. Be a pious and filial son and daughter to your own parents and your children will do the same for you. So, be an example to your children especially in your ibadah.
13) Finally, what is the best advice you have for anyone aspiring to be parents someday, In sha Allah?
Read all of the above and try for yourself what you feel is right. Allah does not burden you with more than what you can bear. This was my journey and I’m still on the road, only further down. Those of you who are reading this will choose your own path and I pray whatever path you choose for yourself, the aim is the same: that you want to bring up pious children who will benefit the ummah. Also remember that without correct Islamic knowledge, your children will not be able to serve the ummah.
About the Guest Interviewee:
Sharifah Mastura Al Jifri is an English reading and writing skills instructor at Prince Sultan University in Riyadh. She strives to be more than just a language instructor to her students, guiding them to think above and beyond their studies to achieve good in this world and the Hereafter.
About the Interviewer:
Zaynab Chinoy serves as Chief Editor and Head of the Research and Content Department at ProductiveMuslim. She read law at the International Islamic University in Malaysia, and publishes her reflections on life on her personal blog.
sorry but i am rather disturbed when hearing lots of news/stories against medical professionals these days.
one day, i discussed with a colleague of mine about this new "trend". we discussed abt how to handle non compliant patients. we have many poorly controlled diabetic patients. despite many advices, they just refused to listen.
find (sigh)...pt's right u call it.
the idea is to control their diabetic status in order to slow down the progression of deadly complications. unfortunate, by the time they came back to us...its already too late. too much damage has been done..they have stroke, myocardial infarction etc.
Not just for diabetes and other non-communicable diseases, but this "trending" also occur in maternal & child health aspect...anti vaccine, unassisted homebirth, poorly controlled diabetes/ hypertension complicating pregnancy patients etc.
so i told my friend
" as pt have their rights to complaint anything everything and to an extend choosing their doctor..why cant we, doctors choose our patients too??"
so she said
" i wish we can but we cant. we are bond to our oath...we have made a promise to help those in needs and to preserve life...so we cannot choose. its unethical"
she's 100% right..
let me remind everyone...going thru 6 years of hardship (plus 4 yrs of specialty + another few years of subspecialty) just to be condemn like this...this is sooo disappointing. some who r just so "doctorophobia" favourite statement..."doctors r not God...you dont hv the key to life n dead but you are acting as if you are god"...
yes...we r not God. never had i heard any doctor claiming so. if there is any...they wud probably been referred to/ need to be referred to psychiatry.
again..we r not god. but....people outhere seems to have forgotten that the moment we step our foot into the real world after graduation...we have made an oath, a pledge, a promise..whatever you want to call it...
" that we would save and preserve lives at our uttermost ability and knowledge and in whatever situation it would be, with Allah's willings."
so people outhere....now you know why we jumped and hiked and scream our hearts out...the frustration, the despair, the anger when there is still ignorance among certain community...we r just doing our jobs right.
recently in a postnatal death meeting, we have a baby abt 6 mths old passed away from pertussis..which was rarely seen these days thanks to the advance science of vaccine. but lately, the trend of pertussis is increasing..diptheria emerged...for all u know, that parents refuses immunisation and lied to us. whats with all these lying??
your children may be healthy...but you forgot, there r children who are less fortunate that they cannot be vaccinated and protected due to immunocompromised illnesses. they depend on herd immunity. your unvaccinated healthy children can become carrier to this deadly viruses and can easily infected to the ill children. if you are talking about rights....then.... STOP thinking about you....your rights...and START thinking about the community's right to live in a safer healthier environment...your irresponsible act can lead death to another unfortunate child.
abt homebirth...as i have discussed previously with facts about how malaysia is not yet fit to be in that safe zone due to lack of resources...i know the process of birth, labour is important..but its equally important as the outcome. i dont deny that our malaysian health care system still have huge rooms for improvements..but this will not take a day or two. we understand your need..but please give us time. there are a lot of things to be accomodated...there r many other sick dire patients out there that need to seek medical treatment.
again. many out here volunteering for flood relief are men. we have seen cases where a male doctor has to deliver a baby in crisis area. remember...if this doctor are not allowed to learn his tricks in labour, then how can we do our jobs right?
let me remind again..we are not god...but we r just trying to do our jobs right. we r obliged to do so... islam teaches us to work hard and do our parts right. (buat kerja biarlah bersungguh2..itu tuntutan agama)
and His book, the prophets and his companions and to teach them whatever I can of Islamic adaab (manners/etiquette).