Lesson: Six
Learning Outcomes
By the end of this session, the student will be able to:
1. Comprehend the concept of child rearing in Islam.
2. Identify the main objectives and the elements of child rearing.
3. Discover the Islamic approach in child rearing.
Main Topics/Issues/ Points
1. Introduction
2. Psychological: Love and Affection
3. Religious or Moral and Values
4. Habituation: Discipline
5. Ta'allum and Ta'lim
6. Socialization
7. Parents as the Role Model (Uswah)
8. Reward and Punishment
Discussions: Main Ideas
Introduction
• Children are a sacred trust given by Allah to their parents.
• There are two primary requirements:
o To have knowledge on how child’s character or personality developed, and
o Parents must themselves possess good character.
• By combining these two important aspects parents will be able to shape their children character.
• To make them understand their role as khalifah of Allah on earth.
• The primary factor that determines one’s character is his environment.
Psychological: Love and Affection
§ Parents’ love and care for their children make them pray to see these children within the entire family, as a model of physical wholeness and psychological – intellectual and moral maturity and an inspiring experience in this life.
§ Love, care and mercy from parents nurture self-confidence and healthy individuality to develop as early as possible in the child by the family in order to make them as a constructive and active element in society.
Religious or Moral and Values
• The parents have to take care of the development and education of their children: intellectual, psychological and spiritual-moral just as they have to take care of their physical growth.
• To emphasize on the concept of responsibility, as vicegerent of God on earth.
• The spiritual-moral education ought to be persuasive and convincing, not imposing and authoritarian.
Habituation: Discipline
• Human behavior generally molded by several factors such as social cultural environment, education, biological (hereditary or genetics), psychological and religion or spirituality.
• In the formation of character traits both the role nature and that of nurture are very crucial.
Ta’allum and Ta’lim
§ When children are nourished with love and affection at their early development the task of discipline is much easier for they are emotionally prepared to obey and to follow the instructions from their parents.
§ With proper control parents can generally predict the behavior of their children.
§ A child should begin his formal education (ta’allum) as soon as his faculty of discernment begins to emerge.
§ The process of teaching or instruction (ta’alim) is to bring forth a thing from its potentiality to its actuality.
§ A child is born with fitrah.
§ The acquisition of knowledge and self-purification.
§ It is the task of parents to prepare him to the process of learning.
Socialization
• Socialization is the most important element in child rearing.
• Children learn through sense perception and imagination.
• To attain good character during the childhood, they need to be exposed to observation and companionship with the righteous (conducive environment for learning).
Parents as the Role Model (Uswah)
§ The parents should nurture their children's hearts with the best qualities, such as:
o loving others,
o upholding the ties of kinship,
o caring for the weak,
o respecting elders,
o showing compassion to little ones,
o deriving satisfaction from doing good,
o being sincere in word and deed,
o keeping promises,
o judging fairly, and
o all other good and praiseworthy characteristics.
§ It is necessary for parents to develop technique and skill of communication so that the relationship between the families handled in smooth manner.
§ Communication between parent and child is one prevalent factor in family success.
§ Parents who listen and talk to children daily build positive relationship with their children.
§ Parents who are emotionally adept usually able to encourage their children to be the same in their interactions.
Reward and Punishment
§ The task of discipline requires several methods, such as, analogy, praise or reward and threat.
§ Just as the creatures should obey the laws of physics, chemistry and biology, Allah has also made it His Law that a child's character will be developed according to the Law of learning.
§ Every action or traits whether good or bad, is developed through either the giving of reward or the applying of punishment.
§ To adopt positive reinforcement in disciplining child instead of punishment.
§ Reward might be in the form of words of praise, words of encouragement, giving attention and acknowledgement or gifts.
§ Punishment must always be tempered with love mercy and justice.
§ Parents ought to explain to their children in a gentle manner how what they have done is wrong and in turn, how that wrong behavior might be harmful.
§ Punishment could be in the form deprivation whether physical or psychological.
§ When there is no successful positive ways to stop or to reduce negative behavior then punishment is necessary.
§ Although punishment is not recommended, but this does not mean that parents should be permissive with their children.
§ To differentiate between firmness and permissiveness, for the latter is even more harmful to a child's positive development than the use of punishment.
Evidences from the Qur’an
Children as source of joy for family
· Wealth and sons are allurements of the life of this world [Q: 18: 16].
Responsibility of child rearing
· O you who believe! Save yourselves and your families from a Fire whose fuel is Men and Stones [Q: 66: 6].
Evidences from Sunnah of the Prophet (rbuh)
Responsibility of child rearing
· The Prophet Muhammad said: "Each of you is a shepherd and each of you is responsible for his flock. The leader is a shepherd and is responsible for his flock; a man is the shepherd of his family and is responsible for his flock; a woman is the shepherd in the house of her husband and is responsible for her flock; a servant is the shepherd of his master's wealth and is responsible for it. Each of you is a shepherd and is responsible for his flock."
Loving and caring for children
· The Prophet Muhammad said: "He is not one of us who does not show compassion to our little ones and recognize the rights of our elders."
· Abu Hurayrah (RAA) narrated that the Prophet (PBUH) kissed al-Hasan ibn `Ali. Al-Aqra` ibn Habis said, "I have ten children and I have never kissed any of them." The Prophet (PBUH) said: "He who does not show mercy will not be shown mercy."
Religious or moral and values
· The Prophet Muhammad said: "I have only been sent to make righteous behaviour complete."
· The Prophet Muhammad said: "Instruct your children to pray when they are seven and hit them if they do not do so when they are ten."
Translation of Selected Arabic Terms
| · Fitrah · Khalifah · Ta'lim · Ta’allum · Uswah
| (inborn potential good nature) (vicegerent) (teaching or instruction) (formal education) (role model)
|
Questions for Comprehension
1. What is the significance of Islamic child rearing?
2. Explain the concept of habituation.
3. Parents are the role models. Why?
4. What are the challenges of parenting in the modern time?
Selected Readings
§ Buckley, Silma. Islamic Parenting the Natural Alternative. Singapore: The Muslim Converts’ Association of Singapore. 1991.
§ Ashraf, Syed Ali. Child Psychology: The Islamic Perspective. Muslim Education Quarterly, Vol.13, no.4, 1996.
§ Gaber, Abdul Hamid Gaber. Parent-Child Relations in Islam. Majallat Al-Azhar, 49 (Vol. 2), August, 1977.
