Another thing that is a must when it comes to raising our children these days, is the issue of teaching basic morals and manners. Due to many outside forces, our children are at risk of becoming individuals that are not only incapable, but not interested in becoming part of a progressive society. When I say this, I do not mean on an educational level, as this has already been discussed in one of the previous posts. Rather, I mean the issue of their ability to be able to effectively interact with other individuals, cooperate with them, and do so in a respectful manner.
We used to be able to say, we find this happens with children that were raised by the television. The issue now is actually a bit more complex. We find that our children are not only being raised by the televisions, but even worse, also by the internet. Subhanna Allah. Before I go any further, I want to explain what I mean by being raised. I do not mean supervised time, I do not mean when used for educational purposes or other than that. What is being referred to here, is those children that spend more time in front of the television and computer than they do actually interacting with people that can teach them something. The things that they many times are exposed to, there is no surprise that they are turning out the way that they are. May Allah protect our children from all that is harmful to them in this life and the next. Allahuma ameen.
A small piece of advice that I would like to give to all of you parents out there, if you do not mind. As an adult, you would like to believe that you have way more restraint, self control, discipline and understanding than your children. Is this a correct statement? Well think about this for a second. How many times to do you find yourself looking at programming that you know that there is no way that you should be looking at? How many times do you find yourself paging through sites that you know that is about no good at all? All of this, and you know the harms that can come from these things. But sometimes everyone’s whims and desires get the best of them, even adults. How much more susceptible to these vices do you think that your unsupervised children will be in front of these things?
We must begin helping our children, by placing in front of them those things that they can benefit from, and not those things that were originally designed to lead them astray and harm them. Don’t you agree? Why put them in front of temptation that we ourselves find it hard to turn away from?
Barak Allahu Feekum.
