Muslim parents need to realize that when your child hits that 12-13 year old mark, they are more than likely at a stage where they are accountable for their actions.

They are not kids anymore.

To treat them as such is a disservice to them.

If they die as a teenager, they have probably hit puberty, which means they will be held accountable just like any adult on the Day of Judgment.

Officially sanctioned definition:

teen·​ag·​er (ˈtēn-ˌā-jər) - someone who is between 13 and 19 years old

Actual definition:

teen·​ag·​er (ˈtēn-ˌā-jər) - a made up construct that just delays maturity for young adults by another 7 years.

“I am just a mother.”

Do you see anything wrong with that sentence?

The word "just" is in the wrong spot.

Do you see how the word "just" brings about a negative connotation, as if being a mother was some stupid thing to be?

Or how being a mother is not really much work, and you need a real job?

To all the stay-at-home moms out there, you're not "just" a mother:

You are a just mother.

You see the difference?

Let that sink in for a moment, and realize the blessing and responsibility that has been put on your shoulders.

You are someone who will raise the future generations that will carry this religion اِن شاء الله .

You are raising someone who will اِن شاء الله  be a form of Sadaqa Jariya for you.

In multiple ways:

Abu Qatadah reported: The Messenger of Allah ﷺ said,

“The best of what a man leaves behind are three:

1. A righteous child who supplicates for him,

2. Ongoing charity the reward of which reaches him,

3. Knowledge that is acted upon after him.”

Source: Sunan Ibn Majah 237

As a mother, you can benefit from all 3 of these methods!

Your child can be a righteous child that will pray for you.

Your child can give charity and give to the Ummah because you taught them to.

Your child can act upon the knowledge of Islam that you taught them.

You are giving your children the nourishment and time that they need, especially at that young age.

Those critical years where most of a child’s understanding of the world is formed and solidified.

So no, you’re not “just” a mother.

You are a “just” mother.

The Guardian:

“Under-18s will, in the coming weeks, be blocked from artificially making their eyes bigger, plumping their lips and smoothing or changing their skin tone.

The restrictions will apply to filters – such as “Bold Glamour” – that change children’s features in a way that makeup cannot. Comic filters that add bunny ears or dog noses will be unaffected. The billion-user social media company announced the changes during a safety forum at its European headquarters in Dublin.

The effectiveness of the restrictions will depend on people using the platform under their real age, which is not always the case.”

Why ban it for those under 18 only? Do you think older women can handle the anxiety and depression or need that anxiety and depression?

If you are 13 years old or less, you will be banned from signing up at all:

“TikTok also announced it was tightening its systems to block users under 13 from the platform, which could mean that thousands of British children are turfed off the platform. Before the end of the year, it will launch a trial of new automated systems that use machine learning to detect people cheating its age restrictions.”

How effective are these systems that currently enforce the age limit?

“…the effectiveness of TikTok’s age restriction enforcement is “yet to be established”. It is due to start strictly enforcing over-13 age limits for social media users next summer, requiring “highly effective” age checks.”

I wonder how many parents talk to their kids about the harms of social media and how fake it is. TikTok is just one of the plethora of platforms where unrealistic beauty is championed and promoted.

An impossible standard.

The irony of it all is stress and anxiety caused by social media can affect your skin, leading to acne, rashes, etc., further compounding the problem because now you need more concealer and makeup to keep that smooth skin!

This will harm not only our daughters, but our sons as well.

Boys who are addicted to seeing a standard of beauty that doesn’t exist, and girls who are used to seeing a standard of beauty that they can’t achieve.

This is the kind of behavior that will further the marriage crisis that we have.

We have been using "The Good and the Beautiful" curriculum for 7 years now. Here are some pros and cons from both parents and students:

Pros from PARENTS:

1. Very structured and easy to follow.

2. Covers phonics, writing, reading, grammar and punctuation, spelling, literature, geography, art.

3. Faith based curriculum - it’s based off Christianity, but you can easily talk about interfaith and discuss what we believe vs what Christians believe.

4. There is organically less parent involvement as the grades get higher giving the kids more independence and parents freed up time.

5. Older grades have answer keys.

Pros from KIDS:

1. Fun and Easy - explained to me as challenging and fun by my son.

2. Younger kids like the independent practice by themselves. Gives them a dose of freedom.

3. You get to draw even in the older aged grades.

Cons:

1. The spiral binding falls apart slowly over time. The less aggressive the child handles the book, the longer it will last.

Another “con” from my 12 yr old:

1. "Too many essays as you get older, and too many reports."

Started since 1st grade with our now 7th grader. The best thing is when you stick to one curriculum, you don't have to reinvent the wheel when younger siblings go through the same books.

NBC News:

A Georgia woman was arrested and accused of allegedly endangering her son — all because the unsupervised 10-year-old walked less than a mile away from home, officials said.

Brittany Patterson, 41, had taken another son to a doctor on Oct. 30, and she became mildly annoyed — but not at all worried — when the Fannin County Sheriff's Department called to say her son Soren had wandered from their rural home in Mineral Bluff and into town.

"It's not a super dangerous or even dangerous-at-all stretch of road," Patterson told NBC News in an interview that aired Wednesday. "I wasn't terrified for him or scared for his safety."

Deputies drove Soren, now 11, home and that was that, or so Patterson thought.

But then hours later, the sheriff's department went back to the family's home near the North Carolina border, where Patterson was handcuffed, arrested, booked on suspicion of reckless conduct and forced to post $500 bail.

"It was anger and frustration, of course, because my children were having to witness that all," she said. "They asked me to put my hands behind my back and all that stuff, and I realized what was going on."

The laws in each state differ when it comes to leaving children alone outside. Just as an example, here are the laws in Georgia, and here are the laws in Texas.

The more “blue” your state, the more restrictive the law is against what parents can do.

Your kids can't even walk outside anymore without being supervised all the time.

Or else you go to jail.

And then people wonder why these future adults are still momma's boys and act like children when they're 30.

As parents, we will continue to make mistakes.

You cannot avoid them.

After all, we are imperfect creatures.

The solution though, is not to make mistakes.

The solution is to recognize them.

If you don’t recognize a mistake, how can you fix it?

If you are knee-deep in ignorance, how can you even know you’re doing something wrong?

Allah subhana wata'aalah told us with His first command to the Prophet ﷺ that we do not have the luxury to be ignorant.

What was the first command revealed in the Qur’an?

It was captivated in a single word:

Iqra!

Read!

Learn about your religion, so you can recognize your mistakes, and correct them before it’s too late.

Notice how your kids read the same books dozens of times?

Kids love repetition and each time they read a book, they get something new out of it.

You can use that to your advantage.

Whenever you want to teach your kids something, be it Islamic or anything else, don’t hesitate to repeat what you taught them.

Each time they hear the lesson, they will learn something new.

The second story regarding the relationship between parents and children comes much later in the surah, where Musa AS is following Khidr to gain some knowledge from him. 

Khidr surprises Musa AS by killing a young boy, which was by the command of Allah SWT. Musa AS considered Khidr's crime to be a "horrible crime," but Khidr himself explains why he killed the boy:

And as for the boy, his parents were believers, and we feared that he would overburden them by transgression and disbelief. So we intended that their Lord should substitute for them one better than him in purity and nearer to mercy.

وَأَمَّا ٱلْغُلَـٰمُ فَكَانَ أَبَوَاهُ مُؤْمِنَيْنِ فَخَشِينَآ أَن يُرْهِقَهُمَا طُغْيَـٰنًۭا وَكُفْرًۭا ٨٠

فَأَرَدْنَآ أَن يُبْدِلَهُمَا رَبُّهُمَا خَيْرًۭا مِّنْهُ زَكَوٰةًۭ وَأَقْرَبَ رُحْمًۭا ٨١

Khidr also tells Musa AS that what he did was not from his own desires, but from what he was commanded to do:

وَمَا فَعَلْتُهُۥ عَنْ أَمْرِى 

And I did it not of my own accord.

This boy was going to grow up to be a disbeliever, backed by the hadith of the Prophet ﷺ:

Narrated Ibn 'Abbas that Ubayy bin Ka'b narrated that the Prophet (ﷺ) said: 

"The boy that Al-Khidr killed was destined to be a disbeliever the day he was created.'" 

(Jami’ At-Tirmidhi 3150)

If the boy had lived, the righteous parents would have been happy in the beginning, but devastated in the end. They would have seen their innocent, sweet, child grow up to be a rebellious disbeliever, and that sadness would last with them till the day they died. 

On top of that, their child will not be with them in Jannah.

But because Allah took the boy early, the boy died a believer, and will be reunited with his parents in Jannah. Not only that, but Allah SWT gave the parents another child who was a righteous child.

In the second scenario, the parents will go through immense grief in the beginning, but in the end, they will be even more happy and rejoiceful. 

They will be with both children instead of one in Jannah. 

If you read from the Tafsir as-Sa'di about this ayah, you will find another reason why Allah ordered the boy to be killed. The parents themselves would have ended up as disbelievers, due to the child either forcing them to disbelieve and transgress, or due to the parents' love for the child, or need for the child.

This is a phenomenon we see today, where a child’s decision to do something against Islam leads to their parents reluctantly agreeing at first, and then out of love for the child, end up fully advocating for that same cause which goes against Islam. (Feminism anyone?)

In conclusion, this story is just one of many examples that answers the age-old question, “Why do bad things happen to good people?”

What we consider to be "bad" is actually a blessing in disguise that we won’t know about until later on, either in this life or the next. 

In the case of the boy killed by Khidr, three lives were saved!

The boy was saved from disbelief, and the parents were also saved from disbelief.

This is a huge lesson for us, because when a parent loses a child, one cannot even imagine the kind of pain that parent goes through. It is a huge test, and one that the parent will have to live with for the rest of their life. 

In the end though, we just have to always remember that Allah wants what is best for us, and put our ultimate trust in His divine decree.

As a parent I feel like you have 1 of 2 choices:

1. Cluttered house with children’s books everywhere.

2. Clean house with rarely any books, and kids with phones.

Choose wisely.

When homeschooling your children, you have to establish a routine and a system that fits your family’s lifestyle.

Everyone will have a different routine.

Our routine is starting later in the day, and ending later in the day.

Sometimes, we are doing classes till after isha prayers, but these are all planned.

On other days, we skip school on Fridays, and do school on Saturday.

There are other activities and appointments going on during the day, and it becomes easy to adjust as you need to.

You can make it your own.

Just like entrepreneurship.

Jeffrey Kopp from CNN:

The US Food and Drug Administration announced a proposal to remove oral phenylephrine – a common ingredient in many popular over-the-counter decongestants – from the market, citing evidence that it doesn’t work.

Phenylephrine, found in products like Sudafed PE, Vicks DayQuil and Mucinex Sinus-Max, has been widely used as a nasal decongestant for decades. The FDA’s proposal isn’t an immediate order; it launches a six-month public comment period, after which the agency will make a final decision on whether to pull it from shelves.

I could have told you long ago that this garbage doesn't work.

You know what else doesn't work? Dextromethorphan, which is listed on the bottle in this article.

What does work for cough? Honey.

What does work for nasal congestion? Pseudoephedrine. You know it works if you have to show your driver's license to get it.

Meant to post this yesterday, but better late than never.

——

Surah Kahf is filled with many gems that we can benefit from, but I wanted to focus on 3 specific instances that if we think about deeply, they will help us as parents and in sha Allah help us raise righteous young men and women.

The first story in Surah Kahf where young men are mentioned is regarding the people of the cave. We could argue all day about who these people were and from what time period, but that is not the point.

The point is to take lessons from what Allah did mention.

In Verse 10, the young men were taking refuge in a cave, and asked Allah:

رَبَّنَآ ءَاتِنَا مِن لَّدُنكَ رَحْمَةًۭ وَهَيِّئْ لَنَا مِنْ أَمْرِنَا رَشَدًۭا ١٠
“Our Lord! Grant us mercy from Yourself and guide us rightly through our ordeal.”

Allah responded to them in verse 13, where Allah says:

نَّحْنُ نَقُصُّ عَلَيْكَ نَبَأَهُم بِٱلْحَقِّ ۚ إِنَّهُمْ فِتْيَةٌ ءَامَنُوا۟ بِرَبِّهِمْ وَزِدْنَـٰهُمْ هُدًۭى ١٣

“We relate to you ˹O Prophet˺ their story in truth. They were youths who truly believed in their Lord, and We increased them in guidance.”

They were being persecuted for their beliefs, but they didn’t ask Allah,

“Oh Allah, spare my life!”

“Oh Allah, don’t allow me to die!”

They knew that it wasn’t about life or death, but they wanted to make sure they wouldn’t lose what is really of value.

Their Islam.

Their submission to Allah.

They didn't want to be among those who out of fear turned back on their religion.

Subhan Allah!

Now the question is, how did these youth become so grounded in their faith?

Family systems were strong back in the day, and there is no doubt that their family had a huge influence on their Islam.

It was probably their parents (after Allah of course), who had the most influence on them being righteous and sincere.

Their proper grounding in Islam is confirmed later on when those young men sent one of them to town to get some halal food.

I don’t say halal food as a joke, but they LITERALLY said to get some pure food in verse 19:

فَٱبْعَثُوٓا۟ أَحَدَكُم بِوَرِقِكُمْ هَـٰذِهِۦٓ إِلَى ٱلْمَدِينَةِ فَلْيَنظُرْ أَيُّهَآ أَزْكَىٰ طَعَامًۭا…

فَلْيَأْتِكُم بِرِزْقٍۢ مِّنْهُ وَلْيَتَلَطَّفْ وَلَا يُشْعِرَنَّ بِكُمْ أَحَدًا١٩

“...So send one of you with these silver coins of yours to the city, and let him find which food is the purest, and then bring you provisions from it. Let him be ˹exceptionally˺ cautious, and do not let him give you away.”

Remember, they were sleeping for 300 years, and they were hungry, but to them it seemed like they only slept for an hour or two.

But they didn’t compromise.

Only get the pure food!

Subhan Allah.

They were starving, yet they only wanted what was pure and halal, even in a life and death situation.

Their actions and thought processes were with the Islamic filter intact and unclogged.

This Islamic mindset was ingrained in them, and it became a natural way for them to think and act.

Besides the pure food, he was told to not bring any attention to yourself, because if he gets caught, one of two things will happen.

Now this is the crazy part.

They said, “if the people find out about you, they will stone you ˹to death˺, or force you back into their faith, and then you will never succeed.”

Did you catch that last part?

They will force you back into their faith, and THEN you will never succeed.

They didn’t associate living with success, and getting stoned to death with failure.

They associated “forcing you back into their faith,” as failure!

Once again, the Islamic values were instilled deep within these youth.

Don’t underestimate the youth and what they are capable of.

Don’t leave their upbringing up to a system that goes against Islamic values.

Don’t leave their upbringing up to a system that praises science and the human mind instead of Allah.

Remember, after Allah, it is righteous parents and family who pave the path for righteous children.

If you're not around to see your children grow, they will be used to your absence. 

When you finally do have time when the kids are older, they will be used to not having you around, and they will feel awkward around you.

They won't know what to say, since you were not there when they needed you most.

You were too busy doing what you thought was best for them by earning more money, but you lost your kids in the meantime. 

There is nothing wrong with earning more money, but at what cost?

You always have to weigh the pros and cons when choosing an occupation that requires a significant amount of travel.

The pay might be good, but don't forget about your children, which is more precious wealth.

Not only are children a form of wealth, but they are a trust from Allah. 

We are responsible for their upbringing!

Unfortunately the village doesn't exist like it used to anymore, so you can't raise your children the way you were raised. 

Perhaps your father was also not around as much as you would have liked or as much as he should have been, but don't let that bleed into your tarbiyah for your children. 

Your children don't really care about the fancy clothes and gadgets, they want time with you.

The only reason kids care about these superficial things is because it might make them more accepted among their peers. 

Your child just wants to be recognized and appreciated. 

That should be coming from you, the father.

If they have quality time with their father, they will not care excessively about superficial things.

My father didn't travel for work, but he worked in one place and we lived in another state.

Half my childhood was a life where I saw my dad for 2-3 months out of the year.

It was really nice to see him when he would come on vacation and we would go to restaurants a lot, but there were some downsides: 

It totally messed up our routine.

We were so used to him not being around, but now we had to adjust and accommodate our schedules to spend time with him.

I know that sounds bad, but no one likes their routine to be disrupted.

It's an unfortunate reality, and it isn't something to be proud of. 

Once I had children, I made a promise to myself that I do not want my presence to be an annoyance for my children.

I want to be an integral part of their lives, because it is not just about me.

And it is not just about my children.

It is about the future generations as well.

If I am not present, I could be starting a trend where the children will also think the father does not have to be present.

I don't want this mentality to trickle down to my future generations.

The facts don’t lie: fathers who aren’t present lead to worse outcomes in children.

In their finances, their health, their education, etc.

Just read “The Boy Crisis” by Warren Farrell, and you’ll know what I mean.

We need to have the mentality of Ibrahim AS, who didn't just think about his children, but he thought about his dhurriyat. 

His future generations!

One of the famous duas he made is in the Qur'an, where he prayed for his future generations to be among those who establish the salat:

رَبِّ اجْعَلْنِیْ مُقِیْمَ الصَّلٰوةِ وَمِنْ ذُرِّیَّتِیْ ۖۗ رَبَّنَا وَتَقَبَّلْ دُعَآءِ ۟

Our Lord! Forgive me, my parents, and the believers on the Day when the judgment will come to pass.” 

Surah Ibrahim (14:40)

Oh Allah, make us righteous parents who are present in our childrens’ lives, Ameen.

Once you have kids, your experiences with them can have a butterfly effect.

What is the butterfly effect?

The butterfly effect is the idea that small, seemingly trivial events may ultimately result in something with much larger consequences – in other words, they have non-linear impacts on very complex systems. For instance, when a butterfly flaps its wings in India, that tiny change in air pressure could eventually cause a tornado in Iowa.

There will be a lineage after you, and what you do can change the course of history for your family.

Let that sink in for a moment.

Our children are an amana from Allah.

Allah has put us in charge of them.

Allah gave us that responsibility, knowing we can do it, but are we living up to the task?

When you homeschool your children, you are earning Allah’s barakah (blessings) in multiple ways:

1. What takes 8 hours in school can be done in 2-3 hours.

   Barakah in time.

2. Your children are learning in an Islamic environment.

   Barakah in your lives and theirs.

3. You can travel and do things at your own schedule.

   Once again, barakah in time.

4. Your most important asset and trust from Allah, your children, will be growing up within the Islamic paradigm uncorrupted.

   Barakah in family and wealth.