Kids are indeed a great blessing from Allah سُبْحَانَهُ وَ تَعَالَى and those who have been granted that blessing has a great responsibility too. Raising the kids in the right way is crucial in order to produce a healthy and an Islamic future generation.
If you have kids or siblings I’m sure that you will know that children at the young age have a habit of telling their parents everything. When they come home from school or any other class, they start chatting away, telling their mothers every single thing they did at school and anything they saw, including the good and the bad behaviours of peers. They tell their mothers even when they see someone doing something bad, or when someone says a bad word or makes inappropriate gestures.
When they tell all these things, it’s the mother’s responsibility to listen to them. From my experience and observation, I have seen that many mothers tend to be careless in this and ignore what their kids are saying and they do not listen to them properly. Some even scold their kids for being such a chatterbox and tell them to go away without paying heed to the necessary stuff. Especially when kids talk about a peer’s bad behaviour, some mothers tend to scold them for talking about bad things and tell them never to talk about any bad behaviour again. However, this is a grave mistake and will lead to devastating consequences.
What actually happens is that, when mothers ignore them or tell them not to talk about bad behaviours; they will begin to become distant from their mothers, and will never tell her even if their peers did something very bad. Everyone wants a sense of belonging and closeness and needs someone to listen to them. Kids need someone to tell them what is wrong and what is right. If their mothers are not there to listen to them, they will find someone else to listen to them. If the alternative source is not a good influence, they will also start to learn from them and learn to behave like them. Day by day, mothers will find that their children are getting more distant and that they never share anything with them. I have seen many mothers who complain that their children are not close and never tell them anything.
So, to bring up a well-mannered religious child with good peers, you need to be their best friend first. Be the one who is the closest to them and be there to listen to them whenever they need you. Don’t scold them when they tell you about something bad that a classmate did; instead, listen to them and then explain to them gently that it is not a good behaviour and give them an explanation for that, as kids can be very inquisitive and want to know the reason for everything. Be the kind of mother that every kid will long to have. <3
“A mother is the truest friend we have, when trials heavy and sudden fall upon us; when adversity takes the place of prosperity; when friends desert us; when trouble thickens around us, still will she cling to us, and endeavor by her kind precepts and counsels to dissipate the clouds of darkness, and cause peace to return to our hearts.”
― Washington Irving
