Raising Kids in Today’s World

Something that we always hear from our parents and grandparents is that how they have struggled to raise their kids during their time when there was no luxury and latest technology. A time when people survived on family values, socializing with relatives and keeping themselves busy for days together for a festival or a special occasion. Those were the simpler times when kids were actually told what they were supposed to do and how. We all know how we were brought up and what we were taught constantly throughout our upbringing.

Let’s not forget that this is the generation of gizmos and gimmick. Children today are way smarter and faster than they used to be generations ago. And when the generation has changed, the style of upbringing has to change for good. Children today are very confident and they should be encouraged to make their own decisions as long as they follow under the guidelines of Islam. Keeping children away from gadgets and phones is not possible today. We may try to reduce the usage of the phones and keep a check on their activities, but banning them completely from a child’s life is a wrong practice and highly discouraged.

Children learn from what they see and not what they are fed in their minds. To make a child religious, you need to be religious first. To make a child understand the value of family, you need to provide him with the same support and love that you desire from him. Often as parents, we make a lot of mistakes that go unnoticed because nobody actually corrects us the way we correct our children. We will make mistakes, we are humans. But as parents do we acknowledge our mistakes in front of our children and promise not to repeat them? Parents need to shun their egos in the presence of their children and accept their faults. Children eventually discover what they experience.

As parents we often make baseless comparisons with our children and often make statements like ‘we used to do this and that when we were of their age’. This is absolutely irrelevant. Suppressing children and making them feel that they are not good enough doesn’t do well for children. In fact they turn hostile towards their parents and become more stubborn.

Children today need more love and trust than ever as there are a lot of distractions around. As parents we need to make them feel comfortable at home so that they do not fall in the wrong company. As parents we need to be more considerate and empathetic towards our children if we want them to be on the straight path.

Raising kids today is not difficult but understanding them today is definitely challenging. We have to put ourselves in the shoes of our children to feel what they go through. Times have changed but only one thing is and will always remain the same, i.e. Allah’s revelations. Let’s be very open in accepting our children the way they are, forgiving and forgetting things done by them and change ourselves first to set an example for them on how to live life in a righteous manner.

PC: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/150448443787516167/