Yahya Birt

1 d  · 

An old friend whose children are much younger than

mine asked me how to be a good parent to Muslim
children growing up in twenty-first century Britain. I
was a bit flummoxed by the question as I’ve never
considered myself to be any sort of parenting model. As
a father, I am decidedly a work in progress: I still make
parenting mistakes even into my third decade as a
father. However, after mulling over it for a couple of
months, these are some of the rules of thumb that have
worked for me. Maybe they will work for you.

1. Don’t squash your child into a preconceived mould

of what a good Muslim should be, but facilitate their
own journey of discovery. Good parents nurture: they
are not dictators.

2. Prepare your children for the world as it is not how

you would like it to be. You have to prepare them to be
resourceful and resilient.

3. Focus on the fundamentals of faith: on God, the

Prophet, and the Hereafter in their youth. Build that
bond and connection with the faith, with the mosque,
and with pious and holy people, with the gatherings of
remembrance and learning.

1
4. Establish your own prayer and worship if you wish to
establish it in your children. Let them see that dua is the
first resort of a believer who puts their trust in God.

5. Make the child used to seeing giving in action,

helping others; give them money to give to others from
a young age. Make them see generosity, hospitality,
service and compassion as the Muslim's bread and
butter, and their salt and pepper.

6. Try to establish love and attachment to the Quran

from a young age. Listening to Quran recitation is an
important part of this.

7. If you break your child’s spirit in pursuit of

inculcating self-control you will break their confidence.
Don’t be your child’s eternal life raft and never be their
jailor: focus on teaching them how to swim.

8. Always remind your child their faith must come to

centre on their own relationship with God, not on
parental approval or disapproval. The latter are props to
be kicked away as their faith matures and their
understanding grows.

9. Under-confidence is a bigger issue among young

Muslims, boys especially, than is egotism. Let us
recognise bravado as a sign of lack of confidence rather
than of arrogance.

2
10. Our established systems of moral education
(tarbiyah) were not built for Muslim minority status or
the structural Islamophobia of the postcolonial period.
They need to be rebuilt from scratch with wisdom and
love to become fit for purpose.

11. No educational institution, religious or secular, will

give everything your child as an individual needs to
grow. Be prepared to change things around in the best
interests of your child. Be ready to work in active
partnership with your child's educators and to challenge
them constructively if they are not doing right by your
child. You can't leave them at the school and madrasa
gates, do nothing else and just hope for the best. That is
a failure of parenting.

12. If you find a teacher who inspires your child hang

on to them. They are a priceless commodity. Even in
adulthood, many of us struggle to distinguish between
our interest in a subject and poor teaching -- this is
doubly true for children. Teachers have the power to
switch us on or off many subjects, either secular or
religious, until we solidify our own motives for learning
various subjects.

13. Consider holiday time an opportunity to explore the

history and culture of Muslims; such educational
opportunities are there even in our home countries in
the West if travelling abroad is beyond your means.

3
14. Stay close to your extended family if you are
blessed to have one. A child brought up in an extended
family is more rounded and confident. The nuclear
family structure combined with the current economic
requirement for dual income households doesn’t add up
to attentive parenting.

15. Keep your kids off smart phones for as long as

possible -- at least until they gain a love of reading
books. Make book reading with your children a daily
practice. Focus on making it enjoyable for them not
onerous. If they master the art of long-form
concentration and capacity for subtle and extended
argument or great prose and sophisticated character
studies in terms of nonfiction and fiction book reading
they will retain an advantage few others will possess in
the digital age.

16. Don’t try as parents to present a united parental

front to the children, but demonstrate to them the art of
disagreeing and then compromising within a family
setting. Teach them to use words and reason to convey
what is on their minds.

17. A home without any arguments is one where

someone is usually keeping quiet and making all the
compromises.

18. Don’t go to bed without making up with your

children after an argument. Don’t let things fester.
4
19. Always strive for open communication with your
children above all. Never penalise honesty, especially
when they confess to wrongdoing or to having doubts.
That way your child will feel safe to tell you what’s
really on their minds. This openness is a blessing not a
test.

20. Tell your children that doubt is part of faith, and

that you will always be there to help answer any
question they have, no matter how tough or awkward it
might be. If you don’t know the answer yourself, tell
them you don’t know, but that you are willing to go
away and find out more. Or direct them to someone
who does know.

21. Try to teach your children as many practical life

skills as possible. Schools do not cover this adequately
in my experience.

22. Encourage your children to eat the same food that

you eat from a young age. In other words, eat together,
not separately. Resist the temptation to give them
children’s meals. This is just marketing and the food is
normally bad for them.

23. Try to offer them a balanced plate of food. Reduce

carbs and sugar, and get them used to vegetables and
fruit. Don’t become a household that is reliant on fried
foods or a heavy meat diet. Try to source meat and
5
poultry that is organic, halal and cruelty-free (this is
particularly important in the case of chickens who are
mostly kept in cruel conditions).

24. Encourage them to love the outdoors and sports. Let

them muck around in puddles and get muddy when
young. Don’t keep them cooped up. Barring a heavy
storm with heavy wind and rain, there’s no such thing
as truly bad weather but only a wardrobe unable to
adapt to Britain’s temperamental weather.

25. Encourage your children to love plants, animals,

and nature. Have plants in your home, and even if you
have a small yard put some pots in it. Grow some
tomatoes or strawberries so that they can see where
food comes from. Cats make ideal pets. They are
affectionate but also independent and clean. They retain
a sense of their wildness and this is important for
children to experience.

26. If a parent has to assert their authority by saying that

Islam teaches children to respect their parents then
usually something has gone wrong. The same goes for
shouting.

27. Model good manners to your children. Good

manners are gold, but only with the right motives. They
are a means to an end, not an end in themselves.

6
28. If you model good listening to your children, they
will become good listeners too, insha’Allah.

29. Help your children to learn to navigate friendships.

This is particularly important for girls, who seek out
deeper friendships than boys do at a younger age. The
most important lessons they have to learn are that
friendships come in different shapes and sizes, that they
are based on reciprocity and can’t be one-sided, that
friends should respect your boundaries, and not to
blame yourself for dynamics in friendships that are
beyond your control.

30. You never stop being a parent. However your

children do become adults, and so the relationship does
become more equal and this is natural and to be
expected.