This beautiful post was published on the Facebook page of the IHELRS and the advice was extracted from one of the answers from Syed Ahmed Al Hasan (as)
Supervising children: with regards to playing, watching television, or even accessing the Internet, computer games and the like, parents must monitor their children and prevent them from matters that could corrupt. For example: if a child accesses the internet to play something, his surfing activities must be supervised by his parents, but it is not permissible to stop them from playing or living out their childhood, since that will affect them when they get older.
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Beneficial games: the child can be directed towards and encouraged to play games that are beneficial, for example: they can be encouraged to play games that involve designing things, or games that involve solving engineering puzzles or such similar games. Many children have the ability to do this, and as a result, this will lead to the development of their mental abilities in a big way. Just as they (games) can lead to an adolescent getting distracted by occupying them with other corrupt matters.
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Developing the child’s abilities: they can also teach a child or adolescent to research, so they can learn and develop their abilities. So, the parents can assign them the task of researching specific scholarly topics, or those which relate to their daily lives, or even historical ones.
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Education in religious matters: as for religious matters: do not burden them with anything more than congregational prayers with their parents, for example, then gradually encourage them to pray two units of salaat on their own and then to pray for a specific need, so that if they find their need is fulfilled, his bond with God will be strengthened, and their faith will be strengthened in their heart. Remind them of God in all matters, when they fight amongst themselves, say to one of them, for example, “Forgive your brother or sister, and God will make you like the Prophets (may God’s blessings be upon them)”. In this way you will bring good morals to life in their hearts, and encourage them to seek perfection.
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Daily or weekly program: you can also make a daily program for them, for example, for an hour or half an hour, so that they memorize some of the short chapters of the Qur’an by you reading and them following you. Day by day they will memorize the chapters. With regards children over ten years: try to organise their week, for example three or four days a week, prevent them from playing any games, even if they are permitted to access the internet, or be preoccupied with matters other than their studies, they should be for scholarly matters, or historic matters, or reading a book, or reading matters that relate to their studies, or reading stories about the Prophets and the Imams (peace be upon them) and such like. Thus, by caring and organizing their time, there will be a good result from them.
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Neglect: with regards neglecting (children), they may deviate and you might lose them, and then your loss would be great. Unfortunately, many Arab fathers who emigrated far from Arab countries, damage their children by neglecting to teach their children Arabic, as well as reading and writing, whilst both parents have an hour spare each day to teach their children the Arabic language, which they would need to study their religion and have detailed awareness of it.
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Advice regarding bringing up your children Ahmed Al Hasan
