Parenting Workshop: 5 best and worse Parenting Techniques

Given by: Sh. Yaser Birjas

When it comes to parenting, it is a life long job. Regardless of the number of parenting worskhops you
attend, parenting is training on the job.
You will become a real father or mother with experience. However, when it comes to being a successful
mother or father, thats another story.
You have to make sure youre an active member of your childrens lives. Allah says:

( 66:6)
66:6 O ye who believe! Save yourselves and your families from a Fire whose fuel is Men and Stones,
over which are (appointed) angels stern (and) severe, who flinch not (from executing) the Commands
they receive from Allah, but do (precisely) what they are commanded.

This workshop has been running around the country for some time for now.
Whenever anyone asks Sh. Yaser what the best advice that he can give someone (a father) regarding
parenting, he answers: Love his childrens mother.
Thats one of the most important things about parenting. When a man loves his wife and shows that
mother love in front of the children (dont mix love with lust), you will have a very stable child, both
emotionally and psychologically.
When a lady asks the same question, Sh. Yaser always answers: Respect the father.
Respect is the way that men perceive love.
If you want your husband to help you in parenting the children, give the leverage. Show respect in front
of the children and the kids will respect the husbands authority more and more.
If you dont show respect to the husband before, then the children will not listen to the father when
they get older, especially during those troublesome teenage years.
If you truly want to have solid parenting skills, then you must love and respect each other and be on the
same page together. When you talk and communicate, be on the same page. If you keep contradicting
each other, you will undermine each others authority in front of the children.
There are many techniques out there. People always solicit advice to new parents. The best person to
ask this question to is the youth and children.

In this workshop, we will start with a group session discussing this subject.
Best and Worst Parenting Techniques according to class group discussion (in Charlotte, NC):

Best:
1)
2)
3)
4)
5)
6)
7)
8)
9)
10)
11)
12)
13)
14)
15)
16)
17)
18)
19)
20)
21)
22)
23)
24)
25)
26)
27)

Listening to the children (at their level)

Leading by example
Reward system
Making dua for them
Treat children equally
Create positive habits
Reasoning with them
Consulting them
Being positive/positive reinforcement
Spending quality family time
Appreciate them
Giving alternatives to no
Being respectful
Having order and structure to them
Rule of 7 (The saying of ali in regards to child rearing: Play with them the first 7 years, teach
them the 2nd 7 years of their life and be their friend the last 7 years)
Supervising them
Quran and Sunnah being priority in their lives
Leading by example
Good communication
Investing in them financially and emotionally
Respecting feelings/empathy
Consistent discipline
Raising them to be responsible (give them chores)
Patience
Love
Praising their behavior (rather than them)
friendship

Worse Parenting Skills (according to attendees in Charlotte, NC):

1) Screaming/yelling
2) Hitting
3) Ignoring

4)
5)
6)
7)
8)
9)
10)
11)
12)
13)
14)
15)
16)
17)
18)
19)
20)

Parents fighting in front of the children

Not supporting them
Anger
Being authoritative
Lack of trust
Being negative/being critical
Public humiliation
Controlling
Comparing kids
Bribery
Not spending quality time
Hypocrisy
High expectations
Cultural baggage
Not being consistent
Spoiling them
Bad example

These are the problems in our community and taking place in our households. This is what happens
with those that are near to us, the children in our youth group, our neighbors.
What scores the highest should be the communitys priority. What is the least is not widespread.
The top worse parenting techniques according to Charlotte community is: yelling, hitting, humiliating,
bribery, and ignoring.
The best are: quality time, order and structure, building trust, listening to the children, love and having
patience.

Inviting 2 youth to discuss what they feel is the best and worse of parenting techniques:
Good:
-Parents making dua for their children
-Quran/Sunnah being a priority
-Being fair
-communicationsimple daily conversations between parent/child
-Sense of freedom; allowing children to make mistakes and learning from them
-not expecting child to live their life according to what the parent wants
-positive reinforcement/feedback and recognition

Bad:
-humiliation; especially in front of friends
-comparison
-Shaming them for being sexual curious

One thing that children need to know and realize is whatever parents do is for the best interest for their
children. So when a parent hits the child, the parent thinks they are doing it for the benefit of the child.
But the child doesnt see it this way, so this parenting technique will not help in the proper upbringing of
this child.
VERY IMPORTANT: Children will always look to see what the parent does and not what the parent says.
KEY: Regardless how much you talk to your children, your actions will speak louder!!!

Sh. Yaser analyzing our lists:

1-screaming/yelling at children
Who benefits from yelling? Its the parents because they get the stress out.
Screaming and yelling doesnt make anything better.
When you scream at children, you will only break them. It doesnt make them listen to it. The children
will eventually listen because they are sick and tired of hearing the parent yell.
2hitting
When a parent hits their child, they do it because it makes the parent feel better and justify it by saying
the prophet allowed us to hit.
Did the prophet say to discipline them at 10 for ibada? Yes he did But before 10, never.
He said to instruct them
And plus the prophet said to discipline them not to BEAT them.
The prophet isnt telling us to hit, he is saying if you get to this point, you do have the right to discipline
them. But he never encouraged hitting.
Never use the hadith to make it permissible to hit the child.
3Ignoring
When the child is reading something to the parent and you, as the parent, are not listening. Or if your
child draws a picture and you dont give recognition, Or a parent sitting on the computer and not giving
the child attentionthese are all ways parents ignore their children.
When the child feels ignored when they are younger, when the parent gets older and needs the child,
the child will ignore the parent since that was what he/she learned growing up.

One of the scholars mentioned a story of a Bedouin who raised cattle and had a child. He raised his
child to be farmer just like him. When that child got older, the child asked his father for something and
the father said no. The child whipped his father. The father was shocked and went to the governor and
complained to him about his son. The governor called the son. He realized the young son was so
ignorant of some things, such as reading/writing, learning quran, etc. The father didnt teach the child
anything except to be a Bedouin and take care of animals.
The governor asked the father: Did you teach your child to obey his parents? The father replied in the
negative. So he said then your child is treating you like what you taught him to doi.e. to raise animals.

The younger kids are growing up with cell phones and all these distractions. And they are growing up
seeing their parents distracted by technology. Imagine how much time they will spend with the parent
as these kids get older.

4Fighting in front of the children

When parents fight in front of the children, they are sending a message of insecurity. When a child is
insecure, he will think that his life is unstable. He will begin to question everythingwill his parents
divorce, or will they hurt each other, etc.
When the children see parents fighting, they always think worse case scenario.
As much as you try to console them and telling them its ok or its normal to differ with one another,
they will still feel insecure in their relationship.
Also what happens is when these same kids grow up, they will argue and fight with their parents
because thats what they witnessed and learned when they were younger.
5Not supporting the children
This is important with teenagers in particular. They are in an age in making choices so parents have to
allow that.
When the parent always says no to everything, it makes the child feel isolated and not supported by
their decisions they want to make.
As long as the childs request is reasonable, then parents need to ease up a bit.
As much as you think your kids want you as a friend, you have to remain to them as a parent.
You still need to be the parent who makes the final decision.
The kids will always come back to the parent for security and support.

6Anger

The Prophet said:

( )
The Prophet (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) said: There is no gentleness in a thing but it
adorns it, and the absence of gentleness in anything makes it ugly. Narrated by Muslim, 4698.

The Prophet said:

) (
632/6
The Messenger of Allaah (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) said: "The strong man is not the one
who can overpower others (in wrestling); rather, the strong man is the one who controls himself when he
gets angry."

Anger doesnt help in a relationship

7Being authoritative
We always answer our children because I said so.
It is better to rationalize your answers with your children to a certain limit. Sometimes as a parent, you
will have to use your authority. Be open minded and discuss issues with kids, but realize that you have
to set the rule straight sometimes.

8-Lack of trust
Children like to demand more trust from their parents. When they say trust, they actually mean:
a-time on the internet/smart phones
b- when they go out
These are 2 things that kids want their parents to trust them in.
Ex: A child takes his/her cell phone upstairs and the mother questions where he is going with the cell
phone. Child gives parent the cell phone and she sees there is a password. From this a problem starts
to occur.
There has to be a rule between parents and children about technology time.
If you build trust with each other, it has to be done gradually. With children, they have to give access to
their parents to computer/cells until they reach a certain age.

9Being negative /criticism

When the parent criticizes the child continuously, they will run away and rebel.
Why do people resist criticism?
The main message of criticism is a subtle form of control and no one likes to be controlled.
When you criticize the child, essentially you strip them from their freedom.
Controlling is done in 3 areas:
-Controlling the way the child thinks (so now the child starts to intellectually reacting to what the parent
said and starts to think differently)
-the way they feel (lowers the self esteem)
-the way they behave (youre telling them to behave in a way they dont want to)
There is a clear difference between criticism and giving advice.
Example: Having a daughter who doesnt wear hijab the proper way.
Instead of criticizing the daughter and making her feel bad about the way she is dressed, instead tell her:
Lets go shopping together so that we can pick something that is beautiful (i.e. suitable/appropriate) for
you. This color/pattern looks great on you, what do you think about this?
Show concern for your child.

A lot of the time, the parent criticizes the child because he/she wants to save him/herself from the
embarrassment of those in the community. Children fully realize this fact!

Remember that criticism=more rebellion

10Public humiliation
Disgracing kids in front of others
What is the reaction of the other kids when you scold your child in public?
The other kids look away because they dont like to see their friend in that position.
This shows the child that their friends care more about him/her than his own parents!
When they see their friends care about them more, they get more attached to their friends and detach
from their parents.

11-Controlling

Links back to being critical

12comparing kids to each other

This happens in 2 ways:
-Comparing siblings to one another
-comparing your child to others children
This builds animosity for a very long time and hard to get rid of.
When one child is doing more ibadat, dont ever say look at child A, why cant you be like him? This will
not help at all, in fact youre only building a huge disconnect between the children.

13Spoiling
Kids are smart and can smell the sense of fear in the parent. They know when they can demand more.
You think you dont want to lose your child, but you actually do lose them because you have become
weak in the relationship. The parent is supposed to control the relationship not vice versa.
Dont let the childs behavior control the reaction of the parent.
Ex:
If a child goes to a parent, if I do this chore/ibada/assignment (etc) will you give me $20?
Parent should say: No, you need to do it anyway without the money. But if you want $20, let me know
and Ill give it to you at a later time.
It doesnt make the child love the parent more when you spoil them. They just love what you give them.

14Not spending quality time

***Specifically for the fathersregardless how much you try to convince the children that you are
working/hours put in for the sake of the children, they only see you away from them, not FOR
them.***
What makes it worse is when the father comes home and he enters the house and the first thing he
hears is whining, complaining, etc (more show of lack of appreciation) and the man becomes more
miserable.
He is going out for all these hours to make his family happy and instead he comes back feeling more
miserable.

Working more doesnt bring life, it only brings a living.

15Hypocrisy
Kids at some point in life will start to see the hypocrisy of adults.
When we do these things, we dont do them out of hypocrisy but out of weakness as a human. But kids
dont see it that way. So be consistent in what you want your kids to be.
Be a role model for them.

16Cultural values
The generation gap between parents and children.
The feeling that you get out of recalling your memories from childhood, doesnt mean anything to your
children. So there really isnt a point in sharing these stories to your children. They dont get it.
Ali mentioned a profound statement as an answer to this issue:

Raise your children for their time, not your time. They have been created for a different time.

When parents raise their kids today, they arent preparing them for situations that these kids will
ultimately face.
Parents also raise their children as everything being haram or 3ayb, but the problem is we never taught
them what to do when this happens. These are the kids who know how to put on a very good double
face in front of their parents because they face one thing in school and arent taught how to deal with it.

17High expectations
It is the number 1 reason for divorce among couples and can be a top reason for damaging relationship
between a child and parent.
When you set the standard so high for their kids, this ruins a child and they end up rebelling.
When the child fails the expectation, this causes a rift.
Sh. Yaser told his eldest: I know you will mess up. When you do mess up, come back to me and Ill help
you out. But dont mess up big.
*Help them to set good goals, dont set the goals for them.*

18Inconsistency
Parents need to have structure in the household.
Making punishments but never following through with it. The kids will get used to it. So instead make a
punishment that is reasonable.
Keep everything consistent in life.
19Labeling
The children will believe in whatever label you give them.
There is a statistic: There is an 80% chance that children will end up as you say about them.
Never call your children names.
Parents should never use the following words: NEVER and ALWAYS (you always say this, you always do
that), YOU SAID/YOU DID (ex: son fail a grade, dont say youre miserable, etc instead say: when I see
these (not YOUR) grades, it makes me feel disappointed (USE I-STATEMENTS)

20overreacting
A child does an innocent mistake, dont make them feel miserable and that they did the extreme haram.

21Threats
They dont work!!
When kids reach a certain age, they know that threats dont mean anything to them.
Ex: If you keep doing this, youre not welcome in this house
some day they will leave; so never use this statement

BEST TECHNIQUES:
1listening
What does listening mean? This means ACTIVE listening. Which means that you show them you enjoy
listening to them as much as you enjoy speaking to them.
Many parents listen without actively listening.
This is in particular to fathers and their daughters.
Daughters are intimidated by their fathers so they go around and around before getting to the point.
The only thing that the daughter wants is to see her father listening to her.

2Talking at their level

Dont talk to your children using condescending language. Many parents talk to their children as they
are teachers.
When parents communicate, they communicate at their own level and not at the level of the childs.
Thats not appealing to the child.
Being a human to your child and not a professional.
3-Make dua
Make dua for them in front of them and not just in your salah.
Instead of yelling/screaming at child when they do wrong, instead make dua for them in front of their
face. Allah yehdeek, allah yeghfirlak lak (May Allah guide you! May Allah forgive you from your sins!)

4Treat children equally

:
( : : : ) : .
3261( ) 6442( ) .
It was narrated from al-Numaan ibn Basheer that his father brought him to the Messenger of Allaah
(peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) and said: I have given this son of mine a slave. He said,
Have you given a similar gift to all of your children? He said, No. He said, Then take it back. Narrated
by al-Bukhaari (2446) and Muslim (1623).

Be fair not in terms of quality, but in terms of being even. A 15 year old child is not like a 5 year old, and
thus will not get the same gift. Just be evengive each what is satisfactory to the child.
When the kids see you favor one over the other, it creates hostility in the hearts, esp when the siblings
are very close to each other in age.

5Positive habits
Teach your child positive habits in everything. One thing recommended for men: when the children
become closer to adolescence, it is YOUR job to teach the child how to become a man, likewise the
mothers with teaching their daughters how to be a woman.
Have you gone shopping with your children? Have you taught your children between this brand and
that? How to shave? If you dont, then they will learn from youtube. When they type these things in
youtube, terrible things come up.

Ex: Girls wanting to wear make up. Teach your daughter the rules of wearing it (at girls parties, home,
etc), when to wear it, how to put it on, because she will wear it no matter what. If you teach her the
right way in doing it, she will at least know whats right and wrong about it.
6Reason with the child
When children become adolescents, the answer of because I said so is not always valid but sometimes
it has to be said. Try to reason with the child when you are able to and there is leeway in the decision to
be made. But know full well, that the excecutive order has to be given by the parent.

7-Consulting with them

esp when it comes to matters that are related to them.
Realize though that sometimes when you give many choices, sometimes you dont get anywhere with
them.

8Positive reinforcement
Many of us see positive reinforcement in big matters but that should not be the case. It should be done
on an everyday basis in things they do in the house.
Ex: Children returning back from school
give them a hug, show them that you care that they are back from school
Acknowledge when they do their homework on their own, when they finish their plate of food, etc
Words of affirmation in the daily things are so important.
They dont have to do something magnificent in order to hear positive reinforcement.

9Spending quality time with the family

Quality time doesnt need to be something planned out and big. Even if it just going to the park across
the street, or playing a board game as a family. The moments you spend with them, they will cherish
these memories forever.
Even when youre away, you can still spend quality time over facetime etc

10Alternatives to no
If you say no, sometimes you have to give alternatives
The prophet would do this when he saw something was difficult on the sahaba.
But do realize that sometimes, some things dont have an alternative.

11Being respectful in the way you talk to your children

use words such as, please, thank you, etc
if they are taught this at a young age, they will use these words in older age.

12-Being consistent
**having dinner together should be the most consistent thing you do in the house. **
TV is becoming the new statue that is being worshipped
All the seats of worship sit in front of it. TV shouldnt be in a central location; put it to the side
somewhere like a game room where its not the focal point of the house.

13Rule of the 7 (see above-page 1)

Even though this sounds beautiful its not right. You should be all 3 (teacher, friend and someone to
play with) at every phase of your childrens lives.

14Involvement in their life

Show concern for them and what they want to do. Always remember it is their life and their life is more
important.
When kids do something wrong and the parent says: You have shamed us in front of the people.
This is the worse statement that you can say to a child. They see that you only care about the people
and your image in front of ppl, not about them, the child.

15Quran/Sunnah
Most kids hate learning from the parent so that is why they should learn from a teacher or a tutor.

16Patience
The Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) said: "No one can be given a blessing better and
greater than patience." - Sahih Al-Bukhari
This generation grows up without the sense of patience whatsoever. This is the culture of instant
gratification. When the internet was first introduced to the household, it was on dial up. Nowadays
everything is quick and we want results now and children are learning this from a young age!

17Building trust
The way you build trust is by leading them into adulthood. If youre not active in their life and you
expect them to give you access to their life, it will not happen.

The parents have to teach their children about sensitive matters such as gender interactions, sexuality,
etc
Never lose your position as a parent; if a child messes up there has to be consequences, but you move
on.
18Love them
Be affectionate with your children The more you are affectionate with your children, the more loving
they become.

The best parenting and worse parenting techniques (accrding to Sh. Yaser):
Worse 5:
#5: spoiling/bribery
#4: Being too physical and physical punishment
#3: being authoritative (a different between commands and requests)
#2: Yelling/screaming
#1: Humiliation

Best 5:
#5: Affection
#4: Being a good listener
#3: Appreciation and positive reinforcements
#2: Quality time
#1: Being a good role model
(#1 was most likely not on our top list because we are already outsourcing this to other agencies
Sunday school, Islamic center, etc Parents mentality: You deal with our kids)

Q & A:
The moment you start looking for a spouse is when you start working on your parenting technique
One day the prophet was walking home with AlAqra3 ibn haris and the Prophet told him, lets stop here
(at fatimas house) since he wanted to see his grandchildren.
The prophet held AlHasan and kissed him. AlAqra3 said: I have 10 and never kissed them any of them.
The Prophet replied: What will I do to you if Allah has taken that mercy out of your heart?
Even when it comes to spouses, Allah said that he created us to have mercy and love.
When kids get older, youre not necessarily more passionate with the children, but you should still show
compassion and mercy since these 2 are another aspect of love.
As a family: every week study a certain aspect, and throughout the week there should be a project that
they are working on about it. On the last day of the week, you implement what you studied.
For example: Study compassion for the week then the end of the week volunteer at a soup kitchen

What children need to learn is to enjoy coming to the masjid, meeting with other muslims like
themselves. So create activities that brings them to the masjid.
Many parents do not take their kids to the masjid throughout the week, and as such the kids dont have
any attachment to the masjid. If they get used to going to the masjid when they are young, they grow
up they will like going to the masjid.

At the age of 12 or 13, you should start talking to your child about sexuality and gender issues.

A mother asked about what to do when her son keeps arguing with her.
Father needs to step in and teach his child his limits and that this behavior is not and will not be
tolerated.