Caring about your childs emotional welfare [Archives:2002/19/Last Page]

Written by Abdulrahman Mutahhar
Translated by Janet Watson
M Psychologists tell us, Musida, that it is as important to care about a childs emotional welfare as it is to care about their education and health.
Ma Dont believe everything you hear. Everyone will tell you what they think.
M Okay, you wont find advice under a stone, but were told to, Accept wisdom, even from the mouths of madmen.
Ma Thats just what you want to hear.
M It is not just what I want to hear. But it is essential that fathers and mothers and everyone else in the family care about a childs psychological welfare in the same way as they care about feeding him and educating him.
Ma Thats right, but we fathers and mothers can only bring up our children as well as we can.
M When it comes to childcare, as well as we can just isnt good enough! Bringing up children and preparing them to face the future has to be based on sound principles in all respects, so that children grow up properly and are able to deal with life and the future.
Ma If thats what its all about, dont you worry yourself. We are supposed to bring up our children for as long as they are children, and once they become men they can care for themselves, and thats when they would be dealing with the future and whatever horrors they might face there.
M That isnt quite what I mean.
Ma Well what do you mean!
M I mean, Musida, that in the first three years of his life, a child comes to learn about a lot of things around him both in the house and the street. And there isnt a single day or night when he is not learning new words and new ways of behavior, and discovering new things for himself. And these things will have a direct effect on his upbringing, his personality, and his behavior when he becomes an adult.
Ma Praise and thanks be to God! And there isnt anything for him to discover which will have an effect on him apart from you and your brother fighting, all because your brothers been trying to get hold of your share of the inheritance. Cant you see that!
M Yeahh, okay then.
Ma Then theres you and me arguing and shouting over household expenses and the children. You eat up your wages on qat, and I worry about how to live and the rent. On top of that, you cant rely on the old-fashioned sense of neighborliness anymore. And the poor child is trapped in the middle of all this drama and doesnt have a clue who is in the right, or who is in the wrong.
M This is exactly what I mean when I talk about the childs emotional welfare.
Ma Okay, youve said it with your own tongue: Accept wisdom, even from the mouths of madmen!
M Say what you want, Musida! Or should we deal with this later?
Ma Its better to deal with things straight away. Tell me whats on your mind, out with it!
M Bless the Prophet!
Ma Blessings be on Muhammad and his family.
M Lets say that those families where there is love and understanding based on trust and respect, where people are valued and there is a proper sense of responsibility, they are the families which bring forth upright, confident people who are able to deal with others with the same sense of confidence and love and respect as they grew up with.
Ma What a philosopher you are!
M Families where there are lots of arguments and in which theres a sense of hatred and mistrust for whatever reason, they are precisely the families from which weak, hesitant people come, people with no sense of self-confidence. And these people look on life and the people around them with the same feelings of hatred and fear as they grew up with. This type of upbringing can lead some people away from the proper path, away from proper moral behavior and can make them a danger to themselves and to society.
Ma Im not stupid. I know about these things, but there is something else.
M Go on!
Ma People only have their own fate which is decreed to them from the moment they are born until the moment they die. And when a person grows up and becomes an adult, then hes responsible for himself.
M Youre right, but in order to produce someone who is upright, confident and a benefit to his family and his society you have to bring him up properly from early childhood, and that is the responsibility of the family. Do you see?
Ma Go on.
M When there are good parents, then you can say that the child has been placed in a good pair of hands and the child will be brought up properly. The child is an innocent being. He can be brought up to be good or bad. As the Prophet, praise be upon him, said, Every baby is born in a natural state. It is only his parents who would turn him into a Jew, Christian or Magian. And in this way, the Prophet, praise be upon him, said that your parents are the most important and fundamental environmental influences in your life.

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