Advices to mothers with disobedient children
– By Bint Hajj on 11-02-2009 02:55 PM
Dear Sister,
I too have a 14 year old daughter. It can be confusing knowing how to continue to raise someone who is almost an adult, but Allah SWT is Most Merciful.
Alhamdulillah, my daughter has not gone down the road of becoming disrespectfull or interacting with boys. However, I did begin to see a problem with her attitude and her grades when she first started High School this year. All Praise is due to Allah SWT as all is now improved after some changes I have made with her. I am going to share them with you and hope they help you and your daughter as well InshaAllah.
1) Change yourself before you expect change in your child.
Be the woman you want your daughter to be. Make sure you make your salaah, read Quran, and fast. If you want your daughter to be respectful, make sure you show her how respectful you are towards your own mother and others. Include your daughter in your Ibadah. Pray with her. Read with her. Explain things to her. Share with her your love of Islam and hopefully, InshaAllah, she’ll grow to enjoy this about you and the time you spend with her. Make sure you don’t interact with men in a way you don’t want your daughter to. Show her that it’s superiour to do things in an Islamic way than how she see’s in school, movies, & tv(as a previous posted stated). Which leads to #2:
2) No TV or limited & monitored TV.
I don’t allow my daughter to just go watch tv anymore. She never watches it during the school week as I found she rushed through her work to get to watch something. Without that distraction she takes her time to do her work as she has nothing else to do. Also, I sit with her and only allow her to watch certain programs – mostly education documentaries and historical movies based on fact. I always interject an Islamic perspective into whatever is going on and how Allah SWT has power over all things.
3) No radio/CDs/MP3/iPod/etc.
I found that my daughter had a radio in her room, and had radio access on her cell phone. I took the radio and get the cell phone from her when she gets home from school. The music mostly talks disrespectfully about women, sex, or some fairytale romantic relationships. Girls(and boys) can get caught up in fantasizing about these things to music and forget reality – that these things are haram, and the marriage that Allah SWT has ordained for us as a lawful relationship is better than what is being sung about.
4) No cell phone except for contact with the parents while on the way to and from school.
My daughter made new friends and was calling them. Alhamdulillah, they were girls, but I still wasn’t ok with her talking with them when she needed to be doing homework and I didn’t know their characters. I give her the cell when she leaves for school, take it when she gets home, and check it every day. I haven’t really had to check it lately and sometimes let her keep it just to see what she does. Then I check it later along with the phone bill, and Alhamdulillah, she’s not going against my rules – only use it to call me to tell me she made it to school ok, and after school to let me know she’s on her way home.
If your daughter won’t comply, you could disconnect her cell phone and get her a “firefly” phone. They’re phones for children that only have 4 numbers stored that they can call and they’re pre-paid. so the children can only call say, their mom, dad, etc. No one else. I also don’t think they can recieve calls from anyone other than those people. That was going to be my choice if my daughter didn’t comply with the cell phone use restrictions.
5) Talk with your daughter about marriage.
Yes, I know she’s 14 and not ready for marriage. My own daughter can only make scrambled eggs and doesn’t even know how to do her own hair. lol However, those little “crushes” eventually grow up into BIG crushes and a need for a relationship. I explained to my daughter that these feelings are normal, but there is a reason for them – for us to marry and have a family InshaAllah. I told her that she is NOT going to date, but if she begins to feel that she would like to start thinking about possibly finding a groom, I would do what I could to help her InshaAllah.
I also remind her that the stronger she feels for someone, doesn’t she eventually think about marriage? She says, “yes.” As most girls, even non-Muslims, hope for the person they like to want to marry them. I told her that if she fosters crushes, they will just lead to heartbreak as 1-they will probably just use her for sex, and 2-even if they wanted to marry her, she can’t marry them as her marriage won’t be valid unless he is Muslim. She understands this and I feel that she is even more comfortable with the idea of marriage than she was before.
That is all that I have for now. I hope and pray that Allah SWT will help and guide you and your daughter through this difficult time. Ameen.
P.S. Out of all of what I wrote, I find #1 to be most important.
My thoughts: Same is the case with sons as well and this post should not be restricted to daughters alone. For sons, the father is responsible for becoming the role model.
