Day eight- choosing to respond in four steps

Today we will wrap up the topic of “Choosing to respond”.

I will summarize the recommendations that have been put together in previous days with more detail and examples. I will then add a final message for today. inshaAllah

1. Self-nurturance- you can control the urge to react only if you have a reservoir of loving feelings yourself. We all need time away from our children. Every mother needs to pursue other interests and hobbies, relationships and friendships. These are essential to nourish us. Especially now when many of us cooped up indoors- perhaps for many more months to come. Most of us are isolated and raising children alone (no support from extended family). As such it gets really hard to nurture that inner self. Have that cup of tea in your bedroom, read Qur’an in solitude, do your morning/evening adhkaar, pick up the phone and talk to a friend, facetime your brothers or sisters, journal and jot down your thoughts, order take away and allow yourself a day off cooking – and plan those moments if you must. So, rule number one- do more of what refills your emotional tank (even during a quarantine) and don’t feel guilty about it.
2. Re-examine your expectations of your children. We surely do build up some fancy fantasies about angelic obedient children and seem to get more and more annoyed when our reality seems to be getting further and further away from those fantasies. Have high standards but also be realistic. Don’t compare your children. They have their differences. Those differences must be understood and accepted.
3. Get in touch with the inner child within yourself- remember what it felt like being so young and vulnerable. The more you remember, the easier it gets to show empathy. Children need to hear they are lovable. Children need to feel they are seen, heard and understood in order to behave better. Spanking, nagging, threatening will not work in the long run. Remember, we can never make someone behave better by making them feel worse about themselves.
4. And lastly, gain insightful knowledge about what parenting approaches and attitudes you want to mend and how to go about it. When I was convinced that I had to change my attitude towards certain things- my first go to action always to make a list of books I should read. Learning as much as we can is always very helpful. Nowadays everything is under our fingertips, we can learn more by reading online books, magazines and articles about parenting and talking to experienced parents or watching videos of parenting experts. While knowledge gives us more choices, it certainly doesn’t make us perfect parents. I’m a recovering perfectionist myself and I have come to believe that getting over the notion of “there is such a thing as perfect” is the single most important step towards connecting and bonding with our children.

#islamicparenting #homeschooling #raisingyoungscholars