Day 26: How To Teach Teenagers To Lean On Adults In Their Life

I was fortunate enough to have many ‘mummy’ friends in the UK who had grown up children when I had my three under fives. I used to attend their gatherings with my three in tow, to get a bit of insight into what it was like parenting young Muslims in the west.

In one of these gatherings, we were discussing the element of trust. How can we teach our youngsters to trust grown-ups in their life? To be more precise, we know as parents we can’t trust teenagers all the time. As such how can we earn their trust? One of the mothers argued ‘You have to trust your children and let them do things independently. You can’t keep them in a bubble forever. I let them go to town with their friends’ when another mother cut her short ‘How can you trust them when we can’t even trust our own nafs sometimes? For sure, we must take our precautions even if it is perceived as distrust by our teenagers’

Few weeks after this meeting, one of my friends called me to ask for advice regarding the incident she witnessed involving one of our acquaintance’s daughter. One Sunday morning she took her children to the cinema. They used to show old family movies at a much cheaper rate early Sunday mornings. As the family walked down the corridor, she bumped into our friend’s daughter around the corner. The same friend who said “I trust my girls. I let them go to town with friends and stuff”. The young girl who was around the age of 16 was caught with a boy. My friend glanced sideways to be sure and the eyes met. She ignored her and just walked past the young ‘offenders’. After the movie, however, they met again. My friend was walking out of the cinema, the young girl caught up with her from behind and started begging “Aunty, please do whatever you do but please don’t tell my mum”. My friend asked me ‘I don’t know what to do. Shall I tell the mother or shall I speak to her myself? But one thing is for sure, I will never trust my children when they are teenagers’. You don’t have to trust your growing up child. However, it’s very important that parents earn their child’s trust for children should be certain who to lean on at times when they need guidance.

Fifteen-year-olds need to have a fundamental trust in the adults in their life if they are to devote their attention to academic and life skills. And for a young girl, can it be difficult to trust parents if parents don’t trust her? If they tell her she is a responsible young lady now and at the same time instead of allowing her to own a mobile ‘responsibly and independently’ they keep checking her messages. I don’t think so, as long as parents have established themselves as role-models and an authoritative figure in the family from the very beginning.

I believe we pay a very heavy price when we trade ‘trust’ for a ‘trust’ when dealing with teenagers. If you want to be trusted, you have to establish yourself as a leader from the start. Children must know that the role of a father and a mother is highly valued in Islam. Parents have a lot of rights and responsibilities over their children. We were raised with “Paradise lies under the feet of your mother” or “God is pleased with you when your father is pleased with you”. As such statements like “I don’t trust you because you never trust me” was simply unacceptable when I was growing up.

Parents make the rules to be followed for children’s own good. And this message should be communicated somehow. It’s better to say ‘I’m going to check your phone regularly if you are to own one’ from the very start, even if you have to endure a miserable nagging. And about 15 year old’s outings, say ‘This may hurt but I can’t let you go to the cinema or town with your friends at this age. You can sit in your room and cry if you feel like it. I’m sorry about this.’

I often wonder what makes adults trustworthy in the eyes of teenagers? Is it consistency? Rigidity? Flexibility? Honesty? Trust is important. However, growing makes children change. They become more subject to mood swings, their feelings fluctuate, and they can easily get influenced and change their minds. I believe what is important to children are our attempts to be honest with them, explain our decisions as best as we can and apologize when they don’t make sense.

Distrust results from feeling you are the only one who sees the unpleasant situations or undesirable qualities in other people. This is especially a common experience for most teenagers. And yet as a mother living in this day and age, you have to have foresight. We can’t let our children manipulate us with “You are the only one who won’t allow this” or ‘My family is the only one who doesn’t let people my age do that’. Establish boundaries and rules from the start, communicate these very clearly and honestly and as much as you can, try to reason and meet your teenagers’ demands halfway. As long as it’s not a matter of clear cut halal and haram, consult your child’s opinion but use your own sense of judgement of the situation.

Owning their own mobiles, allowing them unlimited access to social media platforms, playing real-time video games, Fortnite, tick-tock, Snapchat – all of these require a great deal of parental guidance. Don’t give in to the pressure, but rather, put restrictions in place. Allow limited access to what is safe, even though you have to endure a little painful pestering and sorrowful sulking. One of our duties as parents is to preserve their childish innocence just a little longer insha’Allah