Are You Giving Your Children Their Rights? : Why We Must All Be Conscious Parents

Have you ever wondered why Allah so often describes the day of Qiyaamah as "the day parents would flee from their children" among other descriptions? This, according to Attabari’s Tafsiir, is because the parents fear that the children have so many rights which were not fulfilled, and if the children were to ask for those rights, the parents fear that they would not succeed on this day.

What makes the rights of children scary and delicate is that most parents do not know what those rights are, so they feel they are fulfilling them while they are not.

The Prophet used to say: "All of you are guardians and are responsible for the wards under your care. The man in the guardian of his family and he will be asked about them. The woman is the guardian of the home and she will be asked about it"

But how much will we be asked about our children? Is conscious parenting a luxury we could decide whether or not to give our children,or is it a right that we would be asked about if we do not give our children?

Conscious parenting is an approach to parenting in which we pay attention to every little thing the child does, and in every situation, our concern is: "what can I teach the child fom this incident?"

It is an approach that requires the presence of parents, their prioritization of children's welfare over other things, and conscious and deliberate effort to be watchful of every action and utterance they make.

That may sound like a luxury, but is it? The answer can only become clear when we look at the side effects of not being a conscious parent as practically illustrated in our previous story (https://link.medium.com/7QcZ9BqDgfb).

Not being a conscious parent often leads to a loss of connection and love between parent and child, and it leads to the child not feeling comfortable around the parent.

When your approach to parenting or your lack of consciousness leads you to reacting in ways that make children uneager to discuss with you serious personal issues that may affect their religion or mental health, then it could be said that you are depriving them of their rights, and (may Allah forbid) this may lead to the case described in the Qur'an where the child will be a source of humiliation and torment for the parent on the day of Qiyaamah.

The Messenger of Allah would (ﷺ) say: If Allah puts anyone in the position of authority, and he makes himself inaccessible, not fulfilling their needs, wants, and poverty, Allah will keep Himself away from him, not fulfilling his need, want and poverty. He said: He (Mu'awiyah) appointed a man to fulfil the needs of the people.
(Sunan Abi Dawud 2948)

Making yourself inaccessible, either by not being present physically, or by reacting to situations in ways that make children scared to table their affairs before you and seek from you what is their right (guidance) is apparently a great sin and an act of shirking your responsibilities, as highlighted in the hadith above.

We can conclude that conscious parenting is not only a style of parenting we could choose to adopt or not, rather it is a style that must be adopted and studied for us to be safe from blame over our children’s endeavors.

Conscious parenting takes a lot of effort: it requires physical presence, it requires religious and secular knowledge, it requires calmness and anger managemnet, it requires mental stability.

It requires so much that the only thing that could make it easy is remembering at all times that you have not chosen this style of parenting just to explore, rather, you have chosen it to fulfill your duties to your children, to be rewarded by Allah and to be safe from blame and the torment of Allah on the day of Qiyaamah.

As we delve into the intricacies of conscious parenting, you will find steps that will be hard to take, you will find habits that will be hard to leave; but remember that you are doing all these to raise the kind of children that will be among the three things the Prophet informed us would be of benefit even after we die: "Good children who pray for their parents" .

With this, it will be easier to prioritize our children over other things that will be of no benefit to us if we were to die now, and to be a happy and conscious parent.

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(This article is a part of Naas Educators' ongoing family engagement campaign. Anticipate the release of our complete family engagement brochure soon)