Teaching appropriate behavior to children for salat time.

[Lusi]

Re: Teaching appropriate behavior to children for salat time.

@ehl-e-chamman

@Lusi

I think we can absolutely teach children to sit quietly during salat time. However that teachinh/training is a spectrum as you point out as well. you start on day one and dont expect that perfect behavior do you? there is a lot of redirecting and time outs and explaining … over time kids learn. We all also know that kids learn at various speeds. we also all know that abilities of our children can vary … there are kids with ADD, Autism, Aspergers that require particular patience, attention and time to teach …
my point i guess is that one can not have a uniform expectation from all kids to behave just so in a given situation.
I can see some peoples point about not taking kids to such gathering until they know to behave right ( and I personally do that) BUT if we dont take them … that day one never happens, that repeat exposure and repetition of whats expected is missing.

what was surprising to me in that blog was not how the child shouldve been taught but rather an adults’ response to a childs misbehavior and many others dismissal of that behavior. :bummer:
perhaps im oversensitive to the issue. I see tons of kids in a days work who sustain significant injuries from a seemingly benign fall. their tears and hurt is painful enough even for me that I cant fathom anyone deliberately creating a situation to possibly cause such hurt.
I was also not kidding when i said such behavior from an adult is legally prosecutable … at least in USA it is.

anyhow … this was a really good teaching/learning topic for me. I truly hadn’t realized how strongly people felt about toddlers not perfectly behaved.
im definitely going to be much less inclined to taking my daughter to masjid now … in case she goes out of character and misbehaves.

Preparing the child really helps. I have worked with children with special needs, little things that are out of ordinary throw them off. We had to take baby steps with them, before taking them to big crowds, we had to prepare them in small, less intimidating crowd. Initially, it requires lot of redirection which means parents have to mentally prepare themselves for interruptions during their prayers. I take my son to jummah throughout the year as much as possible. It helps because the crowd is normally small/less intimidating in other months and helps prepare the child when the crowd is big especially during Ramzan and eids.

I have seen children accidentally tripping, especially when the crowd goes in rukoh or sajda. Another reason why we should try that our kids are not running during the salat time, especially b/w the rows.

As far as the blog OP is concerned, that behavior is unacceptable and you are right, he could be sued for it.

This reminds me, I have seen older kids bully little one during salat time. This one time, I couldn’t resist and ended up intervening during the salat.