Teaching appropriate behavior to children for salat time.

[somegroovychick]

Re: Teaching appropriate behavior to children for salat time.

well maybe both parents could take turns staying back and that way at least they’ll attend half the time each. i’m not sure why parenting, and disciplining, kids in a masjid falls solely on the moms.

[Lusi]

Re: Teaching appropriate behavior to children for salat time.

@Southie

Probably the disconnect is wrt use of words unruly, reprimand, careless. Cause these are relative terms and not quantifiable. What seems unruly to some may be normal kid behavior. Use of careless parenting appeared to have rubbed some the wrong way. As they correctly point out, it is not magic. There will be off days. Kids don’t simply make that leap from sharartee (I prefer this to unruly) to well behave overnight. So one should not assume parents of said kids do not try.

The suggestion that the lady stay back till kids grow old also appeared to be non negotiable to some. So yes, there were some points of contention that doesn’t seem too surprising.

However, I did not make any those points of contention, so I am not sure why my child and I were attacked.

I have been working with children ages 2-12 for almost 8 years now. I do understand it doesn’t happen over night, I do understand every child is different, and I do understand adults need support and encouragement. No where in my posts I am insulting children or parents or stating children should stay home with moms.

I had a 4 year old who showed signs of autism, it threw her off if a stranger entered the class and she wasn’t told beforehand that we will have a visitor. From being calm, she’d all of a sudden get hyper and start spinning in the room. As adults it was our job to help her calm down and help her feel secure.
We had make sure we prepare her for every little or big thing that was going to take place.
Another child had ADHD, he’d get excited on little things and would start running around or crawling under chairs and tables. Again as adults, we had to work on a plan, what we will do accommodate his need in different environments.

I can give many more examples of children with behavior issues, at the end of the day we adults had to make sure we are teaching them grace and courtesy while meeting their specific needs.

As parents, it is our job to make sure our children are safe and we are doing whatever we can to help our children adjust in different environments.
If we need help from other adults around us, we should not hesitate asking for it.

I don’t find it appropriate when people intentionally ignore their child who are running wild or screaming on the top of their lungs day in, day out. How about help them calm down and say something like “in our mosque we slowly walk, in our mosque we quietly talk” Parents might have to redirect them several times but that is part of learning. Again, if a parent is having difficulty, ask for help.

Prevent your little children from being subject to bully from older kids, keep them in your sight, confront and make sure that older children understand they need to back off.

Don’t leave your children unattended in places where they are subject to injuries, especially head injury.
Last week, we had a child, probably b/w 12-15 months who fell on the tile floor on her face from an umbrella stroller. Mom had left the child unbuckled and was ignoring the fact that she was in the seat turned around, on her knees hanging on the back of the stroller. Alhamdulilah there was no bleeding.

I hope instead of fighting and/or proving each other wrong, (which was not the purpose of this thread) we can share some strategies that have been helpful to us, our friends, or we have observed from other parents.

[somegroovychick]

Re: Teaching appropriate behavior to children for salat time.

^ well said!!!

[cherryontop]

@Lusi

However, I did not make any those points of contention, so I am not sure why my child and I were attacked.

I have been working with children ages 2-12 for almost 8 years now. I do understand it doesn’t happen over night, I do understand every child is different, and I do understand adults need support and encouragement. No where in my posts I am insulting children or parents or stating children should stay home with moms.

I had a 4 year old who showed signs of autism, it threw her off if a stranger entered the class and she wasn’t told beforehand that we will have a visitor. From being calm, she’d all of a sudden get hyper and start spinning in the room. As adults it was our job to help her calm down and help her feel secure.
We had make sure we prepare her for every little or big thing that was going to take place.
Another child had ADHD, he’d get excited on little things and would start running around or crawling under chairs and tables. Again as adults, we had to work on a plan, what we will do accommodate his need in different environments.

I can give many more examples of children with behavior issues, at the end of the day we adults had to make sure we are teaching them grace and courtesy while meeting their specific needs.

As parents, it is our job to make sure our children are safe and we are doing whatever we can to help our children adjust in different environments.
If we need help from other adults around us, we should not hesitate asking for it.

I don’t find it appropriate when people intentionally ignore their child who are running wild or screaming on the top of their lungs day in, day out. How about help them calm down and say something like “in our mosque we slowly walk, in our mosque we quietly talk” Parents might have to redirect them several times but that is part of learning. Again, if a parent is having difficulty, ask for help.

Prevent your little children from being subject to bully from older kids, keep them in your sight, confront and make sure that older children understand they need to back off.

Don’t leave your children unattended in places where they are subject to injuries, especially head injury.
Last week, we had a child, probably b/w 12-15 months who fell on the tile floor on her face from an umbrella stroller. Mom had left the child unbuckled and was ignoring the fact that she was in the seat turned around, on her knees hanging on the back of the stroller. Alhamdulilah there was no bleeding.

I hope instead of fighting and/or proving each other wrong, (which was not the purpose of this thread) we can share some strategies that have been helpful to us, our friends, or we have observed from other parents.

You make fair points except in your first post you didn’t ask for helpful strategies. You didn’t ask HOW can we teach our kids to behave appropriately in a masjid. You asked why can’t we teach our kids to behave a certain way. You might argue this is an issue of semantics but these are two entirely different questions and I can understand why some parents would feel offended at being asked why your child cannot behave a particular way.

And in my limited experience as a parent, I have realized that kids tend to copy their peers so in a classroom setting, it’s easier to discipline the kids since its monkey see, monkey do. When a child who might have a tendency to be fidgety sees all his peers sitting down and listening to the teacher, he will do the same. I don’t think it’s fair to compare a classroom setting to a masjid setting where most of the people are adults. Kids might be bored and thus act out by running around. Or they might see another kid running around and might do the same. A kid who’s generally well behaved at the masjid might be having a bad day and throw a huge tantrum that day and if someone judges his parents’ skills based on that one day, that won’t be fair.

Yes kids should not be running around at the masjid. Yes it is a parents job to reprimand and discipline their kids but sometimes parents might just want to finish their prayer before they get to their child. I just don’t think it’s fair to judge parents based on just one occasion. And yes if a child keeps disrupting everyone’s prayers and is constantly running around/crying night after night, then it’s best for a parent to stay home. I personally have never gone for prayers with my kids. I dread going to target alone with them!

Also, I read the blog that generated this thread. Of course the kid should not have been running around and disturbing others and the parents should’ve kept a watchful eye. I think every parent here would agree to that! What I took away from the blog was not the kid running but the person intentionally tripping the kid! And I was appalled to see people laughing at that and attacking the parents. Yes I get it, the parent should have been watching over their child but as soon as you read that this person intentionally made the child fall, you forget about judging the parents, you judge the person who hurt the child coz you don’t ever ever ever intentionally hurt a child period.

[ehl-e-chamman]

Re: Teaching appropriate behavior to children for salat time.

you both make your points beautifully ladies @Lusi and @cherryontop

I think there were ruffled feathers for two reasons.

1. emotional carry over from that controversial blog … where not only justifications were made for the bloggers behavior but the jump was immediately to hey bad parent didnt control the running kid. intended or not … thats how many comments came across and there isn’t ever ever ever any justification good enough for me to accept intentional harm to child. no matter how minor.
2. in this thread as well, there was no acknowledgement from some posters of parents trying their best but still ending up on some occasions with a misbehaving child. the tone of many comments (intended or not) was a bit judgmental or came across as … what do you means toddlers cant behave? … mine does.
   And no im not over reading the judgmental tone as a reflection of my own insecurities (disagreements with someone doesn’t mean the one with opposing view is insecure). My kid happens to be fairly well behaved in most situations but I can not and wont apply that to ALLL kids across the spectrum.

p.s.: everything written above is meant to contribute to the general discussion and not targeted towards you @Lusi. I have been in agreement with majority of what you’ve said.
im pro-dicipline too.

and finally an anecdote from my personal life to highlight my point.
This past saturday I hosted iftar for a few families in my home. To total of 7 kids. ages ranging from 11yo to 1.5 yo. Kids and families i know well. kids that ive seen behave very well on other occasions, including in my home.
However, on this particular night, either the rooh afza got to them or the stars were algned just right, or the mix of personalities was just so explosive that man oh man the kids went wild. running screaming throwing toys …
all of the moms and dads made multiple attempts to clam and redirect and glare and quietly threaten their kids (including me). To no avail unfortunately. one adult was constantly trying to supervise the kids , except for the 10 mins right at opening of fast.
in those 10minutes i was left with a disaster zone that was my daughters room. kids found a hidden and closed box of finger paint and smeared a lot of it on the carpet, walls, even inside the closet and ofcourse on their own clothing …
I know these moms and kids personally and as i said before, they are usually very well behaved. This was an off night not a parenting failure.
btw each mom made each one of her children apologize to me (except the 1 yo .. hes doesnt talk yet).

[Spiral]

Re: Teaching appropriate behavior to children for salat time.

I also don’t think that its fair to compare classroom setting to masjid’s. My kid will most certainly behave in a classroom setting/daycare setting however, he will at be times hyper in masjid. As a parent, its our job to make sure that we stop our kids from misbehaving in masjid. The only point I disagree with in this whole thread is that a parent should stay at home and not go to masjid if they have kid who may or may not listen to them at times. Kids will be kids and they will misbehave/run, lets not expect them to behave like adults.

Also, I didn’t mean to get personal with you Lusi. I was just trying to say even the most well behaved kid will do something we least expect. Your kid will still go to the mall right?? So lets be fair and let the parents of “misbehaved” kid bring him to the masjid too. Sadly we parents are so harsh on each other trying to win the best parents title… “women at the masjid were annoyed by my daughter hence they asked if I needed help”… Really!!! I don’t think so, not only did a lady came up to me to hold my daughter while I got her formula out, I had two ladies asked me if I needed help carrying my daughter up and down the stairs. Not everyone hates the bad parent and their batamiz kid ya know

[Southie]

Re: Teaching appropriate behavior to children for salat time.

@Lusi my apologies if I was out of place anywhere. All of you seem nice decent parents and people. I think the wounds from the blog hadn’t fully healed. Hence there was carryover for most parties.

On a lighter note, how can anyone stay mad at that blogger with such a unique name.