What is the Most Important Thing You want to Instill in Your Child?

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Religion
Morality
Humanity
Spirituality
Success
Education
Something else I haven’t mentioned?

Basically, what is your focus? Do you consider it a success if your child is religious or educated or charitable or well mannered or what?

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Re: What is the Most Important Thing You want to Instill in Your Child?

To be confident and self-reliant as well..

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Re: What is the Most Important Thing You want to Instill in Your Child?

Sahi aur ghalat ki pehchan...

Baqi you app nay mention kiya hia.. religion, education , confidence.. yeh sab to aajata hia.. sekha jasakta hia...

mager sahi aur ghalat ki pehchan kay liye mehnat karni paray gi.

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Re: What is the Most Important Thing You want to Instill in Your Child?

education. thats the gateway to everything else on your list.

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Re: What is the Most Important Thing You want to Instill in Your Child?

I know I don't want to be the kind of parent who puts a heavier emphasis on education than anything else. I agree that you should encourage kids to do their best academically. But I don't want to be that parent who sees a 95% on a math test and says, "Good. But it could have been an A+. Class main 100% kis ko mila? What did so n so get on their test? Look how Aunti so n so's kid achieved bla bla bla. Better not show me anything less than A on report card. B's are unacceptable. You must go into such n such a profession only." There's a difference between guiding and encouraging your kids and imposing and instilling complexes within them. I want my kids to pray namaz, to get up for Fajr. Even my son. I've seen Desi parents become lax about their sons. My aunt once said, "koi baat nahi, larka hai" when namaz was discussed. I want my son to respect women; oooh this is one I'd really emphasize. Do not be the guy who leads a girl on, who speaks about them as though they're objects. Give all women izzat. I see so many desi kids are embarrassed about being brown or Desi. I want them to be confident; to have a healthy amount of pride. Cursing, I'm so put off by f-bombs after every other word; makes you sound like an imbecile with a very limited vocabulary. I want them to have empathy; to help others. To be self-reliant. To be confident enough to think critically about trends and not be blind sheeples.

Le sigh, lol. I have a really lambi chori list, don't I Op? One can dream, right? I don't think education is the gateway though. I think the gateway is religion, particularly sunnah. Through Islam kids will learn to value education and morality and to treat with humanity even those who are on the wrong path or in opposition to you.

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Re: What is the Most Important Thing You want to Instill in Your Child?

Ehl-e-chamman, I've come across girls who are very educated but naive about life.. to the point where people can and do take advantage of them.. There are examples on this forum as well..

(I didn't mean the last bit in a nasty way btw, not meaning to offend)

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Re: What is the Most Important Thing You want to Instill in Your Child?

True
@ehl-e-chamman, I didn't intend to be nasty in my post either when I brought up education. It may have come out sounding snotty. The reason why I mentioned it is because I've seen examples of very educated people whose characters are in want of refinement, We tend to think that education makes a person more refined, but not always. People tend to think wealth makes one refined, but not always. There are poor people who have more class. One could argue that making religion a top priority can be taken to an extreme too. But I'm not talking about the "holier-than-thou-condemn-everyone-else" type of religious upbringing cuz that's against the lifestyle of the Prophet SAWS. His sunnah, his lifestyle taught us to seek education, to strive to do our best, to respect others, to be humble, to show mercy even to those who hurt us or who are in the wrong. So, that's why I think Islam will encompass morality, education, etc.

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No offense taken deeba.
I'd argue that the type of men and women you describe are not educated in its fullest sense.
To me education has meant more then acquisition of degrees or book learning. It also encompasses an understanding of world cultures, religions, social etiquette and a certain amount of street smarts.

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You are more then welcome to your opinion and I take no offense but is seems to me your definition of education is quite narrow perhaps.
I'm sorry that you and deeba have had to interact with the uneducated educated but it hasn't been my experience as I interact daily with a large number of folks from all walks of life.

There is a reason why numerous studies positively link education with better socioeconomic standing, health and happiness.

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Self-respect and respect for others.

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Re: What is the Most Important Thing You want to Instill in Your Child?

I don't find it to be narrow. I have a Master's degree. And I belong to the education profession. I never said that education is not important at all. It's a necessity. But I just don't see it as a gateway. I can have a PHD and reach the heights of my career and earn enough to want for nothing, I can fulfill every professional requirement on time, but if I can't take time out do sajda 5 times a day, if I keep myself updated about the latest trends in my field and read all the professional books and attend every seminar, but if I never took the time to understand Allah's book in its entirety and not just a handful of surahs which will be the only book that I'll be questioned about in the next world (not the textbooks) then my life is lacking in those things that comprise the gateway to next dunya. The Quran speaks of a generation that lost their prayers; I don't want my kids to be successful in every worldly way but to become careless like those former generations. Again, education and degree is a necessity in this world; I do not deny that at all. I'm not saying it should be one or the other. One should have both forms of education; deeni and worldly. I just see the former as being the gateway to success in both worlds while you see the latter as being the gateway. Also, given the times that we're living in, the constant bashing of Islam in the media, and the temptations facing the youth, it will take more than a university education and degree....a sound deeni education is even more necessary now so that kids do not succumb to the media and the misinformation around them.

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Re: What is the Most Important Thing You want to Instill in Your Child?

self respect , self reliance and confidence

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I don't find it to be narrow. I have a Master's degree. And I belong to the education profession. I never said that education is not important at all. It's a necessity. But I just don't see it as a gateway. I can have a PHD and reach the heights of my career and earn enough to want for nothing, I can fulfill every professional requirement on time, but if I can't take time out do sajda 5 times a day, if I keep myself updated about the latest trends in my field and read all the professional books and attend every seminar, but if I never took the time to understand Allah's book in its entirety and not just a handful of surahs which will be the only book that I'll be questioned about in the next world (not the textbooks) then my life is lacking in those things that comprise the gateway to next dunya. The Quran speaks of a generation that lost their prayers; I don't want my kids to be successful in every worldly way but to become careless like those former generations. Again, education and degree is a necessity in this world; I do not deny that at all. I'm not saying it should be one or the other. One should have both forms of education; deeni and worldly. I just see the former as being the gateway to success in both worlds while you see the latter as being the gateway. Also, given the times that we're living in, the constant bashing of Islam in the media, and the temptations facing the youth, it will take more than a university education and degree....a sound deeni education is even more necessary now so that kids do not succumb to the media and the misinformation around them.
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For some reason, You seem determined to interpret my reply a certain way despite my longer response previously.
I wont repeat myself except to say Again that I dont really care if you agree with me or not. Stick with your ways ... it's your right.

Part of having an adult conversation is the ability to entertain and accept prespectives different from our own without becoming argumentative or defensive.

Thank you for sharing your prespective on the topic. Lets now allow this thread to proceed with its purpose, which is to learn about what various preferences parents have.

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Re: What is the Most Important Thing You want to Instill in Your Child?

Honesty, compassion & tolerance. Everything else will automatically fall in place.

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Re: What is the Most Important Thing You want to Instill in Your Child?

Deen--it encompasses all of the above items that you listed.

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Re: What is the Most Important Thing You want to Instill in Your Child?

Do not rush to make negative assumptions about a member's intentions. I am surprised by the tone in your response because in my last post I had emphasized several times that I do find education necessary as a way of showing a commonality between us. I typed my post in a state of calm without any ill feelings toward you. Perhaps I could have worded it better though. I felt you misunderstood my stance when you called it narrow and so I tried to clarify it with examples. I mentioned my master's degree and my profession with the purpose of showing that I do value education, not to show off. I stated that I don't ind it narrow and I proceeded to explain why.

If you disagreed with my elaboration, I wouldn't have minded if you challenged my reasons or if you had presented the flip-side to my examples. It provides food for thought. It's a discussion. And it happens in every thread; people share their views and also question them. There's nothing new about it. Deeba questioned and countered your view too and that doesn't automatically make your view wrong, nor does it make her right. I am not raising your kids, so I am not imposing my beliefs on you. Neither am I critiquing your iman or your parenting. I just elaborated/clarified my stance with examples; that's all.

And I did not respond to you with condescension or imply that you don't know how to be an adult or that you are lacking in maturity. But this only reinforces what I said earlier. Education teaches us how to consider various arguments, how to debate a stance, but it doesn't emphasize giving people the benefit of the doubt with their intentions...at least I don't recall learning that in my academic career. That reminder is found in deen. Masalama. :-)

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Re: What is the Most Important Thing You want to Instill in Your Child?

Exactly!!! That's the first thing I thought when I read OP's question. That the first item on her list encompasses the rest. Others are welcome to disagree. There was a time when I felt differently, a time when if I were asked this same question I may not have said religion. But views can change with time depending on your personal experiences and the haalaat around you.

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.

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Re: What is the Most Important Thing You want to Instill in Your Child?

I wish the answer to all of this in my mind was simply Deen…that’s my boo boo’s nickname by the way :wub:.

But that answer doesn’t satisfy me entirely for some reason.

Religion is good and important. I don’t argue with that. But I don’t want my kid to just focus on catching his namaz’s on time or fasting all 30 rozas.

I want him to have a deeper understanding of his faith and know the why’s. We weren’t allowed to ask why. Just do. The why’s are more important because without them you just have rituals.

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Re: What is the Most Important Thing You want to Instill in Your Child?

Modesty…
Respect… For all without loosing his own…
Free…by his mind…not bound by stuff that he is supposed to believe in… I can direct him/he but he/she should be a better judge of what is worth believeing…Not to be naive enough to hold grudges or hate someone…not to be mature enough to not be able to wash off gloom and light up the place…
Just the right amount of everything… And at the end of the day…I would want him to be just my bacchhu…
Though I know…he will be a total drunk ass suar…:nahi:
and I will have to kick him twice a dY..:vivo:
And I will do that more then required…:snooty: I will do with all the happiness…(sadist mum hoonh :rotfl:)