A Few Healing Strategies for Children

Bism Illah

We advocate children being educated so they can take an active and leading role in their personal healing - spiritually, mentally, and physically. To that end, I have posted about parenting audits, the daily account, the parenting hotline, strategies for anger management, self control, and repentance, to name a few. However, two things came up in the past month that are valuable healing strategies for children.

My 10 year old daughter suggested one afternoon that they make up a list of their faults or deficiencies that were displeasing to Allah and work on correcting three of them each month.Their lists were varying lengths and, as parents, we might have added and deleted a couple of things, but we stayed quiet. A simple mention at the end of each month for them to review their list and see if it needs any adjustments may eventually cover anything missed inshaa Allah. As we are nearing the end of this month, the girls were discussing their progress and my daughter said, "I can't wipe all three off my list - I only managed to correct one of the things." However, that is most certainly a step in the right direction and most importantly they are aware and taking control of their self-improvement, maashaa Allah.

Another healing strategy came through Umm Mujaahid's Guide at the Crossroads class for sisters. She had a competition where sisters were to write an essay stating the specific struggles they were facing in their life situation, research what the Qur'aan, Sunnah, and ijmaa said about those struggles, and put forth possible solutions. My daughters jumped up in excitement at this and immediately said they wanted to write an essay. It had nothing to do with the competition, but simply completing such a positive exercise and sharing a part of themselves with my closest sister of the heart, maashaa Allah.

Both of these have proven to be excellent strategies that empower them to find ways to heal themselves, maashaa Allah. In addition, we presented a list of questions to the girls (it was really for the older one, but all of them wanted to answer, LOL) regarding marriage. This was the first in a series we plan to present that will foster thought and introspection on their part about major issues in their lives and also give us insight into their individual minds and situations, inshaa Allah.

We also have plans to make a set of cards, each with a specific parental challenge regarding raising, educating, and correcting children. They will pick a card at random and write out their suggested strategies or solutions to those challenges. Often, looking at a situation from the parent's perspective can foster far better understanding, cooperation, and communication - and truly all success lies with Allah!