Renowned Muslim scholar, jurist, thinker, reformist and the revival of classical Sufi thought from Indian subcontinent in twentieth century, Hazrat Maulana Ashraf Ali Thanvi (may Allah have mercy on him) has endowed some important instructions regarding better parenting of your children. They as under:
(1). It is habit of women to scare their children with ghosts and other scary things. This is very right way as it weakens the child’s heart.
(2). Instead, the mother should keep scaring the child from the father.
(2). Don’t let the boys to grow hair on his head and don’t make girls habitual of wearing jewelry till she is able to wear veil. Having lust for jewelry from childhood is perilous for her life and also not good.
(3). Incline your children to give food, clothes, money and such other things with their own hands. Similarly, continue distributing food and drinks among your brothers, sisters and other children so as to develop habit of generosity among your children.
(4). Don’t criticize the people for their bad habits before your children. Rather, tell your children that such people are liked by the society.
(5). For boy child, develop desire of simple and colorless clothes and tell them him the colorful dress is for girls and you are a male.
(6). Make your girls to not wear too much tight clothes.
(7). Avoid fulfilling all the stubbornness of children as this spoils the child’s mood.
(8). Don’t let children especially girls to shout during talking, scold them for shouting. Otherwise, it will become a strong habit when they will grow up.
(9). Keep your children away from company of the kids who have bad habits or avoid reading and writing or greedy and wear tight clothes.
(10). Tell your children to keep away of anger, lying, being jealous or greedy when they see something, stealing, gossiping and staying away of useless talk. Laughing unnecessarily or laughing too much, cheating, not thinking about good or bad. And when any of these things happen, stop it immediately and warn it.
(11). If a child breaks something or hits someone, give the child appropriate punishment so that he does not do it again. In such things, love and affection make the child lose interest.
(12). When the child is seven years old, make him/her practice prayer. When he/she is able to go to school, make him/her read the Holy Quran first.
(13). Do not let him/her sleep too early. And make him/her practice waking up early.
(14). Sometimes tell the children stories of righteous people.
(15). Do not let them to read the books having love stories or vulgar stories and ghazals etc.
(16). After returning from school, let the child play for some time to entertain himself/herself so that his/her nature does not become dull. But the game should be such that there is no sin in it and there is no fear of injury.
(17). Do not give money to children for buying fireworks, or toys or useless things and do not make a habit of showing off.
(In today’s era, useless mobile phones, even smartphones, video games, games that are harmful to health and just a waste of money, giving money and permission to hang out with friends and girlfriends from your street, schools, colleges or universities, etc. are all included.)
(18). Children should definitely be taught some kind of skill that can earn them in times of need and hardship to support themselves and their children.
(19). Girls should be taught to read and write at least enough so that they can do necessary teaching and household calculations.
(20). Make children accustomed of doing their work with their own hands. Do not become lazy and indolent. Let them make their own bed at night and fold it carefully in the morning.
(21). Give instructions to girls to learn the tasks of cooking, sewing, and dyeing clothes with great enthusiasm.
(22). When a child does something good, praise him, love him, and reward him so as to encourage him. And when you see something bad, explain to the child in privacy that good people do not do such things and people consider the one who does it as wrongdoer. And if the child repeats the wrong action again, punish him appropriately.
(23). Do not hide any task from the child. Be it playing or eating or any other work.
(24). Assign some hard work to him so that he maintains his health and courage and does not become lazy.
(25). Emphasize to the children that they should not walk too fast and that they should not look up while walking.
(26). Make him accustomed to being humble, in his speech, manners, behavior and avoid bragging.
(27). Give the child some money to spend as he wishes. But make it a habit for him not to buy anything secretly from you.
