Back to School Supplies

By Nidah Chatriwala, TMO

It’s that time of the year again when the young ones return to educational institutes to expand their horizons and discover their capabilities.

Almost everything will be new: friends, teachers and even schools. During this time, parents are found racing in the local supermarkets to complete the must-have back to school supply checklist. The excitement of going back to school is very contagious and parents’ intention to equip their children with the best of the best school supplies makes it easy for them to become competitive in narrow store aisles. This distress can even result in overspending.

New notebooks, pencils, and the movie-themed backpack might make children the cool kid in the class and perhaps even help them excel in tests. However, these back to school supplies aren’t sufficient to help Muslim children raise their level of deen.

Here’s a very subjective deen essentials checklist for Muslim parents to consider.

●    Teach children to compete in good deeds instead of materialistic things
●    Parents, stay calm when children come to you with questions. If you don’t have an answer, then research it together.
●    Motivate children to pray with a prayer rug and beads set of their own
●    Equip children with a compass and show them how to locate the direction of prayer
●    Emphasize on the importance of having a modest character and appearance
●    Download Quran learning apps
●    Instill good manners
●    Engage with parents at your children’s school to ensure positive peer influence.
●    Take time to tutor or at least supervise children when they work on homework
●    Schedule weekend activities that will show your children relevance of Islam today.

The list is neverending, but enough to prep Muslim parents for this upcoming back to school episode. Remember, the foundation of Islamic beliefs and practices begins from home. Model your household with Quranic and hadith teachings and experience ALLAH’s protection over the members of your family.

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