“Fear Allah and deal justly between your children.”

[Atlantic]

By: Bashshâr Darâghimah|

Al-Nu`mân b. Bashîr once addressed the people from the pulpit and told them about what took place between the Prophet and his father, saying:

My father gave him a gift. Then my mother, `Amrah bint Rawâhah, said: “I will not be satisfied until Allah’s Messenger (peace be upon it) is a witness to it.”

So my father went to Allah’s Messenger and said: “I gave a gift to my son from `Amrah bint Rawâhah, and she told me to have you be a witness to it, O Messenger of Allah.”

The Prophet (peace be upon him) asked: “Did you give your other children something similar?” He replied that he had not. So the Prophet (peace be upon him) said: “Fear Allah, and deal justly between your children.” [Sahîh al-Bukhârî (2587) and Sahîh Muslim (1623)]
This shows us how important it is to avoid favoritism when dealing with our children.

“My mum loves Omar more than me. I see her kissing him all the time, and she does not even look at me. My pa is the same. He always takes my brother Omar to the shop with him but he rarely ever takes me.” – This is Usamah describing how he feels. He is one of a family of eight, and he lives with his parents, three brothers, and two sisters.

Favoritism among children is a dangerous thing. It threatens the stability of the family and is detrimental to the children’s healthy development. It nurtures feelings of jealousy and enmity between children, feelings that can last well into adolescence and adulthood.

Many mothers and fathers give preferential treatment to some of their children without realizing it. They do so unconsciously and are unable to conceal that they love for one child more than the others.

IslamToday surveyed a number of children about this matter, and then listened to what their parents had to say.


“I Hate My Brother.”
Ameed is nine years old. He has no inhibitions about expressing his hatred for his brother. He says: “I do not like my little brother Anas at all. He is the only one in the house who gets any attention. He gets everything he wants. Whenever the rest of us ask for anything, no one pays any attention to us.”

Ameed harbors these feelings all the time. We asked him if he felt this way only once in a while. He replied: “I do not like my brother. I hate him all the time.”

Alaa is the pampered girl in her family. We asked her about how she feels about her parents loving her more than her brothers. She replied: “I do not feel it like that. What I know is that my pa and mum love all of us equally, but sometimes I ask my mum for something and they give it to me and when my brothers ask for something, they don’t get it.”

Sa’eed, on the other hand, feels that his father prefer his brother to him. He says: “If I do anything wrong, or even if I forget to do something, my father hits me. When my brother does something wrong, my father only speaks to him and tells him not to do it again.”


The Parents are Unaware
In most cases, parents who show preferential treatment to some of their children do so unconsciously. They do not realize what they are doing.

Omar Khayri is a father of four. He says: “I love Ahmad a lot, because he is always smiling. It is his behavior that makes me love him and prefer him so much.”

He adds: “I do not feel that I am short-changing my other children at all. What I do is without thinking. I do not mean to distinguish between my children.”

Amal is the mother of two girls. She says: “I love both of my girls so much, but I feel that I love Ilham more that Nariman. Ilham always listens. She always does what I ask her to do. Nariman gives me trouble sometimes.”

We can see from these examples that parents often shift the responsibility for their favoritism onto their children. They like to attribute their own discriminatory conduct to how their children behave.


The Experts Caution
Sociologists and Psychologists warn us about how hazardous a parent’s favoritism is to the children. Discriminating against a child can affects that child’s performance at school and result in substantially lowers grades. It can cause psychological problems which sometimes reach the level of full scale mental illness. It can also lead to reclusive behavior, introversion, and aggressiveness.

Ibrahim Amir, a psychiatric consultant, says: “There is no doubt about what discriminating between children leads to. It fosters hostility between those children, causes them to even hate each other. We even find on occasion that the child who is disfavored harbors hopes that his or her sibling gets sick or is stricken with some tragedy.

Amir calls parents to develop an awareness of how they need to raise their children, so they can do so properly. He adds: “It may be expected that one child is more beloved to his or her parents than the others. This is only natural. However, it is imperative that the children are never shown anything to indicate this. Otherwise, the consequences will be very bad.”

Amir asserts that it is essential to behave equally with children in all things, even something as simple as kissing. He says: “If the father kisses one of his children, then he has to kiss them all. Other very important matters are clothing, food, and gifts. Even what we say and who we speak too matters. A mother or father should not only speak to one child all the time and ignore the others. Justice must be in everything, even in how often we look at or speak to each of our children.”

One of the suggestions that psychologists put forth to prevent our discriminating between our children is that we should always pay careful attention to all of our children and monitor their feelings and their behaviors, and especially their responses to what goes on in the home.


Let us not make this mistake ~Inshallah!

[Fairy]

Good Topic Iqra sis

Aaj kal tou ye har ghar ka common problem ban gaya hai, har family mein aisa aik ya aik se ziyada bandey aapko zaroor mileingey jo is complex ka shikar hongey. Mein khud buhat feel karti thi bachpan mein....Khair Parents k liye kuch nahin kahoongi kyun k unki jagah reh ker kya kya face karna parta hai ye tabhi pata chalega jub hum wahan hon.

May Allah guide us all to the righteous path..Aameen!

[friendlygal786]

Agree with Fairy sis...its common nowadays and I find it strange that many hav this prob

[RAHEN]

InshaAllah i/we will not make this mistake. Ameen suma Ameen

some days ago only i heard a kid crying and she said mom give me that toy and she said no...u should play with other toys..this is for ur bro...and when she disturbed her by asking her many times..she slaped her...
bache ki tarbiat ka pehla ghar mom ki goad hoti hai...aur afsoos hai k ziada tar mom is zimedari ko bholte ja rahe hain...Allah inhe hidayat de..Ameen..

jazakAllah alf khair...