The Tarbiyah Method

How do I make up for what I missed in teaching my fourth child?

Jeel al-Khilafah
The Tarbiyah Method

The question

I have four children. The first three I taught in their early childhood — shapes, colors, math, letters, animals, fruits, vegetables, and so on. The fourth child, unfortunately, I taught nothing. I only read stories to him, or named for him what he asked about. SubhanAllah, he learned a lot on his own. He looks at picture books a lot. This made me think of the long hours I spent teaching his three brothers before him — in the end their fate was to learn that. What's the difference? Why teach these things to children when they are small, when they will learn that in the future, either from school or from their surroundings?

Our answer

The difference is from two angles. First: there is a difference between teaching your son yourself — and having an ongoing charity in his teaching — and others teaching him. This is a very important point. Everything you teach your little one from yourself goes into your scale of good deeds. As for relying on others, this reward goes to that other person.

Second: teaching with respect for the stages of teaching is important. The mother's duty is to teach her son in his time, in the stage that demands it. She shouldn't lean back and wait for others to teach him. I have met adult girls who couldn't distinguish colors correctly — all because they were raised by the tarbiyah of chance. Tarbiyah by chance does not create sound and comprehensive teaching and awareness. Rather it creates a kind of filling of gaps in randomness.

So don't undo your weaving by retreating from your first intention and your first task. The fact that the younger brother learned doesn't mean the others' fate would have been the same. Children differ in levels of understanding and absorption. Then, not every child has a preparatory level available to him to go to. Many children depend entirely on their mothers. We provide materials for every mother who cares about her children's teaching, and so that educational institutions can also benefit from it. We target two centers of tarbiyah: the mother and the school. We ask Allah to grant us success in seeing a generation more upright, better representing Islam, and bearing its trusts.

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