I would like to share with you a story that happened one day with our sister Noura.
Noura is a mother of three children who works hard to take care of her family every day. One day after she finished ironing a big pile of clothes, before starting to put them away, her six year old called for her to help him, she ran to him and when she came back, her two year old daughter received her with a big beautiful smile, showing her mother the work that she did with the ironed clothes. I can leave the rest to your imagination!
Let me ask you: If you are in Noura’s position, what would be your reaction?
Allow me to talk to you about one possible reaction.
In Saheeh Muslim, 635, `Aishah (RA) reported: The Prophet (SAW) said: “Having gentleness makes anything beautiful and taking it way of anything makes it unpleasant”
قال رسول الله صلى الله عليه و سلم : ما كان الرفق في شيء الا زانه و ما نزع من شيء الا شانه
Also in the same book hadith 643, Prophet Mohammad (SAW) said : “O Ayesha, Indeed Allah is the Most Gentle, He loves gentleness, and He Gives for gentleness what he does not give for severity, and does not give for any other approach”
قال رسول الله صلى الله عليه و سلم : يا عائشة ، إن الله رفيق يحب الرفق ، و يعطي على الرفق ما لا يعطي على العنف ، و ما لا يعطي على ما سواه . رواه مسلم
Allah (SWT) Loves gentleness!
If Noura chose to take a deep breath, smile back at her child and asked her daughter to kindly help her mum to collect the clothes and fold them with her, she indeed has chosen an approach that Allah (SWT) Loves, an approach that made her reaction beautiful, and an approach that Allah Gives for it more than any other!
I believe that your comment now is that this is not always easy, and yes, it is not easy to see 90 minutes of work all over the floor and just smile and be kind…
I also believe that you are absolutely right!
But let me ask you again, what is the possible approach for Noura to undo what her two year old did?
- to educate a two year old without scaring or hurting her?
- to keep calm and not loose temper?, and,
- to be rewarded with the best reward from Allah (SWT) at the same time?
It’s helpful as well to look at what happened from the daughter’s point of view, what Noura’s daughter was trying to do is to copy her mother, but in her own fashion, she was trying to iron the clothes too and she expected her mum to be happy, she never intended to make her mother, that she loves so much, upset.
So, whenever you are in a similar situation, choose to be gentle, it is guaranteed – according to the hadith above to get the best reward, it is best for you to remain calm and not to allow anger to take place and it is also best for your child.
Look at what your children did from their perspective in order to understand them better.
May Allah (SWT) Bless you and your children, and Make it easy for you to enjoy educating them.
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