Should We Teach Our Children to Tell Us Everything They Do Wrong?
Answered by Shaykh Yusuf Weltch
Question
Should we teach our children to tell us everything they do wrong or should we teach them to hide their faults even from us?
Answer
In the Name of Allah, the Most Merciful and Compassionate
May Allah reward you for your question
Maintaining Communication
It is important as parents to keep an open line of communication with our children. They should feel that they can open up to us and talk to us about anything without the fear of reproach.
The child should be made to know that if they did anything wrong, which they do not know why it is wrong, they should tell the parent. This is so the parent can teach the child why what they did was wrong and how to prevent that in the future.
The Reasons Why Wrong is Wrong
The child may intuit what they did to be wrong but if they do not conceptualize why it is wrong, it may reoccur.
With that being said, the child should be taught not to tell anyone except the parent or someone who can help. Once they have learned the wisdom behind why something is wrong they will not need to tell anyone, even the parent.
Teaching Children How To Repent
One of the most important lessons a parent should teach their children is how to seek forgiveness from Allah and forgiveness from anyone affected by their action.
The child should not be scolded or reprimanded if they confess to a wrong that they did. This will certainly damage the communication between the parent and the child. Rather, they should be taught why it is wrong, reminded that they would not want anyone to treat them like that, and how to rectify their wrong.
Hope this helps
Allah knows best
[Shaykh] Yusuf Weltch
Checked and Approved by Shaykh Faraz Rabbani
Shaykh Yusuf Weltch is a teacher of Arabic, Islamic law, and spirituality. After accepting Islam in 2008, he completed four years at the Darul Uloom seminary in New York, where he studied Arabic and the traditional sciences. He then traveled to Tarim, Yemen, where he stayed for three years studying in Dar Al-Mustafa under some of the greatest scholars of our time, including Habib Umar Bin Hafiz, Habib Kadhim al-Saqqaf, and Shaykh Umar al-Khatib. In Tarim, Shaykh Yusuf completed the memorization of the Qur’an and studied beliefs, legal methodology, hadith methodology, Qur’anic exegesis, Islamic history, and several texts on spirituality. He joined the SeekersGuidance faculty in the summer of 2019.
