Real Talk for Every Parent

The topic of tonight

is actually need a couple of disclaimers to begin this topic. First is that trauma data is going to be a topic in which Forgive me in advance is going to be there's going to be some, there's going to be a little bit of

straightforwardness,

a lack of sugarcoating. And it's because it's an important topic. And so the second thing is that if I some of the topic, the details that we're going to go into maybe a little bit graphic. So if you're queasy with regards to children, young children being here, then you may want to have your radars up. And I know that people are getting excited already.

But the topic is going to be about the topic is going to be about raising children,

young people in an age of such advanced technology. And the reason why this topic I began doing research on this topic is because a father came to me and MSU one time, was around a year ago, a little bit over a year ago, actually. And he came to me and he said to me, You know, I'm not I need you to speak with my son.

He's 13 years old. And he's beginning to reach the age where, you know, he's talking to girls, so I need you to kind of sit down with him and set him straight.

So I said to him, how does he talk to them? said, you know, texting talks to them on the phone and things like that. So I said what type of phone does he have? He said to me iPhone.

course he has an iPhone. So I said, Tim, good job.

Good job. And you gave your your son an iPhone, he's 13 years old. And you want him to be okay. How is that my problem?

He said to me, the the lines.

You know, he's like trying to put it on my shoulders. This is your it's your responsibility. You guys are, you know, involved in society that balance stuff you need to.

So I told him, you're like a person who slaughters his child, and then calls me and says Congress s&t Congress society.

So this is the reason why I began this type of this research, which is basically the challenge of raising children with regards to technology, I found that many of us, we have absolutely no clue.

What is in the hands of our children? We have no clue. You know, there was a commercial that some of you I'm sure, remember very well, in the 90s. Right before the news would come on at 10 o'clock, there would show like a camera zooming into a dark alley? And it would say it's 10pm. Do you know where your children are? Yeah. It was a big national campaign, Hillary Clinton's project, it's 10pm. Do you know where your children? And the idea, the premise was that if you were a good parent,

you know what your children are? Right? They're at home, they're safe, they're locked. indoors. They're not out on the street doing God knows what with God knows who. So that was the idea. But the 90s was a long time ago. And so how about now for the first time in human history, your children can be inside the house with you. But they still have access to the world, right through technology, the worlds can come inside. And so the first thing that I want to look at why is this topic important? First of all, why is it something that every single one of us is responsible for, because a lot as we assess you and the nominal

law says oh, you will believe save yourself and save your children from a fire whose fuel is meant and stones. So this clip up indicates on

the command indicates that it is an obligation meaning that you are rewarded for doing it and you are punishable for not doing it from saving yourself and doing what you can to save your family from the fire was fuel as many stones. The province of Liberia center says we look online or could look homeschooling at every single one of you is a shepherd and every single one of you is responsible for his flock. And so that responsibility by the fact that you have children a lot so it has given you that responsibility and a lot so yet inshallah Allah will assist you in doing so because now you can live long enough so that he knows guidance is in the hands of a lot but you are still

responsible to do your part. You must be constantly vigilant when raising children, especially being that we have all decided that we are going to raise our children here.

Okay, so

the

other introduction is that there's some good news and there's some bad news. I'll start with the bad news.

The bad news is, is that if you raise your children, you know, the greatest image and the greatest imprint that a father or a mother has usually, with regards to how they raised their children, the greatest prototype is their own parents. So you want to raise your child, the way that your father raised you, your father did this. So you did this, you'll find that people who are never disciplined, they look down upon disciplining people who are disciplined, they're like, there's a splitting is fine. I plan on doing it to my children as well. Yeah, it is the greatest imprint on you. Now, if a person raises their parents, their children the same way that they raised their

parents, their parents raised them, they will find many times that it doesn't work. Why I even ever thought about the one who has a beautiful statement, he says, oh, pull up nanako li Jie Li, Zhu, Li Ji Lin, Laila JD says raise your children for their generation, because they were created to inherit a world other than yours, they were created for a generation other than yours, you'll find that between one generation and another, the same city in the same town, you will find a vast difference in the values and in the culture of the people. And it's just a difference of 30 years. So what do you think, especially with the rice in most of our cases, where we are not only raising our children

in a different town, but in a different hemisphere, amongst the different people speaking a different language, different religions, everything is different. So of all of the inputs is different than how can I reasonably expect that the output is going to be the same?

That is not reasonable. So you have to be different, and you have to exert a lot of energy in making sure that you are raising your children, inshallah to either be people of success, the prophets of the lighthouse, and that he says that

there are three people, three categories of people who will never ever enter Paradise.

And here, he doesn't mean that they will never ever, ever enter Paradise, but he's just emphasizing, who are these three categories of people. The first he says that they youth

will move to a new home, where he

does however they say the house will lock we know who moved to me the hungry is movement of homeless the person who is addicted to alcohol, the alcoholic, he said this person will not enter Paradise. They said what is it the youth, they didn't know where this tournament he says living now you're

the one who doesn't care, who enters upon his family, the person who doesn't care, who is speaking to their daughter, the person who doesn't care who's speaking to their son speaking to his wife, who's speaking to her. That person who has none of that deleted that protective jealousy over their family problems, lesson says this person will enter Paradise. So now

we have to be aware with regards to protecting our families,

protecting our families. And because the world has changed so that access to your family is no longer somebody knocking on your door and you opening and saying Who are you? It is not through a cell phone. It is not through an instant message. It is now through Facebook, it is now through so many different vehicles.

You have to exert effort in learning. And you do not have the luxury of simply saying, I don't know about this technology, but my son says he wants an iPhone. So I got him an iPhone, and I told him be good.

I got my son the new iPad. Yes, he wanted it so I got it for him. I don't know what it does. It's all about I don't know you don't have that luxury. You don't have that luxury. The promise of a lightness and emphasis in La Jolla Jabu mean shot with laser level someone

what is it someone who may not even our allies yet is amazed at a young person who does not have a slip, who does not have an inclination towards being mischievious towards doing what their passion is called them two passions walk with a young person, they are inclined to fulfill their passions. They feel we all remember this. During your times of Middle School in high school, social pressure is so strong at that time. Right? So Allah is amazed at a child or a young person who does not bow down to any of those pressures external as well as the internal that is a unique individual, everybody else normal, they will be inclined to fulfill that. So as parents, you have to be

constantly vigilant and protective of your children. So I wanted to look at the first which is cell phones. I want to look at the first example which is cell phones. So there was a Pew Internet research.

There was a survey recently that showed that 71% of teens had cell phones in this country 71% 59 having phones at the age of 12 to 14 and 83 between the ages of 15 and 17.

So 59%, between the ages of 12 and 14 have cell phones, their own personal phones, and 83%. between 15 and 17. I'm not going to argue that children shouldn't have cell phones about young people shouldn't have cell phones.

We all know parents will say, I need a cell phone so I can contact them. Even though I was recently in a. In a city, I don't remember which one, but I did have my cell phone with me. And I was looking around for payphones. And when was the last time you saw a payphone and he they removed them from the streets. Even if you're looking for one, now you can barely find one, you have to go really far to simply find one. So it's not reasonable to say that children shouldn't have cell phones or that they shouldn't have access to it. But the thing that I want you to ask yourself, is what type of phone do my children have? My brothers and sisters my younger brothers deserves? What type of phone

do they have? What are the capabilities of this phone? Do I even know what the capabilities of this phone are? And do they need all of these capabilities. So with your average

smartphone, with your average smartphone, you have full access to the internet, full access to the internet, you can video chat, you can send pictures, all that is available with your average smartphone.

If you remember back in the days, when the internet first came into people's homes,

you would have something like

net zero AOL. And the first thing that would happen was that you would set up a computer in the living room. And then you would go in and play with the parental controls, right? And play with the parental controls. So you give your child who's under the age of 10, you give them under 10 access, the child was a teenager, you give them teenage access, so they have access to limited sites on the internet that are deemed according to that particular age group accessible or acceptable for that particular age group. Now,

most parents have no clue about parental controls, is it's gotten by. So now their children basically just have whatever device they give them. And they're just hoping that it turns out okay, right with your average cell phone, right? You can text, you can send video messages, you can do all of these things. So there is now when you have all of these young people with phones, that they can take pictures, and they can share video and they can record video, what do you think they're going to do with it. So there is a lot of

something that's very popular,

which is the sending of images that have in them. The human body somewhat uncovered, people are taking pictures, either partially nude or fully nude, young people.

And young people haven't stopped falling in love, and they haven't stopped making mistakes. They would always do that. But something very interesting before all of a person's mistakes were recorded in the memories of the people who were there who witnessed them. So every single one of us, if we were to interview our close friends, at sages in high school and middle school in these places, we will say remember when you did such and such, remember when you did such and such, or maybe they've forgotten about it. But now even when kids outside of a high school fight, two kids are fighting and everybody else is going like this.

Right? They're all doing this. They're recording it, and they're gonna put it up online somewhere. Yeah, nice. Pamela, these, this generation. Unfortunately, they have the problem that all of their mistakes are just a phone device away from being recorded and put online. And when something goes online.

As they say it never comes down. It never comes down. So these mistakes that people make. So let's look at this.

This issue of nude pictures.

a 2008 survey conducted this is a national survey conducted by the National Campaign to Prevent teen and unplanned pregnancy. They said 20% of the overall teens that's one out of every five indicated that they have either sent or posted nude or semi nude pictures or videos of themselves. Okay, that's 20% one out of every five. Additionally, 39% of the survey teens indicated that they had sent or posted sexually suggestive messages.

That's 40%.

Finally, the survey noted that 48% almost 50% of the teens one out of every two said that they received such messages.

Okay.

So what does that mean? Finally, the most staggering of the findings included that these types of messages have often unintended viewers and are often forwarded as a form of social currency by those looking to show off or be funny. This is the most staggering image. What does that mean social currency, it means that when a girl believes a guy when he says

He loves her, and that she's this unless she's that, and he finally convinces her to take a picture of herself. And she sends him that picture. He goes, and he shows it to his friend. He goes, and he shows it to two of his friends, three of his friends. Why? Because it increases his social currency. It shows that he is the man

to his friends. And brothers have told me this brothers have told me, people come to the rescue the drama,

young brothers, they'll say, yeah,

these brothers, they showed me a picture of two or three girls that they were talking to their jammies. And he showed them pictures of them without their heads out, because they sent them to them, right, increasing their social currency. So these are mistakes that young people make. Now, what happens when young people fall out of love?

What happens when they have a fight.

And you have at their disposal, these images and these pictures, you have online, entire websites that are devoted at exes getting back at their exes, people who have fallen out of love, and they want to harm the person who they were once in a relationship with. And so they upload very compromising images, and videos.

And people's lives become ruined because of things like this. And imagine now the first thing that we do when we come across a person's name is we simply google and you apply for a job, they just google your name, everybody just looks at your name, they Google, they look you up on Facebook. So imagine a person poor miski would the first thing that comes up of their name is this image is this website is this problem, people end up having some people have had to change their names because of this. And I was looking at reading interviews of people who are young people, they made a mistake, something like that they had a vicious vicious breakup. And that person wanted to get back at them.

And they uploaded it. And this becomes the first thing when they're, they can't get a job. They might have been rejected from their school applications. And they have to go to the extreme, some cases of actually changing their name. These are mistakes that young people make.

The thing that every person should be concerned of is how do I minimize the mistakes of the young people who are under my authority or under my control? Then you have another issue? The issue of

what's available online?

what's available online? So you have

studies in the United States that say that 90%

begin before that 50% of all children who have reached the age of seven in the United States have seen their first pornographic image,

one out of every two

have seen by the age of seven, their first pornographic image. I remember the first time one of the times I was talking about this in the mystery.

A father got very upset. He had a 10 year old son with him. He said, How can you be talking about this in the midst of that he's he's yelling, and he grabbed his son and he's walking out and he's yelling, he's very upset. I was telling him somehow look at this person. He's so upset about it being discussed in the masjid. Allah knows what his child is seeing in public school. Allah knows what his child is seeing out on the street, Allah knows what his child is seeing on his phone.

Even worse, much worse than us simply discussing this in a in a message, right? One out of every two children in the United States by the age of seven have seen their first pornographic image. Now, what do you think a child is going to do when you have a 10 year old boy, 11 year old boy, 12 year old boy, and they have unfettered access to the internet. And it is all in the privacy of their phone, in their room, at school, or what happened.

In Nevada, Dr. Joe Mitchell,

a law student is amazed at a young person who does not have a maybe a inclination towards fulfilling their passions and their desires. Now the problem with it is that pornography

is very much addictive.

Just like any drug, the dopamine that is released in a person's brain

when they see a pornographic image,

that release is just like what is released when a person is enjoying a narcotic. It is just as addictive. You know, some they define addiction as something that

there's some definitions of addiction where it is something that actually impairs a person from doing what they're actually supposed to do. So a person who's addicted they make even while they should be working, they should be doing their normal daily functions. They cannot do their new normal daily functions and they resort to that thing that they're addicted to. Okay, at pornography, addiction to pornography is just the same, except because it isn't considered to be an addiction.

It doesn't have the support loops that any other drug addiction would have.

Okay, and it is very easy for a habit to become a problem habit which becomes an addiction.

Now how does this affect the child who's 12 years old? Imagine a child who's 12 years old who's become addicted to pornography at the age of 12. It happens. This person by the time they're 25, right? They've gone through there, it almost doubled their life. right half of their life at this point has been addicted to pornography. So boy,

let's say his name is, by the time he's 25. His parents, you know, he's graduated school, he's done all that he's, you know, see fragment to get married.

So they find for him, Father, father was a beautiful girl.

And he gets married.

The problem is, is that I have met secretly for the past 30 years of his life has been addicted to pornography.

He is used, he is wired. He is designed at this point, that when he has Chautauqua it is released instantly.

Right, he just presses a button, you download something, and that's it. Now he's got a living, breathing woman in front of them. And she's got all sorts of knobs and buttons and things that you have to work on. for her to react positively.

He doesn't have time for any of them. Not only that, everyone says she's a beautiful bride, she's beautiful.

is used to within 10 minutes, seeing 100 women

seeing 100 figures, and that's been his case the entire life. And he's some of our edge. That's kind of the first new feature that they might have ever seen, was their wife on their wedding day, that was the first time that they ever saw anything nude in their life. Right? If they ever did, right, so their wife for them is the female figure. And they are content with that. Now you're talking about people who are raised, and they have literally seen 1000s and 1000s, before they meet their wife.

You can imagine the problems that this causes in marriage, much less when the woman realizes that for some reason, she finds that her husband does not find her desirable. There's not it's not attracted to her. Or he has strange desires and fetishes that have come from years of this addiction. Okay. So this is

a very, very, very

as you can imagine problematic issues that can destroy marriages that can destroy marriages, and is destroying marriages. Again, this behavior isn't something that's learned in their 20s. But this is something that comes from early childhood, and it can become an addiction in early childhood,

then is the issue of waiting, the issue of waiting? I remember being in mission one time and there was a brother, young brother,

who saying I need to get married. So there was another brother was an older brother. And he was saying to him, like, that's great news. When do you want to get married? He said, I want to get married in two weeks. He's like, What do you mean, you want to get married in two weeks? Do you have any wife in mind? He's like, No, I just want to get married in two weeks. He said, Listen,

half of the pleasure of getting married is in preparing,

organized and getting yourself an apartment getting situated the anticipation, the waiting. Even that is half of the pleasure of getting married.

Don't you want to like you know, spend time planning and organizing and getting everything ready. And

brother at the end of all of that, he said, No, I just want to get married. That's it. Why? Because this is the generation

aware.

There's a comedian, he was joking about how this is the most amazing time

wasted on the most ungrateful generation. People are, you know, watching videos on their phones. And they're getting upset that it's not loading fast enough, it's taking two seconds to look. People like oh my God, my connection is so slow. He said, Do you really appreciate the fact that this is coming to you from space? Right? All of this is happening. But everybody wants fast everything they want fast food, they want fast internet to exist. Once their values disappear, then that nation severe as well. So limiting screen time is something that every family should look into. The third is

just looking into the plans and details of the technology that you give to your children. I'm not making the argument that they shouldn't have it. I'm simply saying pay attention to it. If you're every parent, they say, Well, my child, my child needs a phone so that I can contact them. If you just need to contact them. Then why do they need Internet access? Why do they need the ability to video message? Why do they need all of these capabilities if you simply are giving them a phone so that when they call when you call them the answer?

Why? You know one of the reasons is because this is something that's just fifth wrong in a parent. They do not want their child

To feel like they are in need of any, they do not want their child to feel that they have less than other children. Isn't that right? And so when all of these other children have something, you want to make your child feel that they have what is equal and you are providing them

with the challenge is what the challenge is, if you see everybody going this way,

you have to be able to go a different way, if that is what's going to raise your child properly the way that you want, you know, when you see these trees, when they're when they're new, and they and they put them in on the sidewalk, they tie them down with the rope. It's called staking and landscaping, it's called staking.

You look it up. And why do they do that? Why do they tie these trees down the road, they say they stake the tree, especially in places that are on an incline.

Or in places that are excessively windy.

places that are on an incline.

or places that are incredibly windy, so that the that the tree can grow straight. And once they're confident that that tree is going to go straight, they remove the ropes. It's a beautiful metaphor, really, especially in places that are haven't inclined, they're not straight. And places that have a lot of places that have a lot of points, and your children some of these things.

Some of these things they will, you know, feel very uncomfortable with. And some of these things, they will appreciate one thing, but it requires a little bit of patience. And I don't want any young people to think that it's because people don't have trust in you or any all of these things that I'm saying sometimes they think man, and the way he's presenting and he's acting like we're all gonna just go crazy and do evil things. No, that's not the case.

That's not the case. But the point is, is that there is a lot of danger out there. Right and your parents their job, their number one job is to protect you, to preserve you to protect your deen to protect your character, and to protect you from mistakes that may harm you.

So looking into the details of these plans that you're getting for your children, and the last is to advise the community and to empower them, right to advise these children to speak to them to communicate to them, why is it that you want these things? Why is it that you and to empower them, so that when they come to the masjid

when they come to the message, that they're involved in these conversations that you hear from them, and they hear from you so that the vision is shared, and so that they understand the purposes of these things that you are providing for them, or that you're not providing for them. The last thing that I want you to look at, and this is homework from today is there was a mother, if you simply google, a mother, a mom iPhone contract, there was a mother, she's not Muslim, but

an immortal Mashallah gave her to field with regards to a contract that she gave her child

when she gave him an iPhone. So he was 13 years old, and she gave him an iPhone, what she did is just simply give him an iPhone and say here, now do whatever it is that you will, she gave him a contract also.

And the contract has around 18 or 19 points.

And so the child has to agree to all of these points to receive this iPhone. So he understands Firstly, that it is a privilege and not a right. Sometimes your kid will say, Give me my phone, you took away my phone. So they understand that it's whose phone first that it's the parents phone. They're the ones who bought it. And that's the first point that she says she says it's my fault. I'm the one who bought it for you. I'm the one who pays for it, aren't I great? Second, there are a lot of points that you can look at. But of the points that really I found were very beautiful. She says For example, you will always I will always know the password.

That's just the way that it goes. I'll always know the password I can check it whenever I want. The third is you will always answer when your mother or your father call you. You will always answer number four no pornography. Number five, you know, don't do this or don't do that then she continues to give but the point being is that she had listed out what she wants what she hopes and there will be times if that child ever reaches those rules that she can simply take it away and then they can discuss it and then she can give it back whenever she feels right but this is not simply just giving something there is also tend to be in that is involved. So as the buyer's agent allows us to benefit

from

what we have heard him ask a lot of budget to protect us and to serve us protect our hearts to protect our children and allow us ciabatta added to be of those who are allowed

to be human and how can I be larger he says that those who believe and their children and their children follow them in a manner they will catch up to them

every soul so how would it has given

To ask a lot so you have to protect us to protect our children and to make us all of those who inherit didn't do for those of us.

I know that this is a very loaded topic. So if you have any questions, points of discussion