Smart Parenting!

1. Please put your foot down when it comes to allowing unsupervised Wi-Fi access to your children at least up to the age of fifteen years. Kids are not wise enough (or sometimes strong enough) to identify morally corrupt content online. Online time for education must be timed. It is better off to give all kids one laptop that is shared and not personalized ones, even if you can afford it.
2. Media has progressively become vulgar and time wasting. Save your kids at an early age from this disease. Kids should be offered non-media related opportunities to find their happiness. Hobbies at home, sports, indoor games, social outings, or clubs can be options.
3. Do not fall into the trap of ‘everyone has it, so must I’. Your kid is better off deprived than bought gadgets, which will harm his thoughts and belief system. Once they grow older, you can share your phones with them or just give them a simple one for communication.
4. Avoid that you yourself or your spouse surf and chat all the time in front of your kids. If you want them to read, read along. If you want them to cook, be in the kitchen. If you want them to play sports, go along with them. Kids do what they see. They are quick to pick up a double-faced parent, who says one thing to them and yet does the other.
5. You and your spouse must not use the phone at mealtimes. It is a very bad idea to feed kids their meals by playing them videos. You weaken their focus and make them restless; they disrespect food later in life, and most of all, they never learn to hold conversations at the dining table. If they throw tantrums, let them. But do not hook them up to this opium of screens for the sake of your own peaceful mealtime.

In case you are wondering, the above ideas are not farfetched suggestions that have no connection to the real world. Trust me, they have been implemented by real parents, and after some initial resistance, they have borne fruit, too, by Allah’s (swt) will.