Our Child’s Inspiration/Role Models: Do they impact their lives?
In the present world of technology, the use of social media out-scored the daily sittings of parents with their children. In those fruitful sessions they talked about the history, digging deeper into the conventional stories and extracting a moral lesson from them. The extensive use of these gadgets made it quite difficult to ascertain the role models or inspirations of our children. My child watching short reels of a highly depressed psychopath hitting her head over the walls as a result of domestic abuse, made me think as what impact that video had over the brain of a 4 year old girl. Not to my surprise, I found her doing the same act when I refused to give her mobile phone. Similarly, an animated cartoon character wearing elegant dress and dancing through the mountains surprised me again; when I noticed my child, standing in front of the mirror and trying to copy the moves of the same. One day my friend visited me and asked my child what she wants to be when she grew up? She replied “princess elsa”. This was a wake-up call for me. I was compelled to think again and again as to what mistake made my child to think this way? Yes! It was the unchecked use of social media, which not only developed a sense of aspiration but also inspired the young developing minds to get attracted to glamorous characters. This incident made me reflect on the broader implications of role models in a child’s life.
What is inspiration?
According to psychology, inspiration is a complex psychological development of the human brain that leads to motivation and sparks creativity. This means that whatever inspires a child at an early age of development will have an impact on his priorities as well as decision-making throughout the life. In simple words, inspiration built role models for us and we try to imitate them automatically. The preferences of our role models become our preferences and even the unethical or immoral attributes carried by our inspirers starts developing in our personalities. These are the alarming repercussions that are unavoidable once we get inspired from a wrong inspirer.
On the other hand, the lack of proper upbringing (on the grounds of Islamic teachings) from the parent’s side adds to the bitterness of the situation. We as modern parents think that providing our child with latest technology, education, and food is the basic necessity for parenting rather than focusing on the moral and religious development of our children. In this way, the parents don’t even think about the proper upbringing (on the grounds of Islamic teachings) of their children. For the proper upbringing, it is mandatory to become a role model for your kids and doing so is indeed a tiresome process. Keeping all these things in mind, the parents opt for the easier way of parenting and hence put their children into denial, not knowing who to follow and who to avoid. It means we are forcing our growing generation to become the part of any paradigm they want. A generation not knowing the future impact of following the sheep’s flock on their personality and future endures.
What did we miss?
To address this issue, we must revisit the foundations of moral guidance provided by our faith. There are many blunders behind the turmoil already initiated through the past few decades. The foremost being the distancing of our past generations from the teachings of Al-Quran. As a simple litmus test, we may think for few minutes that as a child how we were introduced to our religion? Not to our surprise, we will get answers relating to halal and haram or paradise and hell only. We were never taught that Islam is a way of life, nor were we guided that Prophet Muhammad P.B.U.H. must be our role model, as narrated in Al-Quran;
“Indeed, in the Messenger of Allah you have an excellent example for whoever has hope in Allah and the Last Day, and remembers Allah often.” [33:21]
In Islam, the concept of role models is deeply rooted in the teachings of The Quran and the life of Prophet Muhammad (P.B.U.H.). Now let’s turn the picture upside down and imagine if we had the opportunity to consider the Last Prophet P.B.U.H. as a role model since our childhood, how would our lives be? Nevertheless, knowing The Rehmatul lillalameen and developing inspiration for Him would definitely have changed our way of thinking, our priorities, and our purpose of life. This is how positive inspirations impact the human race. As narrated by Prophet Muhammad P.B.U.H.:
“None of you will have faith till he loves me more than his father, his children, and all mankind.” [Sahih Al Bukhari 15]
Secondly, we were never introduced to the Prophets and their lives as well. This created another gap which stopped us from considering them as our heroes. Unfortunately, the present generation is also facing the same deficiencies in their upbringing. As a result, being the psychological need of humans, we search for false or bereft heroes. Gradually, such inspirations develop psychological slaves who are not capable of thinking intellectually and ultimately end-up in carrying low self-esteem and depression.
Thus, inspirations/role models do impact the lives of our children.
What can we do?
The road to changing the present scenario might seem difficult but it’s not impossible. We must dedicate ourselves to the proper upbringing of our children and consider it as our prime goal. This will ultimately force us to read and understand the teachings of Al-Quran. Secondly, the stories of the Prophets must be shared with the children from an early age. This will help them define the properties of true heroes. Last but not the least; we must try to become role models for our children with respect to the practical implementation of the teachings of Allah-Izzo-Wajjal in our own lives, as “actions speak louder than words.”