Creating Meaningful Memories with your children for Ramadan
In this post: Creating meaningful memories with your children in Ramadan isn’t really hard. You don’t have to go out of the way and do extraordinary time consuming things. You can keep things simple and still make it the best Ramadan that your children will look back with joy.
Did you know that the best parenting advice about bringing up children on the Deen is in the Quran? Yes, Surah Luqman ayah 13-18.
The number one thing that I learnt from those ayahs, is that our purpose as parents is to keep our children on the Deen of Islam. And the best way, I have learnt to do that, is by showing our children love.
Give them so much love, that when they think about God, they should wonder “My mom loves me SO much. How much more can be ’20 times more than your mother’?! “
But mind you, love cannot be physical things. We can’t buy love for our children, nor can we make it for them. They may be little, but our children can see right through us. Love, to your children, is your physical and mental presence.
Unfortunately though, we live in a time, where we want to buy our children everything that money can buy, but we have trouble giving them everything, money cannot buy.
Time. Patience. A listening ear. Tolerance. Acceptance. Understanding. Empathy. Space for them to explore who they can be. In short, we don’t give our children enough opportunities to learn how to be the best version of themselves.
Money cannot buy everything.
You can buy books, but not the love of reading.
You can buy pretty musalla’s and corner masjids, but that will not teach your child to love prayer.
You can decorate your home and craft and create with them, but they will say ‘you are the one who wanted us to do it!’.
What your children want is to be with you.
They want to watch you read. They want to hear your voice. They want to stand by your side. They want to see you adult. They want to smell their mom. They want to hold your stuff and use them like mom would. They want to sit on your lap and feel the love of being the only one there.
That’s what they will remember when they grow up.
Ramadan is the best ONLY time of the year, when you get this opportunity to 10X your efforts of showing that love.
When you stand up in prayer and invite your children to stand by your side…
When you read the Quran, and they hear you reading…
When you take them in your lap, and make duas…
When you eat together as a family, saying God’s name and thanking Him for the food later.
When your husband goes to the mosque for the prayers, and takes his son…
The long drives with Islamic lectures, and long discussions afterwards – that is what will want them to follow your Deen.
Somehow, it just becomes easier in Ramadan to build these tiny loving habits.
I recently posted on my Instagram that my children didn’t mind me not decorating for Ramadan. It started a whole lot of debate, but I also got long lengthy messages from mothers who shared that their best memory of Ramadan was with their parents – praying and reading the Quran.
The first fast…
The praying together as a family…
Daddy helping set the table for Iftaar…
Helping mom at suhoor…
Waking the siblings for suhoor and having at least one grouchy family member who didn’t like the chatter!
That, is what most of our Ramadan memories are about. In short – Ramadan is about family time. A time to come together as a practicing Muslim family.
You can read this post about age appropriate chores for kids in Ramadan (from 2-teen years). You will notice all these chores are actually ways to keep your children involved as a family.
My Muslim Kids Resource Bundle (a onetime membership to all my paid Islamic digital resources) contains chore cards, and a small ebook that explains how to eliminate the word chores from your family’s dictionary and teach responsibility and love for God, self and family instead.
You don’t have to work more to create memories for your children.
Especially not in Ramadan.
Here in Saudi Arabia, when Ramadan is approaching, schools and offices actually reduce working hours so that we can concentrate more on our ibadah. We actually make a huge hue and cry, if they don’t conduct the exams before Ramadan!
I mean, come on, we all know we need more energy to stand up in long prayers, and stay without food during the day. We don’t have enough time with all our family obligations. So, we make adjustments to make sure we work less and do more.
Why is it that some of us mothers go the opposite route? Why do we burden ourselves with even more, when we know that it is going to take a lot of effort for us in our Ibadah, at the end of the day?
Crafting and doing activities with kids is not really important in Ramadan.
Your children won’t remember them. Yes, may be you need to create some busy bags for them, even buy some books and toys or a subscription to an app or two, but that is so they work and play by themselves.
You may have to arrange your home and set things up so your children feel more in control and less in YOUR control.
Please see my Calm Confident Children’s Bundle which has routines, activities and tips on how to grow confident children through positive parenting methods.
But… all said aside. Here are some of the more meaningful memories for Ramadan.
Creating Meaningful Memories for Ramadan for Children
Ramadan is the best time of the year when you can fix your children’s routines, manners and also create memories along with it :
- Fix your children’s routine to wake up with Fajr and sleep at Ishaa. There is just some different joy of waking together as a family for Fajr. If you know, you will know. If you worry what children will do so early in the morning, you will just have to wake them and see. They are children they learn to entertain themselves. (Please see my baby routines and the CCC Bundle for all my resources to fix your children’s routines.)
- Create healthy sleep habits with Islamic bedtime routines. You can also introduce Qaylullah (afternoon nap – seista or quiet time)
- Fix your children’s eating habits. Ramadan is the best time to help your children learn the 3 meals and 3 snacks a day eating with the help of intermittent fasting for kids.
- Introduce the habit of listening the Quran daily as a calm down activity. Ramadan is the month when the Quran was revealed to Prophet Muhammad PBUH. Let the sound of the Quran be heard coming from your homes.
- Get in the habit of reading the Quran daily. Take your children with you and let them hear you read. Let them read in your lap. Listen to the Quran. Quran Journal together and ponder over a translation of an ayah.
- Pray together as a family. Take your children with you and pray.
- Involve your older children in Qiyam. Teach your children to pray Tahajjud and the other sunnah and nafl prayers.
- Clean together as a family. Because a family that does things together is a family that grows stronger together. More hands are better than 2 hands. See my 30 minute cleaning routine
- Cook together as a family. See my Ramadan recipe for kids post.
- Read together as a family. Have a family library of the best Islamic books. Leave the story books aside and bring out more of the seerah, hadith and Quran ones.
- Involve the children in sending food to the neighbors.
- Set aside a few minutes everyday for a family Naseeha hour. Teach them about Akhlaaq or talk about the Prophets and why they were sent. Teach them the names of Allah.
- Make dua as a family. Take your little children in your lap when you make dua. Set aside 20 minutes before iftaar when the whole family sits together making dua. Say out the duas aloud so your children can hear and learn. Make a dua notebook. Show them how to make dua.
- Wake your children for Suhoor. (Not the babies!)
- Listening to Islamic lectures, tafsir and recitation of the Quran by notable scholars.
- Teach your boys to go to the Mosque!
- Teach your girls to help in the kitchen. (Boys too!)
- Create a Charity project or involve children in food drives. Older boys go out, little children and girls pack.
- Teach children how to calculate Zakah and to how to find the right people to give the Zakah to. This is actually something many of us are familiar with back in India and Pakistan. It is was one of the ways we learnt to appreciate people in our society and keep an eye out for helping the needy. Zakat and Fitra is a great conversation topic with children of teenage years.
- Teach your children about Fitrah.
These are just some of the ideas that I recall at the time of writing this post. I would love to know how you create memories with your children in Ramadan.
