Building Communities In Our Homes

By: Aysha Khanom

In The Name of Allah, The Most Gracious, The Most Merciful

We see many youth subcultures being formed, and very diverse ones. Some are the ones which we may see in any given country, the ones which adopt the 'gangster' and 'thug' image. They carry hostile and ego filled attitude towards others. Some maybe less extreme in their views than others, but the kids seem to be running for their image..

Why is it kids resort to these ideas and this lifestyle?

Despite what they may exercise, and follow, these groups, subcultures, all contain one thing within its members – They understand and can relate to each other, and they feel a sense of belonging within their peer groups. Some see it as refuge away from their families, because there is no connection at home. A kids refuge should be their Parents, or their Guardians. So they fall into the right hands, when they fall into error, not those who will lead them further astray.

Subcultures gives the individual a sense of belonging, whereby they can exercise their, for example, leadership skills, and feel appreciated.

Some parents, blame the child's peers because of their child's misbehavior, but miss the bigger picture, and don't look into whether they are there for their children. There is the big gap, and kids feel burden when they think of their home. 'Home' the word itself speaks out for what it should be. All it takes, to connect with kids, is asking how their day was, what they enjoy doing, takes a few minutes of your time.

We can plant good in kids from a young age, ploughing in them good morals, and planting ideas of Islam within them. The early years are most crucial, how much attention, appreciation, and praise is needed… Whatever is built into children from an early age, is inevitably what will be carried throughout their life. The building of confidence and creating a positive outlook on life work in parallel, circulates all areas of life, and will affect areas such as educational attainment, success of career, stability of marriage, and communicating with many different people and maintaining bonds with friends.

Charity starts at home as they say, whether we have children, or younger brothers and sisters, we should aim to be those who they can resort to and fall back on. We can send kids to the Mosque and expect that the Imam will perform a miracle and change our kids, or our brothers and sisters, however, it is the home where the children's capital is, and it is the home which should be the community which raises good children, and where the leaders should be built.

Many of us can complain about society we are living is, and our communities, about its downfalls, deviant indviduals and fitnah (trial) spreading around the communities, yet is this an actual cause or an effect?

We try our best to build communities, have gatherings, prayers, to integrate us, but isn't this the means for us to be using in our own homes? After all, we can have reminder sessions at School University, or at the Mosque, but what needs to be focused on is the context in which the individual spends the majority of their time in. This is at home – a teacher can discipline a child – but the teacher is not the primary caregiver, an Imam can give good nasihah – yet again the imam isn't the person who the individual is always exposed to.

We have living communities in our homes, and every community needs its leaders, finding ways to integrate, keeping each other on track, and preventing potential corruption. The outside community should be ways in which our children can advance with, be their assets – Imams, friends, and other facilities- but not their only means of betterment, or their first step to self improvement – self improvement begins at home, leadership can be taught at home, and good morality should be what's exercised.

I pray Allah grants us the ability to make our homes fruitful, and to help us build great leaders within them. Ameen

Source: www.islamicity.com