When we have children, we have great expectations and we feel our children should behave in certain way, be a certain way, look a certain way and perhaps later on, we want them to achieve something, we want them to marry the way we would like and we expect a lot.
I want to tell you reality is you have to change that as time passes. No doubt, we all have expectations, but Allah has given your children and mine different capacities, they may never be able to achieve what you want them to achieve. It may be possible, but you can not put so much of pressure upon them that they snap. A lot of the times, we want our children to get grades and they can not make it.
For God sake let them enjoy their life at school, for as long as they are trying, they are best and still they bring about result that may or may not be the best, but they are still your children. They will still succeed, InshAllah. So, don’t let it destroy you and destroy them by being too hard on them. We being parents have great expectations, but they may let us down or they may not have the God given capacity to full fill what you are dreaming about.
Similarly, when it comes to marriage, we want our children to marry a particular type of person, but they may not want that. Your dreams that you have for your children need to be adjusted on reality. Its not just a dream based on ideal in your mind, but as time passes you may have to adjust things. They may do certain things that are very embarrassing, Help them. They may do the things that are unacceptable so Guide them, be there for them. Teach them again and again. Remember that, don’t yell, and scream at your children, don’t swear your children as that is prohibited and yelling and screaming is detested in Islam.
The Prophet Mohammad (SAW) never yelled or screamed at child even once. He never beat up a child not even once, Subhan Allah. Where are those who claim to love Prophet (SAW)? Well I do love Prophet (SAW) and you do too. then it is obligatory upon us to follow his examples.
Don’t yell and scream at your children, don’t beat them up, not at all. Teach them with goodness and kindness. The expectations we have of these little children, they may break things, they may fail a few times, they may not achieve something, they may lose path somewhere down the line. The stronger the bond is between you and your children, the greater the chance of these children succeeding is. But on contrary, some of us don’t bother to learn, especially when it comes to marriage but give the person, they want to marry a chance, try and look who it is.
In the case of those, the communities in which other party come up with proposition is not wrong, it is not prohibited. A male or a female from your children can actually come up to you and say, I have interest in marrying so and so, would you be able to take it further from me or are you looking into it. There is nothing wrong with that. It is not haram as some cultures think of it as so unacceptable and raise questions like how dare you tell us that who you want to marry, and they say that it is not allowed in Islam. That is just culture keeping the limits, but Islam never declared such thing.
In Islam, you need to consider what children are saying. The world is changed, we have progressed so much. We cannot force our children the things we want them to do.
Conclusion
My beloved brothers and sisters, our expectations at time are too high. No doubt we want best for our children but perhaps those children don’t have that capacity. Learn to love the way your children look. Learn to love the way your children just as they are. Keep guiding them, teaching them. Allah test for you is just to watch you, to see how you react to the situation and people he places in your life. And you are going to go back to Allah and you are going to have to answer for everything. Let’s hope we have good and contented answers.