Moments pass that test us… not by what we know, but by how we feel. When a sound is heard in the sky, a child does not wait for an explanation. He waits for a reassuring look. He does not ask "What is that?" but searches in his mother's eyes for safety. Each age has its own way of expressing itself, and every soul receives events differently. The little one seeks a warm embrace, a calm voice whispering "Allah is with us," a familiar toy, a story told with a loving tone. The older child begins to ask questions. He does not want every detail, but needs clarity filled with serenity. To say to him with confidence: "There are honorable men who stay awake to protect us. We are safe now, and Allah is closer to us than anything." As for the one whose mind has grown and whose awareness has matured, he does not seek an answer as much as he seeks respect for what he feels. He may fall silent, contemplate, or voice his questions with hesitation. What he needs is a heart that listens, a word that validates, and a conversation that opens a door to deeper understanding, not one that shuts his feelings away. In such moments, a mother is not required to erase the event or provide complete answers. She is called to be a mirror of tranquility. Anxiety is understandable and fear is natural, yet serenity is contagious, just as disturbance is. And what a mother's face conveys settles in the child's heart before any word is spoken. Protecting our children does not only mean distancing them from frightening sounds. It means bringing them closer to Allah, to themselves, to our love, and to words that warm the soul and plant trust within them. It means teaching them that life is filled with varied moments, and that whenever our hearts cling to The Most Merciful, they find peace. In every difficult moment there is an opportunity to affirm a value, strengthen a relationship, and build a lasting inner sense of safety. Let our presence with our children be a harbor of stability, not an echo of fear. And let us teach them, with love, that peace begins within, and that Allah is closer to them than any passing sound in the sky.

Daily news and events continue to unfold during this crisis. Some are painful, and some carry the scent of victory. Parents' reactions in front of their children differ greatly when hearing these daily updates. Some parents may unintentionally stir negative feelings such as fear, frustration, or negative assumptions about Allah. This makes children tense, withdrawn, afraid, or discouraged, and may even lead to unusual misbehavior caused by suppressed anger about what is happening, as some mothers have shared with me. Other parents use the very same news and events as opportunities to instill deeply important meanings that have emerged through this crisis, planting precious feelings that our children need just as plants need water. So what is your reaction when you hear the news? What feelings do you experience and pass on to your children? Be mindful of your reaction and emotions toward what is happening, and nurture the following ten important feelings that build your child's character: Compassion: By being moved by the suffering of others and feeling a genuine desire to do something that eases their pain. This is the most important quality that makes a human truly human. Suffering should be conveyed wisely according to age. Avoid distressing scenes for children under twelve, and highlight stories of dignity and steadfastness for all ages. Giving: Through individual and collective supplication, charity, boycotting companies that support oppression, and similar actions. Belonging: By genuinely caring about what is happening and nurturing a shared sense of unity, like one body that feels it when any part of it is in pain. Courage: By watching videos and photos and hearing stories that show the courage of our people as they face their crisis, so our children can learn from their bravery. Hope: By expressing hopeful feelings for their victory and avoiding discouragement despite the difficulties, and by sharing stories of divine support and success granted to those who stand firm seeking the pleasure of Almighty Allah.

When you face difficult challenges and crises, you tell yourself to stay positive. You try not to think about the painful events you are experiencing so you can focus on your goals and your life. Things seem to move forward despite the challenges surrounding you, and you keep walking ahead. Yet you feel that you are not moving with your natural weight, as if you are carrying heavy loads wherever you go. As challenges pile up and you continue insisting on positive thinking, you walk with mountains on your shoulders without realizing it, because you are determined to stay positive and keep progressing in life. Then you begin to ask yourself: Why do I feel that I am not enjoying life? Why do I feel that my physical health and energy are declining? Why? If this describes you, then you are someone who has entered the cage of negativity in the name of false positivity. What Is Meant by Toxic Positivity? The term positivity is often misused. You hear phrases like stay positive, be positive, keep being positive, without enough awareness of what positivity truly means. It then becomes an anesthetic that allows toxins to accumulate inside us while we refuse to look, feel, or think. Three Steps to Protect Yourself from Toxic Positivity First: Allow Yourself to Feel Negative Emotions It is natural to feel sadness, anger, or frustration. Do not ignore these feelings just to appear positive. Allow yourself to express them in healthy ways. Remember that Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, cried and grieved, and he had an entire year known as the Year of Grief. Healthy ways to express your emotions: Writing in a journal Speaking with someone you trust, and not your children Confronting the person who is hurting you Setting boundaries with those who harm you Seeking a mental health specialist if needed Second: Understand and Name Your Emotions When your negative emotions rise to the surface and you recognize them, you can begin to understand their causes and work toward real solutions. Examples of emotions that may need to be named: Loneliness Psychological pressure Feeling unvalued Accumulated anger Fear or anxiety Patience does not mean ignoring what you feel. It means acknowledging your vulnerability with faith and continuing to strive forward. Third: Set Clear Boundaries in Your Relationships If your struggle is connected to people around you, learn to set boundaries. Do not justify hurtful behavior under the excuse of kindness or the desire for peace. True positivity includes self-respect. Phrases that help you express yourself and set boundaries: It is my right not to be insulted and to feel respected It is my right not to have decisions made on my behalf It is my right to have others stay out of my private matters It is my right that the person I speak to truly listens to me Also use this simple structure: I feel… and I need… Examples: I feel discouraged when you mock me, and I need you to encourage me I feel lonely when you do not reach out, and I need you to call me every day I feel exhausted, and I need you to work with me Conclusion Life will continue to shift between its seasons. Some moments call for gratitude, and others call for patience. Accepting your different emotions and growing through them is part of living a true and full life.

Your child cannot find true happiness when he grows up unless he succeeds in his relationships with the people around him, whether within the family, at work, or among relatives and friends. To achieve this, he needs to develop one of the most important skills of Emotional Intelligence, which is the skill of compassion. What Is Compassion? Compassion is defined as awareness of the feelings of others, the ability to imagine oneself in the place of someone who is suffering, feeling empathy for what that person is going through, and offering help when possible. It is important for parents to make the most of the childhood years to develop the skill of compassion, as it is very easy to nurture at a young age due to the high plasticity of the brain. How Can You Develop the Skill of Compassion in Your Child in Five Steps? 1. Recognize Emotions Introduce your child at the age of three to four to simple emotional words and their meanings, such as happy, sad, upset, afraid, and angry. When he grows older and reaches seven, introduce him to deeper emotional words such as frustrated, anxious, jealous, embarrassed, and shy. 2. Identify the Feeling When your child sees his brother or sister, or anyone else, feeling upset, sad, or afraid, ask him: Do you know how he feels right now? 3. Understand the Cause Ask him: Why is he upset? Let him discover the reason and say it aloud. Encourage him to figure it out if he does not know. For example: He is upset because he wants my toy. 4. Find the Solution Ask him: What does your brother need in order to feel better? Let him come up with solutions to his brother's problem. Encourage him to discover the answer if he does not know. For example: I can give him another toy, I can give him a hug, I can let him play with my toy. The older the child, the easier it becomes for him to think of more solutions. 5. Apply Ask him: How can you help him right now so he can feel better? Let him answer and choose from the solutions he came up with. Then say to him: What do you think about helping him now? Let him help, and then thank him for being a kind and caring person. Showing appreciation is important because it creates feelings of happiness linked to the desired behavior, which helps reinforce it and encourages its repetition. Apply the same steps with your child when he himself experiences a negative emotion. Let him name the emotion, discover its cause, find a solution, and then act on it. This develops the skill of Emotional Self-Regulation. Developing the skill of compassion at a community level leads to the formation of a compassionate society and a compassionate Ummah. A lack of compassion signals a disturbance in character and leads to the development of a narcissistic personality, which is becoming more prevalent every day due to weak skills among those raising and educating children. Developing the skill of compassion is not an intellectual luxury. It is a foundation in raising our children.

Life is a vast experience for learning. Its purpose is not for you to be perfect, but for you to learn from past mistakes so you do not repeat them. Do not hurt yourself because you made a mistake. You are human. You were not created to be perfect or angelic. You were created to learn. Shift your thinking from painful negativity to constructive positivity by reminding yourself: I have learned, and I will make sure not to repeat this mistake. I am human. I will grow and become stronger because I have learned. Life is full of experiences. And whenever your thoughts pull you back to the point of pain from the mistake, bring them back to this reminder: I am human, and I have learned and grown through my experiences, and I have become stronger. This helps your brain focus on what you want, not on what your thoughts want to drag you toward. If there is anything that requires repentance, then repent to Allah, and you will feel your servitude to Him and rise above your mistakes. Remember the saying of the Messenger of Allah, peace be upon him: "If you did not sin, Allah would replace you with people who would sin, then seek His forgiveness, and He would forgive them." Narrated by Muslim. It is natural to make mistakes because you are human. But if you do not accept that you are a human who errs, and you deny the mistake, or blame others, or allow the pain of being wrong to control you, you will neither learn nor grow. You will remain in a dark box. Free yourself.

When your principles in life are noble and your goals align with these principles, you will respect yourself in proportion to the greatness of the principles you believe in. And the more your actions match these principles, the more your self-respect grows and the higher your self-esteem becomes. When a person speaks about believing in noble principles yet acts in the opposite way, he loses his self-respect to the same degree as the gap between his principles and his behavior. Some people may think it is clever to deceive others by wearing a mask that makes them appear to hold great principles, when in reality they are deceiving no one as much as they are deceiving themselves. They do not realize that they are igniting a voice of self-contempt deep within, a voice that corrupts their positive feelings toward themselves at every moment, leaving them without self-respect and without any sense of their true worth. For this reason, the people who despise themselves the most are the hypocrites and the narcissists who live in continuous deception, while Satan adorns this deception for them and leads them to believe they are the cleverest of all, when in truth they are only the most contemptible before themselves and before those who see through them. To respect yourself and value yourself means to be genuine, not false. It means your words align with your actions. And if you slip, and your actions contradict your words and principles, then nothing will restore you except repentance, which brings you back to your true self, closes the gap that has formed within you, and returns you to honesty with yourself in the most beautiful way. O Allah, return us to You in a beautiful return.

A widespread and deeply rooted false belief in our societies prevents us from succeeding in raising our children and enjoying our relationship with them. It also stunts their emotional and cognitive growth. This belief is the way we deal with mistakes. For example, when I as a mother or father receive a note from school saying that my child forgets to do his homework, what is the typical reaction to this mistake? Disappointment? Scolding? Threats? Lecturing? What will the child learn from this? To hide his mistake? To hate himself? To feel discouraged or inferior? We can turn our children's mistakes into opportunities to teach them thinking skills, develop their intelligence, and build their self-confidence by teaching the skill of problem solving instead of resorting to scolding and discouragement. First Step Ask your child with confidence, good faith, and without intimidation: Why do you forget to do your homework? Think about what reasons make you forget. Then listen to him with respect and give him the chance to think and analyze the reasons, developing his thinking skills in the process. Accept that it is natural for a person to make mistakes, so he learns to reflect on himself and take responsibility for his mistake instead of hiding it or denying it, as many people in our societies do today. Second Step After listening to him, ask him to suggest solutions to the problem he is experiencing and to choose the ones that can actually be applied: What can you do to solve the problem of forgetting your homework? Third Step Follow up with him as he works on solving the problem and encourage his progress. Ask him: How are things going? How much progress have you made in solving the problem? Accept that he cannot suddenly complete all of his homework at once. Encourage any progress he makes, even if it means completing just one assignment in a week, while continuing to encourage him to come up with solutions, discuss causes and options with him, and help him reach a point where he remembers to complete his homework consistently. When we accept that partial progress leads to greater progress, and when we encourage effort rather than reserving appreciation only for the final result, our child will be motivated to keep moving forward and will not fear failure. He will then develop a Growth Mindset that embraces challenges and finds joy in achieving small daily successes, driving him to achieve more and more in life. Offering appreciation only when our child reaches the final result gives him an all-or-nothing mindset. This is one of the common Cognitive Distortions that leads to negativity, narrow thinking, and fear of taking initiative. In his mind, he is either successful or a failure, either completing all his homework or failing completely. How much do our children need to feel held and supported when they make mistakes, instead of having us stand against them and discourage them in the face of a difficult world that awaits them? How much do they need their skills to be nurtured instead of frozen through fear, discouragement, and blame? How much do they need encouragement to face challenges and grow through them, so they feel confident and take pleasure in growing, instead of feeling weak and inferior? And then we wonder why they do not take responsibility and why they are so negative.

Should a person thank himself? And for what should he thank himself? Does thanking oneself lead to conceit? And what if a person does not thank himself? Will it affect his sense of self-worth? What is the effect of a person's sense of self-worth on his psychological state and behavior? These were questions I received from trainees in the Diploma of the Nurturer of the Creative Moral Character, which began a week ago. We were discussing the importance of stirring positive emotions to release happiness hormones that lead to brain flourishing and the achievement of happiness and Well-being, in accordance with positive psychology. Gratitude releases important positive hormones that support Emotional Stability and brain flourishing, including serotonin, oxytocin, and dopamine, whether this gratitude is directed toward Allah, toward others, or toward oneself. Gratitude spreads within a person a sense of appreciation, contentment, and happiness. For this reason, the Messenger of Allah, peace be upon him, encouraged gratitude and said: Whoever does not thank people has not thanked Allah. Narrated by al-Tirmidhi. We are among the people. So should we thank ourselves? And how can we do so without falling into conceit? Thanking oneself is part of thanking Allah. When we become aware of the small actions we have done throughout our day, we become aware of Allah's blessings upon us. Without His enabling grace, we would not have moved from our places, nor initiated anything, nor accomplished any action. This gratitude helps us appreciate ourselves and feel the value of what we do, while thanking Allah at the same time and attributing all success to Him. We may call this: thanking the self on the doorstep of servitude to Allah, for success is only by Allah. Moreover, if a person does not thank and appreciate himself from within, no amount of external appreciation will ever compensate, because Self-esteem comes from within, not from outside. Therefore, we should thank ourselves for what we do and connect this gratitude with a second gratitude, which is thanking Allah for His enabling grace. And here the question arises: How can we thank ourselves? Imagine with me. At the end of your day, before you close the curtain on this day, let your mind pass through the scenes of your day and remember: What are the things you did today that affected you and those around you? What positive and kind actions did you carry out today? Move through these scenes while remembering, thanking yourself, and encouraging yourself, and thank Allah that He helped you. Say to yourself, for example: Praise be to Allah that I woke up in the morning, got ready and took care of myself, worked and made effort, prayed, remembered Allah, completed household tasks, connected with my parents, checked on a friend, ate healthy food, exercised, rested, did something I enjoyed that renewed my energy, listened to a video from which I learned something beneficial, read, gave in charity, helped someone, said a kind word thanking another person, prevented harm from reaching myself or others, forgave, showed mercy, showed tenderness, smiled at someone. Imagine that all of this is goodness toward yourself and toward others. Goodness that deserves self-gratitude and gratitude to Allah. When we pay attention to the details of our day and thank ourselves for this goodness, we spread positivity within ourselves and encourage ourselves to do more. Encouragement releases initiative and effectiveness, and thanking Allah reminds us that He has blessed us by enabling us to do this good, even if it was small, even if it was only a smile. Do not underestimate a smile that leaves you and reaches someone before you, bringing them happiness and bringing yourself happiness along with them, in a moment when you chose to smile. As the Messenger of Allah, peace be upon him, said: Do not belittle any act of kindness, even if it is meeting your brother with a cheerful face. Narrated by Muslim. This simple smile deserves gratitude to oneself and gratitude to Allah for enabling us to smile. Some people believe they must first accomplish something great, such as memorizing the Holy Quran, earning a doctorate, or becoming wealthy, before they can thank themselves. The truth is that memorizing the Quran does not come in a single step. It is the result of many daily steps, each of which deserves self-gratitude to encourage more good actions, and gratitude to Allah for His enabling grace. The same applies to any action, whether large or small. There is no such thing as a small action. Every good action done sincerely for Allah is a great action, even if it is a smile. Self-gratitude and self-encouragement lead to a genuine sense of Self-esteem and freedom from dependence on external approval. This is important for Emotional Stability and equally important for sincerity in action and for giving without waiting for a return, whether material or moral. Giving freely from a place of inner sufficiency is the spirit of work and one of the secrets of inner strength. May Allah grant us and you the ability to thank Him in all our stillness and movement, and may He write us among the thankful. Try this with me: sit with yourself at the end of the day, even as you rest on your pillow, and thank yourself and thank Allah for the positive actions you carried out during the day. Pay attention to your inner feelings and to the blessing that fills your days. Then tell me: by how much did your sense of contentment and happiness rise?

Five Steps to Become the Original Version of Yourself Are you the original version of yourself? Or are you a copy of what those around you pull you toward, whether people, media, or the countless external influences scattered everywhere? Perhaps this is the most difficult era in which to remain authentic, because external influences that pour into the space of our inner world accumulate inside us in complex and rapid ways. They conceal our true selves from us and lead us toward feelings of confusion, loss, constriction, and perhaps even the illness of our age, depression. So how do we uncover our true selves and feel worth, confidence, contentment, and happiness? Five Steps to Being Authentic First In order to know your true self and gather yourself around it, you need to ask the most important question in your life: What are my highest values? What do I believe in? Second You need to ask yourself the second equally important question: What do I want? Third Your goals must align with your highest values so that your efforts flow toward achieving them, bringing you together with your true self. Otherwise, you will remain in loss and exhaustion, living a self that is not yours, a self shaped by external influence or by fears these influences have cast upon you, driving you to run confused and far from your own essence. Fourth You need to build life plans that stem from your highest values and simplify them into daily goals that you live for, because you chose them and because you are moving toward what you want. When you find that what you do flows into your highest values, you will feel comfort, tranquility, and contentment. Yes, without doubt all of us are tested, suffer, and show patience. Yet storms will not harm us as long as we sail in the vessel we chose and hold firmly to. The storms will pass and we will remain standing. But how exhausting those storms become when they strike us while we do not know where we are and never choose where we want to be. Fifth We need to pause for moments of inner reflection throughout our day and ask ourselves: How do I feel right now? What am I thinking about? What am I doing? Are my thoughts, feelings, and actions flowing toward what I want? Or am I scattered and lost? If you find yourself absorbed in a tiring internal dialogue about something that happened between you and someone else, gather yourself again with the following questions: Does what I am thinking help me move toward what I want? If not, choose to think about something that serves your goals. If you go through a difficult or discouraging experience, stop and ask yourself: Is there something I can learn from this that will help me move toward what I want? Learn from what happened and return your focus to what you want. And if something catches your attention because the media glorifies it or people praise it, pulling you away from yourself, ask yourself again to return safely to your foundation: Is this truly what I want? Where am I going, and what do I want? It is natural to get distracted from our path at times. That distraction will make us feel constriction, and then we return with love and longing to what we truly want. It is also natural to sometimes forget and be pulled toward what we do not want. We will then feel lost, and so we return to stand with ourselves in a moment of inner exploration and ask: What do I feel? What am I thinking? What am I doing? What do I want? Through this, we regain our awareness and return to our true selves, the selves that know what they believe in, where they are heading, and what they desire. We feel contentment and happiness because we are on the path. This is the wisdom in the fact that we have been granted free will. Allah honored us with the ability to choose. We will never find true happiness unless we possess freedom of choice and freedom of decision, living our lives as people who are guided, not dragged. Some people live their entire lives never discovering their highest values and never knowing what they want from this life. Many of them remain lost. Others discover their highest values and know the goals connected to those values, yet spend their days elsewhere, hoping to find meaning in illusions and images drawn for them by others. Those are the inauthentic ones. And there is a small group who know their purpose in this life and strive to make their days and their every moment a reflection of what they believe in. These are the ones who truly believe. These are the authentic ones. We ask Allah to make us among them, to make His pleasure our greatest concern, and to guide our thoughts, feelings, and actions every day toward His love and His pleasure, free from anything else. O Allah, Amen.

How do you deal with your child's mistake? Do you frighten him? Do you punish him out of anger? Do you leave him without correction? How did the Messenger of Allah, peace be upon him, deal with mistakes? Did he frighten the person? Did he frown at him? Or did he correct with gentleness and mercy? Muawiyah ibn al-Hakam al-Sulami, may Allah be pleased with him, said: "While I was praying with the Messenger of Allah, peace be upon him, a man among the people sneezed. So I said, 'May Allah have mercy on you.' The people stared at me, so I said, 'May my mother be bereaved of me, why are you looking at me like that?' And they began striking their thighs with their hands. When I saw them signaling me to be silent, I fell silent. When the Messenger of Allah, peace be upon him, finished the prayer, by my father and mother, I have never seen before him nor after him a teacher better in his teaching than he was. By Allah, he did not scold me, he did not strike me, he did not insult me. He said: This prayer is not fitting for any speech of people. It is only tasbih, takbir, and the recitation of the Quran." Narrated by Muslim. Where did we get the idea that we must frighten our children and make them hate themselves in order to correct their behavior? Does discouragement and fear correct behavior, or does it raise slaves? Fear raises cowardly slaves. Trust, gentleness, and good faith raise free and courageous individuals. So which are you? A nurturer of slaves or a nurturer of the free? Correct the mistake without frightening your child.