How to Raise Muslim Adolescents Effectively

We always speak about raising young children, but not much about raising our teens…

There are 3 types of paradigms in raising teens:

• Parent-Offspring Relationships.
• Relationships between Adults and Soon-to-be Adults.
• Parent-Adolescent Relationship as an Interpersonal Relationship.

Parents must be responsible for their adolescents’ development in areas, such as spirituality, cognition, emotion and social communication.

Parents must be in control – it is parents who ultimately make or guide decisions for children, even when collaborating with the latter, and not the other way around.

But how then do we empower our adolescent children to make wise decisions?

From a religious point of view, the child would have progressed from the stage of mumaiyyiz (the ability to differentiate right from wrong) and likely to have also attained aqil baligh (puberty or sexual maturity). In other words, adolescent children are even biologically able to become parents themselves.

While adolescents start to have higher cognitive abilities because of their brains’ physical development, they do not automatically acquire socially (and religiously) expected behaviour and have to model after parents, family members, teachers, peers and other social actors in their environment.

Thus, parents will need to constantly observe and check-in whether their teenage children understand what is expected of them… because they may adopt ways of thinking and behaving from outside the family (and outside the religion), in positive and sometimes, negative ways.

Parents will need to understand that because adolescents want to be ‘seen’ as being capable and independent, they may sometimes respond emotionally if the parents’ tone of communication implies any incapability and inferiority on the adolescent’s part.

It is important to know what and how to communicate with adolescents as these are two key but different aspects of communication.

It is a shame when many parents have very clear parenting visions according to Islamic teachings and clear behavioural expectations of their children, but do not have the communication skills to execute and deliver their parenting messages in a way that adolescents will receive them. Parents will need to model courage and safety, while holding space for adolescents’ desire to push limits.

When raising teens, it is a great opportunity for parents to review their understanding of Islamic teachings, such as the expectations upon Muslim families, and to gain lessons from the character of the Prophet (PBUH).

The companion Anas (RA) narrated:

“I served the Prophet (PBUH) for ten years, and he never said to me, “Uf” (a minor harsh word denoting impatience) and never blamed me by saying, “Why did you do so or why didn’t you do so?”

(Hadith narrated by al-Bukhari)