7 Ways to Involve Your Kids This Ramadan
7 Ways to Involve Your Kids This Ramadan
Ramadan is here! Get your children involved this Ramadan! Involvement can mean a lot of things. For this article, I interpret involvement as including children willingly in the traditions and allowing them to feel like they are part of the celebration. Involvement means creating, doing, making, helping and maybe even learning a thing or two about Ramadan along the way.
MAKE YOUR OWN RAMADAN CALENDAR
Get your kids to look forward to everyday surprises. Fill pockets with not only small gifts as stickers or small Ramadan key chains, but I even prefer an even better option of writing personalized notes for your child. A great idea would be to encourage children to perform acts of kindness every day; each pocket would include a note of a different way they can show kindness today. For the older children you can include a note with a small story of the Prophets so it would act as a bed-time story routine during that month.
MAKE A SADAQA/CHARITY BOX
Explain the importance of giving to others. During the month ask them who would they like to help whether it’s someone they now personally that might be in need as driver or gate-keeper or a more general act of kindness as buying toys for children in the streets. Whatever it may be, make sure that this is your child’s decision and choice and allow them to take action on it by the end of the month. I would highly advise to make sure children give away physical objects that they could see would be useful to others instead of money, however this is your personal choice.
‘REACH FOR THE STARS’
Throughout Ramadan you can regularly take a look at the moon together and speak about the different phases of the moon and how this is relevant in welcoming the month of Ramadan.
STAR COOKIE CUTTERS
Since Ramadan is usually associated with a star and crescent moon, why not use this theme in your kitchen! Get a creative as you can.
PACK BASKETS OR BAGS FOR THE DISADVANTAGES/HOMELESS
Delegate tasks that are age appropriate for your child to complete alone so as to allow them the feeling of competence as well as the fulfillment of helping others by themselves. An hour before Iftar you can go around your neighborhood with your child giving them out. During the process explain to your child the meaning of being kind to those in need while demonstrating it.
DRESS UP!
Pick a day for the family to wear the typical religious attire one would wear. Isdal/abaya for girls and a galabeya for boys perhaps. Kids love to dress up and make-believe and what a great learning experience would it be for you to get out your galabeyas and have a ‘costume’ party while introducing children to their traditional garments.
HAVE THEM HELP WITH HOUSE DECORATIONS
With the month of Ramadan comes a lot of festivities and decoration for those gatherings. Make it a tradition that every year both you and your child together help set up the house with decorations. Invite them to say their option on where they want the Ramadan lantern to be and include them in the decorating process. You can even make it a tradition that your child lights up the lantern every day for you.
Each child is different in their amazing way. Which ever method you see fits best to involve your child during the month of Ramadan make sure you have an amazing time together creating, making and learning.
Ramadan Kareem to you and your family.
Amina is a child psychologist, parent educator and coach. She is also currently a doctoral researcher in Education at the University of Bath, UK. After completing her masters in child & adolescent psychology, Amina worked with a variety of children ranging from behavioral issues to developmental disorders. Her certifications in positive discipline and parent coaching allow her to form the bridge between parent education and child therapy as she provides tools and proven strategies to empower parents when raising their children. Amina’s goal is to provide her clients with positive parenting tools to create a strong child-parent relationship based on the foundations of love, trust and growth.
