Ramadan Parenting Challenge Day 14: Teach Your Children How To Seek Forgiveness & Apologise

Ramadan Parenting Challenge 2014

And seek forgiveness of Allah; surely Allah is Forgiving, Compassionate. (Qur’an 73:20)

Allah is the most forgiving and allows us to seek His forgiveness when we have done something wrong. There are many opportunities for gaining Allah’s forgiveness at any time but Allah has given us more possibilities to do so in Ramadan. Abu Huraira related that the Prophet (s) said: Whoever fasts during Ramadan with faith and seeking his reward from Allah will have his previous sins forgiven. Whoever prays during the nights in Ramadan with faith and seeking his reward from Allah will have his previous sins forgiven. And he who passes Laylat al-Qadr in prayer with faith and seeking his reward from Allah will have his previous sins forgiven (Bukhari, Muslim).

Ramadan is a month of forgiveness, so do not waste this chance to gain forgiveness. The Prophet (s) reportedly said, "What a loss it would be for the one who witnesses Ramadan and does not attain forgiveness!" (Al-Bazzar)

On any day, Prophet Muhammad (s) used to seek forgiveness from Allah a hundred times a day. “O mankind! Do tawbah (repent) to Allah and seek His forgiveness, for surely, I do so 100 times every single day.” (Muslim) So try to say istighfar one hundred times in your day as well because you may have done something wrong without realising it.

When you sin against your soul you ask Allah’s forgiveness but when you do someone a wrong you would also need to ask that person for forgiveness. Sometimes it is hard to ask for forgiveness because of pride or embarrassment. You would need to overcome this. When you do this you are setting an example for your children.

It is also important that if the person you had wrong was one of your children then you’d need to apologise to them. Whenever I mistakenly accused one of my children, usually of starting an argument with the other, or for anything that I know I did wrong I immediately say sorry (yes, and not jump to conclusions). When I do this they see that I do make mistakes but that I am sorry for it and can apologise. It teaches them to say sorry.

Challenge for today is to:

1. Seek forgiveness from Allah and do istighfar (say “astagh-firullah” which means “Allah forgive me”) 100 times every day. Teach this to your children.
2. Teach your children to apologise when they have done something wrong. Teach them to say, “I’m sorry for (wrong behaviour) because (how it affected the other person). I will (correct behaviour).”

Do these and continue to do them throughout Ramadan.