They say spending your day under the sun improves your mental health and immunity; I can’t agree more. It’s just amazing. With bare feet on the grass and just feel reconnected… revived… recharged.
Last summer we had a major hail storm, it was the most terrifying. It was so loud from inside the house, it feels like the windows were going to be smashed. There were big and hard balls of ice shooting down continuously for a good 10-15minutes. Our cars and the patio roof were damaged too.
Since then, Ayden has this fear of wind, when the leaves of the trees rustle, he will ask, if it’s going to be a strong or tiny one (in his words); or if there’s any wind at all. He will run and hide behind someone. And if he’s playing outside and there’s a big gust of wind, he will run into the house. We are slowly trying to help him overcome this fear. InsyaAllah
Since it was a sunny day on Monday, we decided to shift his “classroom” outside. It was nice and warm. We get to do a little grounding, jump on the trampoline and focus on the letter E. Ayden loves doing Mazes and Dots so much, I had to buy a book of them. He already gone through half the book!
As a family, we have been praying Maghrib together on a daily basis. When Ramadan, started it was my goal to include Ayden into our congregational prayers. As a four year old, there are no expectations. I lay his mat beside mine and he follows as and when he wills. And he does (partly!) but MasyaAllah a good try on his part. We do this for Ishaq too before we start our Terawih. He will have his “solat pants” and songkok on and his mat ready. When I hear him shouting out loud Amin after Ali finished his Al Fatiha and Allahuakhbar at each prostration, I am already ecstatic and grateful. I always mention this after our prayers how proud I am of him and so is Allah.
I often think, I don’t want Ayden to feel like he is forced to pray. I want to instill love in him to make him want to pray. I am sure we have been in households or in one ourselves where we were nagged constantly to pray by our parents that it became a chore, there’s no questions ask and to just do because we must. And I don’t want it for Ayden. I want him to love it, to love Allah without being forced to.
This is an article which I find amazing and have such great and helpful advice about planting the seeds of prayer in our young ones. May we find what’s good and what works for each of us.
xoxo
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anathyst 