[~أمة الله~]

بسم الله الرّحمن الرّحيم
salam alikum w rahematu allah w barakatuh

dear sisters , and brothers , i want to share with u this amazing journey of a Singaporean woman , that successes -with ALLAH's help- to raise 8 children , wich all of them are hafidh of Quran , while she was herself memorising with them .... very inspiring story for us ...so please , try to read the entire story ....
may ALLAH guides us and bring us all to the right path ....

Ejnoy!

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Sharifah Mastura Al Jifri is an English reading and writing skills instructor at Prince Sultan University in Riyadh. She strives to be more than just a ******** instructor to her students, guiding them to think above and beyond their studies to achieve good in this world and the Hereafter.
I’d met the eldest daughter at law school: a Hafidhah who was fluent in English, Arabic and Malay, a bright student who’d studied 3 different syllabuses and was a remarkably disciplined girl for her age. When she told me all her other 7 siblings were or are becoming Huffaadh and were being educated and brought up like she was too, I couldn’t wait to meet their wonder mom.

When I first met their amazing mother Sharifah Mastura Al Jifri – a petite, serene Singaporean woman; and the rest of her beautiful children at their house; I knew I’d never seen an entire productive family like this one in my life, mashaAllah.

I finally had the pleasure of interviewing Sharifah Mastura to share her arduous yet highly and continuously rewarding parenting experience with the ProductiveMuslim readership. So here’s how she’s striving to raise 8 intelligent, God-conscious children:

1) Let’s begin by introducing our readers to the role your education played in bringing up your children. After your A-levels, you attended a two-year teacher training course specializing in early childhood education, after which you obtained a bachelors degree in English Literature and Linguistics from the UK. You later attended a two-day workshop based on Glen Doman’s work that was pivotal in inspiring you to bring up intelligent children. Briefly, what fundamental concepts and practices about raising intelligent children did you learn and apply in achieving your parenting goals?

Basically for me, it’s putting into practice two principles:

Stimulate your children

It’s never too early to stimulate your children’s mind, be it through listening to you talking and telling stories, reading books, counting biscuits, smelling onions while you’re c o o k ing etc. Start from the time the child is in your womb because the foetus can hear. Talk to your child, from the time he’s a baby. Stimulate his senses by teaching him everything he can hear, see, smell, taste and touch in his surroundings. Arouse his curiosity and stimulate his mind also by placing educational material in front of him: books, counting beads, charts, good educational toys, and don’t stop. I must say, reading tops my list.

Occupy your children

I must admit that being trained as a pre-primary teacher has given me an advantage in knowing how to occupy my children. Even if you haven’t been trained, it’s not difficult to find ways in spending and investing time in your children. I started drawing for them and telling them the names of things from the time they were babies. Give them safe, non-toxic crayons to scribble and draw until they can move on to colour pencils. Don’t just pour the bucket of bricks for your children to play with by themselves. Rather, sit with them, build with them, encourage them to be imaginative and creative by being there to help them out when their fingers are stuck or when they can’t find the piece that might just fit the hole.

Sitting with your children and occupying them gives you precious bonding time. This is when you discover things about your child, his character, his potential. With this insight, you understand your child, you are better-equipped to mould his character, to stretch his mind and harness his talent. With this strong bonding cemented in their childhood, your children will always turn to you as they get older. You will always be the person to turn to when the bricks won’t stick together!

The Core Factor:

Although these were the two fundamental basis I applied as a result of my learning, I was also very conscious of the need to bring up children who are pious and god-fearing. Intelligence alone cannot guide a person to be good or moral, rather it can mislead or even destroy its possessor. So I would consider the above two points as my methodology, whilst the core of my upbringing is always to do whatever I can so that my children will acquire knowledge and taqwa. In order to do this, you need to give them the knowledge of the Qur’an, Arabic and the Deen. So, I made sure the baby in the womb hears a lot of Qur’an.
So the time I spent with my children is really when I talk to them and try to give them the love of Allah subḥānahu wa ta'āla (glorified and exalted be He) and His Book, the Prophets and his Companions and to teach them whatever I can of Islamic Aadaab (manners/etiquette).

To Be Continue ....