Ramadan and your kids Ramadan is approaching and we are all excite about it, lets get our kids excited too and get them to understand the meaning of Ramadan. Sit with your children now before Ramadan starts and tell them a special guest is coming, a guest from Allah and we need to prepare and welcome this guest in the best manner. Tell them why we fast and why Allah wants us to fast: Here are few examples 1. Because Allah wants us to remember our brothers and sisters who are poor and who do not have anything. We fast to feel how they feel so we can help them more. (This will plant the love of sadaqa and helping others within them). When they come to you hungry during Ramadan, remind them that other kids are hangry all day and everday and they don’t have the privilege of having a table filled with iftaar dishes 2. When we fast we become so close to the Angels…how? Because we become like them, we do not eat, we do not drink, we do not say bad words, we do not sin and we only worship Allah so we are like the angels that half of the day. (This should make them excited and eager) 3. Allah asked us to fast because he wants to give us a special huge reward and he said it is a surprise, He said fasting belongs to him and He will reward a special rewrad for it. So imagine what kind of reward will you get? And here start listing all the things they love and wish to have and let them picture it. You will see a big smile on their faces You can also get them a nice gift for Eid and that is the reward in the dunia and they should expect way more in Akherah You can also get them to shop with you for gifts for poor kids or orphans and let them do the packing and wrapping and the giving also so they learn the gift of giving. We must teach them to give so they do not become selfish and only want things for themselves. Just before Iftaar get them to help you to prepare the table, here they get so excited and they want to put everything they like on the table including their candy . Make Ramadan a family month, do more things together as a family. So they see and appreciate the value of it. Pray Jama'ah in Ramadan: if you have boys let them be the imam if they are old enough and daddy is not home. Remind them that dua of the fasting person is accepted and let them make lots and lots of dua every day, get them used to relaying on Allah and going back to Allah. Assign specific tasks to them. Example: Ahmad is responsible to remind everyone of Duhur prayer and Mohammad is responsible for Asir and so forth. Or One is responsible to remind everyone of prayer time and the other one is responsible to check if everyone has done their 100 AstaghfiruLLAH per day and other thikr. Make it interesting so they get motivated. Kids love to take responsibility as it makes them feel they are old enough and able. Allahuma Ballighna Ramadan