Dealing With Your Child's Device Addiction - Shaykh Adil Saleem

Opening — Khutbah al-Hajah

Alhamdulillah, we praise Him, we ask His help and we ask His forgiveness, and we seek refuge in Allah from the evil of our souls and from the evil of our deeds. Whomsoever Allah guides, none can misguide him, and whosoever He misguides, none can guide him. And I bear witness that there is no god but Allah, alone, with no partner. And I bear witness that Muhammad is His servant and His Messenger.

That all of you are shepherds, all of you have a flock to take care of, and your mas'uliyah — your responsibility towards them — is upon you, you as a parent, as a mother, as a father. So we need to learn how to adapt to these situations.

We might be sitting there and thinking, I didn't grow up with these issues, I don't know how to use a device, and we might just let our children have free reign — watch what they want, when they want. We need to adapt.

The Wisdom of 'Umar — Preparing Children for What You Never Faced

You see this in the advice of 'Umar رضي الله عنه, when he said:

The point that I want to focus on in this statement of 'Umar رضي الله عنه is the fact that he told those people around him to teach their children how to swim.

So if you now wonder — why is 'Umar رضي الله عنه telling those people to teach their children how to swim, when there's no water around them? They're living in the desert, nothing's around them — maybe a hundred miles away you could find some water. So why is 'Umar telling those people, "teach your children how to swim," when there's no water?

Think. Why?

One of the reasons is that he is telling those people — and he is telling us — teach your children something which you may not know. Prepare your children for something which you never faced.

The problems our children are facing, they might not necessarily be the problems that we faced as we grew up. Ten, fifteen, twenty years ago, you could maybe have grown up without a device, without a TV. Nowadays it's extremely difficult — maybe it's possible — for a child to live life without a device.

But like I said, the times that we are living in — just the last four, five months — everything has gone online. Everything has gone online. So 'Umar رضي الله عنه is telling us, and telling those people around him, that prepare yourself, prepare your children for those things which you weren't exposed to. Teach your children those things that you might not have necessarily been exposed to.

We can't say, "I leave it to them." You can't have that attitude.

We Trust Our Children — But We Cannot Trust Shaytan

We can't say that I'll just give them free access to my device, let them watch what they want, let them play what they want. Somebody might say, "But I trust my child, I trust my children." Yes, we trust and we should trust our children, but we should never — and we can never — trust Shaytan.

This is very important. We can trust our children, but we should never trust Shaytan. We need to be proactive, we need to adapt, we need to learn these things, because if we are not responsible and if we are not controlling what our children are viewing and accessing online, then this is going to cause great calamity, great issues, great problems — like we're seeing today.

Practical Steps for Parents

1. Know Who Your Children Are Interacting With Online

The first thing is: look at who your children are interacting with — who are they playing with, who are they messaging. This is one of the first steps to online grooming. You might have heard this word and think this is something very distant, it's not going to happen to me — but in our community we find this issue, these problems: online grooming.

People send out friend requests. Your children will send out friend requests. They want to play with as many people as possible, they want as many people as possible on their friends list, so they can say, "I've got lots of friends." Who are those friends? Are they children? Are they adults? You don't know. There are lots of ways you can disable the chat features, disable messaging. If they're playing, if they're talking to people — their friends — know their circle, know who they are interacting with online.

2. Devices Must Be Used in Open, Public Spaces

Another point is that when you give your child a device, always have it in an open space, a public forum — maybe in the sitting room, in the living room. Never let them go into a room, close the door, and have free access and free reign to this device. We know that when a person is alone, this just opens the door for many evils.

The Prophet ﷺ said that his nation will come on the Day of Judgment with mountains of good deeds — hasanat — so many good deeds, but Allah will turn them to dust, scatter them to dust. They won't have any value, of no worth.

And Thawban, who narrated this hadith, said to the Prophet ﷺ, "Describe who these people are." Who are these people? They've come on the Day of Judgment with so many good deeds, but Allah will make them null, void — zero, of no value. "Describe them to us."

(Sunan Ibn Majah, Hadith 4245)

The Prophet ﷺ said that they are from your people, from your brothers — those people around you — that they take from the night like you take from the night, they stand in prayer. On the face of it, they're good people, but when they went behind closed doors, they were indulging in those things which were haram for them. When they went behind closed doors and they viewed something which they weren't meant to view, they read something which they weren't meant to read.

This is one of the reasons why, when you give your child access to these devices, always make sure that you are watching what they are doing. It's in a public space — maybe their mother, their father, their other siblings are around them. Because once you open the door of giving them their own private space, and on top of that private space you're giving them a device where things are unlimited — one search and they could see something which they weren't meant to see, they can view something which they weren't meant to view. And once somebody has seen this, once a child has seen this, you cannot undo what they saw.

3. Check the Content They Are Watching

Another thing that we could do is check the content of what they're watching. Again, looking at those certificates and those ratings that you see — something might be rated "suitable for all." But our way of recognizing something, and what's acceptable to us as a Muslim, is different to other people — whether it comes to the language that's used or the imagery that's used. So don't always rely on something being "suitable for all" or universal. You should always know and keep an eye on what your children are watching and what your children are doing.

4. Be the Person Your Child Turns To

Always make sure that your child knows who to speak to. Have that support mechanism in place for them. You as a mother, you as a father, you need to be that person who your child goes to when they have a problem, when they have an issue, when they've maybe seen something that has frightened them, when they've seen something that is inappropriate for them. You have to be that person.

You can't leave this job and this duty to somebody else. You can't leave this to their friends who are online. You don't know who these friends are. You don't know who these people are. And that's why it's important to have a very open relationship with your children, especially in these times that we are living in — in the age of social media, in the age of YouTube and YouTube personalities.

These are not the people that they should be returning to. You need to put yourself in a position in your children's lives where they turn to you for advice. If they have a problem, a question, an issue, if they need counseling — you have to be that person. You have to be that person.

5. Set the Example Yourself

Sometimes we say we want our children to memorize the Qur'an. But you as a parent, you set the example. If your whole day is spent on your device, what do you expect from your child? If you want your child to memorize and read the Qur'an every day, what are you doing? What am I doing? Are we opening the Qur'an every day? Do we have a section, a portion that we are reading — even for five minutes — just for them to have that connection? And they see you praying five times a day. How can we expect our children to pray and to read the Qur'an if we are not doing it as parents?

And we find this. We put our children in madrasa and tahfiz programs and we expect so much of them, yet we spend all our time, our life, our days wasting our efforts. We need to be that person that our children look up to.

6. Use Parental Controls and Check the History

And these devices — you always find a safe mode. You can install this safe mode where you can limit and restrict the amount of time your child is on a device, what programs they can access, what apps they can view and go on. All devices have this. This is something that you as a parent, as a person who has a responsibility, need to look at. Look at the history. Check what your children have been viewing and going on.

Like I said, we trust our children — no doubt. We need to build that trust. But we can never trust Shaytan. This is something extremely important. We trust our children, but we need to keep an eye on them. Because like I said, once they've viewed something, once they've seen something, it's very difficult to remove that. But you have to be that person who they turn to for advice and for support.

We ask Allah to protect us and to grant us children that grow up to be leaders of this Ummah.

Closing Du'as

وَصَلَّى اللهُ عَلَى نَبِيِّنَا مُحَمَّدٍ وَعَلَى آلِهِ وَصَحْبِهِ أَجْمَعِينَ، وَأَقِيمُوا الصَّلَاةَ.