“Kenapa cat tak suka Muawiyah? Why cat go to Abah?” Cries a frustrated Muawiyah, as his favorite orange cat, Mustafa keeps running away from him at all his attempts to play.
“Cat ni macam dunia, Muawiyah. Lagi kita kejar, lagi dia lari. Lagi kita rilek je, buat cool… nanti diorg datang”
This cat is like dunya: the more we chase it, the more it runs away. The more we keep cool, we relax, the cats will come to us.
Oh man, that was so cringe and cliché. I would have laughed at my own silliness, but at the time I said it, I refrained. Laughing would have compromised or diluted the message. I needed to nail the lesson. Stick the landing. I needed to use this opportunity to teach him an important life lesson: as much as we love something or someone, sometimes the best thing to do is to restrain ourselves, and win them over with our gentleness.
It’s no secret that our 3-year old Muawiyah loves cats, and that’s something we discovered since he was an infant. He used to love his old cats Talhah and Mishmish, hugging and jumping on them while they willingly submit without retaliation.
However, in our recent experience of adopting 2 kittens – Mustafa and Jubayr – for the past two months, we learnt something: it’s one thing for infants to be rough with grown up cats bigger than them. But when the grown toddler, now stronger and more able, when he handles kittens – creatures much smaller, fragile, sensitive and so irresistibly cute – it’s another whole challenge entirely.
I noticed very early on that it was very difficult for him to suppress his “geram” feelings at these adorable, playful fellas. He just couldn’t control himself from handling them roughly, sometimes to the point of hurting them, as he jumps on them, scares them, throws objects at them, and even throws the kittens themselves, much to our horror. Being clueless kittens, they would defend themselves once in a while (Muawiyah’s got the battle scars to prove them), which would annoy him even more and sometimes make him even more aggressive.
As parents, this brought us an entirely new challenge and important life lesson: how do we train him to restrain himself amidst other helpless, weaker creatures than us? How can we teach him to be gentle?
I have a friend who was really good at all sorts of martial arts. Tae-kwon do, Silat, Karate, Jiu Jitsu, Capoeira, even Wushu. Put him in any arena, and just watch the beast go... This guy was a fighting machine.
Plot twist: He has never been in an actual fight. All his fights are only in training circles. He told me, there was one incident where others who provoked him to fight back, bullying him, intimidating him with insults of cowardice and weaknesses, even using physical aggression, all trying to illicit a response. He knew full well that he was fully capable of crushing them like a bug – instead, he chose to leave, peacefully.
He explained, true strength lies in making the choice to suppress our strength.
Kindness. Kindness isn’t a weakness. Kindness is a strength.
Growing up in my youth, this is what has always compelled me about fictional comic book superheroes. What made them heroes weren’t that they had superpowers. It was that, in spite of their so-called superhuman powers, abilities, or their billionaire heritage, they made a choice – not only to suppress themselves from abusing those abilities for personal gains, but step up even further: to use those abilities for the greater good, to help people. It does certainly seem idealistic: most people today couldn’t even suppress themselves with a little bit of money and authority.
But in its subtext, lies an important message: Kindness isn’t a weakness. The CHOICE of kindness – despite possessing great power – that, is true strength of character.
But I digress: How do we teach this to our children? Especially in handling weak and defenseless creatures like kittens? How do we shape their character and prevent them from being bullies when they are outside of our supervision, i.e. when they start going to school?
This is an area we are still struggling with, but here is what we have learnt so far:
We need to teach them: demonstrate what is gentleness. What is considered “too rough” and what is considered gentle.
The best is through leading by example, to play with the kittens in his presence, emphasizing hands-on gentleness. I stroke them gently, tickling them and waiting for their response. Mustafa likes me so much that he has a habit of licking my fingers, which annoys Muawiyah because he can’t seem to figure out how to get Mustafa to like him.
And that is my cue: “See, Muawiyah? Mustafa likes Abah because Abah is gentle with him. Cool kan?” Of course, he immediately begins reaching his finger out to test his likeability. And much to his disappointment, Mustafa doesn’t lick.
“Why Mustafa doesn’t like Muawiyah?” he asks in frustration.
“Maybe Muawiyah has been too rough. Why don’t you try to treat him gently, like Abah.”
And we can see breakthroughs: Now, Mustafa licks Muawiyah’s finger, too. Sometimes.
I also teach him, to just watch them play. I have always adored watching kittens fight with each other, and so I teach Muawiyah, and instead of grabbing them or holding them, let’s just step back, sit down, and have some snacks while we watch them play as I release amused chuckles at how adorable kittens are – which in turn, gets him to chuckle too.. We have a good laugh, as I keep on cementing the lesson: “So nice to see them play, kan?”
This requires a lot of patience. Children like to test their limits, and this also means that as a parent, we have to train ourselves with wisdom: gauge when we give out the no’s and “don’ts” when we spend time with them. In addition to the restrictions, learn to laugh with them, and have a good time, in addition to setting those limits, allowing them to explore within boundaries, suppressing the urge to keep correcting them and getting them frustrated. Let our children see through our actions that we are gentle with them, just as we are with the kittens.
These days, sometimes Muawiyah will proudly say, “look Abah, Muawiyah gentle” as he demonstrates him gracefully stroking his little friends. “Alright, good job little man!” – we high five on it to acknowledge the achievement, in hopes of reinforcing the good action.
Of all the character traits we should be instilling our children, the characteristic of ‘gentleness’ and kindness is one that gets overlooked often, and, in practice, is one of the more difficult ones to teach at home. Which is a nice little lesson for us as parents: Since Muawiyah doesn’t have any younger siblings yet, taking care of kittens just might be our tarbiyah mechanism to instill this trait of manliness. Better to test, develop and train them under our watchful supervision, instead of leaving it up to chance when they enter the school environment with other kids.
Gentleness and kindness is the key to barakah in all our relationships. Our Prophet Muhammad ﷺ told his wife, A’isya:
يَا عَائِشَةُ إِنَّ اللَّهَ رَفِيقٌ يُحِبُّ الرِّفْقَ وَيُعْطِي عَلَى الرِّفْقِ مَا لاَ يُعْطِي عَلَى الْعُنْفِ وَمَا لاَ يُعْطِي عَلَى مَا سِوَاهُ " .
“'A'isha, verily Allah is kind and gentle, He loves gentleness and Gives through gentleness which he does not give upon harshness. And He does not give anything quite like He does as He does in gentleness” (Muslim)
In another hadith, he ﷺ said:
مَنْ أُعْطِيَ حَظَّهُ مِنَ الرِّفْقِ فَقَدْ أُعْطِيَ حَظَّهُ مِنَ الْخَيْرِ وَمَنْ حُرِمَ حَظَّهُ مِنَ الرِّفْقِ فَقَدْ حُرِمَ حَظَّهُ مِنَ الْخَيْرِ
"Whoever was given his share of gentleness, then he has been given a share of good. And whoever has been deprived from his share of gentleness, then he has been deprived from his share of good." (At-Tirmidzi)
May Allah make us amongst those who are gentle, kind, but at the same time, be steadfast and firm on our principles, towards those around us.
So this is what we have learnt so far. What do you think? Have kittens at home? Any other useful tips we can do towards developing gentleness in our little ones?
No comments:
Post a Comment