Pray for Children Instead of Punishing Them

The Promised Messiah^as & Imam Mahdi (Guided One)
Founder of
THE REVIEW OF RELIGIONS
Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad^as

How to properly raise children is a perennial question and concern for mothers and fathers everywhere. Here, Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad^as, the Promised Messiah, provides valuable insight and advice for parents.  

I believe that beating children in a manner by which the ill-behaved child-beater pretends to be Allah’s partner in guiding and training children is a type of polytheism. ^[1]

When a hot-tempered person is provoked and punishes a child, he takes on the role of an enemy in the stress of his anger and imposes punishment far in excess of the wrong which has been done. An individual with self-respect and control over himself, who is also forbearing and dignified, has the right to correct a child to a certain extent as the occasion demands or seek to guide the child. But a wrathful and hot-headed person who is easily provoked is not fit to be a guardian of children. I wish that, instead of punishing children, parents would have recourse to prayer, and should make it a habit to supplicate earnestly for their children; for the supplications of parents on behalf of their children meet with special acceptance.

True guidance and training belongs to God Almighty. To pursue a matter persistently and to insist upon it unduly and to rebuke children upon every matter indicates that such a person imagines himself to be the source of guidance and believes that he will bring the children to order by pursuing his own method. This kind of attitude savours of a hidden assumption of association with the Divine and should be avoided by the members of our community. I pray for my children and require them to follow a broad set of rules of behaviour and no more. Beyond this, I put my full trust in Allah Almighty in the confidence that the seed of good fortune inherent in each of them will flower at its proper time.

endnotes

1. Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad^as, Malfuzat, Vol. 2, pp. 4-5 (English Translation: The Essence of Islam, Vol. 3, pp. 335-336).