Tarbiya Series at Next Generation School | Episode 2

In this episode of the Tarbiya Series, we are joined by the inspiring Sister Zai Mizdiq, a life coach, author, and empowerment expert. Following her impactful parenting workshop at NGS, she shares her wisdom on raising confident, compassionate children through her "Awakening Parents" program. Dive into her insights on how parents can build confidence and compassion in their children, along with practical takeaways from the NGS parenting session. Tune in for an empowering conversation that will resonate with every parent seeking to nurture the best in their kids!

Transcript

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Assalam Alaikum or Mattulo Barakatu welcome sister Zey to the NGS Podcast thank you it's great to have you here uh this is the second in our series of the Tartar Bia sessions Inshallah so Sister Zay Zay Tuna Mystic is a self help author life coach motivational speaker and empowerment expert she has an incredible story which we will link up in this podcast and you can read about it and learn more about her work in Sha Allah but today we'll be focusing mainly on um this topic of tartabiya and specifically parenting yes so sister Zay we've just come from a parenting workshop here at NGS which was really phenomenal and I think a lot of topics are opened up so perhaps we just start with yeah what were your kind of takeaways or reflections after this first session here at GS it's very interesting thank you for having me today it's a blessing really but all that I created this program called Awakening Parents because Brazilian confident parents raise confident compassionate kids and as what we discussed today during the session and all my processions I realized that a lot of parents are feeling trapped and stuck because as I said it earlier I will say it now we were raised in a generation where our parents are over qualified manipulates the emotional blackmailers sometimes they even use spiritual blackmail hmm and um we're living in times where our kids demand they don't request um they insist they don't care about what's happening in the world whether you have money or not it just one day our rights a parent said something about self entitled so um why do we have this gap why do we have this problem why our parents today stuck in this um but then again at the end we were like I hear someone where children are parents of slaves to their children and how do we resolve this yes I'm too fast to discuss I guess today Subanala yeah so many topics came up there and a lot that we've been discussing in our our parent group here as well there's so much need for support in these times we are in this time of increasing fitna um and I think we really have to band together as a Muslim community and really look at how can we do this tartabiya in the contemporary times that we're in and it really has to what I love to and one of your your slides as you mentioned it's really both parents having to be involved today we had mostly mothers there and so I'm hoping we can do something for the fathers too but this has to be a partnership and a communal effort Arabia as a shared responsibility between school and home and community yeah hundred percent of fathers we need involve fathers others are not just bright winners you're not just maintainers and providers I know it sits in the Quran the man is the maintainer and provider but our fathers are human too we want to connect with our other halves our brothers with our fathers so I think at the end of the day a lot of the issue here is cultural programming I call it cultural disorder which we need to unpack and understand which is the truth which is necessary which is still serving us which is something that I will great great grandparent had died with and should just stay with them in the graves hmm right like um yesterday I was just uh discussing with a friend uh he said oh when I drink the drink I shouldn't make uh I was drinking my coffee and you made some noise because it was hot I was just like you know it was noisy um and he's like oh my mom used to scold me when I was young I shouldn't drink it with noise I should like blow into the cup or something I said but no when I was young my mom said I cannot blow into the cup because Shaitan is these are things like so I said you see all this cultural upbringing we need to address this is it truly serving us and our children yes very important questions so does the cultural programming and then of course there's the din part Islam is so beautiful and strategy and simple but somehow the other it has been so culturally twisted like if you don't do this you will go to hell there's so much of fear there's so much of this there's so much of that because this will what's we heard from our parents we were just not telling you and uh maybe when you were younger or used to hear your parents say oh you you wait you will have kids to like this you are threatening the child and every door every words is a door out of a parent so these are things we need to reflect on I don't want to blame our parents like I said in the session earlier they try their best with all the knowledge with all the skills with all of the ability the same thing parents today you are doing you think you are doing your best but why are the kids not listening to us today why is there no appreciation and respect hmm why is there missing and then every off or every every eye that they roll at you we are causing them more sin hmm then we are helping them hmm so how are we going to solve this problem we are here to ban alone well that's the question right the other thing that uh we've discussed and reflect on today is that really that this work of parenting uh I said to you too that you know we hear this hadith that um marriage is 50% of your dean and I was gonna say today that maybe parenting is 75% really this has key enough we have to be constantly doing this work on ourselves and so that's a question for that I have for you is as a community and as individuals where can we start on the this journey I think a lot of people are looking for resources are looking for support and they're looking for community too so perhaps we could talk a bit about that in your work having done a lot of these workshops and work with communities so as you know I run a company got step up journey right so step up journey.com was born accidentally also I've been doing a lot of businesses before 22 years of entrepreneurship um 10 years old step up journey is 10 years old it started with women empowerment because I wanted to focus on helping people turn their passion into profit which is my first book how to turn your dreams into reality of confidence and clarity but the foundation what I share teach and am learning as well is how I step up to turn my pain into power hmm so how do I turn my pain into power will be an example of I broke my spine fracture dislocated my spine in 2,005 from an accident doctor say I will never be able to walk anymore even after the accident after the operation 95% chance I will not be able to walk and it also says another thing to my family which I recently found out he said she could die like 50% 50 50% 50% chance of living this living this world or living this world so what's huge of course I look normal and everything you know um but how did I decide to step up and move from victim to victim mindset so as I showed the ladies the parents earlier I said we need to ask ourself as long as we choose to stay in this route or in the copper world they call it the right race when is enough is enough and when am I going to say I'm sick and tired of this something need to change because Allah says in the Quran I cannot change you if you don't change yourself so effort we do our best and we have to let Allah do the rest right that's it I went to a Methodist school by the way five years okay do your best and let god do the rest right so yeah there's that so stepping up to turn being aware and awaken to decide I want to own take ownership to turn my pin into power No.2 parents our partners they are not your rehabilitation center sitting in we are not we can support we can be kind to each other we can have tough healthy conversations this is a topic on its own healthy tough conversation is something we will never talk because when you speak it means um you're going to cause conflict means you are trying to find trouble you want to fight or you want to flight or you want to keep the fear and be frozen so we need to exercise this it used to be a very difficult thing for me and then recently like last two two years I practiced even with my brothers or nieces or my friends I said can I clarify something so it became my favorite word to use hmm hmm Mr I wanna ask you something comes like oh and then you know we have defense mechanism hmm all this walls that we built how to break through the today a parent asked me I have a 13 year old son firstly um I have lack of self confidence just our parent came she wasn't on session but she came later to see me say I have lack of self confidence how do I help myself hmm and the other thing she said my son is 13 years old but the gap is so big yeah it's really sad because it's not easy to raise a child it takes a whole village yeah already you're struggling you think you're trying your best and then the child is feeling disconnected and all my mother don't care about me my parents they don't appreciate me they don't understand me so what's going on to remember in the session I shared with the parents I said we wanna work on ourself because we wanna understand are we living our truth yeah because fortunately or actually unfortunately we are living a very um plastic I call it a plastic truth is not even truth is plastic very masked lots of mask and you know like when you meet someone oh hi how are you are you okay oh everything's okay you know things are not okay I need a conversation I need a space by holding space having healthy boundaries all these are things that need to be understood and practice and apply both ways partners are parent and child colleagues siblings I mean just look backwards how is our relationship with our parents how have we been parented right that was the first aha thing that we saw in the workshop how have we been parented we don't want to blame our parents we want to move out from being victim mindset to victorious mindset okay Hollis then we want to ask ourselves how is our relationship with our siblings there's another topic all together where did all that hate jealousy sibling rivalry judgment distrust hmm is our flesh and blood hmm and then we came to the smeller of Man Rahim in the masjid I think we have better community than in our own homes hmm in my Facebook world I think I'm more connected with my Facebook family than our own family members the disconnection right we are worrying about kids now look inside first what went wrong here let's figure this out what bad word Supan Allah and you know that reminds you of this powerful verse that Allah gives us in the Quran which is save yourself and your family from the fire right we have to start there sometimes we're always looking out and trying to solve this problem or that problem that's that really struck me when I heard that verse start with yourself and your family and then you can go up but that's what we have to do we can't give what we don't have from an empty cup yeah you cannot pour from an empty cup and even in the planes they say put on your oxygen mask before helping others but helping others has become again another table is like oh why are you so selfish hmm so a lot of people they don't want to make time oh I prefer to be at the back and I don't want to talk about anything in front I don't want to be the forefront person hmm why hmm what are you running from hmm hmm what are you escaping from I don't know what and how and if people like us wish Allah give us these enemies from Allah of course but if we choose to stay at home and do nothing we will be Christian of course yes absolutely heavy responsibility you know and one of my friends is that you are so brave to even talk about all these things I say I was speaking up because of my ego but because I struggle and I don't want another person to go through I went through if only someone shit when I was younger how to build your businesses how to have a franchise handle business I think it'll be something else but all of us have our journey yes everything is a process yes upon a lot like me getting here right like I know I always want to have my own talk show or something but we met today you see you have a podcast studio and sitting here let's do something take the first step first that's it so a lot of times whatever she can be too overwhelmed like where do I start take the first step first like I said sometimes we are so angry with our partner we so angry with our children look inside ask yourself what am I angry and unhappy about myself hmm what am I angry and unhappy about my parents about my father what did he say to my mom that affect me until this day because I always say this we are all adults broken adults stuck in a little child uh no that is yes yes yes we are operating from our three year old four year old five year old sometimes when I get angry I change my face look like when I'm 5 oh my god she's starting the inner child the inner demon how do we heal so we need to work on loving kindness meditation yeah I have that link on my YouTube so do do check it out because um really really useful hmm as much as um yesterday I Learned something very powerful I wanna share with you so uh those stars I was talking about the maca face uh huh and the Medina face yes I like I never heard this thing before have you heard it yeah I haven't heard it kind of unpacked though maybe you can share I wanna share it's my first time I was like wow because I always say this when someone's feeling depressed and down parents just die or something grief you don't say oh have summer have tower call have riddle like all of it like I know that like I'm just sad leave me alone hmm but the marker face was when was 14 years of teaching you don't say okay go pray do your when someone is down it's the inner world to take care of that and then the Medina phase is when you have both the faith and actions so sometimes we are want to give advice to our children or even to ourself as ourself where am I this teach do I need a hot latte and cheesecake or do I really need to go to the malls and pray like and mix with joy and cry to my heart out you know yourself hmm Bana love and I saw those openings today in the workshop just taking the time to actually reflect and ask questions because sometimes his parents were constantly on the move one thing of this we don't even slow down to check in to see how am I um am I really being my authentic self and if I'm not what do I need to do to be able to be more authentic and that was something that I heard come up quite a bit in the questions is this taking this time for oneself yeah self care yeah so that then you can be uh more present for your parent or for your children yes and then parents and and parents too and your parents too and your family right yes because the other thing too that I a colleague said to me is um you know yeah yeah often times um especially this is something that men and fathers struggle with with long work hours you know I heard two things one was um 20 years from now the only people that are gonna remember that you worked late for your children oh my God that really hit me the second thing was that we should be saving our best for our children sometimes I come home I'll speak for myself I just wanna lay down on the couch right my daughters are jumping and flying and wanted to be there and it pains me then when I reflect on this I haven't given my best to my family first you know so that's something that hit me too is trying to save that best but to do that I need to then really reflect on how my prioritizing times that I have that energy and yeah that I've taken care of myself too and I heard the mothers even more speaking to that point right may I make it easy for them and reward them this is really not easy um it's really really really difficult times I'm not gonna say oh of course you can do this you can do this but you see when you really take care of your inner self yourself hmm the children will learn to appreciate and respect you better and I wanna say this about what the mother said earlier like when she's just watching a movie like kids demand her movie time the child wants her screen time when she's just putting on more makeup they just like oh where are you going another parent shit remember yes she suffered us breakfast with the friends and she get questioned I'm like firstly why do we need to explain to our children hmm hmm how did that happen something for us to ask ourself and the conclusion we had was very nice about breaking the pattern because your children see you as the server when I come home food will be on the table I eat I don't care did they say thank you to you they say I'll have really layer of my mother is alive to serve me so today I advised the parent I said go when your child come home today hi welcome home mind your own business for a while what will happen the child will not die hungry yes then Mommy where's my lunch the kid is going to ask because he has been a pet and you introduce to them you can say it's in the kitchen darling hmm yeah it's in the kitchen darling hmm big trouble say something else don't have to reply just say do you wanna eat with me hmm shall I join you for lunch hmm break the pattern yes that's it we have allowed it for too long hmm what do we feel what is the cultural programming did you see your parents do the same that's why you're doing the same hmm sometimes we need to break the pattern hmm if your husband comes home maybe you used to have dinner with him and you are going to serve him again if he's gonna come back late are you going to miss your dinner and not take care of yourself is it okay if he's not coming back for you to take some time out go have dinner eat your pasta eat your burger cheat day your children cannot eat burger okay and cook you go out and have your Coca Cola and burger go 30 minutes come back what will happen to the home I mean I don't think they will burn the house down okay they watch TV go ahead yeah go have your dinner simple thing but we forget we can do it because when we talk about self acceptance I feel like I don't deserve this yeah so we have to choose are you the servant or are you the queen hmm and Queen the Queen manages very well the Queen is not some whatever no it's not like her that no she managed they manage everything but they remain the queen hmm yeah that level of respect right than the other that one has for their parents we have to have to have to instill that this is um the solution to the founder as we were speaking yes do you want to choose do you want to be the server or you going to be the Queen found this the same I had corporate training one of the fathers after the second session for effective communication and collaboration I think the father was in his 30s he said Misa I really appreciate what you said because I went home I actually took time out and spend time with my daughter and ask her how's her day at school I'm like and these guys are senior managers in the workplace and I'm like wow like I'm happy for you and how do you feel he said I didn't know I could do it hmm so Bangala I'm like interesting yeah that's it sounds so basic but maybe our fathers didn't do it for us yeah we didn't see that hmm so we'd fall into that normalize and all this cultural programming and when I say culture I don't mean the other in the essence of life and way of life no culture like eating on your own doing your own things like saying hello to your children or I always do this like sometimes when our family come home we have this rule whereby 10 minutes we just leave everybody on your own you know you wanna watch out yeah you wanna change you wanna charge your phone like 10 15 minutes and then there's this another one of my Awakening Parents session I have a family very cute so in Singapore I've run these sessions the Awakening Parents session 22 sessions I told you before and uh so it was very interesting the group of parents so I had one of the parents uh I said how do you guys manage uh screen time at home because the kids are on the phone the parents are on the on the phone how do you guys manage this so and one of the parents I think was me and my parent he said we make the children collect everybody's phone oh Mashallah reverse psychology because you cannot get it from your child so they have a basket by 7 p m everyone papa give me your phone Mama give me your phone hmm beautiful they watch TV together they eat together can pray together you can read the Quran together you can do your stuff hmm together hmm which is good because um it's actually um what do you call it um what is it I can't remember the term but taking time out from screen before you go to sleep sleep hygiene okay yes sleep hygiene yeah sleep hygiene I said this is so important and so powerful actually is it brings family together then that's a key and I think what I hear there is it doesn't need to be these big trips here or there right it can be just quality family time together sitting around and having a conversation at the dinner table right and that can make all the difference just asking how was your day and really listening to I think that's the key right is really practicing that prophetic listening put away all the devices all the distractions take out the earplugs you know out of the earphones and just really listen and connect what are you grateful for today yeah hmm that's a beautiful one that maybe that's just a take away from this right yeah start here and I I was I like this one where you do um 3 macro and 3 micro right so you can think of three big ones this is what I and while I'm saying this I'm reminding myself I need to do it more with my family so we would do this sometimes my wife and I 3 macro like three big things so for example it might be and these might be the same family health safety we're so blessed just saying those out loud right and then we that where you get creative is a 3 micro right so I might say medium roast Colombian coffee beans I absolutely love I lived in Colombian that's my girl and another is just having AC driving in the car in Dubai all right and a third might be um the hug that I get for my daughter when she runs a home when I'm coming home she runs to give me a macro right macro that is a macro they can fit in both but there these these kind of just saying them you know and that's that powerful message Allah gives us in sort of the Imran which is if you are grateful I will give you more and also ah which of the blessings do you both deny you can husband and wife it can be our heart again our heart and our mind hmm can be everything beautiful so authentic conversation yeah cough healthy tough conversation yeah it all stems from why did people fall out because we didn't communicate we didn't clarify it's Panama a lot of breakups for example you know if you have been in relationships you just break up you didn't explain you leave people hanging and then you ghost on people because normally when you watch all these stories like love stories it's because I was scared I had to run but the other party feel like oh you are so mean I hate you and I hate to be in a relationship for life communication so important honest communication and the other thing to the other takeaway here that we were discussing earlier is that this can feel so overwhelming but making that sincere intention that I'm gonna do my best I'm gonna work myself and I'm gonna ask a lot for help yes because we can't do this Allah right Allah Musta was what I said at the end of the workshop because really that seems like such a big burden and that's what you know we have to ask a lot for help that's IAQ and Abudu IAQ and estein this is our Lord our helper the one that can solve all of our problems we have to ask for that help you know nothing but take action personal responsibility we love to blame others and is so convenient okay blame but then yeah but it's not what so another thing about gratitude I wanted to show you in my book turn your passion to profit virtually recently converted it into a Braille book amazing yeah I saw that in your in your profile that's amazing so um that in itself when I had to release the book the manuscript to the guy who is a visually impact English teacher in Uzbekistan his can only see 20 30% so when I sent him the PDF this is a tuna I want to read your I read your book is so inspiring but I need to turn this into bread because I want to read more and again Mashallah and then those with eyes don't want to read don't want to invest in ourselves and then he converted it uh we did a book launch uh bread book launch in Dubai in uh Pakistan and dissing itself hmm I had to remove the some of most of all the pictures hmm cause they cannot see the pictures subpanallah vision yeah vision hmm what a blessing what a blessing what a blessing and to use it right to use these are blessings that we have to use we have to be aware of them and then as you said put them into action no we've come about to the end of our time here I always have two things I like to do we do a random name a beautiful name of Allah so we'll see what it says I want you to give me a number between 1 and 99 18 18 okay so 18 our name beautiful name of a law for today is al Qadir al Qadir al Muq Muq Thadir the Abel the most Abel the ever Abel wow beautiful huh he is the Abel so it says it mentions here that Al Quddird is the one who measures and decrees everything Al Qudird is the one who has complete ability it is not shrouded with any disability from any aspect and I'll muk thadir the ever able has absolute power so nothing can stop him hundred percent do your best do his best for you beautiful and do the rest sorry yeah inshallah alright so last thing since we are in Query school here we tried to promote questions and curiosity so we have the question key jar and we'll each pick one from this and see what we get here at the end okay okay if somebody from another planet came to earth what would he or she think of our world you don't want to hear from me ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha if somebody from another planet came to earth what would he or she think of our world is like Allah truly trusted you guys to be halifas but what a shame hmm but we are trying we're trying we have a lot of work to do we are trying our best so laws when the guys where we can try to convey the message in the best possible way what okay I have questions for you I'm sure what convinced you that this is the way of life and the truth Suhanala Subhanala so listen to my Sharjah TV episode that I did for Ramadan okay but just a quick answer was actually for me through the practice of it it wasn't theology it wasn't anything I had read it was actually practicing and waking up for the Fajr prayer and that piece that I had Sakina felt walking to the masjid that was the first thing where I felt that there's something very powerful before the conversion well you'll hear in my story there were two in my story there there were getting to hold other podcast episode but there were there were two shahadas let me leave you with that um they're tantalizing this is the second Shahada so that came later once I started practicing I was ready then to take a second Shahada where I said it with my full being my full heart now I'm done I'm done there you go but then again there's another beautiful thing for US born Muslims yeah we see the shahad at least five times a day hmm it's not a one of thing you can you have to say it every time absolutely yep yep yep that's it until until our time comes we have to be constantly reaffirming even the Nia right you look at it from the beginning in the middle and at the end it's not about okay I got this right it's a mold no we know our end destination but we can always tweak and be flexible along the way beautiful reminder this is Alhamdallah Alhamdallah Abbillah Alamin I mean so just akalakher thank you I hope this is the first of many more sessions and engagements here at NHS Mayla Facilitate I mean thank you for your time today thank you may Allah bless you and the work that you're doing and help all of us um on this path I mean Allah help us all I mean