Safeguarding children in a sexualised society - Yusuf Patel

A quiet name change on a school register. Pronouns switched without a word to the parents. Then the reveal: at home she’s one child, at school she’s another. That’s the moment most families realise they can’t outsource their children’s formation—and it’s where our conversation with Yusuf Patel begins.

We dig into how parents can confidently navigate RSE in UK schools without retreating from education altogether. Yusuf explains why emailing questions (not just chatting at the gate) creates an audit trail that compels a school to reflect: what exactly is being taught, which parts are compulsory, and how will the religious background of pupils be respected? We unpack the latest legal clarity on biological sex, what it means for toilets, uniforms, social transitioning, and safeguarding, and how to press for policy updates that protect freedom of belief in the classroom. Real case studies show how calm complaints turned into apologies, revised policies, and cancelled sessions when materials crossed the line—proof that small, strategic wins protect many children.

Then we turn the lens homeward. Values are caught, not taught, so we talk about building a lived Islam that children can see: praying on time, modelling charity, showing gratitude and tawbah, and aligning daily choices with faith. Yusuf calls fathers to emotional availability—hugs, words of affection, and presence that inoculate against online echo chambers and peer pressure. And when a child says, “I’m not a boy,” we offer a roadmap rooted in love: slow down, look beneath the label, rebalance home routines, limit digital triggers, and seek a trusted Muslim counsellor who explores underlying needs rather than fast-tracking identity claims.

If you’re a parent, teacher, or governor looking for practical steps, legal awareness, and heart-level guidance, this conversation will equip you to engage schools wisely and strengthen your home. Subscribe, share with a fellow parent, and leave a review with the one question you’ll email your school this week. Your voice—and your love—can change the outcome.

Chapters:

0:00 Chapter 1 - Intro

1:41 Chapter 2 - The Challenge of Sexualised Education

2:10 Chapter 3 - Step One: Know What’s Being Taught

3:55 Chapter 4 - The Power of Engagement

5:35 Chapter 5 - Know Your Rights: The Parental Toolkit

8:54 Chapter 6 - Case Study: A Father’s Impact

11:25 Chapter 7 - Real-Life Incident: A Child Punished for His Faith

13:59 Chapter 8 - Every Success Counts

15:08 Chapter 9 - Teach Children to Speak Out

16:47 Chapter 10 - Courage in the Classroom

19:14 Chapter 11 - Gender Ideology in Primary Education

24:17 Chapter 12 - Advice to Parents

25:31 Chapter 13 - Develop a Child's Relationship With Allah

28:07 Chapter 14 - The Absent Father Problem

30:24 Chapter 15 - The Sunnah of Showing Love

34:18 Chapter 16 - How to Raise Dysfunctional Children

40:04 Chapter 17 - If your child comes to you and says...

46:15 Chapter 18 - Conclusion

This is part of our Guarding Innocence c

Chapters

• 0:00 Grooming, Ideology, And Alarm Bells
• 1:50 Community Pushback And School Apologies
• 3:50 RSE: What’s Taught And How To Respond
• 8:20 Parent Engagement Changes School Practice
• 12:30 The Right Questions To Email Schools
• 17:20 Legal Duties: Religion And Classroom Voice
• 21:30 Toolkits, Templates, And Collective Action
• 26:40 Case Studies: Complaints To Policy Change
• 30:40 Asserting Faith Views In Classrooms
• 38:30 Supreme Court, Sex In Law, And Schools
• 44:20 Social Transitioning And Safeguarding
• 48:10 Media Break: Support And Subscribe
• 49:00 Parenting First: Love And Presence

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:00

Muslim girl groomed by her teacher who'd become a boy. She cut her hair short and using a different name on the register for her, was using different pronouns for her, encouraging her to embrace a new self. They were hiding different heroes. Sometimes on the internet, these groups, it's almost like a cult, they bring you in and they will tell you, don't listen to anybody else. Only listen to us. They'll bring you into their alternative family. And all these Muslim children stood up and said, No, this is unacceptable. This is clearly forbidden in Islam, and they spoke out. And then the community came together to challenge that. And the school then had to apologize for it.

SPEAKER_01: 0:32

This is very powerful, honestly.

SPEAKER_00: 0:34

So I think whatever engagement parents have with schools, it leads to a positive difference.

SPEAKER_01: 0:38

Wow, that was a success story. When was the last time your dad hugged you and said, I love you?

SPEAKER_00: 0:44

When you become a father or a mother, sometimes you've got to relegate your own personal feelings for the good of your children. If you speak to a family that's going through this and you say to them, Did you ever think you'd be in this situation? They said no. Nobody expects to be in that situation. Don't think that when you speak to your Muslim family that's practicing, that's beyond Hajj, that goes Umrah every other year. Don't think that that makes us immune from this fitness. None of us are.

SPEAKER_01: 1:08

In this transformative episode, Yusuf Patel, founder of the Muslim Family Institute, shares profound insights on how to effectively counter LGBTQ ideology at home and in schools. He highlights the vital role of nurturing love within the family and emphasizes the urgent need for proactive engagement in shaping our children's values. Yusuf Patel, asalaamu a comment Allah. May Allah bless you. I'm gonna go straight into it. So this is about RSC. It's about sexualized content in the educational space of our youth and our young ones. So the first question I have is how can Muslim parents safeguard their children from premature exposure to sexualized content in schools without withdrawing entirely from engagement? And this is a critical question which many parents, especially in the UK space, want to ask.

SPEAKER_00: 2:10

I think firstly parents need to take steps to find out what's being taught in schools. Because I always get questions from parents who say, look, um, what's being taught in my child's school? I don't I don't know until you ask. Yeah, I know I've got a general idea what's being taught in different schools, but actually just going to a school and saying, Look, I want to see what's being taught, you have an absolute right to see the resources. Um, they'll probably invite you in to come into school to look at all the resources. Then you can make an educated judgment about that. There's some aspects you can withdraw from, some aspects you can't, but at least having an overview of what's being taught to your child is a good starting point. And then asking lots of questions. Uh, I whenever you ask questions to schools, it forces them to reflect on their practice. And a lot of the time, a lot of schools, sometimes we we think lots of schools are thinking very carefully about what they're teaching and they're very they're planning in very uh intricate detail, but that's not the case. Most of the time, schools just want to just do the subject, they buy in resources, they follow what other schools are doing, and they don't that doesn't give them time to reflect on the the pupils in front of them, yeah, whether they come from a particular background or not, they don't that's not really on their mind, it's just getting it done, ensuring that they're it's teaching the subject. So asking questions forces them to reflect sometimes on first principles, why are we teaching what we're teaching? Um, how are we teaching it? Is there another way of teaching it?

SPEAKER_01: 3:30

Yeah, okay, that's a that's a very good beginning. So this led to another question in my mind, which is from your experience when you've seen parents ask questions to the management, the school management, have they changed their approach? Have they taken you know the input of the parents more seriously? Do you have any positive or even negative uh stories?

SPEAKER_00: 3:56

Any time a parent engaged with a school on this subject, it leads to a change. Whether that's a small change or a major change, it leads to some change. Because first of all, it places on the agenda of the school. Most of the time, if parents are not raising questions about what's being taught, are not inquiring about how their children are being taught this subject, schools often think parents are unconcerned about the subject, and so they carry on and they apply their own thinking and they implement it upon our children. But when you start to ask questions, it disrupts that that normality and says, okay, that means parents are interested in this subject. Um, and so what I'd say is that just asking questions to schools enables schools to realise firstly it's an it's a it's a key concern for parents.

SPEAKER_01: 4:43

Okay, so what say you're speaking to some Muslim parents? What questions would you advise them to ask? Like let's get a bit specific here. So they go, they they walk up to the the school teacher or the headmaster or headmistress. I don't know are those right terms now to use? Yeah, yeah, head teacher. The head teacher, sorry. So, you know, what is the ideal thing for them to say? Do they write it down? Do they have a specific meeting? Do they go directly in the school playground, just before school starts or after? Give us some advice.

SPEAKER_00: 5:14

I think in the first instance, it's really important that parents email or write in those questions. Um, because what it does is that you know, when you receive verbal questions, you answer in a different way to when you receive them in a written form. And there's an audit trail, there's there's information there you can go back to say, Oh, you said this. Um, and so it's really important to ask those questions in email. So asking questions like, what what do you teach? What aspects can I withdraw from? You can ask them, do you take into account the religious background of our pupils when you teach the subject? And even though the statutory guidance, the the government guidance says that that should be the case, most schools don't do that. Um, even if there's 90% Muslim children in the school, um, the religious background of pupils isn't even a consideration in planning the teaching your subjects, even though it's meant to be. So just asking questions like that forces them to think about. Sometimes they'll say, Oh, why do I have to take into account the religious background of your pupils? And then you say, in the statute of guidance on this page, this subsection, it states that it should be taken into account. How are you doing that? Or if you need some help in that, I can help you to um to think about what my child's uh life as a Muslim impacts what's being taught or what should be taught to my child. Um, asking questions about if a child in the class asks a question that uh uh that gives an alternative view about, for example, LGBTQ plus relationships or same-sex relationships, how would that be received by the school? Um, because sometimes schools will really um will jump on that child and say, no, you can't say that. But they have to allow a plurality of opinions in the classroom and even the religious opinions of children need to be taken into account and allowed to be um voiced in the classroom. Um I've actually created a toolkit where I've created like a list of like 30 or quite 30 so quite so questions that parents can can um tap into and uh and send to schools, um, including template letters, including understanding what's being taught in schools, um, understanding um what aspects of the statute of guidance to refer to when approaching schools. Just like a huge um toolkit which parents can utilize to make uh the a lasting impact and a and a and a comprehensive impact upon schools in a in an informed way. Where can we find this? So it's it's in its final stages of being uh finished. Uh it's it's quite it's quite like a dissertation length document, it's a reference document. So inshallah, I'm looking to uh get it designed and printed within the next two weeks, and it'll be released on our website, inshallah, and probably probably even on Islam 21c, inshallah.

SPEAKER_01: 7:53

Brilliant. And what's your website? So Muslim Family Initiative.org. Okay, Mashal, it's a great service, bro. So this leads to one of the questions I've written down concerning the legal rights of the children and the Muslim parents. So what you're basically saying is that the guidance is that they can go to the school and say, well, part of the guidance for Irish education is that you consider the religious background of the child. Does that mean they have to have resources in place? Or does that mean resources in place will only come into place if it's asked for? So what I'm trying to get here is do parents, do Muslim parents have to actively get involved and say, look, this is part of the guidance, you haven't been considering the Muslim, the religious background of the the pupils, the students, yeah. Can you please do so?

SPEAKER_00: 8:45

Yeah. So it tends it unless parents raise it, it tends not to be um adhered to. So schools don't practice it unless it's brought to the attention of schools. So I was speaking to a school yesterday, and just because of the fact these a few groups of parents, actually, one father really um brought parents together and and um started to raise questions about some of the things being taught to his child to all the children. Um, and as a result of that, the school made lots of changes and are still making changes to the to the to the um to the learning materials that they're using. But also it uh the school started to say things like, Yeah, we we we in the classroom if a child wants to express their religious views, we we allow that or we we exp we encourage that, and so a child will say, Oh, that's not what we do, we don't have boyfriends and girlfriends, and we allow that discussion to happen in the classroom. Um but that doesn't that that doesn't that that's not the school taking the initiative to implement the requirements, it's parents coming together and saying, Look, we we want things done differently in line with what the government has stated needs to happen in the classroom. And so, yeah, absolutely, this this doesn't happen unless parents can't go to schools and raise these with schools. So that could so that could mean they they could bring in some resources that reflect different viewpoints in the classroom, or it could be the style of teaching where they say, Okay, this is what some people in the society believe, but what do you believe? And and open it up to children to express their own values, perspectives on on moral issues.

SPEAKER_01: 10:13

Do we have any resources at the moment that parents could access? So, say a parent goes into a school and says, I'm not really happy with the way things are going, my children are Muslim, they come from a Muslim background. Part of the guidance is that you have to consider that, but you don't have a framework, you don't have a set of criteria or principles or resources to enable that. And then if they say, Well, help us, then what does the parent what does the parent do?

SPEAKER_00: 10:38

Most of the time, schools won't really just bring in resources from from all over the place because they usually have a particular resource that they use, but included within the discussion, for example, if they have a discussion uh around say um marriage or or or relationships that go beyond just a friendship relationship, uh, for example, they'll they'll do that in secondary schools. Now, a school just has to include within that that um some people in a society get married, some people don't get married, some people uh there's different types of relationships. What type of relationships happen in your community or in your family, and just open it up for children to be given permission to express their own values, perspectives. Um, I think so that's that's the key, just ensuring that schools have that ethos set into the curriculum where they enable children to express that. Like, for example, a child that will a parent contacted me that a child in in a in a in a school which had 95% Muslim children, um, uh who expressed in the classroom to an outside there was an outside group uh external learning provider that came in, delivered some training about same-tex relationships. Now he was told, and all these classmates were told, you can write down any questions you have, there's a there's a safe space, put it in this box and we'll answer it. So he said, Look, why am I learning about this when it goes against my religion? Yeah, this was like an 11-year-old child, year seven in uh first year in a secondary school. Now, when they came back from half term, the the teacher came into the classroom, the head of year came into the classroom and said, Why, who wrote this? Yeah, it's almost like Inquisition. Who wrote this uh message? This is a homophobic message. I want to know who wrote it, like really angry. Now, obviously, that child's not gonna come forward and say, I did it. And so she said, Look, if nobody comes forward, you're all gonna get collective detention, like collective punishment. And then she said, Well, and she incentivized other children to write down the name of who they thought it was. Oh dear. And so they someone said, Oh, it's that child. Now that child was taken out of the classroom by another teacher and just told, Look, you know what you did was wrong, don't you? And he said, No, I don't. And that that response was not responded to by saying, actually, this is what we think you did wrong, and he could then respond. It was like, No, this is you you you should know what you did. It was almost a very Kafka-esque type approach, like he was on trial for a crime he didn't know what uh what actually what it was, a crime that was not named. And then so when he went home, he was in tears. His mother called me, and we wrote we wrote a letter to the head teacher to the head teacher. Deputy head wrote back to her, oh, he called her back immediately and said, Look, I really apologize, this this shouldn't have happened. Um, this and so basically she had a meeting and then she set down some some clear guides, guidelines as to what what she wanted to do to resolve the situation. For example, for a child to be given a public apology in front of her classmates, in front of his classmates, to also ensure that their policy includes a clear statement which says children can express their the views that come from their religious perspective and ensure that those teachers who did this recognize that what they did was wrong. And so she got like policy changes made as a result of this incident, and that's the problem. Sometimes these incidents happen, sometimes parents don't raise it, or they they raise it and they're just happy with an apology, which means that nothing changes in terms of policy-wise at that school, which means it can happen again to another child at that school that who can be victimized. So we just say to parents, look, just engage with schools at whatever level you can, um, and if you do so, you can see changes. And we've got we've got so many success stories of parents who've raised concerns. I remember one parent, one group of parents came to me and said, Oh, we're really disappointed. We've not achieved much. And I said, What do you mean you've not achieved much? I said, Look, all we've achieved in our school, in our primary school, is that Stonewall was gonna come in and deliver presentation to the children. We've stopped that from happening. I said, That's a huge achievement. Yeah, that is that is massive. Don't think of it as a small thing, that is massive. Yeah, you've protected lots of children from this organization that will just really um give their propaganda to your child children. Um, and so sometimes parents think, okay, we're gonna achieve huge changes, but those small changes are incremental changes that make an impact at the end at the end of the day on the lives of children at that school. So I say whatever engagement parents have with schools, it leads to a positive difference.

SPEAKER_01: 14:57

Wow, that was a success story. Well done, well done. Allah bless you, bro.

SPEAKER_00: 15:02

It wasn't me, it was those parents. Oh, you helped them.

SPEAKER_01: 15:04

You helped them, so that's that's excellent work, and this is exactly what we need to be seeing. And this brings to my mind that our parents cannot outsource the kind of parenting to the schools now. We don't live in that world anymore, and they have to be more assertive, if you like, by speaking to the school and saying that you know you have to consider them the faith background, and hopefully the school would adjust its policies. So, in saying that, say you have a kid who's 11 years old or 10 years old, and there's an RSC class and it's talking about same-sex marriage or same-sex relationships or any type of relationship outside of the Islamic framework, yeah? And then they say, put their hand up, right? And they say, This is totally immoral in our tradition, and the reason is it's immoral because we take our morality from God and you don't, right? So if if they were to say such a thing, is that okay? Is that part of the guidance? How does the teacher navigate that?

SPEAKER_00: 16:03

Would that child get into trouble? No, I think what we should do is, you know, I remember some parents saying to me, look, what we should do is teach our children to use acceptable language to express their views. Yes. And I will say to them, no, don't do that. No other child in the classroom, from whatever background, is asked to do that. If it's if there's a child who believes in animal rights, the parents will say, Don't use these words, use these words. So sometimes, you know, that will create a sense of second-class citizen status amongst our children and create a real uh thing that I I can only say things that are palatable to the listener. Yeah, but actually, you should what we should do is encourage our children to express their views. If it so happens that the that the school considers those views to be unacceptable, that needs to be challenged by the parent when it happens. Um, but I think a child should be to express their views in a way, as long as they don't use derogatory language, they don't use swear words against people or call for violence against people, which never happens. Yeah, children don't do that, but children will say, look, no, we don't, we don't, we don't do that. We don't we don't live like that, or this this is unacceptable in our religion, or it's sinful. Some schools will take that word sinful, even though it's a secular teacher who has no conception of what sinful actually is, and they'll take offense and say, How can you say it's sinful? Now, it's sinful in in the in the Islamic tradition, like it is in the Christian tradition, like it is in the in the in Judaism, like it is in a lot of other traditions. But so I think we should we should allow our children to express their views. I remember I was speaking to uh I was looking at this research project that this teacher uh was talking was talking about prevent actually, and say prevent has had an impact on Muslim children in the classroom to such an extent where they have to censor their views in case they get into trouble. And parents sometimes actively culture children to say, don't say this, don't say that, don't imagine the type of children we're we're we're creating or we're we're raising who end up thinking I can't speak out, I can't say anything. Yeah. Um so I think instead of instead of accepting those uh those standards which other children are not subject to, we need to challenge those and say to our children, absolutely now. I remember that sometimes sometimes children will express views in in the classroom and really stand up for Islamic values in a way which I think I would be proud of if that was my child child in the classroom. And I think as parents we need to see that as a as a positive sign. Uh there was an incident in that secondary school up north uh near near to Birmingham, um Wendsbury, where children where a speaker who who claimed to be Muslim stood up and said, Look, uh uh I've looked in the Quran and in the Bible, there's nothing that says that uh say same-sex relationships are are forbidden, are sinful. And all these Muslim children stood up and said, No, this is unacceptable, this is it is clearly forbidden in Islam, and they spoke out, and a lot of them were disciplined. Um, and then the community came together to challenge that, and the school then had to apologize for the heavy-handedness of the response. But that when I saw that, I thought, excellent, it's really good that that Muslim children speak are speaking up about speaking up in these situations. Um it shows real signs of courage which we need to develop in our children.

SPEAKER_01: 19:07

And it's legal and it's allowed, absolutely, yeah, and it's part of the existing guidance. That's right, that's right. So, in a way, the onus is on us to be a bit more assertive and get involved. Okay, excellent. So, moving to my next question, and this is about gender ideology in primary education. So, what are the kind of dangers do you think of normalizing gender ideology in primary education and how should Muslims strategically respond?

SPEAKER_00: 19:32

I think one thing is that there's a judgment that happened just a couple of weeks ago, Supreme Court judgment uh around uh gender ideology, which has a huge impact because it looked at the Equality Act and said, what did Parliament understand by sex and gender? Oh actually, gender is not actually even in the Equality Act, but sex. What did it understand by sex? What does that mean? And they said sex means biological sex, the sex you're born with. And so this has this allows parents now to view things in a way which in the past the law was clear, but it wasn't uh it was being muddied by lots of different uh lobby groups. So now in schools, we have the right to say to schools, no, you you you you're you're not allowed, for example, one thing that was happening in schools where children were being socially transitioned. What that meant was that a child, uh maybe a girl or a boy, usually a girl, yeah. More girls want to be boys than the other way around. Yeah, a girl would say to the teacher, Look, I feel like I'm a boy. Yeah, um, and uh so that that girl would go to the teacher, and then the teacher the school would then um uh unilaterally uh create, do change some make changes in the school to uh to adapt that feel to uh embrace that feeling that the child had. So they'd maybe use a different name on the register. So okay, what name do you want to be called by? I want to be called John. Um I I want to wear the boys' uniform, I want to go into the the boys' toilets, and and if it's a girl, if it's a boy who wants to be a girl, similar things were being done. Now there was there was even though the law was clear that there's such a thing as biological sex, it was being muddied. But the Supreme Court judgment means now that a school can say that uh girls, girls who are biological girls can't go into the boys' toilets, boys who are biological boys can't go into the girls' toilets, even if they identify as being from a different gender. This whole idea, and the thing is the the previous government m m wrote a document which said gender ideology is a contested idea, it's not settled science. And I think that was really important because what it said was that it's it's it's like a it's a sociological concept. It's not really um it's not like a uh it's not a fixed thing that somebody uh is born a boy and wants to be a girl, and then when they want to be a girl or want to or vice versa, that's something which has evidence behind it that that's a real thing. Even the NHS guidance now is saying that if if somebody wants if somebody expresses that view, then this be like a you should be like a wait-for-watching uh approach that where you give that child time to to understand what they're asking. Because most of these children who want to who want to be a boy who are born a girl want to be a boy or vice versa, they're going through some trauma, they're going through some underlying issues. Rather than this, and this is this this idea of changing their sex or gender is seen as a panacea for all their problems, and it never never doesn't change their problems even when they go down the path of um of gender reassignment. Um so I think what I think what we've got to do is we've got to go to schools and say things like unisex toilets shouldn't be happening because they uh but boys and girls who are uh biological boys and girls shouldn't be in the same space. There should be boys' toilets and should be girls' toilets. Things like um uh using different names or using different pronouns. I remember I got a call from someone who said, Look, I I know of a girl in in this class, Muslim girl, yeah. She is being almost groomed by her teacher, yeah, to become a boy. She cut her hair short, and the the parents just thought it was it was going through some sort of state, some some phase. Maybe it's just this is how she is, she's a bit different. But actually, that this teacher was using a different name on the register for her, was using different pronouns for her, was actually encouraging her to embrace her new self. And um, they didn't even inform the parents. Uh, when the parents came in for parents eating, they would use her real name and her actual pronouns, but they were hiding it from the parents. Now, this sort of thing, first of all, it shouldn't have happened then, it definitely can't happen now. So, these sort of instances need to be challenged as soon as possible uh by by schools. I think asking questions to schools around how they have responded to this Supreme Court judgment is really an important starting step around around uh the getting schools to rethink um these practices um around a contested ideology.

SPEAKER_01: 23:48

You're listening to or watching on guard, where we don't just talk, we stand. This is the media of resistance, of truth of the Ummah rising. But we can't do it alone. If you believe in the impact that echoes beyond the screen, become a guardian. Empower the mission. Click the link below to act with purpose. And wherever you get your podcasts, look for On Guard and subscribe. And now back to the episode. Okay, excellent. So obviously something happens before kids go to school, right? And that's parenting. Yes. So what would you advise parents to do with regards to the Tadbi of the children? Yes. Not only before the RSC stage, but during and after. And what does it look like?

SPEAKER_00: 24:38

Yeah, absolutely. I think I I I'm a big advocate of this idea that, you know, we I think parents need to, a lot of parents need to rethink our own attitudes to our own children. You know, I the the number of Islamic institutions, Imams, Makatib, Madaris, who say, look, parents almost hand over the children and expect us to raise them. It's it's unacceptable. The original responsibility rests with us as parents. We are tasked with this hugely important uh step of raising our children, inculcating with them within them values. And I think we've got to rethink our priorities. Sometimes as Muslim parents, our priority can tend to be academic achievement, academic attainment over character development. And character development precedes everything. It's so important. And I think what we need to do is just re-align our priorities to say we need to be proactive. One of the things that we need to do is ensure that our children develop a clear understanding of why they are Muslim. And also they we we need to inculcate within our children a real personal relationship with Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala that is not dependent upon the parent as intermediary or as I was born into a Muslim family. You know, steps that they take to recognize. There's even research in Western academia about how children who develop a personal relationship with God tend to uh tend to be able to withstand that throughout adulthood. You know, just just by things, things like dua, things by asking Allah personally without an intermediary for things regularly, yeah. Um it's like a communication of Allah. Being grateful to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala by saying, I'm grateful for this food I've got or for this thing you've given me, and recognizing who you're grateful to. Because in Western uh secular ideology, uh Western society, there's a tendency to understand gratitude, and that gratitude can become very, I'm grateful for this, I'm grateful for that, but not who you're grateful to for that. Things like tawbah, we need to develop in our children the understanding that when they commit sins, which we all will, to do tawbah straight away. These sort of things establish a personal relationship with Allah and accountability that is developed even in the young children, that then is nurtured as they grow up. But I think as parents, we've got to take responsibility for all of that. Now there's different institutions, different organizations in the community that can support us in doing a lot of these things. That's not a problem. As long as we recognize that we are almost the ones who are navigating that, we are organizing that. Almost if you're like the CEO of a company and you outsource a particular project, you don't outsource it and then forget about it. You outsource it and then you say, How are things going? There's there's accountability still happening. Uh are you on schedule? Yeah, what are you doing? And then if that's not happening, why is that not happening? Because you have ultimate responsibility for that project. Our children are the best of projects, the most important of projects. So I think one of the what and then going uh on to what that uh what that feel looks like, sometimes it tends to be that Muslim parents, as Muslim parents, and it's a human trait sometimes, that we respond at point of crisis, and that point of point of crisis is very um very much um uh um uh shaped by stress, by lots of different factors which make responses not not really not the best responses. Yeah, at that stage we we find it difficult to navigate, uh, but actually we need to encourage parents to be much more proactive. One of the things we say to Muslim fathers is that a lot of the problems in young children is as a result of fathers not being there for their children emotionally, emotional availability. They can be there physically but not emotionally available. You know that the the there's a lot of research that shows that children who don't who are not loved by their fathers especially, and not loved, like it's not love is not about, for example, things like um being a breadwinner and putting food on the table, but it's about things like showing overt acts of love, kissing, hugging, um, telling your children you love them. Things that we were not grown, we didn't grow up with because our parents, like our fathers were quite distant from us. My father would hug us like twice a year at Eid. Um, we uh we need to change that because there's a vulnerability that's being created in children as a result of that lack of emotional availability from fathers to their children. And um, I remember there was a there was a psychologist in America called Joseph Nicelosi, and he he he did an interesting study into hundreds of men who had same sex attraction. A lot of these men, most of them were Christian, and they they they saw um a lack of alignment between the the feelings they had, the same sex attraction feelings they had, and the their religion, which said this is wrong, this is sinful. So they went to Joseph Nicolosi, he worked with hundreds of men, and he said the common factor in all of these men, yeah, in all of these men, it wasn't the things that you thought it would be, it was that they had overly strict fathers who were not nurturing enough, who didn't show overt love to their children. And so these two ingredients came together and created that vulnerability so when those men grew up, they sought love that was lacking in their childhood in the only relationship that resembled that, which is same sex relationships. Um, but also girls also can become very um very vulnerable from the lack of love of the father. So I think. We we we say the simple thing that fathers can do is show love to your child. Eve and I was speaking to a father yesterday and he was saying, Look, I didn't grow up like this. I feel uncomfortable. When my girls come to me and they hug me, I feel uh okay. When my boy comes to me, I push him away. I said, That's very dangerous. I said, You know, when you become a father or a mother, sometimes you've got to relegate your own personal feelings for the good of your children, and you've got to adapt new adopt new policies and new approaches because you know it's what that's best for your children.

SPEAKER_01: 30:26

Um yeah, you we we have to break that. I don't like using this term, but the generational trauma, frankly. And unfortunately, we see this in the Asian subcontinent community. I've asked this question in when I give lectures that when was the last time your dad hugged you or said, I love you? I don't think anyone answered the question. No, yeah, it's horrific. And the thing is, it's not the sunnah of the Prophet. If you love someone, you should tell them he was affectionate. In Active Fact, there's a popular book called The Five Love Languages, right? That's right. Acts of service, gifts, words of affirmation, touch, and words of affection. Words of affection, words of affirmation, of course. The other one now gifts, I said gifts, I said gifts. But anyway, there's five. And time, time, time, yeah, quality time. And you could see all of them in the story. Yeah, absolutely. It's absolutely amazing, and you know, we have a very uh love-centric tradition from that perspective, and it's kind of missing, yeah, and you see that in the personalities of you know, the people who are brought up from unless they've dealt with it, they've done the internal Tadbia and have dealt with it themselves. So that's a really important point. The other thing I wanted to bring out, uh, which I thought was very powerful, was not necessarily the values. It's kind of easy to teach values, but you mentioned a very important word, which is prioritization. Now I want to give you an insight that I've seen, and I'm not the expert like you, but I want you to anchor off that and basically unpack it for me, yeah. So what I've seen with practicing, you know, Allah centric families, faith-centric families, is that they would teach the children, pray five times a day, worship Allah, obey Allah, love the Prophet, all of those things, you know, do zikr, do mik dua, supplicate to Allah and so on and so forth. But what they do is when the dunya comes in, they would prior, and there's a clash between an Islamic ethic or principle and maybe a dunya-centric or academic ethic or principle. If there is a clash, they'll prioritize the worldly one over the Islamic one. For example, you have to get an A in math, right? The guy misses Fajr, right? On purpose, say, because he's over, you know, he's overworked because he's revising for his exam. There will be less reaction to missing fajr, which is far more greater uh a problem than actually not doing great in your in your ex in your math exam. But if he does, if he doesn't do well in his math exam or doesn't uh spend enough time revising and preparing, there is so much pressure to the point where it's become they've moralized it, that there's something wrong with you, you're bad, you're not worthy. So the self-worth is now contingent, not on the character as you mentioned, or the connection with Allah, but it's contingent dependent upon the exams and secular education. Now I'm not saying you should you should ignore that, no, but it's the subtle deprioritization uh of one over the other, and and and children they listen with their eyes, not with their ears. Yeah, and then when they go walk into life and they're gonna have these inevitable clashes between Islamic principles and other principles, look what's gonna happen. So I've seen that. And I keep on telling parents and aspiring parents, do not make that mistake. Yeah, focus on what is a key priority because when the proverbial hits the fan, like it does in life, you're gonna have tests and and and fitna and so on and so forth. You want them to be strong and hold on to Allah, hold on to principle and value. But unfortunately, when you have practicing people, when they enter the real world and there is there is this clash and this this potential fitna or this fitna, they can't react effectively and they crumble.

SPEAKER_00: 34:21

I think we it's a really important point. I think we need to recognize, you know, that you know, sometimes people say when you talk about inculcating values in your children, sometimes we see it as almost like a teaching thing. You teach them, you go through the hadith and that going through hadith is good, but actually what our children tend to be shaped by is the lived Islam that they see around them. Yeah, and so you know, I say to parents, look, we're not talking about being perfect parents, none of us are, of course. But what it means, what it is is that being a parent is the biggest self-development exercise there can be. Because what you want to do is almost you want to better yourself in order that your children become better. Yeah, you want you want you want them to recognize that there's certain like when when there's when salah time comes, you pray salah, there's no delay. Yeah when it comes to if you're traveling and you're in a train station, you just go onto the side and you pray. All of this sets a clear uh message to your children that our lived Islam is one where everything fits around the responsibility to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and obligation to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. But also I think it's it's really it it you can really see dysfunctional children being uh raised when they see one thing being said and another thing being done, and I think that creates a real almost schizophrenic personality amongst our children, uh, which actually says to them that I I aspire to these values, but I live these values, and it can be definitely very dangerous. And I think it says um um uh you know you know when we so yeah, so it's like um there was a saying that I came across a long time ago, and it's it's from like a Christian book, and it was really good though, yeah. It said values are caught rather than taught. Wow, yeah, and I thought and I and I heard that I thought this is really important, this is this is this is something that's etched to mind. So values are caught rather than taught. You could you can't really teach values, yeah. Value is like you know, this is a saying that says um that uh the apple doesn't fall far from the trees. Yes. There's there's truth in that. Yeah, you like for example, I remember my mother, she used to she used to be very a very charitable lady, mashallah. She she had this box in her kitchen, and anytime she had any money, she would put notes or pounds in it. And it was this was before the days where you have big fundraisers and you have big but people would come to the door or there'll be something at the local mosque where there's a charity and she'd give money to in that, and that was a regular thing. And when you see that growing up, you think, wow, this is really important, and it sets your priorities. And I I I almost I credit that charitable giving that that mentality that I have to the actions of my mother. Um, similarly to my father, my father would uh was very generous in lots of things too. Relatives he would be like I remember he used to visit and if any any relative was ill, he would visit them, and not just once, like if it was if they were long-term sick, every week he would visit them once or twice a week, and I would go with him, and just by going, and it was he hadn't thought in his mind he didn't think I'm gonna take my son because I want it to show him the importance of this value. It was just, oh, come with me. So I'd go with him, and I that reminded me, okay, this is really, this is important. If you're if you've got if you've got a uh if your my father works a very tough job, very heavy lifting, come came home, and that means what he did with his spare time was important because he had very little of it. So that sends a real clear message to our children that what what we what we prioritize in terms of our time and our efforts really makes a difference. But one thing I want to say also is you know, one thing I found is you know is the dua of others. Yeah, I found that to be the single most impactful thing in my life. Yeah. People making du'a for me just because I've helped them in something, yeah, in something small, nothing, nothing huge, but they've been so grateful they made dua for me. And I credit that to the to not having major problems with my children, alhamdulillah. That not not because of my parenting, but because of that. I really feel as though uh as a as a if you're in service of other people, yeah, you'll get uh you'll get du'a from them and unimaginable amounts of du'a. Yeah, people will just you you won't you won't even know they made du'a, but you'll see the impact of it in your life. Yeah. Someone was saying the other day that he goes, um, my father, my father used to help lots of people. Yeah, whenever they needed help, he'll be the first to help them. And uh, my mother, when when my grandmother, when after my father died, um my we'll speak to my grandmother and say, Look, my my all of our children we had, he had he had eight brothers and sisters, and he said, none of us went into drugs, none of us went haywire, we're all generally practicing children. Yeah, and my father, he wasn't very practicing until until his later years. And so she goes, We don't know why he why we turned out like this. And he's their grandmother said, Look, anytime your father was asked for help from anybody, he would help them. And they'd make du'a for them, and this is the result of that du'a. You know, it's it's this it's really it's really not too it is it's a really important point that we mentioned that the things we do for others comes back upon us through the du'a of others. And and you that's what I'd say, you know, if you're working in a school, I said to this parent yesterday who was working is been working for about one and a half years to achieve small changes in the school, I say, look, this this is gonna stand up for you, not only Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala yum al-Qiyama, but it will also stand up for you when those people make dua for you. Those people who hadn't didn't have the time to do as much as you did, or maybe didn't have the language, didn't have the the the the the the the words, they had that they're not as um eloquent in their speech as as you are, and you stepped up for them and keep going on at it, even though sometimes it seems like a hopeless task, those people make dua for you, and you're uh and inshallah, you will benefit from that dua. You will you will see the fruits of that.

SPEAKER_01: 39:57

That was very moving. I have a final question for you. It's actually the most difficult. Alright. So say a Muslim child comes back home, boy or girl, sits down with the parents and says, I don't think I'm a boy. Say it's a boy, right? Say it's a girl. Sorry, say it's a boy and they say, I don't think I'm a boy, I'm gonna become a girl. I've been learning this at school. Yeah. What do they do?

SPEAKER_00: 40:27

You know, I what I say to parents is that don't you know don't jump on the thing that a child brings to you. But think but but think of that as almost the uh the thing they're presenting to you that hides the underlying problems that they're facing. There's a there's significant underlying problems that child is going through that needs to be understood. That child needs a Muslim counsellor who understands the Islamic tradition to sp to allow that child to speak. You know, I remember there's this girl that this mother called me and said, Look, my daughter wants to be a boy and I'm I'm strong, I don't know what to do. I said to her, look, that's not the issue, there's another issue there. You need to almost you need to almost overcompensate on developing a stronger relationship with her, showing her immense amount of love, even though that may be something that it it seems counterintuitive. Show her immense amount of love, spend a lot of time with her, and and and then try and work try and help her to understand what that issue is in a way that doesn't make her feel as though you're interrogating her. And so over weeks and weeks and weeks of later, she contacted me and said, Look, um I I I now know what the problem is. Because she she she is the only girl in the house, and her brothers, they they they uh they they eat a plate of food, they don't they don't take even take the plate to the the sink. She has to do that. She has to they throw their clothes on the floor, she has to go around the house, picking up the clothes, putting it in the washing machine. And she she she um she confided in me that the only reason why I felt like this and I feel like this is because I feel like I I feel like I I feel like I I have to do everything in the house. They don't have to do anything just because I'm a girl, I have to do it if I have a boy, I don't have to do anything. And it seemed like a a very sh uh very strange mode of thinking, but you could understand where she was coming from. And she said, look, we made changes in the home, we made sure that her brothers were pulling their weight, doing the chores as much as everybody else, and now she said, No, I this is I I never wanted to be a a boy. Now, this is a simple example, but at at the heart of it, there are a whole host of different issues that children, especially girls, girls in this society are going through a huge amount of problems because look, society's expect society societal expectations of girls is that they have to look a particular way. If they don't look a particular way, it creates almost a dissonance in them, a feeling that that they are different from other children. They they should be, they should look the part, you know, they see these airbrushed images all around them and they feel inadequate. Yeah. We need to, we need to uh we need to in our children, uh, especially fathers, you know, we say to fathers, when you compliment your children, especially your girls, focus on the things that are of worth, uh, those substance, substantive issues that that are not the not the not the superficial issues about looks. Think, say to her things like, uh, you know, I I I I heard your memory your recitation of Quran is beautiful, Jazak, may Allah reward you. That's I know how much effort you're putting in. Focus on the effort and focus on substantive issues. Yeah, because society, the society around them, whatever, however um modernized, however civilized society claims it is, it still believes that a woman's worth is in her looks. Women who are who look a particular way and end up in uh getting higher promotions than those who don't. This is the reality of the society. People are still superficial, they focus on looks. So counteract that in society. But in terms of if a child comes to you, just try and understand the deeper issues that that child is going through. They may need counselling from a trusted Muslim counselor, not just uh any counselor who affirm their their feelings. Um just and just give it time. You know, most of the you know, if you if you make something a big issue and you place so much emphasis upon that, that may act as uh that may act that that may make it a bigger issue than it actually is. Yeah. When you when you focus, like for example, if you if you're if you're focusing, if you're saying to somebody, look, look at all the things in this room that are red, when you focus on things that are red, you can only see the red. Yeah. If you focus on the underlying issues and create and seek to create changes in the home where a child feels immense love, yeah, then you can you you can you can work your way around that. If there are things that that are that are that are that are leading to um her that affirming that position in her mind, you need to remove herself from those physical situations. If it's school, you have to consider removing her from that school. I remember a situation in America where a father had the situation and a and uh this is a Christian family, a girl came home and said, I want to be a boy. What he did was he sold his house, uprooted himself, and went to like uh like the end of nowhere in America, yeah, in a place where there was no internet, no nothing. And they spent the year there, yeah, just uh just living life in in nature. And by the end of that year, that girl never did no longer felt that way. Because not only was did she feel loved, and and there were uh there were changes in the family dynamic that were that were that were that were compensating for that feeling that I don't feel loved, but also those triggers around her that were that were leading to her thinking that she's a boy, they were no longer there. Yeah, but I remember I spoke to a father, and sometimes on the internet there are uh there are these these groups of people, sometimes young people who are who who are trans identifying, and they they almost it's almost like a cult. They bring you in and they will tell you don't listen to anybody else. Yeah, only listen to us. That person, no, that person is is is a tra is a transphobe, and they will create an environment where this you feel that this is who you are. Yeah, they'll affirm you, they'll bring you into their almost their fat their alternative family. And so I think we've got to we've got to think about social media, we've got to think about how our children access and consume the internet. We've got to think about what we can do to ensure our children do feel loved in the home and they have a sense of purpose that goes beyond the materialism that's around them.

SPEAKER_01: 46:18

This is very powerful, bro. Honestly. So what I'm getting from this is love is extremely central. Yes. Creating a connection with even in our context, a non-judgmental conversation and connection with our children, having lots of sabr. Yes, and sacrifice if needed. Absolutely. But you have to get involved and maybe pull them out of the school or move house or whatever the case may be. So love, connection, patience, sacrifice. If we put these things together, then maybe we can uh combat what's happening uh in terms of these uh crazy ideologies.

SPEAKER_00: 46:54

But try and try and preempt these before they happen. Absolutely. So I think uh for most families, don't and if you speak to a family that's going through this and you say to them, Did you ever think you'd be in this situation? They say no. Because nobody expects to be in that situation. Yeah, so don't don't think that just because you're a Muslim family that's practicing, that's been on Hajj, that goes Umbra every other year, that um has Islamic nasheeds in the background, don't think that that makes us immune from this fitna. None of us are. And so if we have this mindset that it could potentially happen in our home, that's a healthy mindset to have. Because that makes makes sure that we take those corrective or preemptive steps to prevent them from happening in the first place, inshallah.

SPEAKER_01: 47:34

Of course.

SPEAKER_00: 47:35

Have full reliance upon Allah and make immense dua to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. That's one thing that sometimes as parents we don't do enough of. Yeah, you know, make immense dua for the for our children every opportunity you get, yeah, and and leave and and leave that, leave their guidance up to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, and then do what we can within our within our within what within the small aspect of our life that we can control and leave everything else to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala.

SPEAKER_01: 47:59

This is extremely useful. Just remind everybody about the website, your website.

SPEAKER_00: 48:03

Yeah, so it's www.muslimfamilyinitiative.org.

SPEAKER_01: 48:07

So just I'm gonna repeat so everyone gets this and they can write it down, Muslim Family Initiative.org. And you are involved in Islam 21C's new transformative campaign called Guarding Innocence, and you're gonna have a central role, Alhamdulillah. So, how do you feel about that? And how do you feel about the future concerning different brothers, sisters, organizations coming together, working in unison to actually combat these type of uh crazy ideologies?

SPEAKER_00: 48:41

I think it's it's really important because it's not something that one organization can do on their own. Really, this is something that if we pull together lots of different organizations in our community that have the best interests of our children and the future generation of our community at heart, then I think we can achieve a huge amount, inshallah. So I'm really looking forward to uh the project to guarding innocence and to seeing each other getting high quality content on there, whether it be toolkits, infographics, whether it be videos, any other content that will be supportive of parents. And a lot of it, I think, will be very practical, usable information. We're not talking about very academic tomes or information. It's things that you can utilize and use to support your work in schools and to support your work at home with your own children, inshallah.

SPEAKER_01: 49:23

Exactly here. Exactly.