Four Points to Build a Strong Character of your Child

 

Character of a person is defined by 4 important points. Always remember and work on these points in order to develop a strong character.

1.         Intention نیت
2.         Action عمل
3.          Habit عادت
4.          Character کردار

Let’s start with the first point: If you want to work on your character or a character of your child you should first understand that this process starts from Intention. Your intentions will define what action you are going to take. If your intentions are good and you are doing things for the sake of Allah s.w.t then Allah s.w.t will put barakat in your actions. Your actions will be effective and will be blessed too.

The prophet Muhammad P.B.U.H said :

عَنْ أمِيْرِ الْمُؤْمِنِيْنَ أَبِيْ حَفْصٍ عُمَرَ ابْنِ الْخَطَّابِ رَضِيَ اللهُ عَنْهُ قَالُ

سَمِعْتُ رَسُوْلَ اللهِ صَلَّى اللهُ عَلَيْهِ وَ سَلَّمَ يِقُوْلُ

إنَّمَا الأَعْمَالُ بِالنِّيَّاتِ وَ إنَّمَا لِكُلِّ امْرِىءٍ مَا نَوَى

فَمَنْ كَانَتْ هِجْرَتُهُ إلَى اللهِ وَ رَسُوْلِهِ فَهِجْرَتُهُ إلَى اللهِ وَ رَسُوْلِهِ

وَ مَنْ كَانَتْ هِجْرَتُهُ لِدُنْيَا يُصِيْبُهَا أوِ امْرَأةٍ يَنْكِحُهَا فَهِجْرَتُهُ إلَى مَا هَاجَرَ إلَيْهِ

 

“Actions are according to intentions, and everyone will get what was intended. Whoever migrates with an intention for Allah and His messenger, the migration will be for the sake of Allah and his Messenger. And whoever migrates for worldly gain or to marry a woman, then his migration will be for the sake of whatever he migrated for."

[Al-Bukhari & Muslim]

Secondly if you are raising a child with a good character then you need to redirect his action to intention and ask him to realize that everything we do has to be intended for the sake of Allah (swt). A good action with the wrong intention will not get us any reward in the Hereafter moreover we will not see any effectiveness in our actions as well, it will not have long lasting effect.

Secondly by setting right intention, every action becomes an act of worship, whether you are playing, cooking, busy in office or business or even sleeping.

Now come to second point: your actions develop your habits. When you recursively do some actions whether they are good or bad. Or your child use to perform some actions over and over then it becomes your habit. So in order to work on strong and right character of yourself or your child, you need to monitor actions and habits. If you are finding any bad habit in yourself or in your child then redirect to the action which is the cause of developing that habit. Let’s take an example, if you are observing the habit of lying in your child, it means he used to tell lie over and over and you neglected his action and did not help him  in redirecting his intentions.

Abdullah bin Mas’ud  reported: The Prophet  said, “Truthfulness leads to righteousness and righteousness leads to Paradise. A man will keep speaking the truth and striving to speak the truth until he will be recorded with Allāh as a siddeeq (speaker of the truth). Lying leads to wickedness and wickedness leads to Hell fire. A man will keep telling lies and striving to tell lies until he is recorded with Allāh as a liar.”  [Agreed upon].

So this Hadith of Prophet Muhammad PBUH describes the same scenario that our good actions become our habits and these habits determine our destiny.

Now come to final point that these habits define our character. If we have trained our self for good intentions, actions and habits then our character will be based upon good and strong foundation. Remember Character is not a behavior which we observe in certain circumstances rather it is based upon our strong habits. It might happen that a person observes very good behavior but his character is zero. Also if someone behaves like a friend today, he may be an enemy tomorrow.  Behavior can be good and presentable, but beyond that behavior does not go. A mere behavior, a mere education, a mere age or experience will not accomplish something on its own. A person with character can establish his own business, raise a family and accomplish a substantial work in the society.

 We should make small but good habits to stand on a strong character. There is a very beautiful and famous saying of prophet Muhammad P.B.U.H  on this topic of habit.

Umm Salamah reported: The most beloved deed to the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, is what is done regularly even if it is small.

In another narration, she said, “Even if it is easy.”

[Musnad Aḥmad 26178]

Lastly I want to clarify the difference between two closely spoken words personality and character. Personality is your outlook, how you present your body, which brand you are, which celebrity you are your icon etc. If there is no strong character behind the personality or in other words if your personality is not raised on the basis of a strong character then it is just show off and will destroy anytime. You can observe many personalities of celebrities which people emulate now a days they don’t have inner satisfaction and don’t have tranquility and peace in their heats.

In Islamic perspective tangible thing is your character not just your outlook. Following saying of Prophet Muhammad P.B.U.H describes this best.

عن أبي هريرة -رضي الله عنه- مرفوعاً: «إنَّ الله لا ينْظُرُ إِلى أجْسَامِكُمْ، ولا إِلى صُوَرِكمْ، وَلَكن ينْظُرُ إلى قُلُوبِكمْ وأعمالكم».

رواہ مسلم

Certainly Allah does not look at your physique nor at your faces; Rather He looks at your hearts and your actions.

Written by : Muhammad Mamoon Asghar

COO International Institute of Quran Learning (IIQL)

Parent's counsellor and Anchor at Peace Tv Urdu

Contact: mamoon@iiql.co.uk