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This year, Ramadhan and winter vacation are coinciding. Thousands of school-age children will be at home, unable to play outdoors for long periods of time due to the blistering cold.
As we wrap-up the last ten days of Ramadhan, some Muslim children are facing as many as 20 or so days of vacation. A major question for many parents is how to help their children pass the time constructively.
Here are some ideas that might help.
Visits to the Museum
Just because it is cold outside does not mean that all activities must be held inside the home. If you are fortunate enough to live within the proximity of museums, winter vacation is a great time to take the kids on family field trips.
It is a good idea to call ahead to see which exhibits are being displayed at the various museums. Some museums offer discounts on their fees to school-age children, and some even offer guided tours when you schedule them for several families at once.
These guided tours are recommended for several reasons. Children often get bored easily if they are walking through and checking out displays on their own. However, tour guides always share little-known facts that intrigue children and stir their curiosity to inquire further.
If at all possible, take your children to museums that offer interactive displays. There are museums in several metropolitan cities such as Detroit, Cleveland and Chicago that allow children to touch and feel many displays. Some of the science museums are a special delight because children actually learn about basic concepts such as gravity and force while they are enjoying themselves.
Once inside the museums, you’ll want to have the kids take off their heavy coats, hats and gloves so that they can enjoy walking around without looking and feeling like they are on a winter hike!
And remember to do a wrap-up session either during the car ride home or when you arrive there. It is good to reinforce the various sights and sounds that the children learned about on their trip to the museum.
Family Read-Along
Somehow, most fathers seem to escape sharing in the responsibility for planning how their children will spend their winter vacations. However, a family read-along is a perfect activity that fathers can take on.
This winter, choose 3-4 books that your children have not read before. There are many online bookstores that make it easy to select and order new releases – in the fortunate event that all of the books in your home have been read over and over again.
The books can range from Islamic history and stories of the lives of Prophet Muhammad (SAW) and the other Prophets to stories of the Prophet’s Companions. One or two of the books can even be fictional stories that the children will enjoy. Shop around carefully and seek out suggestions for good titles from other parents.
Once you have selected at least six books, gather the kids and allow them to choose 3-4 books from the selection for the family read-along.
Each day, you can set aside 20 to 30 minutes during which the family can read a portion of a book out loud. Either you, the parent, alone can read or you can rotate among the children and let them read aloud. Keep in mind that it is frustrating sometimes when those children who know how to read have to listen to their younger siblings struggle with unfamiliar words. You may want to preview passages and assign them according to your children’s skill levels.
As you read along, it is always exciting to add an anecdote or two based on your own childhood experiences. This helps children connect what they are learning or reading with real life examples. Don’t feel bad if you cannot come up with something from your own life. The idea is to help children conceptualize the lessons that they are being taught in the readings.
Most of all, make the read-alongs fun for the whole family. Make sure you set aside time ahead to prepare yourself. If you are the only parent at home during the read-alongs, you may want to consider switching off your telephones. They often serve as distractions to children, and turning them off for a few minutes will allow them to see how much you value the time you spend with them.
Starting Stamp and Coin Collections
One of the most talked about aspects of our community is its inherent diversity. Muslims come from all countries, races, and nationalities. And yet, we rarely seek to instill in our children an appreciation of this rich diversity.
Children should learn to value and respect this diversity from an early age. One way to help them do this is to have them begin a stamp and/or coin collection.
Sometimes, collections are based on trying to acquire the oldest or most rare coin or stamp in a collection. Other collections focus on variety and on trying to collect stamps or coins from as many countries as possible.
This vacation, help your children learn about the universal Muslim community. You can get a world map and show them the countries around the world that have majority Muslim populations. Then, the children can make a list of the different countries that they want to collect coins or stamps from.
One sure way to help the children get off to a good start is to introduce their project to family friends and other members of the masjid community. Help them explain the project in their own words. Many people often have stamps or coins from their home countries or their travels just lying around - let your kids request stamps and coins for their collection from others.
In this way, your children will actually get to meet and interact with people from the countries that they are studying about. You may also want to check out books from the library that will help them explore the various cultures of people around the world.
Perhaps they can even make a book that contains, along with the stamps and coins, other information about the different countries; for example, flags of each country that they have drawn and/or colored.
They can use a loose-leaf notebook or binder with one page for each country. If they prefer not to stick the stamps directly onto the paper, you can purchase plastic inserts into which they can slide the stamps and coins. These are actually more desirable in the long run because they will offer protection for the items on display.
Children not only gain an appreciation for the rich diversity of Muslims from these activities, but also a chance to learn an interesting fact or tidbit about the many countries they explore.
In Closing
Winter vacation is a great time to recharge family spirits and strengthen family bonds. The ideas discussed above are meant only as a start to get parents thinking about how to improve the winter vacation experience for their children.
As parents, we must be more intentional about the plans that we make for our children. It is no longer suitable or desirable to leave vacation plans to chance; rather, we must all do our share to help our children get the most out of their vacations.
Perhaps owing to this writer’s personal bias, the reader may notice that there has been a deliberate attempt to leave out video games, television programs, and video movies. The infamous babysitter, the television set, needs a break.
This is particularly so during Ramadhan and, now, the winter vacation!
Editor’s Note: If you have concerns or questions about how to improve your relationship with your children, please write to us at our Cyber Counselor Section. The address is:
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