Kids and Dads: Harmony and Conflict at Home

Occasion: a transcript of a lecture delivered by Dr. Ahmed Abouseif at Bayt Al-Karim on May 2, 2026, the second in a series on the relationship between parents and children.Source: transcription of a recorded lecture by Dr. Ahmed Abouseif, watch the original video on YouTube

Tonight, Dr. Ahmed said, we continue our discussion of the relationship between kids and dads. When we say "dads" we mean parents in general, in their general position, and when we say "kids" we mean both sons and daughters.

SubḥānAllāh, he said, the trouble usually runs between boys and dads and between girls and moms, while the relationship is usually good between boys and moms and between girls and dads. Girls are closer to their fathers and boys are closer to their mothers, and the conflict tends to fall between mothers and daughters and between fathers and sons. Why? Because of the same gender. It is the same way of thinking, the same attitude, the same mentality, and so each of the two wants to jump first and say something. They stand at the same level.

What the previous session left us with

Let us remember what we said last time, he continued. We asked how the Qur’ān speaks about this issue, and we recalled together a few examples Allah gave us, for instance the story of Yūsuf. What kind of relationship was there between the father and the son? What was the difference between Yūsuf and his brothers? They are all children at the same level, and he is a father to every one of them. Why, then, was Yūsuf, peace be upon him, closer to his father than the rest? What was wrong there? And at the same time Yaʿqūb, peace be upon him, gave Yūsuf a special piece of advice that he did not give to the others. What do you think of that? Was there some injustice in how he treated some of them and not others? Or was he a man who loved all of them equally, giving the same attention and care to every one, a householder for all of them at once? He is a father. But the children have a different opinion. They do not think in that way. They think something completely different ^[1].

He gave an example from his own house. A few nights ago he was talking to his daughter and said to her: "Baba, please, when I say something, consider that white. It did not come for free. It came with years and experience and trials, with sitting with people and listening to spouses. When you listen to me, look at my face and see what is there. That white did not come for free. It came with days and nights, weeks and months, years and decades." He paused to search for the right word. Anyway, he said, that is not our point. The difference between the two ages is complete: on one side someone in his fifties, on the other someone in her twenties or younger. For that reason we should listen to the experience before we listen to the voice that is coming to us from our father or our parents.

Is the generation gap new?

But is the gap between generations normal, or is it something new? Let us start from the beginning and see what happened between Ādam and his children, and between the two sons of Ādam. They came to fight over something. One of them was polite, kind and gentle with his brother. He told him in effect: whatever you are going to do, I will not answer you in kind. Do what you need; I will never come against you. And the other said: I am going to kill you. It is up to you; I am here to help. Which of the two was going with the mentality of Ādam? The gentle one, for sure, the righteous one. And the other? Do you think there was a gap between his way of thinking and his father's, between him and his parents? For sure there was ^[2].

And when we look at Yūsuf and his father, they had the same mentality. Do you think there was a gap between them? No. The gap was with the other children, who tried to kill their brother and tried to do it so that nobody could catch them. They did not want to see him again, and there was something evil in their hearts. Who works in this area to open that gap from the very beginning? Allah, glory be to Him, warned us about the devil. Be careful of the one who comes to whisper to you and makes you feel that everybody around you is against you.

The first reason: limited communication

What is the reason for the gap? First of all, Dr. Ahmed said, limited communication. It is one of the main problems.

Once we have children, we feel a different kind of responsibility. When I am free, with no wife and no children, I am free. My decision is in my hand. Wherever I want to go, nobody asks me, and whatever I want to do, nobody blames me. But once I get engaged and marry someone, my decision drops from one hundred percent to fifty. Another person can ask me where I went and why I came home late. All of those questions come and limit my freedom. And once I have children I feel a different kind of responsibility, and my share falls from fifty percent to ten. Me and my wife have ten percent of the choices, and the rest is in the hands of the kids. Yes, for sure.

So when somebody comes to me and says that he wants to divorce his wife, I say: that is a good decision, but before making it, did you ask your kids? They have no say? No, my dear. Your choice has gone from one hundred to fifty to ten. You have the right, ten percent, and she has another ten, and the other eighty percent is in the hands of the children. You cannot make the decision alone, and you cannot make it against the children, who already have their right. We have to understand the case in that way.

Why do I say this? Because once we carry responsibility for our children, we start to take on more work, more income, more financial support, and all of this makes us strong enough to face any problem. Now why is communication limited? Usually because we are busy getting more money. It needs more time at work, more time thinking about the sources of the money, the problems at school and at the job. I do all of that and come back home with no patience left. I have no strength to control my mind and start talking to my children. I have no time and no power. I am exhausted. I am done. When they come to me I say, "Okay, baby, you're okay, I want my time." SubḥānAllāh, he said, I am talking about myself before anybody else. When I come home and anything happens, it drives me crazy. Why? Because I come home to take my break from everything that distracts me outside that door. I work outside this door and I need my rest inside it. But it does not work like that. You have a different kind of job at home. That is the first reason for the gap between us and our children: limited communication.

The second reason: fear

The second reason. Sometimes someone comes to me with his son who has made a big mistake, and the father asks me to give him advice. "Can you advise him? I want you to say this and this." My gentle question to him is: habibi, why did you not advise him before me? Did you try? No. He asks me to be the one. The room laughed, but the question stands: why did you not start?

Imagine the reason he gives me, which is, as far as I can follow it, that he is afraid the son may turn against him one day. What does that mean? They are afraid of being denied or disrespected, of any kind of clash between them and the children, so they tend to be nice to them in whatever they do. "I love you, I love you." Is that a good attitude? What are you doing? The first reason is limited communication. The second is being afraid that he may go against me one day, and so I want to be nicer to them than my wife is.

The third reason: spoiling

The third is extremism in parenting. We are nicer than we are supposed to be. How do we say it? Spoiling. Yes, that is the word. We spoil them, giving them everything they need, and that is not a good way to raise them with discipline.

What is the meaning of discipline? Now we can understand the ḥadīth of the Prophet Muḥammad ﷺ when he said: start asking your children to pray when they reach seven, and if they are still not doing it by ten, we use a different way. I do not want to say we become tough, but at least we become strict ^[3]. These are the rules and you cannot break them. This is the rule, here you go, and you have no choice: you are going to do it, otherwise I will take action.

But, as in the example we gave last time, when somebody was counting with me: do you remember? Five times a day times three hundred and sixty-five days. What is the result? We said, let us make it fifteen hundred, or let us say one thousand times every year. He is supposed to see you praying, and if he did not see you, why were you asking him to pray?

He added a remark that came from his own experience. Sometimes I am really bothered when brothers bring little children to the masjid. I am a person who gets distracted very quickly. But at the end of the day I tell myself that they are training them to come to the masjid, back and forth, and children who grow up in the masjid are different. Even if they leave it for a while, in a while they come back, and they come back thirsty. They want to go to the masjid. Why? Because it was the first experience of their lives, the first place of comfort they used to go to, especially if there was somebody to welcome them with a warm hug and receive them with candy. Those small things leave a memory in their minds. You can meet one of them and say, "Wow, man, long time no see." "Yeah, I'm so sorry, I was busy." And he comes back with the hug he used to get a long time ago, and with a good memory. They come back thirsty for more. And even if, as an imam, you gave them a hard time learning the pronunciation of the letters and how to join the letters into a word and how to read, even if they had a hard experience with you, I do not want to say a bad one, they love to come back to you, because they have already realized the value of what you used to give them.

When the child competes with us

Sometimes, he went on, we see our children and try to avoid any connection with them, because we see them trying to compete with us in whatever we say, especially at a certain age.

By the way, we do not appreciate how smart our children are. They are watching you. The moment they look at your face they know whether you are satisfied or angry, whether you have a problem at home or at work. When they look at the two faces at home, mom and dad, they know whether we have a big problem or whether the two are only teasing one another. Sometimes a fight at home is a kind of joke, and sometimes we take a fight seriously, between me and my wife, and on the other hand it is a serious matter. Our children look at our faces and understand very fast. They have already observed our personality, and they are imitating me.

Especially the boys. He sees himself as a man in the same home. I am a man of the home, making decisions all the time, and when he reaches some limit he tries to say, "Hey, I am here," with that noise, that voice, that tone: I am here, got it? As in the example we gave last time, we have children of seven or eight years old trying to wear the same robe as their father (the transcript has "jala", probably the jalabiya), even his shoes. What are they doing? They are trying to feel that they are there. Once they reach a certain age, whatever decision you make they want to make another, a competition in the same home that creates a conflict. And once the father feels he has a conflict with his son, he starts to avoid any kind of conflict, because he does not want to cause more problems, while the child does not understand what the case is.

The story of 9:40

I still remember one time, he said, with my son. I have one son, and I ask Allah to protect him and all of our children. He asked me to let him go somewhere with his friends and said, "Baba, you know, we are going to go and come back by ten." Okay, habibi, where are you going? "Somewhere." Habibi, how far is it? How long will you spend getting there? "Just twenty minutes." Okay, habibi, it is already 9:40 and you are telling me that you will be back at ten. Does that make sense? I am just trying to find some kind of smartness here. Come on, man, are you kidding me? Are you trying to be smart with me? It is twenty minutes there, and then you will sit and place an order and eat together and finish the food and the conversation, and then another twenty minutes back. You are talking about two hours at least. I said no. He did not answer me, to be honest, but his face changed. I could see it.

I told him: okay, Baba, listen to me. When I tell you no, do not start to argue with me. I am going to open the door for discussion. Sometimes when we are deciding something together and you ask me to do something and I say no for a rational reason, you can ask why and you can tell me that it is not fair and does not make sense. But when I tell you that I do not feel good about letting you do this, do not ask me about the idea in my mind, because it is something coming from my heart. I am talking about my feeling now, and it is not related to my mind. When I say it does not make sense, we are discussing something: if you go for twenty minutes and come back, we discuss it. But when I tell you, habibi, do not do that, I am not feeling well about it, do not discuss the issue with me. He stopped talking about the issue. And when he asked me about something and I told him I was not feeling well, he stopped. But after a while he came to review it with me: "Baba, why did you feel that?"

So how are we going to build a relationship of talking and discussing the issues? How smart are we in building the relationship? This is our responsibility.

What did we do at their age?

At the same time, what did we used to do with our parents before? Am I clear with my question? When we were at their age, take advantage of this one: your father is here, so ask him this question at home, inshā’Allāh. "Baba, in my age, what did you used to do?" If we answer the question with the reality, we will find ourselves to be troublemakers. At eighteen, nineteen, twenty, what did we used to do, in a different environment, with a different mentality, in different circumstances and a different culture, matching what we were able to do at that time? We did so and so. So why are you trying to act like an angel and asking your children to be like angels? Does that mean they are free to do wrong? I am not saying that. I am saying that we need to discuss, to talk, to understand each other, to have a relationship, and to convince each other about what we need to do. Am I clear on this point? Any comment about that? We need to see what kind of blood is running in that body, because the same blood runs from here to there.

Positions at home

Now, if we assign roles at home, what is your position? Usually we used to hear from our parents: this is your elder brother, you need to respect him. What does that word mean? They were already teaching us to assign a position to each one. "Go with your sister, don't let her go alone." What does that mean? You are the protector of this girl and you must keep watching over her, not to control her but to protect her. This is your role. You are a guardian in my place, in this position or these circumstances. Now he knows his position. Are you a son or a dad? Which do you have? I am a son. You need to respect your position and respect my position at the same time. Think of the position of a parent, of a grandfather: you need to respect those positions as you need to respect your own. As much as you need me to respect your place, you have to respect my place at the same time. Got it? This is one of the solutions.

Active listening

Now, active listening: how do we build trust between us? Am I boring tonight? Are you okay? Yes, we can continue. I see everybody listening. How can we listen actively to each other?

Usually when my son comes to talk to me about any issue, I say, "Okay, Baba, what is wrong? You have so and so? Let me think about this issue," and I am still looking at something in front of me. Why am I putting that wall between me and my son? When my son comes to talk to me, I need to put this away, look at his face and listen to him. And once he sees my face, with my attention on him, he will respect the position of the parent. At that time he will respect the position, because I am giving him my full attention.

We learn this from Yaʿqūb, who listened to his son when he started to tell him his dream. He gave him his full face. He affirmed that he had a personality, a character; he was a human being speaking to him. And then Dr. Ahmed turned to a single letter in the verse (the transcript renders it "calf", which seems to be the kāf). One letter in a word of the Qur’ān, he said, gives a different meaning, and without it the dialogue could change. Yaʿqūb could simply have said, do not tell your dream, but he said, do not tell your dream to your brothers, and in that wording he made them Yūsuf’s own brothers. He showed respect for the relationship between Yūsuf and his brothers, and he started to build that relationship because he knew what would happen in the future and what the consequences would be, and what Yūsuf would receive in the end: even if for a while he would be like a victim under their authority, Allah would give him the position one day, and he would deal with his brothers from it ^[4]. I ask Allah to forgive me and you.

The best gift

Whatever distracts you from listening to your children, put it away. The Prophet Muḥammad ﷺ gave us this statement, he said, and I am trying to read the translation here: "No father has given his child a better gift than good manners." Do we need to repeat the translation? "No father has given his child a better gift than good manners." ^[5] It means: what is the best thing I can give my son? Good manners, ādāb, are the best of the best that I can give my children. What am I doing instead? I run everywhere to earn more money and bring it back to give to my children. That is not a gift. That is not the best I can give them. If I can stay with them for a few hours, instead of going to do something else, and they find me next to them one time, then I am teaching them what adab means.

Just as an example, and I ask myself first: how many of us sit with our children, open a book and read together for half an hour in a week? I am not talking about every day. Yesterday I was out of town, and someone told me: "You know what? Saturday I am off from everything except my children. I do everything with them. Everybody in my community knows that nobody calls me on that day. My phone is put aside, and it is not a work day. It is just my children, sitting, jumping, playing, watching whatever they want, and I am in between, the whole day, from the time we pray together up to the night. If they decide to go somewhere, I am the driver. If they decide to stay home, I am here with them. If they decide to grill, whatever they want, going to the park or staying at home, I am with them. And they know that if any one of them has an issue about anything, he comes to me to say, 'Baba, are you free today, or do we need to wait until Saturday? Let us talk on Saturday.'" And the child answers, "I really appreciate that, Baba. I will come back to you." But on Saturday, he said, Baba has no excuse. Baba has no excuse to avoid talking with him. His ears are not his; they are for the children. That is an example.

The shepherd, and the trust

Now we can understand together the ḥadīth of the Prophet Muḥammad ﷺ: "Every one of you is a shepherd," or we can translate it as a householder, "and every one of you will be asked" ^[6]. Whatever the translation of the word, I am going to be asked about what Allah gave me as an amānah, a trust. Imagine that Allah gave you a million dollars and somebody left it in your hand and said, "This is a trust." What would you do to protect the million dollars? Which is more valuable, the million dollars or one of the children? If his value is more than the million dollars, why are we not trying to protect them as much as we can?

Empathy before advice

One of the main things, he said, is empathy before advice. The feeling comes before the words. And I am talking about myself again. I still remember one time, long ago, talking to my son. I asked him, "What do you expect from me right now, man? What do you expect from me?" And do you know what he said? "Baba, you're going to give me another lecture." You are going to start talking to me, advising me, so and so and so, until you stop, and I am going to listen. You know what that means? He is saying, "Say whatever." He is twenty now. At that time he was around eleven or twelve, I do not remember exactly. Alḥamdulillāh, he is different now. But look at how they see us: as advisors who only talk to them and give them advice. SubḥānAllāh, they expect what you are going to say. They are waiting for the same words that you repeat. They are used to hearing the same words from you: be careful, take care, so and so. We did not start to discuss the issues.

But if we teach them how to discuss the issues with us, they can discuss the issues with other people. They can argue, they can negotiate, they can fight, they can defend themselves. Without my father's strict way of teaching me back home, I could not sit with you and talk to you right now with this respect. But with that strictness at the time, I still remember coming to my father one time and saying, "I want to do so and so." He said, "Ahmed, don't do that." "Baba, I want to do it." "Okay. Again, don't do that. The consequence is going to hurt you." "I want to do that." He said, "Okay, you can do it, but don't come back to me crying. It is up to you." And I did what I wanted to do at that time. It hurt me, and I tried to avoid seeing him for maybe two or three days, because he would see the effect on me. After a while I came to ask him, "Baba, I want to do so and so," something different. He said, "I don't recommend that." The first time he said, "Don't do it," in a serious and strict word, and I did it. The second time he said only, "I don't recommend that for you." I did not do it, because I had tried before. What is the value of his advice? And I came back with good communication. He built me up. He built my trust in myself, my self-confidence. And this is one of the main pieces of advice he used to tell me: you are not representing yourself, you are representing your family. I do not want to face people with a mistake that I did not make but my son made on my behalf. I hope I am clear in my English. Got it? He used to tell me, "You are not representing yourself, you are representing the whole family."

And we have a big family, actually. You are talking about at least a hundred people in a small area, the family back home. If any one of us makes a mistake, nobody in the whole family talks to him until we receive another decision from the elder: he is released, now you can talk to him. Imagine, he said, it is the same way as the Prophet Muḥammad ﷺ when he used to give a consequence to anybody in the community: he asked the community not to talk to that person. He was not isolating the person from the community; he was isolating the community from the person, from one person. Anyway, how can we have that empathy, that mercy? How can we feel the harmony between us, the relationship between each other? I talked a lot today ^[7].

The best time to talk to them

What is the best time to listen to them and to talk to them? He put the question to the room, and the answers came one after another. After prayer. This is good advice, he said. Do we have another from anybody? In the morning, after ṣalāh. Anytime. Anytime, after ṣalāh, in the morning. A fourth: before you go to bed, before they go to bed. Okay, these are four ideas. What else? When they are in a good mood. That is number five. What is number six? When they come asking you. When they need you, when they need money, when they need the parents: this is the best time to talk to them. But if you take advantage of that moment to start giving them advice about everything that happened before and everything that is going to come, you lose their trust. What do you need? How can I help you? And one of the keys, one of the secret, magic keys: ask them what they recommend, how they see me helping them. If they give you any advice, start doing it immediately. Do not wait. Do it directly, because we are building that trust together. How can I build trust between me and my children? If they see themselves respected in your hands, they will feel that they are there, and they will feel shy to give you a bad idea.

Let them speak

A man in the room added a point: do we let the children talk enough? Do we let them express their point of view? Especially in our society they live a kind of double life: when they go to school they have their public-school life, and when they come into the house they try to be something else. If children can express their point of view, if you ask them what happened and they can talk more, instead of us doing all the talking, that is better.

Dr. Ahmed said he really appreciated this. One of the main points, as my brother said, is that we are not giving them a chance to express themselves and give their full ideas, and sometimes we punish them before listening to them. Yes, they did something wrong, but we are evaluating the action based on my experience and not based on theirs. Now we sit with them and just talk to them and give them everything we have, because we evaluate by our experience; we want to give them all of it, but they need their chance to say something, and usually we do not give them that chance. This is another lesson from the story of Yūsuf. Yaʿqūb gave him a chance to finish what he had to say, and after he finished he started to give him advice. He took account of his character as a human being and of what he would be in the future, among the pious, it seems, and he gave him glad tidings about the future, good news, and so on.

Trust, and the love we show

Right now, he said, I just want to make sure we cover the main pillar of the relationship, which is trust. And love, if we can say there are multiple languages of love between two sides. What is the relationship? How do you see them? You love them by nature, is that right? You love your children by nature, but are you showing them that love or not? How many times do I intentionally smile when I look at them, smile and show them that I am so happy to see them?

I am just giving an example. Your son asks you, "How are you doing today, Baba? What's up, man?" And you answer, "Why are you asking? You want money?" Did you hear that? Can you say it again, loudly, please? "Why are you asking, you want money?" Are you okay with that, man? The other kind of answer, if my son asks me how I am doing today: "I am good as long as you are next to me." That is beautiful. "I am good as long as you are next to me. I will never lose my direction as long as you are next to me." At that time I am pushing that confidence into his heart, for when he stands up to talk to people. He will come with that confidence to talk to the community.

"I know how to do it"

A question came from the room: what if you are advising your son and teaching him something to do, and before you finish he says, "I know, I know how to do it"? Okay, let him try, Dr. Ahmed answered. Let him do it and put your hand with him. Do not let him lose confidence in himself, in his mind.

The brother added that at the same time the son is not giving his father the opportunity to explain, so as to persuade him. Dr. Ahmed continued: when we come to this point, he is not giving me a chance to explain to him. It means we have no common language between us. He did not use to listen to me, and I am talking to him too late. He comes at eighteen or twenty and he will never listen to me. If I have that relationship with him, I will not give him a long speech. I will ask him: what would you do if you were in my position, at this age, coming to this point? Usually I bring him and say: I have a problem and I do not know how to fix it. What is wrong with you, man? You know, so and so; what do you think about that? I have no idea; I am dealing with this one like a blind person. And he says, "You know what, we can do one, two, three." And he starts to discuss it with you. Okay, let me act like the other side: what if that happens, what are the consequences? And he starts to negotiate with you, up to the point of a fight even, and there is no problem. But we are starting to build something. In a while he will come to you to ask, "Man, what did you do with the issue you were asking about?" "I did exactly what you advised me." Oh, really? I appreciate it. And go. But still in his mind he did something good for his father. He gave good advice. He put his finger in your problem, in fixing the problems we already have. You know what I mean?

The example we set

Again, as much as you try to be a good model for him, he will act like you. Otherwise, do not be angry and ask them to be calm. Do not lie and ask them to be truthful. Do not cheat people and ask them to be honest with you. It does not make any sense. They are watching. They are listening. They are following. They know everything we have, and they already understand what is going on in the hearts of the parents.

I ask Allah to protect all of our children.

--- ^[1]: Editor's documentation: the lecturer is referring to the story of Yūsuf and Yaʿqūb in Sūrat Yūsuf, where the father advises the boy not to tell his dream to his brothers (Yūsuf 12:4-5). The verses were not recited in this session; the "special advice" is the lecturer's own summary. ^[2]: Editor's documentation: the lecturer is speaking about the two sons of Ādam in Sūrat al-Māʾidah (5:27-31). The transcript neither quotes the verses nor names the brothers; the identification is from context. That one of them did not share his father's mentality is the lecturer's own inference. ^[3]: Editor's documentation: the wording of the report is «مُرُوا أَوْلَادَكُمْ بِالصَّلَاةِ وَهُمْ أَبْنَاءُ سَبْعِ سِنِينَ، وَاضْرِبُوهُمْ عَلَيْهَا وَهُمْ أَبْنَاءُ عَشْرٍ», narrated by Abū Dāwūd and Aḥmad. The lecturer gave only the sense, and described the step at ten as "strict" without further detail. ^[4]: Editor's documentation: this passage on the single letter is badly broken in the transcript. It appears to concern the difference between "your brothers" and "my sons" or "your brother" in Yaʿqūb's words to Yūsuf (12:5); only the gist the lecturer gave is kept here, and it should be checked against the audio before publication. The word "calf" is the transcript's, and "kāf" is only the editor's guess. A further short passage in which he cites an address to the father ("Abī") could not be understood and was left out. ^[5]: Editor's documentation: the lecturer read an English translation from a screen and gave no source. The report is narrated by al-Tirmidhī in the wording «مَا نَحَلَ وَالِدٌ وَلَدًا مِنْ نَحْلٍ أَفْضَلَ مِنْ أَدَبٍ حَسَنٍ»; many scholars of ḥadīth consider its chain weak, so it should be read as a report whose attribution is disputed. ^[6]: Editor's documentation: the wording «كُلُّكُمْ رَاعٍ وَكُلُّكُمْ مَسْؤُولٌ عَنْ رَعِيَّتِهِ» is narrated by al-Bukhārī and Muslim. The lecturer gave the sense and discussed how to translate "shepherd"; the transcript breaks off after "will be asked about", so the closing words of the report are the editor's. ^[7]: Editor's documentation: the lecturer gave no case or name for the Prophet's practice of a communal boycott, and his wording is hard to follow, so this is given as he said it and not elaborated.