Spoiling Our Children Like Plants?

SPOILING OUR CHILDREN LIKE PLANTS?

CAN THEY WITHSTAND THE ‘STORM’?

There were two neighbours living next to each other. One of them was a retired teacher & another was a sales agent who had a lot of interest in technology. Both of them had planted the same plants in their (respective) gardens. The retired teacher was giving a small amount of water to his plants & didn’t always give a full attention to them, while the other neighbour interested in technology, had given a lot of water to his plants & looked after them too well.

The retired teacher’s plants were simple but looked good. The sales agent’s plants were much fuller & greener. Once, during the night, there was heavy rain & wind due to a minor storm.

Next morning, both of the neighbours came out to inspect the damage to their garden. The neighbour who was a sales agent saw that his plants came off from the roots & were totally destroyed. But, the retired teacher’s plants were not damaged at all & were standing firm.

The sales agent was surprised to see this, he went to the retired teacher & asked, “We both grew the same plants together, I actually looked after my plants better than u did for yours, & even gave them more water. Still, my plants came off from the roots, while yours didn’t. How is that possible?”

The retired teacher smiled & said, “You gave your plants too much attention & too much water, & because of that they didn’t need to work themselves for growing. You made it easy for them. While I gave them just an adequate amount of water & let their roots search for more. And, because of that, their roots went deeper & that made their position stronger. That is why my plants survived”.

Moral:
This story is about parenting where children are like plants. If everything is given to them, they will not understand the hard work it takes to earn those things. They will not learn to work themselves & respect (appreciate) it. Sometimes it’s best to guide them instead of giving them.
Teach them how to walk, but let them follow the path.

May Allaah Almighty Subhaanahu wa Taa’la forgive us. WE the parents are spoiling our children with gadgets & designer clothing & they are having an easy ride. We need to be careful with their upbringing & try our best to make them strong & ready to face the challenges of the society.

Let this story be a lesson for us adults too.
We can’t expect to weather the storms of life if we only take care of the exterior.

We feed ourselves well, wear beautiful clothes , buy ourselves adornments & luxuries & on the exterior we are looking really great. But then a little difficulty comes our way, our comfort zone is threatened & then our whole life becomes a major catastrophe.

The reason being that we failed to live moderately ,and showered too much care & attention on our outer selves neglecting the more important part-our heart & soul. In order to thrive, to rise up stronger & better each time we are knocked down , we need to give our body, heart & mind the correct dosages of its own requirements. In the Sunnah of Rasulullah sallallaahu alayhi wasallam we find the blueprint to success.