The Intelligent Child

In the early years of the Prophet Muhammad (Peace be upon him) and when he was only 7 years old, his grandfather, Abdul-Mutalib, used to like to sit near the Ka’aba and there would be a special couch spread out for him every day in the shadow of the Ka’aba. None of Abdul-Mutalib’s sons would dare to sit on this couch, but Muhammad (Peace be upon him) used to sit on it. When his uncles rebuked him and told him to sit elsewhere, his grandfather would say: “Let my son be. For by God, a great future is his”. Furthermore, Abdul-Mutalib even took Muhammad (Peace be upon him) with him when he went to meet the Chieftains of Quraish where various discussions took place, and the eighty year old man would never refrain from asking his seven year old grandson his opinion on some of the discussions.

The above relates a very powerful and important educational and upbringing technique that parents should adopt with their children. Unfortunately, we tend to leave our children to their games and playrooms and never consider accompanying them to attend “big people stuff”. Abdul-Mutalib, although unaware that his grandson would be a Prophet, but sensed his grandson’s speciality and treated him according to his intuition.

Imagine if we start to treat our children like that, how many leaders would we create? How many productive personalities would we develop? And don’t think children don’t understand, they understand and subhanaAllah they are extremely clever. And some of these “grown up” events has deep positive marks in the child’s upbringing that he/she would forever be indebted to his/her parents for accompanying them and considering them for such events