A New Game!

 

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Eid Mubarak

From our family to yours, Eid Mubarak. May Allah accept your fasts and good deeds, ameen.

Eid Mubarak

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“I Turned My Daughter into a Genius by Just Turning the TV Off!”

A very interesting article…

I turned my daughter into a genius… just by switching off the TV!

By Maggie Alderson

When I first heard a few years back that Madonna didn’t let her children watch television, I thought she was a pretentious hypocrite. I’ve always been convinced watching telly as a child was a great boost to my education. Who could forget The Story Of Coffee, as portrayed on Blue Peter?

And my entire knowledge of the Tudors comes from Keith Michell’s Seventies portrayal of Henry VIII. . . So when I had my daughter Peggy eight years ago, I was thrilled to let her enjoy the brave new world of 12-hoursa- day, on-tap, quality children’s TV.

Remembering all too well the long, dull, Sixties Sunday afternoons of my childhood, when you were lucky to find a western or a Czechoslovakian ‘animation’ (which I soon found out had nothing to do with Tom and Jerry and everything to do with Communist grimness) to break the tedium, I was delighted for her.

On top of that, she has the miracle of DVDs, which means you can watch the entire Disney canon over one wet weekend, rather than wait years for a scratchy print of 101 Dalmatians to come back to your local fleapit for a school holidays airing. As the only child of older parents (we were in our mid-40s when we had her), I felt Peggy needed telly for company.

The Teletubbies were her virtual siblings. And I needed her to have telly so I could stay sane. . . She’s never been a good sleeper and from the age of one, after several wakings in the night, she’d be up at five and ready for action. It seems I wasn’t the only one. This month, research showed that children in Britain sit in front of a TV or computer screen for four-and-a-half hours a day – with approximately two hours 40 minutes of that watching programmes.

The report by research firm ChildWise showed that screens are increasingly turning into electronic babysitters. I must confess I used to drag a duvet to the playroom, put on a DVD and snatch life-saving, 30-second serial naps, while she happily watched.

Any sleep was better than no sleep and if she was watching programmes the BBC had specially designed for babies, that had to be good, didn’t it? Well, no.

But I didn’t know that until I read two years ago that the Australian government was formally advising that children under two should be banned from watching any television – and from two to five should only watch one hour a day.

By then Peggy was well into her school career.

But while the news from Down Under scared the living daylights out of me, I didn’t make the connection between the fact she wasn’t doing brilliantly academically and my early TV exposure policy.

‘I have to make time to play games with her, when I confess in the past I might have nipped upstairs to mess around on Twitter while she gawked at Take Me Out’

For the first three years, we put her lacklustre school results down to the fact that she is the second youngest child in her year, compounded by an unfortunate Year 2 when she had five different form teachers over the school year.

We had our hopes pinned on Year 3, when she would be seven and have a particularly good teacher whom she adored. But when her report came in at the end of last summer, the results were awful again.

She was in the lowest reading group, her spelling was terrible and she rarely finished work. We were gutted – and mystified. I know every parent thinks their child is marvellous, but Peggy’s definitely not thick. She’s as bright as a button to be around, very funny and has a pretty amazing vocabulary.

The problem was, we realised, that she just can’t settle to anything. It was when my sister gave her a cross-stitch kit in the summer holidays and Peggy lost interest before we even had it properly out of the box that the penny dropped.

She has an attention deficit issue. My baby! Once I realised what the problem was, a lot of things fell into place. All the times she’d had friends over and we’d started some kind of craft project, which they’d happily finished, but she had abandoned in favour of doing cartwheels, playing the piano in three-minutes bursts, or just running round and round the table. It also explained why, to her novelist mother’s great sadness, she had never read a book to the end. I turned to Google and there it all was.

All the evidence about the effect of too much TV on children’s development. A 2004 study by the American Academy of Paediatrics spelled it out. ‘Early television exposure is associated with attention problems at age seven.’ There it was, on my computer screen, from the highest authority. Watching too much telly when she was little had fried my darling girl’s brain.

Then someone gave me the amazing book The Brain That Changes Itself, by Canadian doctor Norman Doidge.

It explores the concept of ‘neuroplasticity’, which suggests the brain is capable of constant change. Dr Doidge gave me hope that I might unfry Peggy’s brain, if I could rein back the TV even now. But how to do it, without it seeming like a punishment?

After asking around other parents, I was surprised to find how many of them already had TV controls in place. One family had given up television entirely. They had a set to watch DVDs on together and that was it. Incidentally, this is also Madonna’s system.

For others, it was only after 5pm or one hour of screen time a day, either telly, video game, or computer. I started cutting back in the Christmas holidays. Over about four weeks, we got her telly watching down to an hour at night, plus the occasional DVD watched together.

I discussed it with her and was surprised how willing she was to give it a try, although it has taken effort and commitment on my part. I have to make time to play games with her, when I confess in the past I might have nipped upstairs to mess around on Twitter while she gawked at Take Me Out. And do you know what? It’s great fun.

We cook together, we play board games, do jigsaws, and the whole family is addicted to a brilliant (Mensaapproved) card game called Rat-a-Tat Cat. In fact it reminds me of that winter in the Seventies of nightly powercuts and the whole family playing cards by the light of a paraffin lamp – a time I remember as one of the happiest of my life. Oh – and she’s reading books. On her own. To the end.

Then there’s really amazing news. She’d been back at school for only a couple of weeks after Christmas when her PE teacher came up to me and said: ‘I don’t know what you’ve done to Peggy, but she’s a different girl. She was fantastic in netball today, no fooling around at all.’ The next day I had the same report from her drama teacher and then, last Friday, the big one: her form teacher literally chased after me in the school corridor.

‘Peggy’s a different girl!’ she exclaimed. ‘She’s getting on with her work so well. I’m going to put her up a reading group. I don’t know what you’ve done, but it’s working.’

And to think all it had taken was the flick of a switch – the off button on our TV!

Original article can be found here.

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Husbands and Fathers (and Wives and Mothers) please read, and teach your children!

Such a beautiful, and profound Hadith that is ignored by so many today:

Aishah (radiyAllahu’anha):

“The Messenger of Allah (ﷺ) never ever struck a servant or a woman”

(Sunan Abu Dawood 4786)

May ALLAH guide us all, Ameen.

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Salam and Sorry from Abu Maryam

Dear Brothers and Sisters, Followers, and Readers of Pearls of Jannah:

As-Salamu’alaikum wa RahmatULLAHi Wa Barakatuh.

I want to express my sincerest apologies to everyone for the unusually long delay in posting here. I have been extremely busy at my job and my wife has been busy with homeschooling, as well as continuing to look after her ongoing health issues.

That being said, we want everyone to know that your loyalty means a lot to us, and we will continue to post and provide content to our site, in an effort to help Muslim families who are looking to homeschool their children, or supplement their children’s education with material that we provide. It is my intention InshaALLAH to post once a week, and it is my du’a that I am able to maintain this on a consistent basis. If for some reason there is a delay that is inevitable, I will also do my best to give everyone advanced notice so as to not mislead anyone.

We continue to homeschool our children on a daily basis, and our commitment to this approach to educating our children has not changed in the least. Seeing how we have sheltered our children from the tremendous amount of haram that children are exposed to on a daily basis, unsupervised in public schools has only re-enforced our feelings towards this path. By no means is homeschooling simple or easy. It requires a tremendous amount of sacrifice, resources, time, and commitment from the parents. However, it is not impossible, and the rewards that one sees after making this investment is priceless. It is not an ideal or flawless method, as there definitely are compromises that we as parents must make. However, we must all recognize that there will be compromises to be made with every approach. The question then becomes which compromises are you willing to make and accept? For us, and for many families, the compromises that we must make by sending children to public schools are too much, which is why homeschooling gave us the best alternative that we could provide, given our limited resources. AlhamduLILLAH, we are quite happy with the results so far, and we hope to keep moving in this direction.

We encourage everyone to please continue to visit our site, and send us any questions, or comments you may have.

On behalf of my wife and myself, I want to once again apologize for taking so long to post, and thank everyone for their loyalty, and support.

May ALLAH protect you and your families, and have Mercy on all of you, Ameen.

Take care.
Was-Salamu’alaikum
Abu Maryam

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Blind 7 year old child is a Hafidh…What’s your excuse?

As-Salamu’alaikum:

“The month of Ramadan in which was revealed the Qur’an…” 2:185

This heart-warming video is a must watch for everyone, and hopefully it serves as a motivation for us to make that extra effort to learn, and memorize the Qur’an.  Please show your children this video, as it will hopefully inspire them as well.  May ALLAH Bless this child, and his parents, Ameen.

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A Belated Ramadan Mubarak to Everyone!

As-Salamu’alaikum, and Ramadan Mubarak to all friend and followers of this blog!

I want to apologize for the very long delay in posting here, but as my wife continues to deal with her health issues, I AlhamduLILLAH found a new job which has taken up quite a bit of my time.  As a result, I haven’t had the opportunity to post as I did before.  Now that my job is stabilizing, I hope InshaALLAH to begin posting regularly once more.

Please forgive us for the delay, we absolutely appreciate the continued support from our community, and hope InshaALLAH to provide quality content on a regular basis.

May ALLAH accept all of our fasts, our deeds, and our ‘ibadah during this Blessed month of Ramadan, Ameen.

Take care.
Was-Salamu’alaikum

Abu Maryam

 

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Free Math Worksheets

Dollar Billy AlexanderAs salaamu alaykum,

As homeschoolers, we learn how expensive home education can be. However, teaching one’s children does not have to break the bank. I know of some homeschool parents who only purchase the newest and the best materials, while others provide a full, enriching education at no cost. Most of us fall somewhere in between, opting for reasonable cost and supplementing with free resources.

For those who are interested in free math resources, Math Worksheets Land is run by a retired math teacher who also homeschools two of her grandchildren. You can go directly to the site or check out her Facebook page. I love it when the homeschool community comes together in order to provide quality free resources!

 

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Very Nice Ipad Apps

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Are Men really from Mars and Women from Venus?

As-Salamu’alaikum:

We are either married, or aspire to be. In any case, the challenge of getting to know who our (future) spouse really is, what they want, and how to deal with them is something that is debated, discussed, (and joked about) constantly. AlhamduLILLAH, we have the Messenger of ALLAH SAW as a guide in every aspect of our lives, and through His Sunnah, do we learn how the best of ALL creation was, how he treated his wives, and what he instructed the men and women of this Ummah to treat their respective spouses. Our noble brother, Sheikh Yasir Qadhi has been kind enough to do a series entitled, “Like A Garment” where he discusses the nature of men and women, and gives advice to each side how to behave, and how to treat the other. The naseehah he gives is excellent, and Sheikh Yasir gives insight that many of us will InshaALLAH appreciate, and benefit from. May ALLAH reward Sheikh Yasir, have Mercy on his family, and make a path to Jannah easy for him, Ameen. The video series can be found here.

May ALLAH strengthen our relationships with our (future) spouses, and make us better Muslims, Ameen.

Take care.
Was-Salamu’alaikum
Abu Maryam

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