If you are a parent who constantly screams at your children to get their attention or to get them to listen to you, I know just the place where you can kick the habit. It's a website called screamfreemuslims.com, that comes with the tagline: Calming the Muslim World, One Relationship at a Time, and Allah Knows how much we all need that! Last week, I spoke to Olivia Kompier, the enterprising sister who is a revert to Islam, the brain behind the website and a certified Scream Free leader, who explained how she got started: “ScreamFree Parenting began as a book, written by Hal Runkel, who is a US-based licensed marriage and family therapist (LMFT). I just happened to see the book at our local bookstore, and it felt God-sent because at that time I had just had my second child, and was struggling through that phase of adjusting to having more than one child, and my daugther was adjusting to having a little brother. So I was rather frazzled, yelling at her way more than usual, feeling frustrated and helpless a lot of the time… I picked up and started reading it and I really felt like it was speaking to me, so I bought it. “I applied what I read in my home and it worked so well. Everyone felt so much more peaceful, and my daughter was so much more mellow and cooperative. It's hard to admit this for us as parents but sometimes we resent our kids, when they are being really naughty and we feel drained, we resent having to still interact with them. The principles in ScreamFree allowed me to feel peaceful, no matter what my child did or how naughty she was, so I recommended the book on a personal development forum for Muslims and my friend there loved it too (she has seven kids). She actually went on to do ScreamFree Living's training program, where you train to become a ScreamFree leader so you can teach the material in the book to others. “Eventually I did the same training too, when it came to Chicago. But to be ScreamFree you don't need to take the training. You just need to either read the book or have someone like me teach you what you need to know. And because I know most people don't have time to read, I decided to do the 6 Weeks to ScreamFree Parenting Webinar.” A webinar is basically an online seminar where participants are given a password to log into a chat-room, and with a combination of teleconference and web-tools, participants can enter an interactive space with the instructor/speaker. At present, screamfreemuslims.com is offering a 6-week webinar, beginning May 4, that will cover one ScreamFree principle in depth, along with its practical application per session, each lasting about an hour and a half. I also heard from Lama Al-Moazen, a ScreamFree leader and parent of two boys under-10, on how the technique has helped her and her children: “My biggest challenge was with my first son, since as a first-time mom, my expectations were very unrealistic. I wanted to raise the perfect child who complied with my authority as a parent because (I thought) I am the adult and I know much better with all my years of experience. Subhan Allah, I was going nowhere! I would always get angry or upset when he did not listen to me and do what I wanted him to do (for example, with regard to his clothes, food, arranging his toys etc.). He became stubborn and would not even listen at school when he was three-years-old. “I read some books and articles about parenting and attended some seminars, but the program that really changed my whole perspective about parenting was ScreamFree. It is about parents, not kids. And the most important aspect of ScreamFree was that it relates to our Islamic teaching 100 percent! As I listened to the ScreamFree concepts, I would invariably remember a Hadith (narration) or Ayah (verse) that conveyed the same idea. “You know what they say in Arabic, that a drowned person will try to hold anything to save himself – even a straw. As a struggling parent, looking for resources I remembered the words of the Prophet (peace be upon him), ‘Wisdom is available for the believer, wherever he finds it.' I believe that the most important thing to remember that parenting is all about parents, not kids, and Allah will not judge us on how our kids will turn out but how we deal with them and what sort of parents and role models we are to them.” As Muslims, we have an inspiring heritage of motherhood – some of whose names we know and remember, like Asma Bint Abu Bakr, Umm Sulaym, Al-Khansa (may Allah be pleased with them) – and others whose names we may not know, like the mothers of Sufyan Ath-Thawri, Imam Ahmad Bin Hanbal and Imam Al-Bukhari – who raised their children to be outstanding leaders, without the plentiful resources and opportunities that are available to us today. It's time to revive that tradition, overcome the ennui and do our bit for the Ummah (Muslim nation) – one relationship at a time.
