Diary of a Matchmaker

The 2nd Most Important Talk to Have Before Marriage w/ Maysaa Fahour

• Halal Match • Episode 80

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Most single people think parenting is a future problem, something to worry about after having children. But the truth is, the way you’ll handle kids one day is already showing up in how you argue, apologize, or deal with stress today. The problem isn’t the kids, it’s us. How we handle emotions, set boundaries, and respond to conflict often reflects patterns from our own upbringing.

On this episode we’re hosting parenting coach Maysaa Fahour to explore why learning about parenting early makes all the difference. It’s not about kids yet, it’s about understanding yourself, spotting your patterns, and seeing how you might show up as a spouse. Press play to explore parenting as a mirror for who you are and who you’ll become.

Connect with Coach Maysaa:

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Email: maysaa.fahour@coacheq.com.au

If something we said made you think, laugh, or feel seen, leave us a rating and review! It helps more people find the show. And hey, if you know someone who needs to hear this episode, send it their way. Sharing is caring!


SPEAKER_04:

Assalamu alaikum. I'm Hiba.

SPEAKER_00:

And I'm Zayd.

SPEAKER_04:

You're listening to Diary of a Matchmaker.

SPEAKER_00:

A podcast that will take you into our world as matchmakers.

SPEAKER_04:

We'll share our experiences and offer advice for the single Muslim.

SPEAKER_00:

So let's dive in.

SPEAKER_01:

Assalamu alaikum, everyone. Welcome to another episode of Diary of the Matchmaker. I'm Zayd, and on the other mic is my wife and co-host Hiba.

SPEAKER_04:

Assalamu alaikum.

SPEAKER_01:

So today we're honored to have a guest, uh, Miss Mesa Fahor, who is a licensed parenting coach with a certification in behavioral cognitive therapy. She is also a mother of four with over 20 years of experience helping families navigate the often messy but beautiful reality of raising children. Mesa combines research-backed tools with practical, real life strategies that actually work, especially for strong-willed children. Through her workshops, courses, and popular online presence, she has transformed the lives of thousands of parents. We have also been uh people that have been following and learning a lot from her Instagram channel. Uh, Mesa believes that parenting isn't just about perfection, but it's about presence, repair, and raising emotionally safe humans. Uh, so thank you for coming on to the podcast.

SPEAKER_02:

Thank you. Assalamu alaikum, everyone, and hello to you, Hiba and Zaid.

SPEAKER_03:

Alaikum salam. I can't believe we're interviewing you. You we've been following you for the longest time. Amazing.

SPEAKER_02:

I'm so happy to be here on different time zones.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah, subhanAllah.

SPEAKER_03:

And for you, uh, our dear listeners, before you tune out and say think, I'm still single, I have nothing to do with parenting. Wait, wait, and you will see.

SPEAKER_01:

So you had an interesting aha moment as a parent that came about 10 years ago. You were frustrated with your children, you were raising your voice, you were telling them, you know, why don't you listen to me? And your 10-year-old at the time, who happens to be a strong-willed child, looked at you straight in the eyes and said, You always say I don't listen, but you're not listening either. So you stopped and you said, What? And he said, You talk a lot, but you don't hear me. And it hit you hard because he was right. You were so focused on teaching that you weren't really hearing him. And that was a moment that changed how you parent because you realize connection has to come before correction. And you started listening more and lecturing less, and then everything shifted between you and your child. Anything else you can share about that moment that uh transformed your journey as a parent?

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, so I I definitely remember that moment. It was about 12 years ago now. So that particular child is now 20. So him and I can definitely have, you know, a deeper conversation about that now that he's an adult. But when I look back at, you know, 20-year-old Mesa, you know, first becoming a mum and even, you know, looking for marriage and getting into sort of that um role of becoming a wife and a mum, I don't think I was equipped. I don't think that I was um quizzed enough or taught enough. Um, we need licenses to get a car, we need, you know, certification to do any role in the world. But when it comes to marriage, when it comes to becoming a parent, we're kind of like try your best and here you go. And I believe that the thing that came out from that moment now, when I reflect back, is I just didn't know how to be confident within myself. And so what ended up happening is a lot of control into trying to control these little humans around me.

SPEAKER_01:

That's that's interesting you brought that up because it ties into something that we are big proponents of, and that's a hot topic, which is premarital training, preparing people to get ready for marriage. But you're also talking about like pre-parenting training, essentially, and and teaching people the basic tools for parenting, which segues into my first question, which is do you feel that there's not enough of those courses out there available for parents or for you know newlyweds that are looking to become parents, or people just thinking the same way that you kind of thought about parenting, which is it'll just come over time?

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, I would I would go as far as to say um that it should be compulsory for all people going into a relationship, deciding to get married. Let's put having children aside, but just entering a full-time relationship, looking for marriage, especially in our culture and our religion, that you must learn about your inner child, you must learn about attachment theory, you must learn about the ego. I think these three topics must be compulsory for man and woman, because it's these three that form the foundation of why we are the way we are, why some people, generally men, avoid hard topics, and why some people, generally women, tend to nag about wanting something done or want to talk about something. And so we fall into this societal norm of calling the man, oh, he's just emotionless, and calling the woman, oh, she's a complainer or a nag. And so we put these two labels and that's it, we're done. But I'm proposing that we go deeper than that. Why? Why is the man or that person that is avoiding, why are they avoiding? And why is this person who's anxious, who's nagging, acting that way? And it almost always stems from your childhood. And this is why it's so important for you to learn about who you are so that you don't continue the cycle into your marriage because you will continue it. It's the only thing that you know how. And something that I learned very early on is they say a familiar hell is better than an unfamiliar heaven, meaning that when our nervous system comes across something that's a new, we don't want that. We want to continue doing our patterns that we've always done because this is what we find safe.

SPEAKER_04:

Okay, so you're saying that our childhood experiences, we bring them up with us and like raising our children. So, in your experience, like, can you give examples, I don't know, of uh a trauma that was lingering in a parent's life and he or she brought it with like with them in the raising of the children?

SPEAKER_02:

Oh, where do I start? I mean, every single thing is based on that. Um, I have coached thousands, but I'll start first closer to home myself. So essentially I grew up as a obedient, good girl, followed the rules, didn't really ruffle a lot of feathers. Um, and then I had a child who questioned everything, who found a loophole in every single rule, who would call me from school and say, But mum, the school handbook says you, you know, you can get your phone taken off you if they see the phone, but my phone's in my pocket and nobody can actually see it. And I was like, why are you like this? Just don't use the phone. And so what was happening is I was projecting my just stick to the rules and absolutely ignoring this child's reality. And so I'll jump a little bit here, and this is where a lot of people misunderstand me and think that I'm teaching them to say, Oh, sweetheart, that must be so hard for you. No, I do not swing to that, but what I do, and I've practiced this for two decades now, is I don't bring myself, my problems, into this particular problem that my child is dealing with. And so it's this differentiation between me as a person and what I went through as a child, and now there is a different human that Allah has blessed me with, and they are their own human. And for some reason, Allah has made this particular child just see loopholes, guys, in every rule. He says rules like guidelines. He's like, really? They said five o'clock, 5.30 is fine. Whereas I'm like, five o'clock means 4.55 kind of person. And no one is right, no one is wrong, there's just a healthy or unhealthy way. And so these are how parents start to struggle. But I'm gonna go one step more and suggest that it's not just parenting, it's literally at the start of a relationship. You see, before any parent talks to me about parenting, I'm like, let's talk about the relationship first.

SPEAKER_01:

It kind of reminds me of what we talk about in our workshops. So we talk a lot about compatibility assessment, how to assess compatibility. And what people sometimes fail to realize is that it begins with you first, not the other person. And parenting, based on what you're saying, feels like the same way. It doesn't begin with the child, it begins with you. It begins with understanding who you are, what triggers you, what doesn't trigger you, your expectations, and then you can begin that journey, right? So, going along that line, what would be some of the first questions to ask a single person or a single person should be asking a potential spouse about kids before marriage?

SPEAKER_02:

So I think um just quickly reminding those that are listening today, um, trigger, this word trigger comes up a lot now. It's one of those hot topics. And I just want to remind every human out there that's listening to this that your child or your partner didn't create that trigger. You know, the trigger was already there. So I want I want to use a bit of an analogy. Just imagine I have a bruise here underneath my jacket, you guys can't see it, and say Hiba walked past and accidentally fell on me or pushed my arm, and I'm gonna say, ouch, she's not gonna know I've got the bruise, but I'm going to be hurt from it. That is exactly what happens in all relationships. There is a trigger there, for example, mess, noise, um, you know, answering back. I've got parents who are triggered by just their child saying no, saying the word no. I've got parents that literally just lose their minds because they can't handle hearing no. And what does that tell me? That tells me that there are a variety of reasons that that could be. But the most common one is that they were not given flexibility in their childhood, and they were, you know, brought up in quite a strict regimented household. And so here they are now having this child say no to them again, very strictly regimented. And so the parent just, you know, closes up. That's a trigger. So you don't want to go into a relationship becoming a psychologist and being like, tell me about your triggers. I wouldn't recommend that. But I think what's super important is to understand and learn about your future prospects love language. You really want to understand um, you know, what really kind of um made them happy when they were young. I love to hear about adults telling me about what brought them joy as a child. And a lot of adults struggle with this. And when I push parents a little bit more, a little bit more, and they'll be like, yeah, I really enjoyed colouring in, you know, on a Saturday morning, or I enjoyed riding my bike. And so get to know your future partner's joys as a little kid. Get to know what they found difficult as a kid. Um, get to know about their value system. There is so um many quizzes out there, you can do it together or separately. Knowing your values is understanding your flavor, your style of personality. So we all as humans value honesty, for example. I mean, there's not many people that will say, no, I don't mind someone that lies to me. I don't think we'll find many people that say that. But for some people, honesty comes really high up on their priority list. And so they will take it very offensively if you, you know, don't tell the full story straight off the bat. Um, so value system, what they loved, what they enjoyed as a kid, um, their love language. I love to know about um people's love languages.

SPEAKER_04:

Okay, well, is it like a single Muslim right now listening is thinking like, all I care about right now is just getting married, finding someone, it's already hard enough. Do I really have to think about parenting? So, how actually important is parenting compatibility? Like, can two people who have completely different parenting philosophies actually get married and have children?

SPEAKER_02:

The short answer is yes, because children only need one emotionally stable adult or caregiver to become emotionally stable themselves. SubhanAllah. So the ideal situation obviously is two parents. I worked once with a parent, um, a young gentleman who was raised by two parents who were unstable, but he had an amazing taekwondo coach that was with him for 13 plus years, and this particular coach guided him and he credits that. So humans need at least one adult that believes in them, that trusts them, that gives them. But for the sake of just simplicity for this podcast, my answer to you is you know, two people getting married with opposite parenting styles does not mean the end of a relationship. However, it does make it tricky. If you have two people on the opposite ends of the spectrum, we've got a permissive and we've got a strict, then you're going to find clashes. Of course you are. It's like even in a workplace environment, in any relationship. So if you're about to get married or you're single and you've met somebody who seems to be super strict on the discipline punishment side, just prepare yourself that there's going to be differences and clashes. And it's not going to be a walk in the park. It will require you to help your partner either, you know, become less stressed about the punishments itself.

SPEAKER_04:

Okay. So what are the parenting styles out there? We you said permissive, strict, and what else?

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, so there's permissive. Um, the full term for strict is um authoritarian. And then there is um let's say um laissez faire, like that kind of um, you know, almost on the same path hierarchy as a child. And then there's something that I call emotionally intelligent parenting. So it's this fourth um category that I really strive for parents to aim for. Um, Dr. Shafali calls it conscious parenting. There's all these words for it. Gentle parenting also has got a negative connotation with it, because unfortunately, people think gentle means weak. However, this particular style of parenting is about you being the mature adult and you being present in the moment. So this requires a skill for when your child is having a tantrum because they want the blue cup, not the red cup. It requires a skill for the adult to remain an adult. And I know you you both can think of a situation where I can think of tennis players who've lost it. I can think of adults in road rage, right? So I'm not talking about parenting only. Adults require practice to hold their emotions, not forget them, not dismiss them, but control. And this is a skill set, guys, that I don't think we're taught enough about. Control your emotion, but not meaning yes, walk all over me.

SPEAKER_01:

Okay. I'm glad you mentioned meltdowns. Uh I actually work at a childcare center, so I work with infants, toddlers, and preschoolers. It's a Montessori school. So I'm a CASA trained teacher, so I see a lot of what you're talking about, but I love the I love to talk a little bit about meltdowns. And so a child, for example, wanted the blue cup, but the child got the red cup, and they are just losing it. What as an educator or parent um should they be doing in that moment?

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, I love this question because it actually allows me to talk more about thinking of the situation like you've got options. Okay. And so it requires you as the adult to decide which option am I going to take. So we're going to take your example. Can you get the red cup? Is it possible you've given the blue cup, but there is a red cup and it's like a meter away. Is it gonna break the bank to get the red cup? If you can, go get the red cup and hand it to the child with joy. Okay, mate, no worries, here you go. In full Aussie um dialect there, and give them the red cup. Let's say you can't give the red cup for whatever reason. It's in the dishwasher, there is no red cup, somebody else has got the red cup, red cup is not available. So then you are required now to make a secondary decision. What can you do to help the child through this moment? For us as adults, we're like, are you kidding me? It's just a red cup. Because we have got a mature brain, inshallah, and we know that this is a very small problem compared to what we know in life experience. But for your three, four-year-old Montessori kids' aid, that is the end of the world for them because they don't have life experience. So our role is to kind of go, hey, I'm really sorry that you can't have the red cup, but I would love, and here is where I would insert something to help them through it. But I would love to sit with you and I'll drink out of the blue cup too, and you drink out of a blue cup. Or I would love for you to wait five minutes and I can get you the red cup. Or, um, you know, do you want to get the green cup? Do you want to pour your own juice in the cup? We want to help the child through that moment, not because we're spoiling them, but because it's a fundamental aspect of human nature to help somebody through a hard time. If I've entered a nurse's office to get my blood taken for a blood test, and I'm looking a little bit uneasy. Generally speaking, the nurse isn't going to say, now, Mesa, come on, you're 42 years old, just look at the needle, look at the blood coming out. They don't do that. What do nurses do? They're like, Oh, look at the painting. How was your day? Oh, it's okay. And I'm a grown adult. But for some reason, when it comes to children, we're kind of like, Yella, come on, it's just a blue cup, it's not a big deal. And so, Zaid, like in summary, what do I do in this situation? I ask parents to look at the options they have in front of them and retain that maturity.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah, just a question, honestly. It might be a little bit of a harsh question. So in my life, I came across a lot of kids who were ruined because of the way they were brought up. And I think to myself, as harsh as it might sound, some people shouldn't have children. Do you come across situations like this? Like children who whose lives were ruined and who grew up to be like, I don't know how to say bad adults, like in a more polite way. Do you come across these situations?

SPEAKER_02:

Absolutely. I believe that we mentioned earlier, I believe you have to pass certain tests to get a license. I really do believe that with parenting. I believe that some people just don't have enough maturity to become parents, and I witnessed that. Unfortunately, that child becomes an adult, and then it becomes that adult's responsibility to go to therapy, to not continue the cycles. It's very hard work. And, you know, this is a strong reminder also for those listening that entitlement doesn't just happen overnight. You don't just wake up and become a ruined child. Okay, I'm gonna go into some really deep things here, but no child wakes up and is suddenly spoiled. No child wakes up and suddenly decides they don't want to be here anymore. You know, these really deep things, no one wakes up and says, I don't, I want to, you know, treat my parents badly, I don't want to stay in the religion, I want to hurt my brother. I all of these really big topics, no child wakes up just suddenly one day and does that. There is a build-up, guys. It is a build-up. There is evidence, there are hints, no human gives no hint. Everybody gives a hint. And eventually, after X amount of hints, the child reacts. Now, obviously, the younger the child, the faster the reaction, hence why they'll, you know, swipe the cup away quickly. But your 15-year-old who is locking themselves in the room because they don't want to come out, that didn't happen overnight. You have to check in on what's going on for this kid. Entitlement only happens, a spoilt kid only happens when you do not teach a child to handle frustrating situations. That's the only way entitlement happens. But not just once. So I've got a lot of parents that are like, oh my God, I did this on Saturday. No, the key here is consistency, sorry, is intensity and frequency. So how often are you saving the child? How often are you doing it? Are you doing it every time? Oh, my eight, I've got a 17-year-old daughter. She doesn't get invited to somebody's birthday party, for example. Do I every single time say to her, you know what? Don't worry about them. It wasn't even that gonna be that good anyway. You know, what am I doing to help her through that really frustrating moment? She gets a a D on her essay. What am I doing? Am I always telling her, no, you're the best, you're the smartest? That's how we raise entitled children. It doesn't just happen overnight. And so when your child is going through a tough moment, it's a fine balance between resilience and helping them. And so, same goes for us, for us adults. So I know that, you know, I don't want to just focus on parenting. For those single, you know, single people out there or entering a relationship of some sort. I want to ask you, how do you deal with hardships? What do you do when you get rejected? Because that is most likely how you're going to handle it with your kid.

SPEAKER_04:

Beautiful, beautiful. So, from that question, this reminds me of another question that was on the list of questions. What are some red flags that a person can see in a prospective match in terms of just the conversations or like the way they react to anything that can tell them a lot about their future parenting style?

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, this question made me smile a bit because I ended up writing and listing down basically everything I heard in the 80s. Um I don't know how old you guys are, but I was like, wow, our parents really did try their best. Um, God bless them. But things like uh children are to be seen, not heard, red flag. Um things like uh my parents hit me and I turned out fine. Red flag. Um, I'll never let my child cry. Red flag. Um, you know, mothers should insert rule, stay at home with the child, or fathers should insert rule. All of these are red flags because they show rigidity. So what we want in a partnership is we don't want any shoulds, okay, other than health, safety, and legality. Of course, these are non-negotiables, these are common sense. Whoever's listening to this, please use your common sense here. But everything else comes under flexibility, comes under the idea of um reacting and like understanding the life that is going to happen isn't going to be straightforward. And yes, sometimes children do need to sit still and listen, but to put it as a general rule, that's just unfair.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, so that brings me to another point, which is um schooling. That's usually a hot topic. You know, what you want to know as you're speaking to a potential spouse their approach. And usually it's a very binary conversation, whether it's whether it's homeschooling or public or private school. So, how should a couple navigate this conversation before marriage? And is there more to it that they're missing?

SPEAKER_02:

This is a really good question because I reflect on my own experiences. So my children have been to 14 different schools. I think I have covered a lot of life journey in this, and I also have worked with so many kids and parents from different kinds of walks of life, and I can say this very rarely does a child need to change schools. Very rarely. If a child is having a problem at a school, I would say it would be one out of 100 parents that needs to change the school. Because yes, sometimes the child needs a new start. I agree with that. But when you're sitting with your partner, or if you want to think about this to yourself, if you're not married yet, you want to really ask yourself, not like where will the child study, but what am I hoping? What kind of learner do I want my child to become? What am I hoping that they're going to, how am I hoping that they're going to learn? What do I want to drive in them? And so for me, the most important part is environment. So friendship plays the biggest role in a child's life. Research has shown that environment plays the biggest role. So you really want to be mindful of the environment you're going into and the idea that schools and teachers can only do so much. I was a teacher for many years, and I'm just here to remind people that teachers are human. We have 25 odds or so students. Um, it's a tough job, it's underpaid and undervalued, and teachers can only get a child to a certain spot, and then it's the parent that plays the biggest role of all. Um, so the conversation is more about what do I want my child, you know, to become, who do I want them to become more than grades itself.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah. So is there a third option besides homeschooling or private public school?

SPEAKER_02:

I mean, no. I think that um there are there are a few programs that I've heard that kind of do a bit of both. I know that um here in Dubai we've got some programs or you can go into a school kind of setting part-time, but then also work at home. Um, essentially look at yourself. Look at yourself. Can you handle homeschooling? Are you that type of person? How's your scheduling? How's your organization? What are the ages of the children that you have? What are you trying to do? If you're trying to shelter your child from topics that you don't want to deal with, then that's a very, very deep thing that you will have to work on because eventually that kid will grow up and want to know about that topic, that stereotype that you don't want them to know about.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah, yeah, yeah. You you mentioned uh when you were talking about red flags, one of the red flags is um statements like the mother should always ta-ta-ta, or the father should always ta-ta-ta. Um what about like gender roles? Is there are there like fixed gender roles when it comes to parenting, or is it more of a flexible matter?

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, so this question has always played on my mind. I've got three boys and one girl, and I always like to think of the way I parent them is based on their personality more than their gender. So I often get questions like, oh, it's harder raising girls than boys, isn't it? And I don't agree with that. I mean, sometimes by coincidence it might be, but it's got to do with character. Because you can have a strong-willed, determined, break the rule kind of girl, and you can have an easy-going, obedient boy. And vice versa. So you want to look at the child you have in front of you. What kind of child do you have in front of you? Do you have somebody that is open to listening? Are they going to follow the crowd? Are they going to not think for themselves? Because even though I touch a lot on the strong-willed child's, um, we can call them challenges or negatives, the strong-willed child will never bow down to peer pressure. So, hand on heart, I can easily say when my son, you know, would go out, he didn't do anything that he didn't want to do. Whereas I've got another child, for example, same gender, they will do something they don't want to do to follow. And so what's important with gender roles is to ask, um, you know, like, who we who is this child in front of me? What do I need to help them with? Not just, oh, they're a girl, so I need to teach them modesty. That topic is for both genders.

SPEAKER_04:

Yes, yes, yes. I'm glad you mentioned that. What about gender roles when it comes to the mother and father?

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. So this is this is something that I mean, we're evolving, right? We're we're starting to, you know, enter different um seasons in our life. And I don't really want to say that, oh, everything should be just flexible. Again, I always come back down to what's working, what's not working for you, more than you are the mum, therefore, right? Or you are the dad, therefore. We really want to maintain the level of reality. So if it works that the mum or the woman stays at home with the child because it works, then you can do that. But for some women, so many women I work with, they are a better mother when they are working, right? They are a better mother when they have gone out into the into their career and come home. Now that might put some stress on the family with childcare, with you know, being far from the from the child. But then I would also delve deeper with the mother and the father and ask them some more questions. What are you running away with or running away from? Why do you feel like this child, you know, really drags you down or you can't handle your two-year-old's tantrums? What's going on there?

SPEAKER_04:

This reminds me of my sister. I hope she's not listening. She she has a beautiful boy and girl, and um, she works so much, um, like sometimes 10 hours a day or something. And when she gets home, she's tired, she's exhausted, understandably. And she has a very strong-willed daughter who like who wants attention and who wants to be loud, and but she doesn't have energy for her. And then we're noticing like she's developing some behavioral issues that were not dealt with. I hope she doesn't take them on like to her adulthood or something.

SPEAKER_02:

So, I mean, this is when I would sit with the adult and we would do a full Look at your schedule, not yours, but at the at the person's schedule. And really, you know, I work with a lot of men about this as well. I know this is very gender stereotype, but I often work with men and and women and I say, okay, so that half an hour of you taking your time and having a dinner alone and then coming home. Honestly, I've done, I've made them time it, right, guys. Bear with me so I explain this. I said, you come home at seven o'clock and you're buggered, you're tired, you can't be dealing with anything. And for one hour, it's this fighting happening between you and the kid, and you can't be bothered and you're tired and you're hungry and you're all this stuff. So that's one hour minimum. If you've got a strongwilled kid, they can go for two. Now, you finish at seven at work and you stop by the local cafe, or you go to the gym, or you call your friend from the driveway, and you take half an hour or one hour to do whatever you need to do, and you calm down, you get your cortisol down, right? You get your blood sugars right, you take off your shoes, your heels, you're helping yourself regulate. Now, when you come home, true, you don't have a long time, but you've walked in more regulated. So now that two hours that you just wasted, well, guess what? You've got another hour now to do your thing. And the harsh reality is this, and I can't sugarcoat it any more than this, but your kid did not ask to be born. They didn't ask to be born. They don't know. They don't know that you've had a long day. They're just like, yay, the greatest person in the world has walked through the door. So I'm going to give them so much stress because I want them to give me so much attention. And by the way, fun fact, adults do it too. Well, yeah, we do it to our partners all the time. We do not say when we're stressed, oh hello, dear partner, I'm so glad you're home. I'm feeling really undervalued at the moment. So can you please give me some space? No, we're like, you're home now? Oh. We do that. And then and then the and then the partner's not gonna go, wow, it sounds like you're really stressed. No, the partner's gonna go, do you know what kind of day I've had? And this is what I come in home to? I'm not gonna come home anymore. And so on. And so all that I'm saying to people listening to this is that adults are little children inside adult bodies. We do the same thing.

SPEAKER_03:

There's some there's some laughing here. Yeah, because I just can't like think of an incident or two where we had similar situations.

SPEAKER_01:

I can also, yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, for example, guys, when they're hungry, they can't be bothered to do anything or talk about anything.

SPEAKER_01:

Nope. So I think a legitimate fear that comes to many single Muslims' minds is especially Muslims living in the West, is keeping their Islamic identity alive while raising children in a secular environment. And especially in a time where they're trying to separate between gender and sex and and there's all this kind of confusion happening. And I don't know what it's much like in Australia or in Dubai, but do you think singles need what like what do you think singles need to prepare for in this unique challenge before they marry?

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, fear less, concentrate on your home life. I can't say this enough, and I don't say it to be this kind of liberal, you know, let's just blend in, you know, to the society. I say this from a development point of view, I say it from a psychological point of view. If we just concentrated more on our home life, things would be so much better. So let's take, for example, you know, talking to our children about um different genders that's coming up and this topic that might come up in lots of schools. I mean, in Dubai we're a little bit more sheltered, but it's there wherever you are in the world, especially in the Western world. I completely appreciate that. The idea isn't to bombard a child with information, it's not to um, you know, get yourself riled up and stressed out about it. The idea behind any difficult conversation you're gonna have, and you will have many with your partner, with your children, you know, you will have many difficult conversations. The idea is that you have to be confident in yourself first. So before I go in and have a chat with my kid about this hard topic, I'm not gonna go in there and be like, oh, look, I don't know, but I really think that this is the right way. Do you know what Allah says? Like, you're not gonna go in there like that. You're gonna prepare yourself and ask yourself, what is my point? What at what point am I trying to put across? And how much can I control? How much can I control as the parent in this life? Because you can't control your friend's kid's phone device usage. Can't do that. But what you can control is how your kid responds when their friends, you know, put up something on the device. And even then, you still can't control that because children have free will, and for whatever reason, usually I call it immaturity, some kids will go, yes, mom, sure, I will say no, and then in the moment they say yes, right? But then what are you gonna do about it? So I think Zayd, what's super important here for us as parents, as Muslim parents, you know, living in the West, is that we have to ask ourselves, how much are we driving our parenting from fear? And how much are we driving our parenting from confidence? And there is a very big difference between the two.

SPEAKER_04:

Honestly, like listening to like the responsibilities of appearance and how to control you. We're talking about like controlling your emotions, sounds like a very difficult job. And like controlling your emotions day after day after day, isn't it gonna like result in like suppressed emotions and suddenly you're just gonna blow, blow up in your child or in your coworker or something?

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, is it as difficult as it sounds? Oh no, I've then I need to do a better job at explaining it, Hiba, because that what you're describing is called passive patience. The really big difference between control of emotions and passive patience. Passive patience is when you put up with something. Okay, he's yelled at me once and twice, didn't want the blue cup today, doesn't want the green cup then, sister hit the brother, did it, did it, right? You're gonna blow up. If you don't blow up, I'll be really worried because humans blow up. That is not what I teach. Emotional regulation and emotional intelligence is the ability to control your emotion, but it does not mean that we're happy. So when my kid wants the blue cup, I'm allowed to be frustrated. So I'm not going, you can't have the blue cup. By the way, kids will look at you like you're crazy if you do that, right? Instead, I I can show, I can even say, hey, I'm really frustrated. I offered you the blue cup and you want the green cup. The green cup's in the dishwasher. Again, age appropriate. Obviously, you don't say this to a one-year-old. However, I want to cast your mind to something else that might help you, Hiber. Would we say the same thing to a PT who every day for the last one year has gone and done pull-ups? You know, those really hard things to do. When you do pull-ups for one year, do your muscles bust open and you suddenly can't do any more pull-ups? Do the pull-ups get easier? Yeah. That is exactly the same as brain training. When you learn to control your emotions in an emotionally intelligent way, and there is a way, there are five steps to it, then by the time you've done it enough times, you can not blow up as much anymore. So for myself, a decade or so into it, I now have a much longer threshold for me to quote unquote lose it. I would need to have a really like there has to be a lot of things that that's gone on for me to lose it. And if I am losing it very quickly, then I need to touch on myself physiologically. So asking myself, have I had water, have I had sleep, have I eaten, and have I had any kind of connection, any love? They're the four things that humans need. Other than that, it would take a lot for my child to push those buttons.

SPEAKER_04:

Seems like a crucial skill every parent should have, honestly.

SPEAKER_02:

Absolutely. Emotional intelligence is the thing that needs to be compulsory before you become, I mean, before even parenting, we need to be practicing this thing from a very young age, but they just don't teach it in schools. I mean, now they're getting a lot better, don't get me wrong. Um, but parents can do this with children at home. Um, just really quickly, the first way you do it is by modeling it. The second way you do it is by naming it, so labeling it to a child. Oh, you're feeling frustrated right now. The third way you do it is by teaching the kid what to do with that frustration. We don't want to teach them to punch, punch a hole in the wall, but we want to teach them to take deep breaths. And the fourth way to do it is to repeat, repeat, show them examples. Oh, look, that person was angry and they took a deep breath, and now look at what happened. And that's how we teach children emotional intelligence.

SPEAKER_04:

Wow, you know, reflecting on the way we were brought up, and like you said, God bless our parents, they did the best they could. They didn't have access to any of this information. And like, I'm glad that we turned out okay.

SPEAKER_02:

Did we? We have the highest rates of like depression and anxiety in like the history of the world.

SPEAKER_03:

I guess, I guess, but we didn't turn out to be murderers or something. So at least that's that's that's true.

SPEAKER_01:

But but going back to that point, it just feels like given that we're living in the digital age, there's just an inundation of content out there, you know, TikTok reels about gentle parenting, then you got the Montessori reels, and everybody is giving endless advice about how what approach to take. And so it almost feels like there's these unrealistic expectations about parenting. Um, so how do you filter through that and and try to understand what is right and what's wrong when it comes to parenting? Or is there no right and wrong?

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, I mean, I always like to think of parenting as healthy or unhealthy. There isn't really right or wrong. Again, the common sense being that emotional, you know, mental and physical abuse is a definite straight into the wrong category. But when we look at parenting methods, there is no wrong or right. It's just what do you want to achieve as a parent? So for me, very high up on my list is I wanted to become somebody that my children can look up to and copy from. Right? This is another kind of little aha moment that I had, you know, when I was thinking about my daughter. So about 15 years ago, I was sitting down and I thought, what would I like my daughter to do when she's mad? Then I need to do that because I can't be like, oh, I really wish for my daughter to grow up to be this young lady who takes 10 deep breaths and you know doesn't let anyone walk all over her and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then I wasn't doing that. So we really need to ask ourselves the question of, am I modeling it? So back to social media. I have a firm belief that overintellectualization is a thing. I don't know if it's a thing, I haven't done thesis work on it, but it has to be a thing because do you know how many self-help books people own? And so what I suggest and recommend to parents is that you can't go past um good enough parenting. So, what does that mean? That means that we want to aim to live in the present moment and not just keep trying to understand why. Like, why am I like this? Why did my parent do that? Why did my dad do that? And I push and I challenge parents that work with me to start to think outside of the box of why and more about okay, what can I do? What can I be? How can I react from this or change from this? And once we start posing these different questions, we stop putting ourselves as the center topic and we start to think about the child in front of us or like the problem that we have. So if me and my partner are always arguing about who is going to do the dishes, right? Let's just take that really simple example, and you're always tired of reminding him and he's tired of always being told, just a simple stereotypical example. Then rather than, oh, why does this keep happening? I encourage um couples to start to think about okay, what do you want to happen and what are you trying to achieve here? And then we can focus on getting the logistics out. Because nine times out of ten with couples, you're both saying the same thing in a different way.

SPEAKER_04:

Um, unrelated question. Do you think children are completely formed by their environment, whether that's parents, uh, school, friends, friends, or is there like a part that they are born with, like a nature that they have?

SPEAKER_02:

Absolutely. Children are born with a nature. Children are born, there are 400 different psychological traits that can be chosen by Allah to create your child's personality. And we don't know what the draw is because I've met two very, very loud parents who've got a shy child. I've met two very quiet parents who've got a loud child. I've met everything, all the combinations you can think of. I've met children that are a replica of their father, children that are a replica of their grandfather. It doesn't matter about, you know, what is the right combination. What we need to start off with is understanding the genetic part of it, which is kind of potluck. Yani subhanAllah, we don't know, right? And then from there on, and after probably the age of two, because before two, the child is pretty much like the baby is pretty much convinced on connection only, right? But after two, what happens is you have to start to parent the child in front of you, not the child you wish you had. So I'll give you an example. If after two, you seem to have a velcro toddler, you know, a toddler that just clings to your lick. Even when you get to the play center, the kid's like, no, stay with me. And you're like, what? We're at a play center. Go, be free, have fun. I wish I was taken to a play center. Then you are not parenting the child in front of you. You're parenting what you wish you had. The child in front of you is asking you to, hey, slow down, walk me there. For some strange reason, their brain is like, this is danger. There's a lot of sight, sounds. That's what the child in front of you needs. Now let's flip it around. If you have, I call them the stage children that are just like, see ya, and just like runs into the play center, doesn't even look behind them, and you're like, no, wait, you need to do no no no like all of this kind of um careful business, then you're not parenting the child in front of you. You're parenting the child you wish you had, who was somebody that was like slower and gave salam nicely and just talked very um elegantly to their grandparents. That's not the kid you have. I don't know why that's not the kid you have, but it's just not. So instead, you need to parent the kid in front of you, which might be lower expectations. You know that this child is not going to give salams very slowly and ask their grandparent how was your day. But you might go, hey, you're gonna give salams, you can give a high five, and then you can go play. And so you've brought down your expectations. So um nature definitely plays a role, and so does nurture. And I think it's a very fine balance, but parents pay way too much time trying to work out what is where and how, and what did I do that ruined it? I believe that we just need to take a backseat on that conversation and just deal with the reality we have in front of us today. Let the child lead, you mean? I mean lead, but we can't we have to also remember that when my vivacious, fiery, spicy child wants to cross the road at the age of at the age of five, that's a no.

SPEAKER_04:

Of course not, yes.

SPEAKER_02:

And when my child sees no harm in, you know, sending photos, you know, on Snapchat as a teenager, that's a no. So what we're doing here is we're going, oh right, this kid loves to be social, this kid loves to be independent, but there are rules in place that I am in charge of. You see, when you're parenting, you're not relying on when you're an emotional, intelligent parent, you're not relying on your kid to pat you on the back and say, Yeah, mom, thank you so much for that boundary. You kept me safe. Oh my goodness, thank you. No, your kid's gonna say, You've ruined my life, Snapchat is the best. And so you're not gonna look for that instead. These are all true stories, guys. Um really truly. And I'm like, really? I hate you, mom. All of that, all of that is gonna come at you, and you have to be confident enough to know that they're not saying I hate you, they're saying I hate your rule because I don't agree with it.

SPEAKER_01:

Would you say that a general rule of thumb is parenting is a thankless job because your parent your kids aren't gonna come to you and say, Thank you for this, thank you for that, but it's just something to be aware of, but it's a rewarding job at the end of the day.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, you know, um that yeah, I've got to think about that one because I'm in this blessed phase where I've got these two younger kids and then the two older kids. So the thank yous do come. So anyone listening out there, the thank yous do come and they are they are just like excellent, but I do not rely on them. They come as a bonus, they do not come as an expectation. So I would say um, you know, parenting is a it's a confident job. Parenting is a job that it's like an occupational health and safety officer job. I don't know if you have that in your side of the world, but they're the person. Yes, you do? Okay, great. So they're the person in the workplace that not many people like because they're putting witches' hats around the spilt liquid on the floor and they're checking in on people's feelings and all of that stuff, but they're so vital to keeping things safe. And then you pass a stage where you now have to allow the child to practice how to keep themselves safe. I just wonder how our parents did it. They were like, okay, flee, go for your life.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, you know, sometimes, like Zaid and I, I'm just gonna admit it, sometimes we see parents doing things and we think to ourselves, when we're parents, we're not gonna do that.

SPEAKER_04:

We're gonna make sure we don't do that, whether it's like giving them tablets and like unlimit unlimited screen time.

SPEAKER_01:

So let me talk about that. Let me tell you. So I have a friend who's uh who has three girls and a boy, and he's just beyond overwhelmed. I think they're all under the age of five or six, and uh, and but the one thing I always notice is they all have their own tablet. So whenever they go out to eat, he calls it free babysitting. So they all have a tablet and they're pre-occupied, and it just works for him. And I just think it's easy for me to say as someone who's not a parent that, oh, I'm not gonna do that, I'm gonna figure it out. But at the same time, it's like I don't know what he's going through. And this is probably the one thing that works for me. He doesn't have time to figure out another strategy. So, what what's that that kind of ties into the topic of screen time and what you should do? But anything you can say about that?

SPEAKER_02:

Nothing's a problem until it's a problem. So when parents come to me and they're like, hey, Mesa, how's my screen time with my kid going? And I'm like, is there a problem? They're like, no, I'm like, then I'm good. If you want to give your kid a hundred hours of screen time, go for it. But if every single time, so let's take screen time away for a second and let's say just some different examples. If every single day you have to bribe your kid to, I don't know, go to soccer practice, that's a problem. If every, or not every, but most often you have to reward, bribe, threaten your child to eat their dinner, that's a problem. If very often you go to a restaurant and the only way that you can get your kids to calm down and eat is with a tablet, then it's generally a problem because it means that it's masking something else. Now, on your friends list, it must might not be a very top priority problem. I'm fine with. But if you come to see me and you're like, this is really bothering me, then I'm here to help you with situations like that. And so when it comes to screen time, I always say that the device itself is not the enemy. It can't be. Look how wonderful devices are, look what we're doing together today. Devices in and of themselves are brilliant, but the difference between medicine and poison is the dosage. So, what is the kid doing on the device and for how long? Because my daughter Google meeting with her friends for two hours is very different than her playing Call of Duty for two hours. It's a very different, you know, brain um thing that's going on. So you want to be very precise about the thing that we're talking about. So screen time, um, I would be asking you if you came to me, I'd be saying, okay, when is it being used? How's it being used? I sometimes tell parents, the kid's not in, you know, at fault. Change a password, hide the iPad. You know, sometimes I go to work and I take the TV remote with me because I know that my little, yeah, absolutely, because I know that my little child whose brain is this big cannot help themselves to the temptations, guys. Think about us as adults. Can we help it when we're scrolling? Sometimes we can't. So why would I risk this particular thing happening? Now, if I have to every time take the remote with me to work, then there's a problem. And also, am I choosing my battles? So this is the beauty with parenting. We can't just be take the remote with us to work, and we can't also be, yeah, just let the child make their own decisions. There are so many options in the middle. So I once had a parent come to me and say, Oh, Mesa, every time I'm on the phone, my kid realizes, and or I'm on a meeting and they'll come and they'll get more screen time. But do you know what I did yesterday? Oh, I didn't give in. And I said, Really? What happened? She said, Finally, the bank called me back. I was waiting for this really important call. And guess what? I didn't even take the call because I stuck to my guns. And I said, You missed a bank appointment, like so that you don't give your kid more screen time. La, in this particular situation, give the kid the screen time, take the important call, and this is where parents kind of fluctuate between this binary of yes and no. You've got to look at the situation in front of you. For me to do this call at 5 p.m. on a weekday, you best believe that I've got all the devices happening in my household. Because what else am I going to do in a 50-degree country where kids are on school break and the humidity is so high that you can't go outside? And so this is where also parent, you know, parents start to forget that we don't live in this world of yes, sure, go climb a tree. I know I've gone on a tangent a bit, but I hope I answered your question, Zaid. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_04:

What other interesting stories do you have for us?

SPEAKER_02:

Oh, where where do I start? Tell me some tell me some categories.

SPEAKER_04:

Some categories. I don't know, a success story, like parents who like hadn't figured it out and like a transformation happened.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, okay. Well, so many. I had a mum who was adamant that her kid was broken, just eight-year-old boy, rude, arrogant, um, never listened, angry, just adamant. And she worked with me for three solid months. Because going back to that thing, Hiba, where oh, we've lost saying, going back to that thing where um you can't just solve something in the one sitting, like the same thing with the pull-ups. Um, so over the three-month period, we worked on her. So I would ask her to think about how does she react to the to the child, what are her expectations. We literally altered her schedule around to be more realistic, to be more logistic, and by the third month and onwards till today, her little her little boy um is pleasant, is funny, is creative, is independent, and she's loving parenting. Masha'Allah, in three months.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah, three months. Looks like we're the ones who have to get the training, not the child, like the problem is us, not the children. The children, I guess, are teaching us in their own way.

SPEAKER_02:

They are, they can't help it. They can't be like, yo, mom, I feel really stressed out today. They just can't do that at these ages that we're talking about. Instead, they will push their brother when they feel jealous or they will do things, they won't listen to us for a certain reason. Um, I had a lovely Canadian mum once come to me with probably the most strong-willed teenager I've I've heard of, where the mum said, You will never be allowed to get a nose piercing, and the daughter pierced her nose with a needle and an ice cube. Oh my god. Yeah. And said, You can't make me do anything, and you can't force me to do anything. And so this is part of the training that I give parents of just don't give ultimatums. Ultimatums for a human being never works well for anybody. Doesn't matter who you are, but especially for a child, the child is going to choose the other thing. It never works out well. Even if the kid says to you, okay, I'll say sorry, they're going to do something else later because the problem hasn't been solved. So it's not like say, yeah, sure, you can get a nose piercing. It's just don't give the ultimatum. Okay, because then they want to defy it. Yes, if you've got a strong old kid, a hundred percent. A hundred percent your strong old kid will defy it. If you've got an obedient kid and you've given an ultimatum, you obviously don't give a lot of ultimatums to an easy-going kid, but if you do, then the easy-going kid carries anxiety within them.

SPEAKER_04:

And uh when we're talking about a toddler, like, I don't know, less than two years old, what kind of parenting can we do?

SPEAKER_02:

Okay, less than two years old, guys. Basically, your kid is a cowboy scientist. Like, I'm talking about they have zero clue, but they act like they have all the clues. Um, they're there for curiosity, for experimenting, for experiencing. Your job as the parent is to guide, guide, guide. Childproof your home, say less more often, uh, say no less often, and just essentially understand that this kid is egocentric. They think the world revolves around them. They don't understand that you know that there are other things happening in the world, and you just have to wait until that development happens.

SPEAKER_04:

SubhanAllah, subhanAllah. Um, if somebody wants to work with you, uh, where can they find you? How do you work with people?

SPEAKER_02:

Yes, I work with clients one-on-one for couples um relationship coaching as well as parenting coaching. You can find me on socials at coachmaceeq. I'm also um found you can email me. I wonder if you could put the email in the description. Yes, I can. And uh you work with clients uh all over the world, right? I do. I work with clients all over the world, um, and I offer workshops as well as one-to-one um coaching.

SPEAKER_04:

Mashallah. Mashallah. I'm really, really happy we got to have this uh conversation. Like I said, we've been following you for the longest time. We learned a lot even before having children. We don't have children yet, but uh we look forward to learning more from you and uh thank you so much for your time, for your knowledge. And uh thank you so much, our dear listeners. You heard even if you're still single, there is work to be done. Um, don't think that parenthood is something to discuss and talk about later when we have children. There's a lot of things to be done right now. And uh hope you enjoyed the interview. We'll see inshallah in the next episode. Assalamu alaikum.

SPEAKER_02:

Thank you, as salamu alaikum.