Quranic rendering for the digital age.
A few decades ago, navigation meant paper maps stored in your glove compartment. When GPS devices and smartphones emerged, the obvious next step might have been to digitize those maps; to scan them, store them as images or PDFs, and allow users to pan and zoom.
Instead, modern navigation tools look nothing like paper maps. They automatically detect your location, incorporate live traffic data, provide contextual insights, and reroute you dynamically. You can travel from point A to point B without ever touching the device.
Now consider how we engage with the Quran digitally. We moved from physical mushafs to images of their pages on a screen, still flipping page by page. Some enhancements such as search and audio playback have been layered on, but fundamentally, the experience has barely progressed. We are still changing the medium, not rethinking the experience.
At Tarteel, we are reimagining how Muslims engage with the Quran from the ground up. Doing this well requires solving a problem that most digital products never face: rendering a sacred text with absolute textual fidelity, deep interactivity, and strict spatial consistency, all at once. This post explains why existing digital approaches fall short and how we built a new rendering system to overcome those constraints.
Very nerdy but cool process for bringing the Qur’an into the digital age with more functionality, while keeping spatial consistency. A must read for design and font enthusiasts.
A few decades ago, navigation meant paper maps stored in your glove compartment. When GPS devices and smartphones emerged, the obvious next step might have been to digitize those maps; to scan them, store them as images or PDFs, and allow users to pan and zoom.
Instead, modern navigation tools look nothing like paper maps. They automatically detect your location, incorporate live traffic data, provide contextual insights, and reroute you dynamically. You can travel from point A to point B without ever touching the device.
Now consider how we engage with the Quran digitally. We moved from physical mushafs to images of their pages on a screen, still flipping page by page. Some enhancements such as search and audio playback have been layered on, but fundamentally, the experience has barely progressed. We are still changing the medium, not rethinking the experience.
At Tarteel, we are reimagining how Muslims engage with the Quran from the ground up. Doing this well requires solving a problem that most digital products never face: rendering a sacred text with absolute textual fidelity, deep interactivity, and strict spatial consistency, all at once. This post explains why existing digital approaches fall short and how we built a new rendering system to overcome those constraints.
Very nerdy but cool process for bringing the Qur’an into the digital age with more functionality, while keeping spatial consistency. A must read for design and font enthusiasts.
A Psychiatrist talks about meds he would never give his kids.
Enough about what I think, just listen to the expert. He holds very conservative values, and a lot of what he says falls in line with what Islam has to say.
One of the key points he mentions is the effect our diet has on our bodies. Eating and drinking well plays a huge part in how we feel, and we can all attest to that. We all like to eat junk every now and then, and that’s how it should be - every now and then, not the bulk of our diet which is true for many if not most Americans.
It makes you ponder the verse in the Qur’an that talks about food, and how it leads down a Satanic path:
يَـٰٓأَيُّهَا ٱلنَّاسُ كُلُوا۟ مِمَّا فِى ٱلْأَرْضِ حَلَـٰلًۭا طَيِّبًۭا وَلَا تَتَّبِعُوا۟ خُطُوَٰتِ ٱلشَّيْطَـٰنِ ۚ إِنَّهُۥ لَكُمْ عَدُوٌّۭ مُّبِينٌ ١٦٨
O humanity! Eat from what is lawful and good on the earth and do not follow Satan’s footsteps. He is truly your sworn enemy.
The Cow (2:168)
Lawful and good, or lawful and pure.
How much of what we eat is actually pure? To think that there isn’t a connection between diet and mental health is ludicrous. Even just a few decades ago, the connection between your oral health and heart disease was popularized, and we don’t question that at all.
So now ponder over this verse - if we don’t eat pure food and nourish our bodies the right way, we could be following Satan’s footsteps. We indulge in what is bad with little to no self-restraint, which is exactly the Satanic path. Compound the bad food with bad health, leading to poor medical choices such as brain-altering antidepressants, and you wonder why children on psychiatric drugs start acting out of character, become dangerous, and even suicidal. Children’s brains are still underdeveloped, and now you’re altering them with drugs that consistently show bad outcomes.
Having a deeper connection with Allah, with your daily prayers, with the Qur’an, with the Sunnah, and eating right are all part of the process that will lead to 99% of people being free from psychiatric drugs, but it’s the answer that doesn’t generate record-breaking profits.
Enough about what I think, just listen to the expert. He holds very conservative values, and a lot of what he says falls in line with what Islam has to say.
One of the key points he mentions is the effect our diet has on our bodies. Eating and drinking well plays a huge part in how we feel, and we can all attest to that. We all like to eat junk every now and then, and that’s how it should be - every now and then, not the bulk of our diet which is true for many if not most Americans.
It makes you ponder the verse in the Qur’an that talks about food, and how it leads down a Satanic path:
يَـٰٓأَيُّهَا ٱلنَّاسُ كُلُوا۟ مِمَّا فِى ٱلْأَرْضِ حَلَـٰلًۭا طَيِّبًۭا وَلَا تَتَّبِعُوا۟ خُطُوَٰتِ ٱلشَّيْطَـٰنِ ۚ إِنَّهُۥ لَكُمْ عَدُوٌّۭ مُّبِينٌ ١٦٨
O humanity! Eat from what is lawful and good on the earth and do not follow Satan’s footsteps. He is truly your sworn enemy.
The Cow (2:168)
Lawful and good, or lawful and pure.
How much of what we eat is actually pure? To think that there isn’t a connection between diet and mental health is ludicrous. Even just a few decades ago, the connection between your oral health and heart disease was popularized, and we don’t question that at all.
So now ponder over this verse - if we don’t eat pure food and nourish our bodies the right way, we could be following Satan’s footsteps. We indulge in what is bad with little to no self-restraint, which is exactly the Satanic path. Compound the bad food with bad health, leading to poor medical choices such as brain-altering antidepressants, and you wonder why children on psychiatric drugs start acting out of character, become dangerous, and even suicidal. Children’s brains are still underdeveloped, and now you’re altering them with drugs that consistently show bad outcomes.
Having a deeper connection with Allah, with your daily prayers, with the Qur’an, with the Sunnah, and eating right are all part of the process that will lead to 99% of people being free from psychiatric drugs, but it’s the answer that doesn’t generate record-breaking profits.
Dry January? More like high January.
Many Americans enthusiastically partake in Dry January, but it is rarely pitched as fun. After the holiday stretch of office parties and family gatherings, Americans have come to use the start of every year to abstain from alcohol in the name of health and auspicious beginnings. It’s a time of discipline, of cleansing, of embodying your mood board, even if it makes you a drag at parties. And it is also, as weed companies have learned, a marketing opportunity.
In recent years, weed companies have started to lean into the argument that taking the edge off sobriety with a low-dose gummy or THC drink still counts as dry. My social-media feeds are flooded with posts from cannabis companies pitching their products as fun and approachable tools to get through an alcohol-free month. Mary and Jane, an edibles company, makes a tantalizing proposition: “Dry January made easy.” Artet, which specializes in beverages, sells a “High & Dry January” bundle that includes a bottle of its THC-laced aperitif. Some products are conspicuously health-coded: North Canna describes its cannabis drinks as “functional,” and Feals highlights its edibles’ low calorie count. Above all, the ads emphasize how little booze you drink when you get high instead.
This push for a weed-filled January is, of course, a blatant (and somewhat silly) attempt by cannabis companies to get more customers. But as restrictions on marijuana loosen, and more Americans find themselves able and willing to fit the drug into their lives, Dry January does appear to be offering an opportunity for experimentation. In fact, cannabis sales surged in January 2024, and 21 percent of Dry January participants who responded to a 2023 survey swapped booze for weed that month.
This type of liberalistic, “have what you want as long as it doesn’t affect anyone else,” mindset is what will eventually destroy civilizations, including ours. You can’t walk out of anywhere these days except you smell weed. Even right outside the hospital for God’s sake.
So much for starting the new year with optimism and healthier choices:
The shaky logic of replacing one drug with another during a month dedicated to sobriety is hard to ignore. If the point of Dry January is to improve health, replacing alcohol with cannabis—which is not a benign substance—seems counterproductive. Far less is known about the long-term use of cannabis compared with alcohol, but both can be abused, cause dependence, and interfere with daily function and productivity, Ryan Vandrey, who helps run Johns Hopkins’s Cannabis Science Laboratory, told me. Some people are predisposed to react negatively to cannabis, experiencing anxiety, paranoia, or even cyclical vomiting. Over time, long-term heavy cannabis use can exacerbate mental-health conditions such as schizophrenia and depression.
The cycle will continue, as increased schizophrenia and depression means prescribing more antidepressants and antipsychotics that people once again shouldn’t need, but it fuels the money circle fresh with even more cash. One of the reasons why I left traditional pharmacy is because you become a bonafide, legal drug dealer, depending on what city you work in.
That was over a decade ago, so I can’t even imagine how insane it must be today.
Just think - almost every area of healthcare that has increased treatment leads to better outcomes, except mental health.
One of the reasons why it’s true is because people aren’t living with purpose anymore. Many people don’t even think about the question:
“Why am I here?”
They’re always connected to a device, listening to something 24/7, are on some sort of drug cocktail, binge watching a new series, and so on.
They’ve never unplugged and detoxed their mind to really think about, “Why am I here?”
Many Americans enthusiastically partake in Dry January, but it is rarely pitched as fun. After the holiday stretch of office parties and family gatherings, Americans have come to use the start of every year to abstain from alcohol in the name of health and auspicious beginnings. It’s a time of discipline, of cleansing, of embodying your mood board, even if it makes you a drag at parties. And it is also, as weed companies have learned, a marketing opportunity.
In recent years, weed companies have started to lean into the argument that taking the edge off sobriety with a low-dose gummy or THC drink still counts as dry. My social-media feeds are flooded with posts from cannabis companies pitching their products as fun and approachable tools to get through an alcohol-free month. Mary and Jane, an edibles company, makes a tantalizing proposition: “Dry January made easy.” Artet, which specializes in beverages, sells a “High & Dry January” bundle that includes a bottle of its THC-laced aperitif. Some products are conspicuously health-coded: North Canna describes its cannabis drinks as “functional,” and Feals highlights its edibles’ low calorie count. Above all, the ads emphasize how little booze you drink when you get high instead.
This push for a weed-filled January is, of course, a blatant (and somewhat silly) attempt by cannabis companies to get more customers. But as restrictions on marijuana loosen, and more Americans find themselves able and willing to fit the drug into their lives, Dry January does appear to be offering an opportunity for experimentation. In fact, cannabis sales surged in January 2024, and 21 percent of Dry January participants who responded to a 2023 survey swapped booze for weed that month.
This type of liberalistic, “have what you want as long as it doesn’t affect anyone else,” mindset is what will eventually destroy civilizations, including ours. You can’t walk out of anywhere these days except you smell weed. Even right outside the hospital for God’s sake.
So much for starting the new year with optimism and healthier choices:
The shaky logic of replacing one drug with another during a month dedicated to sobriety is hard to ignore. If the point of Dry January is to improve health, replacing alcohol with cannabis—which is not a benign substance—seems counterproductive. Far less is known about the long-term use of cannabis compared with alcohol, but both can be abused, cause dependence, and interfere with daily function and productivity, Ryan Vandrey, who helps run Johns Hopkins’s Cannabis Science Laboratory, told me. Some people are predisposed to react negatively to cannabis, experiencing anxiety, paranoia, or even cyclical vomiting. Over time, long-term heavy cannabis use can exacerbate mental-health conditions such as schizophrenia and depression.
The cycle will continue, as increased schizophrenia and depression means prescribing more antidepressants and antipsychotics that people once again shouldn’t need, but it fuels the money circle fresh with even more cash. One of the reasons why I left traditional pharmacy is because you become a bonafide, legal drug dealer, depending on what city you work in.
That was over a decade ago, so I can’t even imagine how insane it must be today.
Just think - almost every area of healthcare that has increased treatment leads to better outcomes, except mental health.
One of the reasons why it’s true is because people aren’t living with purpose anymore. Many people don’t even think about the question:
“Why am I here?”
They’re always connected to a device, listening to something 24/7, are on some sort of drug cocktail, binge watching a new series, and so on.
They’ve never unplugged and detoxed their mind to really think about, “Why am I here?”
The Islamic concept of Barakah present in Apple Product Design.
In a YouTube video with Muslim Founder, Peter Gould discusses how he talked to Apple Product Designers about Barakah (transcription below):
Yeah great question Well um I was once teaching teaching some Apple product designers in Cupertino in um in San Francisco head office and uh I remember kind of speaking to the audience like okay you’re familiar with things like Feng shui or Zen design or Wabi-sabi like Japanese like non-western design philosophy and they're like yeah like we're all cool designers - then I said, "Well how about Barakah?" And they're like "What?" It's like "Isn't that like a movie or something?"
And you know I'm just kind of paraphrasing but you know Barakah is such an essential part to you know maybe a quarter of the world's population in terms of how we think how we live our life how we aspire for this intangible divine goodness in a thing, Barakah, and uh you know as my my friend Muhammed Faris he wrote a book called The Barakah Effect And he once he kind of said "Peter we should think about ROI as return on intention rather than return on investment."
And so in these places and some of the places I've taught I intentionally use the language of the heart I don't call it Islamic design or like Muslim, you know in every human there is a heart. Every heart has a spiritual state, and someone designing an iPhone or designing you know really popular software, they can appreciate that, on the spiritual path like Alhamdulillah as as Muslims we are given a much richer understanding of what is the heart what is the ruh, what is the how, and then your amanah, your kind of responsibility, if you're designing for that, becomes much more serious, like you've got to be careful like, “am I just pulling people to distract them and addict them and whatever or am I trying to find ways to be uh very aware of my responsibility in design?”
A little deeper dive into Barakah can be found with an interview between Peter Gould and Muhammed Faris himself:
“Most definitions come down to things like ‘abundant, flowing, positive, divine energy that enters a thing’ — a tangible intangible that works in mysterious ways beyond logic to create an effect.
“Some scholars describe it as a hidden soldier of the soul. Meaning Allah sends Barakah into something like one of his soldiers. So it might enter your time, or your family, or your laptop, or your sleep, or your food. And it does some kind of spiritual chemical reaction there that leads to a benefit of abundance or goodness that’s hard to describe.
“One example that many of us have experienced is when you invite friends over for dinner and you’ve prepared food for 10 people. But then one of your friends brings his whole family, and you look at the food and think it’s not going to be enough. But the Barakah is that it’s always enough. Sometimes there’s even leftovers as well. That’s a manifestation of Barakah as a result of your good intention to bring people over and feed them. […]
It’s not unusual, for example, for good things to happen with our work and for us to consider it as either luck, coincidence, or the results of our own hard work. But as Mohammed says, if we were to really take the time to look at how events have led to that ‘good thing’ happening, we would surely see something bigger at play.
“This is Barakah,” he says. “It’s Allah aligning things so perfectly that you look back and think ‘I could not have planned this’. Things had to align so perfectly to get to this exact point — you can’t just see it as cause and effect any more; it’s beyond that.
“And the danger — especially for entrepreneurs and start-ups — is that we tend to say it’s from our hard work. Because we do experience all of the hard work. We show up early every day, go into the office, do all this stuff, and we want to attribute that success to ourselves. You almost don’t want to recognise that there’s a spiritual invisible hand at work. But it’s the Barakah effect that moves things and arranges things for you.”
We need the concept of Barakah to also hit the field of AI and other technologies in order to help build humanity instead of trying to destroying it.
In a YouTube video with Muslim Founder, Peter Gould discusses how he talked to Apple Product Designers about Barakah (transcription below):
Yeah great question Well um I was once teaching teaching some Apple product designers in Cupertino in um in San Francisco head office and uh I remember kind of speaking to the audience like okay you’re familiar with things like Feng shui or Zen design or Wabi-sabi like Japanese like non-western design philosophy and they're like yeah like we're all cool designers - then I said, "Well how about Barakah?" And they're like "What?" It's like "Isn't that like a movie or something?"
And you know I'm just kind of paraphrasing but you know Barakah is such an essential part to you know maybe a quarter of the world's population in terms of how we think how we live our life how we aspire for this intangible divine goodness in a thing, Barakah, and uh you know as my my friend Muhammed Faris he wrote a book called The Barakah Effect And he once he kind of said "Peter we should think about ROI as return on intention rather than return on investment."
And so in these places and some of the places I've taught I intentionally use the language of the heart I don't call it Islamic design or like Muslim, you know in every human there is a heart. Every heart has a spiritual state, and someone designing an iPhone or designing you know really popular software, they can appreciate that, on the spiritual path like Alhamdulillah as as Muslims we are given a much richer understanding of what is the heart what is the ruh, what is the how, and then your amanah, your kind of responsibility, if you're designing for that, becomes much more serious, like you've got to be careful like, “am I just pulling people to distract them and addict them and whatever or am I trying to find ways to be uh very aware of my responsibility in design?”
A little deeper dive into Barakah can be found with an interview between Peter Gould and Muhammed Faris himself:
“Most definitions come down to things like ‘abundant, flowing, positive, divine energy that enters a thing’ — a tangible intangible that works in mysterious ways beyond logic to create an effect.
“Some scholars describe it as a hidden soldier of the soul. Meaning Allah sends Barakah into something like one of his soldiers. So it might enter your time, or your family, or your laptop, or your sleep, or your food. And it does some kind of spiritual chemical reaction there that leads to a benefit of abundance or goodness that’s hard to describe.
“One example that many of us have experienced is when you invite friends over for dinner and you’ve prepared food for 10 people. But then one of your friends brings his whole family, and you look at the food and think it’s not going to be enough. But the Barakah is that it’s always enough. Sometimes there’s even leftovers as well. That’s a manifestation of Barakah as a result of your good intention to bring people over and feed them. […]
It’s not unusual, for example, for good things to happen with our work and for us to consider it as either luck, coincidence, or the results of our own hard work. But as Mohammed says, if we were to really take the time to look at how events have led to that ‘good thing’ happening, we would surely see something bigger at play.
“This is Barakah,” he says. “It’s Allah aligning things so perfectly that you look back and think ‘I could not have planned this’. Things had to align so perfectly to get to this exact point — you can’t just see it as cause and effect any more; it’s beyond that.
“And the danger — especially for entrepreneurs and start-ups — is that we tend to say it’s from our hard work. Because we do experience all of the hard work. We show up early every day, go into the office, do all this stuff, and we want to attribute that success to ourselves. You almost don’t want to recognise that there’s a spiritual invisible hand at work. But it’s the Barakah effect that moves things and arranges things for you.”
We need the concept of Barakah to also hit the field of AI and other technologies in order to help build humanity instead of trying to destroying it.
Five “Fahadx” observations I made when at the hospital.
Baby girl got sick again this past week, making a total of 8 days at the hospital over a one month period. A few observations I noticed:
Almost every healthcare worker wears an Apple Watch.
This particular Modular Compact configuration with no bottom widget is more common than I would like.
The chapel is occupied by Muslims 99% of the time.
Sushi is great, and cheap. You can literally park at the hospital and get cheaper sushi at the cafeteria than the grocery store.
Masimo blood oxygen sensors are a real thing. A wrap-around for the foot, using the big toe as the sensing point. Thank you Masimo - now please (Apple and Masimo), make a deal and give us proper Apple Watch blood oxygen capability.
Baby girl got sick again this past week, making a total of 8 days at the hospital over a one month period. A few observations I noticed:
Almost every healthcare worker wears an Apple Watch.
This particular Modular Compact configuration with no bottom widget is more common than I would like.
The chapel is occupied by Muslims 99% of the time.
Sushi is great, and cheap. You can literally park at the hospital and get cheaper sushi at the cafeteria than the grocery store.
Masimo blood oxygen sensors are a real thing. A wrap-around for the foot, using the big toe as the sensing point. Thank you Masimo - now please (Apple and Masimo), make a deal and give us proper Apple Watch blood oxygen capability.
What phone fasting can do for you.
Via Kottke.org (photo removed version of article here)
A group of students at a New Mexico college (mostly) gave up their phones & computers for a week. What did they learn? “Most students said they had gotten to know themselves better without their phones butting in all day long.”
There’s no doubt “phone fasting” has its benefits, even though it’s really impossible today with many services being digitized with no alternative, such as student laundry machines that run on an app.
I noticed the same thing when I used to do prison dawah. Inmates were not on drugs or alcohol, and the mental clarity is what allowed them to think and let their fitra lead them to the straight path.
It’s crazy that we spend so much of our time looking down at our devices, when Allah subhana wata'aalah constantly reminds us to look up at the sky to witness His signs:
Have they not then looked at the sky above them: how We built it and adorned it ˹with stars˺, leaving it flawless?
Surah Qaf (50:6)
Via Kottke.org (photo removed version of article here)
A group of students at a New Mexico college (mostly) gave up their phones & computers for a week. What did they learn? “Most students said they had gotten to know themselves better without their phones butting in all day long.”
There’s no doubt “phone fasting” has its benefits, even though it’s really impossible today with many services being digitized with no alternative, such as student laundry machines that run on an app.
I noticed the same thing when I used to do prison dawah. Inmates were not on drugs or alcohol, and the mental clarity is what allowed them to think and let their fitra lead them to the straight path.
It’s crazy that we spend so much of our time looking down at our devices, when Allah subhana wata'aalah constantly reminds us to look up at the sky to witness His signs:
Have they not then looked at the sky above them: how We built it and adorned it ˹with stars˺, leaving it flawless?
Surah Qaf (50:6)
Grok makes nearly nude photos of women without their permission - future implications.
The Guardian (pdf file of article):
Grok has come under fire from lawmakers and regulators worldwide after it emerged it had been used to virtually undress images of women and children, and show them in compromising sexualised positions. The widespread sexual abuse consists of X users asking Grok to manipulate pictures of fully clothed women to put them in bikinis, on their knees, and cover them in what looks like semen.
“I felt horrified, I felt violated, especially seeing my toddler’s backpack in the back of it,” St Clair said of an image in which she has been put into a bikini, turned around and bent over.
“It’s another tool of harassment. Consent is the whole issue. People are saying, well, it’s just a bikini, it’s not explicit. But it is a sexual offence to non-consensually undress a child.”
I wonder if this is the first time 1st generation Muslim parents in the West are aware of this issue? Unfortunately, this is nothing compared to some of the more vulgar apps and websites out there. The worst part? The more this type of behavior becomes normalized, the more likely it is for women (yes, even Muslim women) to say, “well if people are going to nudify me, I might as well get paid for it.”
The Guardian (pdf file of article):
Grok has come under fire from lawmakers and regulators worldwide after it emerged it had been used to virtually undress images of women and children, and show them in compromising sexualised positions. The widespread sexual abuse consists of X users asking Grok to manipulate pictures of fully clothed women to put them in bikinis, on their knees, and cover them in what looks like semen.
“I felt horrified, I felt violated, especially seeing my toddler’s backpack in the back of it,” St Clair said of an image in which she has been put into a bikini, turned around and bent over.
“It’s another tool of harassment. Consent is the whole issue. People are saying, well, it’s just a bikini, it’s not explicit. But it is a sexual offence to non-consensually undress a child.”
I wonder if this is the first time 1st generation Muslim parents in the West are aware of this issue? Unfortunately, this is nothing compared to some of the more vulgar apps and websites out there. The worst part? The more this type of behavior becomes normalized, the more likely it is for women (yes, even Muslim women) to say, “well if people are going to nudify me, I might as well get paid for it.”
Haramblur.
Cool extension a family member referred me to. Works for a majority of browsers and Android devices. Blurs Islamically inappropriate content.
Love the innovation in the Muslim AI space. Check it out.
Cool extension a family member referred me to. Works for a majority of browsers and Android devices. Blurs Islamically inappropriate content.
Love the innovation in the Muslim AI space. Check it out.
The drug cascade that is becoming the norm in children.
From The Wall Street Journal (paywalled link; Apple News+link):
“The best scientific evidence suggests that it is very rare for two or more medications in kids to be helpful and there are concerns about safety, because there can be additive adverse effects of different types of medications,” said Dr. Javeed Sukhera, a child and adolescent psychiatrist and chair of psychiatry at the Institute of Living at Hartford Hospital in Connecticut.
A child on several medications at once often hasn’t had a comprehensive evaluation by a child psychiatrist, Sukhera said. Stimulants can cause side effects that can be mistaken for an additional disorder. “When a young person shows up with anxiety after starting a stimulant, that doesn’t mean that they have an anxiety disorder,” he said.
Many adults say that ADHD medications vastly improved their lives, and some scientific studies show that medicating reduces risk of other potential problems such as juvenile delinquency and subsequent mental-health disorders.
Still, side effects of the ADHD medications on young children can be severe and unpredictable, sometimes pushing parents to accept additional pills to address them.
All too often, under pressure from preschools and elementary schools, many parents seek help from pediatricians or psychiatric nurse practitioners—who frequently lack in-depth training in pediatric mental health—rather than wait months or even years for appointments with behavioral specialists or child psychiatrists.
Alexandra Perez, a clinical psychologist at Emory University School of Medicine who works with young children on Medicaid and private insurance, said she has seen children as young as 4 on multiple psychiatric medications. Many have experienced adversity or trauma and have behavioral problems as a result that get labeled as ADHD, said Perez, who practices Parent-Child Interaction Therapy (PCIT), a method that has been proven to reduce behavioral difficulties associated with ADHD.
“Children are quickly diagnosed with ADHD and prescribed medication,” she said. “That doesn’t tackle the root causes. We are putting the Band-Aid of medication on, a temporary fix.”
So much more to unpack here, but the best form of therapy really is more time spent with parents who take an active role in being present with their children. This is especially true for mothers who have been tricked into thinking that parenting and being a stay-at-home mom isn’t worth anything, when Islamically and even from other religious perspectives, it is the most important and honorable act a woman can do - raising future generations of humanity.
From The Wall Street Journal (paywalled link; Apple News+link):
“The best scientific evidence suggests that it is very rare for two or more medications in kids to be helpful and there are concerns about safety, because there can be additive adverse effects of different types of medications,” said Dr. Javeed Sukhera, a child and adolescent psychiatrist and chair of psychiatry at the Institute of Living at Hartford Hospital in Connecticut.
A child on several medications at once often hasn’t had a comprehensive evaluation by a child psychiatrist, Sukhera said. Stimulants can cause side effects that can be mistaken for an additional disorder. “When a young person shows up with anxiety after starting a stimulant, that doesn’t mean that they have an anxiety disorder,” he said.
Many adults say that ADHD medications vastly improved their lives, and some scientific studies show that medicating reduces risk of other potential problems such as juvenile delinquency and subsequent mental-health disorders.
Still, side effects of the ADHD medications on young children can be severe and unpredictable, sometimes pushing parents to accept additional pills to address them.
All too often, under pressure from preschools and elementary schools, many parents seek help from pediatricians or psychiatric nurse practitioners—who frequently lack in-depth training in pediatric mental health—rather than wait months or even years for appointments with behavioral specialists or child psychiatrists.
Alexandra Perez, a clinical psychologist at Emory University School of Medicine who works with young children on Medicaid and private insurance, said she has seen children as young as 4 on multiple psychiatric medications. Many have experienced adversity or trauma and have behavioral problems as a result that get labeled as ADHD, said Perez, who practices Parent-Child Interaction Therapy (PCIT), a method that has been proven to reduce behavioral difficulties associated with ADHD.
“Children are quickly diagnosed with ADHD and prescribed medication,” she said. “That doesn’t tackle the root causes. We are putting the Band-Aid of medication on, a temporary fix.”
So much more to unpack here, but the best form of therapy really is more time spent with parents who take an active role in being present with their children. This is especially true for mothers who have been tricked into thinking that parenting and being a stay-at-home mom isn’t worth anything, when Islamically and even from other religious perspectives, it is the most important and honorable act a woman can do - raising future generations of humanity.
One of my favorite brothers also uses an iPhone Air.
He’s not politically correct, but who is these days? Anyway Gabriel Al Romaani talks female narcissism in this specific video, and when he addresses the female selfie craze, he busts out an iPhone Air, which was refreshing to see, Allahumma baarik.
Great minds think alike.
He’s not politically correct, but who is these days? Anyway Gabriel Al Romaani talks female narcissism in this specific video, and when he addresses the female selfie craze, he busts out an iPhone Air, which was refreshing to see, Allahumma baarik.
Great minds think alike.