Originally published on July 23, 2024 on my previous website.

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Abigail Shrier from her book, “Bad Therapy: Why the Kids Aren't Growing Up,” regarding parenting styles: 

After studying the ways parents attempt to control the behavior of children, Baumrind discerned three general approaches: permissive, authoritative, and authoritarian. 

The "permissive parent" assiduously avoids punishment. She affirms the child's impulses, desires, and actions, and consults the child about family decisions.

She makes few demands on the child with regard to responsibilities and orderly behavior. "She presents herself to the child as a resource for him to use as he wishes, not as an ideal for him to emulate, nor as an active agent responsible for shaping or altering his future behavior," Baumrind explains.”

“The "authoritarian parent" values a child's obedience as a virtue, holds the child's behavior to an absolute standard, works to keep the child in his place, restricts his autonomy, and does not ever encourage a give-and-take discussion about her rules.

Neither approach produced particularly happy or successful adults.

The "authoritative parent," however, is loving and rule based. She attempts to direct the child's activities in a rational manner, encourages a give-and-take with her child, but "exerts firm control at points of parent-child divergence." Where her point of view on a household rule ultimately conflicts with that of her child, she wins. She maintains high standards for her child's behavior "and does not base her decisions on group consensus or the individual child's desires."

In studies that still manage to chagrin therapists, Baumrind found that authoritative parenting styles produced the most successful, independent, self-reliant, and best emotionally regulated kids; it also produced the happiest kids— those less likely to report suffering from anxiety and depression.

This is a remarkably sturdy research finding: kids are happiest when raised in a loving environment that holds their behavior to high standards, expects them to contribute meaningfully to the household, and is willing to punish when behavior falls short. And it flies in the face of virtually everything therapists and parenting books now exhort.”

If you look at this from an Islamic perspective, it is quite remarkable how authoritative parenting falls in line with how the Prophet ﷺ used to be with not only children, but also with adults. You have a degree of freedom in your life and there is give-and-take within the religion, but at the end of the day, there are certain boundaries that we just cannot cross in Islam.

Later on in the book the author also tells us how most parents think they are the good “authoritative” parents, but they are actually slowly turning into permissive parents.

This is because the goalposts of what is right and wrong, of what is accepted or not, keep moving.

If you don’t have a rule book to live by in your life, the rule book of Islam, then your values will ultimately become what society decides. That is why Islam is such a great way of life. It actually makes things easy by letting us know what is right and wrong.

It helps you be a better person, and it helps you be a better parent.

I remember as a kid in the late 1990s (Subhan Allah, just saying 1990s makes me feel old) my grandfather (الله يرحمه) would watch old black and white TV programs late at night when everyone was asleep. The shows and movies weren’t perfect, but they had better family values than the current era.

As I think about my own childhood, I can remember how the shows were more wholesome and had valuable lessons as well, putting emphasis on learning from the family and taking parents’ advice.

There is no doubt the values of modesty and respect have dropped further and further away from the Qur’an and Sunnah, but we have to always make sure our goal post is the Qur’an and the Sunnah. These TV shows still had a lot of evil in them, but we were closer to the path of Islam in the 1990s, and even more so in the 1960s.

It takes time, sometimes decades, to realize how people are going astray, but there is a faster way to correct yourself.

The more you study the Qur’an,

The more you study the Sunnah,

and the more you study the Seerah of the Prophet ﷺ, the quicker you will see the problems around you, and the quicker you can turn the course for yourself and your family back to the path of truth.

Originally published on August 27, 2025 in now defunct website - revised and modified for August 2, 2026

Therapists can poison your children. So much so that they can cut off their relationship with you, which is a major sin in Islam (quotes from Bad Therapy):

Clinical psychologist and author Joshua Coleman has devoted his entire practice to a phenomenon known as "family estrangement": adult children cutting off their parents, refusing to speak to them, even barring them from seeing the grandkids. A large-scale national survey confirms a recent increase in this phenomenon: almost 30 percent of Americans eighteen and older had cut off a family member.

Are the ostracized parents typically abusive? No, Coleman said; in general, he doesn't believe they are. From his own practice, Coleman has observed that adults who were abused as children very often blame themselves for the abuse. "Often, they're more interested in salvaging whatever they can of parental love." […]

When parents confront the adult children who've cut them off, Coleman tells me, the most typical explanation they give is: "Well, my therapist said, you emotionally abused me or you're emotionally incestuous. Or you have a narcissistic personality disorder? The parents, of course, respond defensively, and that just feels like proof positive to the adult child!" Coleman added, "I've wanted to write an article for the longest time with a title something like, Your Biggest Threat to Your Relationship with Your Child Isn't Parenting, It's the Therapist They're Going to See at Some Point."

One of the most damaging ideas to leach into the cultural bloodstream, according to Coleman, is that all unhappiness in adults is traceable to childhood trauma. Therapists have made endless mischief from this baseless and unfalsifiable assertion.

This is precisely how therapy often encourages young people to look at their lives. If your career isn't going well, if you're having trouble in relationships, if you're dissatisfied with your life, commence the hunt for hidden childhood traumas. And since parents are ultimately responsible for your childhood, any unearthed "childhood trauma" inevitably reads as an indictment of parents.

This might seem impossible, but remember this. Many practicing Muslim parents are already struggling with their children because the children are told not to do certain things in Islam, even though it is the norm for the child 8+ hours each day.

“Why can’t I listen to music?”

“Why can’t I go to the dance??”

“Why do I have to wear a hijab?!”

“Why can’t I have a boyfriend?!”

“Why can’t I have a girlfriend?!”

“Why do I have to pray in school?! Can’t I just come home and pray?”

“Why can’t I go to the Christmas party?!”

“Why can’t I go out for Halloween with my friends?!”

There is already a lot of clash inside your child’s mind because they feel like they have to live two different lives.

Now imagine your children hearing the words that makes it “click” for them. Most of their problems were because of their parents. Your kids might not even go to a therapist, but now the therapist comes to them in the form of viral social media posts by so-called “experts” in the field of therapy.

Your relationship with your child was already on thin ice, and here comes a bad therapist with the ice pick. Let’s not forget your children’s’ non-Muslim friends who are already more likely to think their parents are “toxic” because they try to enforce basic rules.

The threshold for discipline and tolerance keeps dropping, and now a parent’s actions or restrictions are considered abusive over petty things.

We have to remember that cutting off the ties of kinship is a huge sin in Islam, and has severe consequences:

The Prophet ﷺ said: “No one who severs the ties of kinship will enter Paradise.”

Narrated by Muslim in his Saheeh. 

When a man asked him, “O Messenger of Allah, whom should I honour?” He ﷺ said: “Your mother.” He said: “Then whom?” He said: “Your mother.” He said: “Then whom?” He said: “Your mother.” He said: “Then whom?” The fourth time he said: “Your father, then the next closest and the next closest.”

Also narrated by Muslim. 

Parents will make mistakes and will be hard on children and there will always be a pull and tug, but it’s no reason to literally cut them off for the rest of your life.

Of course none of these scenarios are a guarantee, and the public school child can end up being a righteous Muslim, but you have to be realistic with the statistics. Don’t turn the exception into the rule and think your child or your family are the exception and immune to the problems and desires of society.

Even the Prophet ﷺ was guaranteed Jannah, but he was still told by Allah to praise his Lord and ask for forgiveness in Surah Nasr. He ﷺ took action and kept taking action till his last breath, even though he was promised Jannah. He didn’t want to be complacent and just let things go nilly willy.

Don’t ruin your relationship with your children from the start. Mothers especially need to stay at home and nourish the child and solidify that relationship between mother and child. Research has shown that babies literally mourn when their mothers are not present, and if your child is in a daycare, their relationship with you in the long run will continue to be damaged, requiring more and more effort to repair later on.

Once again, we’re talking about normal parents who make normal parenting mistakes, not parents who are sexual predators or those who abuse their children physically and emotionally.