Shahadah; Life Skills for Adolescent Muslimahs

TJ has two new Islamic Studies items available for download:

1. Shahadah learning resources. I’ve got a few learning posters including a word by word breakdown of the shahadah, as well as links to online shahadah reading material. Available at: http://tjislamicstudies.blogspot.com/2011/07/shahadah.html

 

2. One module of TJ’s Journey to Muslim Womanhood life skills for adolescent Muslimahs is available. This unit/module is on Islamic Dress and contains articles, fatawa, and activities pertaining to the hijaab, awrah, bras, shoes, jewelry, etc. Available for download: http://db.tt/jgd8yxv

You can take a peek at the other modules in the works, in sha Allah, here:

http://tjislamicstudies.blogspot.com/2011/06/journey-to-muslim-womanhood-teenage.html

If you are interested in helping to build this resource, I’d love some help. Please email me at talibiddeenjratgmail.com.

 

The Boy Talk

Today I did it, I had “the talk” with the boys….the one about puberty.

I had been wanting to do this for some time but kept putting it off. (Abu is working out of the country so it had kind of fallen on me).  I never really talked with my older son, now 18, so I wanted to make sure that I got this in with the middle boys, now 11 and 12 going on 13. 

I had the talk with my oldest daughter, 15, and well, that was easier to talk about, one reason being that well, I knew about women’s issues and bodies. It’s a little different with boys as naturally, mom doesn’t go through the things that they do.

We did more reading than talk actually, I found a great booklet and we just read through that and  intertwined Islamic information as necessary:

http://www.health.wa.gov.au/docreg/Education/Population/Youth_Health/HP010368_boys_and_puberty_booklet.pdf

I was so nervous at first and hesistant to mention certain  words, but then I told myself, my intent was to inform them about their bodies so that they can understand them, pick up on signs when something is wrong and take preventative measures and just give them information on healthy lifestyles. We talked more about their bodies, did not actually get deep into the s word (lol) but talked about it as the need came up based upon the material presented.

At first I was going to go over the informatin with each of them separately as you know how boys get, snicker and laugh at the mention of certain things. But then I thought, maybe they would feel more comfortable and not isolated if I did it together, plus I killed two birds with two stones so to speak.

So, I just thought I’d share our experience. If you need to broach this subject soon, here are a few resources that may help. Don’t forget the PDF above as well. It was really good and talked about many aspects of puberty including diet.

Over at my sister blog, Raising Muslim Sons, (or should I say brother blog) are some hoperully helpful links:

Puberty in Islam

Changes in the body due to puberty  (I have collected links to many resources online here)

Related:

Girls and Puberty, the counterpart to the Boys and Puberty booklet mentioned above, can be found here:

http://www.health.wa.gov.au/docreg/Education/Population/Youth_Health/HP010367_girls_and_puberty_booklet.pdf