mrislam

Spending a couple weeks with cousins aged 6 and 9, I witnessed many interesting things; an insurmountable desire to play.

Children are factually born on the fitrah, leaning towards belief in Allah. But are children also born with such an intensely strong need for entertainment?

When my cousin was denied some computer games (and I feel an old man for using that phrase), he flipped out to legendary proportions and was on the verge of tears.

I told him I'm busy and I can't play. Then he said, “but I wanna play!”.

I wanted to yell to his face “so what. You're not the center of the world”. But I held back, and got sad instead.

Why are kids like this? Does society teach them this, that they're nothing except consumers to be entertained? What is this mentality?

If I ever have a kid, I'll let him cry for 24 hours but won't let him indulge in videogames of any kind. They ruin the mind and nullify it. (If only my parents had done the same, but alhamdulillah).

If I read him his score on a game or something, and he doesn't like it, he'll accuse me of lying before ever thinking that he could have any imperfection.

The kid runs around telling me “were you jealous when you saw me as a kid, because of how cute I was?”

Where is this narcissim from? Not parenting... Because the thing's 6. But I have to point towards the TV shows — where there's a primma donna who is the center of everything and no one else matters except as a puppet. Their importance is only to the extent of their impact on the main guy.

And in my case, his love to me is dependant on how much entertainment (ie. Good feelings) I can provide him.