If you’re a Muslim parent, then I’m sure you’re worried about keeping your child on the straight path. Especially in our modern world where everyone is vying for our attention. Our kids are not immune to that, but they have less tools to defend themselves. It’s our job as parents to defend them and raise them up properly.
According to ConsumerAffairs.com
“each day, Americans spend 4 hours and 30 minutes on their mobile phones and check their phones 205 times per day.”
“98% of Americans (331 million people) own a mobile phone. More than nine out of 10 (91%) own a smartphone.”
According to the Medical Psychological Association
“Teens are spending nearly 5 hours daily on social media.”
According to PositivePsych.edu
“…evidence suggesting that increased usage of platforms like Facebook is associated with heightened feelings of isolation”
The reality is that most people are tied to their phones. Our phones are just mini computers in our pockets.
The goal of social media companies is to grab and maintain our attention. They want us to spend as much time as possible on their devices and their websites so they can feed us advertisements. They curate the content to be more appealing to us for that reason.
Their goal isn’t truthful media. Nor is it authenticity, or to benefit humanity. Their goal is simply to keep us on their apps for as long as possible. If that means having misinformation, or rage inducing media causes you to share it, comment and interact with it, then that’s a win for them.
For our kids it’s mostly the same. They want them watching CocoMelon or whatever other shows for as long as possible because it means money in their pockets. Whether it’s money from watch time, advertisements, or selling merchandise. The goal is still the same. Have your child sit on their channel/website for as long as possible.
This is time the child isn’t spending playing with you, exploring the world, learning anything beneficial. This is time lost. And worst some of these media companies have a goal of indoctrinating our children to turn them into future consumers. Again the goal is to gain money. It isn’t to spread truth, or benefit. It’s only to increase their wealth.
There’s an interesting 1991 study looking at how advertisements for Camel cigarettes effected children vs adults. The study found that,
“Old Joe Camel cartoon advertisements are far more successful at marketing Camel cigarettes to children than to adults. This finding is consistent with tobacco industry documents that indicate that a major function of tobacco advertising is to promote and maintain tobacco addiction among children.” – https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/1956102/
The point is companies are not to be trusted with our children. Institutions are not to be trusted with our children. The one responsible for raising our kids, is us.
Safe Cartoons for Muslim Children
I’m not arguing that kids shouldn’t watch any media, but rather it should be curated. Before you give your child anything, you should read it yourself.
If you don’t have time to read it, then check a parents guide, or a parental review first. Or watch/read it along with him. It can be a teaching moment if you encounter anything inappropriate. You explain that it’s bad, why it’s bad, and what we can do instead.
But this should be done sparingly. Most of the material they read/watch should already be curated. Maybe some material made it to your child, that you couldn’t review first and that’s when you can have a teaching moment.
Rather than watching movies with haram messages, scenes and subjects, we should have alternatives. My children and I typically watch a cartoon movie two or three times a year. I check what’s an acceptable movie and we watch it.
Recently I was curious about a movie I had heard about called The Mitchell’s vs the Machines. I checked IMDB parents guide as I usually do, and in the first section it said this:
“At the end of the movie, Katie and her mom are on a video call together while she is at school and her mom asks if Katie and the girl she likes are official and if she is coming home for dinner.”
We obviously didn’t watch that movie.
One of our kids first movies was Cars 1 and Cars 3. We never watched Cars 2, partially because it’s not a well regarded movie but also because it’s inappropriate for kids. For example:
“Holly and Mater fall in love, limited to flirting.”
And
“Sally and another girl car talk about how fine a guy car is and they talk about his “open wheels” in a sensual way.”
The reality is our standards as Muslims are not the same as the people making the movies. We have to be very careful of what they watch and we should always watch it with them. At the very least if they’re watching something inappropriate we can skip the scene, or explain it and so on. And truly watching non Islamic media should be a rarity. Especially when we have alternatives.
Islamic Comic Books
Growing up I loved comics. I think comics are a great bridge between picture books and books without pictures. Unfortunately growing up in the 90s there were no Islamic comics, at least in the English language. I understand now that there have been comics all throughout Malaysia, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and many more places, but I didn’t have access to them. Now as an adult, Alhamdulilah, I was able to produce my own comics for kids, called Hani and Huda and Stuck. Please check them out if you haven’t already.
My aim in making family friendly comics isn’t to teach. We have many good Islamic books for kids that do a good job of that. My goal is to entertain the child with halaal material while they are taking a break from their studies. When they’re bored and want to read something, instead of reading superman and batman, they can read Hani and Huda or Stuck. It’s also useful for the Muslim family that isn’t as Islamic as it should. Hani and Huda can open their eyes to furthering their Islamic studies.
There are other Islamic comics such as Ahmad Family Comics and Lala Comics. I recommend both of them. They have many Islamic lessons, Alhamdulilah.
Islamic Cartoons
There are also very well made Islamic cartoons that kids can learn and enjoy. I have a list of what I think are the best: Top 10 Islamic Cartoons 2024: High Quality, No Music, Free on YouTube
Conclusion
We have to be wary of what media our kids consume. We should aim to have a library of faith-based entertainment for our children. If you have trouble finding good Islamic books for kids I recommend Muslims Kids Book Nook who is an online book reviewer. She has an Instagram as well. There are others like her, but I believe she does the best job of it. She not only reviews the book itself, but also the Islamic content and issues it may have.
I hope this article has been beneficial for you all. Please subscribe to get more quality articles from me. I also have the second volume of Hani and Huda coming out soon, insha Allah, so subscribe to be the first to know.
If you loved this post then you’ll love my books! Check out my books for Muslim children! Jazaka Allahu khayran!
A fun moral comic for kids