Ramadan is the perfect month to strengthen family ties.
Take care to:
- Eat suḥūr and ifṭār together as a family.
- Talk to each other during ifṭār time. Do not zone out with TV or phones.
- Read to each other at ifṭār, even if it’s children’s Ramadan stories.
- Allow children to help cook and prepare meals for ifṭār.
- Teach children Ramadan greetings in different languages.
- Pray tarāwīḥ as a family or go to the mosque together.
- Do qiyām al-layl for the 27th night.
- Designate a children’s prayer corner and encourage them to pray.
- Play Qurʾān memorization games and participate in competitions .
- Finish a Qurʾān khatm together as a family.
- Make dhikr and ṣalawāt together.
- Memorize Prophetic sayings and supplications.
- Learn Islamic songs and sing them.
- Call and email relatives to wish them Ramadan Mubarak.
- Decorate the house for Ramadan.
- Bake Ramadan treats together and give them as gifts to friends.
- Create Ramadan arts and crafts projects, like making Eid cards.
- Go moonsighting together. Try to sight the first night of Ramadan, the 15th night, and the night of Eid.
“My sister started making Ramadan and Eid decoration for their home with her kids, and they absolutely love it. There is a strong sense of “ownership” for them in this project, as they create things with their own hands. Other ideas are the following:
- Sadaqa projects. They go through their stuff/toys and find items that can be given away or sold. The money from sold items are given to charity by the kids themselves.
- If you live in a country where this is easily possible, go visit homes for home less people, orphans, children´s hospital or refugees. To increase kids´ gratitude for what they have and to teach them to be kind and compassionate to others.
- Depending on their age, assign one important and specific task to each child, that is done throughout the whole month of Ramadan. It should involve a service for the whole family, for example, waking everyone up for suhur/tahajjud, making Eid og ramadan cards to extended family, making the date plate ready for iftaar etc.
- If this is not already a practice, start making group duas right before iftaar, have everyone make a personal dua aloud that includes gratitude to Allah for something that is perceptible or understandable for the children.
- Sing a lots of (extra) nasheeds.
- Read small seera stories daily.
- Do games that includes the whole family, including both mom and dad, more frequently in Ramadan. And after each game session make group dua where you thank Allah for the happy time just spent together as a family. Kids love games and its all about creating happy and fond memories of Ramadan for them.
Hope some of it is useful inshallah.”
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