Maulana Wahiduddin Khan | The Sunday Guardian | November 06, 2016, p. 12
According to a hadith, which deals with parenting of children, the Prophet said: “There is no better and superior present that a father can give to his children than cultivation of good morals.” (Sunan at-Tirmidhi)
In this hadith, by good morals is meant the best way of leading life. It is about how one’s son or daughter should live in this world so that when they have grown up they can be truly successful and do not become a liability to their family and society, but, rather, an asset.
If parents pamper their children, they give them the worst possible gift. But if they teach them the way to lead a successful life and prepare them for that, they give them the best possible gift. For instance, they should raise them to not complain about others and to always look for where they may have made a mistake or gone wrong and rectify it, and in this way make themselves better people.
They should nurture them in such a way that they develop modesty, not pride or a superiority complex. They should help their children to be always being responsible for their mistakes, rather than holding others as responsible.
They should teach them to spend their energy and time in useful activities.
Parents must help their children learn that if they do something wrong, they themselves must pay for it and that no one else can do that.
Children must learn that they must not complain about others and that doing so is simply a waste of one’s time. They must learn to think positively and save themselves completely from negative thinking. They must abstain from bad habits. Moreover, parents should make their children duty-conscious, not rights-conscious.