When the mother gets admitted to a maternity home for delivery...

When the mother gets admitted to a maternity home for delivery, the father should give some gifts to the children at home so that their minds are diverted and they dont miss the mother. The father should tell them on the occasion that the gifts are given to them to celebrate the arrival of the little one! He should ask them that when the little one came home, they should not make much noise. The parents should not praise the baby too much in the presence of the other children.

They should give a little more attention to the older children to give them the feeling of assurance that the new one is not come to deprive them of their parents attention. Hazrat Ali says: Justice removes differences and promotes friendship. [1] Just treatment is always the best strategy. [2] It is always possible that some of the children might have special qualities that become the darlings of the parents. Some children may be more intelligent, some more pretty [1] Ghurar al-Hikam, Page 64.

[2] Ibid., Page 64. and some other more polite to deserve special attention of the parents. One child might perform excellently at school and attract lot of praise from the parents. These extraordinary expressions of love because of some special quality in a child will not be anything out of the ordinary. But excessive repetition of such praises is not advisable. Some parents, as a strategy to promote competition between their children, talk about the good qualities of one to the other(s).

For example, they may say, Hassan! Work hard at studies that you get high grades in your examinations as did Abbas! They say, Zainab! You must help your mother for his household chores as Zahra is so nicely doing! Reza! Observe good table manners like your brother, Ali! What a polite and courteous boy he is! This attitude of the parents is not right. It might not bring about positive and desirable results. To the contrary, it might create hard feelings and jealousy between brothers and sisters.

They may become revengeful and might themselves indulge in unnecessary comparisons between each other. Another very important reason for the fights between the children is the high expectations of the parents from them. The child wants to play with the toys of his sibling; the parents prohibit him from doing it. This gives rise to the fight between the two. At this juncture the parents intervene. First they quietly try to convince the children to become quiet.