He too will adopt and pass on this polished culture down in the family.

He too will adopt and pass on this polished culture down in the family. Another Dimension. However, there is also another dimension to this unpleasant weakness. The child who has been made habituated to responding only after a repeated instruction is likely to grow up as an adult with yet a greater weakness. While he would show immediate willingness to do a favour upon a request, he would act only after the request has been repeated even if the favour was small or simple.

There are those amongst us who express a request only once for a favour. Repeating the request is avoided because it amounts to begging. A person makes an inconsiderate spouse in the family; also an unkind son or a daughter to the aged parents if the person habitually needs a repetition of almost every small request before he would remember to oblige. Often the repetition awaited never appears and the request drifts from the memory as if it never existed.

The favour is deemed to have been denied when the intention was not so. The Child's FIrst Participation in a Religious Congregation There always comes a time when a child is seen old enough to be taken for the first time to a mosque. He has some knowledge of tahaarat (cleanliness) and ehteraam (respect) for the mosque.

Incidentally, that is also the age when the child can be allowed the benefit of his "first impression to be his lasting one" with regard to his first experiences that he comes across in his life and the values attached to them. Parents need to believe and make the child also believe that his first participation in a congregational prayer is a momentous occasion for him and for the family, which indeed is, if only they knew!

The first impact and impression of the child regarding the occasion will leave lasting imprints in his memory. A person belongs to where his memories are. Some child- hood memories always survive sharply to create the desire to relive the occasions. And he later in his adult life relives the occasion like this sub-consciously by maintaining regularity in the attendance of daily prayers.

Planning & Preparation But this has to be preceded by an enthusiastic planning and ostentatious preparation for the child to notice. So the child's inquisitive nature makes him attentive to the talk going on around him about certain prior arrangements and time-schedules, and he knows in his own small way that there is in the air an important occasion out.