Daughter getting disobedient and forgetting Salah

Question

I have an eleven year old daughter who is causing me some struggles at this moment in time. For some time I've been having doubts that she isn't praying her salat properly. I wanted to sit down and listen to her prayer however, an incident occurred whereby I found out that she has forgotten all her salat. I had to sit down with her and go through everything all over again. She says that she forgot her salat due to a close friend of mine dying some months back, however, I don't believe this since she prays five times a day, so how could she forget it? I understand if a person leaves it and doesn't go back to prayer for months but she stands with us (I assumed) doing her salat correctly. On top of everything else, her attitude is horrendous. She answers back to me, arguments escalate over nothing, she shouts at me, she has no respect for myself and her other sister. She wasn't like this before and she used to be a nice person. I don't know what's gone wrong with my daughter. What should I do, both with salat and with her general attitude to her family?

Answer

You mentioned she is eleven right? This is the time the body goes through hormonal changes. Basically, puberty is all about hormones. Puberty is a name for the time when you start to change from a child to an adult. Puberty is normal- it happens to everyone. Feeling angry is normal during puberty because of the hormonal changes.

The physical and emotional changes of puberty don't always happen together. It's possible that one could begin to mature emotionally before any physical changes happen. In other words'she could feel older but still look like a kid or she could look older, but still feel like a kid.
Adolescence can be kind of crazy because she is no longer a child, but not yet an adult.

I know that you are obliged to discipline her for her errors and also wanting her to love her Salaah, not fear it. Sister, we have to realize that we can't expect a perfect Salaah from a child, of course she will make mistakes and we will guide her from time to time. If you want her to love her Salaah, the best thing for that is to have daily Taleem from the book 'Fazaail-e-Amaal'. Insha Allah in few days you will see a change in her Salah.

[Editor's note]
Clean home environment:
Make an effort to remove any bad literature, digests, TV, pictures and movies from your home. Such things only take the Ummah to a path of immodesty and bad desires.

May Allah make her coolness of your eyes. Ameen.

Virtues of Prayers (Salah)
http://islameasy.org/pdf/Prayers_Salah.pdf

Virtues of Knowledge
http://www.islameasy.org/pdf/MA_Virtues_Ilm.pdf

Virtues of the noble Qur'an
http://www.islameasy.org/pdf/MA_Virtues_Quran.pdf

And Allah knows best.

Ask Alimah Team

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