10 tips to help kids fast during ramadhan (Part 1)

1. Discuss honestly in open the importance of setting one’s intentions to fast for the sake and pleasure of Allah subhanallahu wa Ta’ala, and Him alone. Share all the Islamic principles of this one selfless act and the grave rewards towards the giving of oneself purely as a devout servant of God. These strong deep intentions much be at the root of their fast and must proceed the physical action of fasting. Since the intention of fasting must be made the night before, make the intentions together as a family each night.
2. Create an atmosphere that encourages your children to want to fast. As minors, children must ask and seek permission from their parents to fast. While making intentions together the night before fasting in Ramadan, permission should be sought at the same time. This able request must be sincere and come from the child, not a forced action from the parent to the child. Our girls started asking to fulfill this mature undertaken at two and three years old because they witnessed my husband and I embrace our beloved month of fast and saw the rewards of our actions. Their choice to emulate us was effortless and pure, mashaAllah.
3. The mental, emotional, moral, and Islamic habits of fasting are much more important than the act of fasting from worldly things like food and drink. Break your children’s fast if they pout, have a bad attitude, or argue. We give our girls 3-strikes in their attitudes, or we force them to eat and drink.
4. Pick what you want to eat for suhoor together the night before.
5. Study the nutrition and sunnah of suhoor and create the most simplistic meal to withhold a full day’s fast.
6. Prepare suhoor together before you go to sleep. Have ingredients out, fruits pre-cut, foods defrosting, etc.
7. Go to sleep right after Ishaa prayer.
8. Better yet, go to sleep after Maghrib, and wake up kids for Ishaa, Taraweeh, and Qiyaam al-Layl.
9. Share the sunnah of suhoor. Kids will ache and rush to wake up for suhoor, simply because there’s great reward for eating suhoor; rather then brushing it off as unnecessary or unimportant.
10. Wake up for suhoor at least one-hour before the adhan for Fajr, and use the time to reflect, pray the late night prayer and critical du’a. Don’t wake up to eat and pray half-asleep. Waking up a few minutes before Fajr to eat a big suhoor meal quickly is not healthy as it shocks the body with food, and it is bad for metabolism if you sleep immediately after a drowsy and meaningless prayer. Slow waking, slow eating (ideally half-hour before fajr), and slow praying is more recommended.