How to raise children and order them to maintain the prayer?

The questioner : You described the situation after the 'Isha' prayer. Naturally, when I have ten, or ten, or fifteen children in the house, and after the 'Isha' prayer I settle down to sleep, well, I don't want to stay up either, and I want to take my right from life with my wife, meaning I put my head down and sleep. The children sleep at ten, or the children sleep at eleven, [everyone laughs!], what do you want to do after that... I am asleep until morning.

The Shaykh : You—may Allah forgive you—I did not say that the husband is not required to attend to his children and his wife.

The questioner : ... .

The Shaykh : Yes, yes. First of all, these five, ten, or fifteen children; have their parents, not just the man but also the wife, have they fulfilled the duty of raising them with an Islamic upbringing since they were born? I am sorry to tell you: No. And from here comes the problem. For example, a person who wants to maintain performing the prayer on time and wants to pray after 'Isha' according to the Sharia system; when he prays 'Isha' in the mosque, did he take his older children with him to the mosque? The answer is: No. And that is why you find mosques today empty except for the elderly or those close to that age. As for the young people, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, and fifteen years old, we are now seeing some of these patterns in the present age. But—unfortunately—we see these young people now in the mosques, whom we did not see in the past. This trend in their attendance at mosques is not due to the fathers; most fathers do not care about their sons. The reason is the environment they live in and the good company they are influenced by, which activates them to attend the mosques. As for the fathers, most of those who pray do not care about their children. So you exaggerated—may Allah will it!—you said ten and fifteen. How many children must have reached the age of accountability so that when he opens the door of the house, he rushes to the mosque? How many children must be walking with him?

The questioner: At least five.

The Shaykh : We do not see such a thing today; so this gives us something very sad, that this father who has this blessing of children is falling short from the moment the first child arrived. Because if he had started raising the first child and made him, for example, maintain the prayer at nine or ten, and every time he wanted to, he would remain in the prayer in the mosque, his second brother would follow him, and the third would follow him, and so on. The father would be at ease if he had properly planted the first seed. This is not found today, unfortunately; therefore, the problem you described earlier will expand.
I may have strayed a bit from the direct answer, but I care about drawing your attention completely. I tell you: do these children not eat dinner? They eat and finish. What is supposed to happen? Each one takes his bed and sleeps. Why? Because his father does it this way. And his father, when he wants to enjoy his lawful rights, he will enjoy his lawful rights in his private room, not among his children. So he goes to his bed with his wife after all the children have gone to their beds and the house is quiet, and then he enjoys his lawful rights.

The questioner : It needs time.

The Shaykh : Yes?

The questioner : It needs time.

The Shaykh : Whatever the time is, we do not say we prayed 'Isha' and slept. No, this time must be defined and regulated. We are talking about the means that divert us from the obedience of Allah, which is the television. As for coming, you, my son, did you pray? No, I did not pray. Did you perform wudu? No. These are matters that are necessary, but however much time they take, they will not take half an hour, and they will not take a very long time, at most an hour.

The questioner : They do not sleep after two or three hours. They are in their rooms.

The Shaykh : My dear, why do they not sleep? Because originally they are not raised, they are not disciplined in Islam. Do not blame me, their father is not disciplined in the discipline of Islam, and he who lacks a thing cannot give it. All this generation that we see now.

The questioner : The speech is general about the entire Ummah today, it is like this, my friend, not a specific person or something like that.

The Shaykh : I want to draw your attention to something now, there is a difference, there is awareness. Now, perhaps you all witness that it did not exist twenty years ago; is that true or not? Well; but the upbringing has not yet started to bear its fruits. The upbringing in the correct Islam has not yet started to bear its fruits. And from the upbringing we referred to earlier is that the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) forbade sleeping before the 'Isha' prayer and talking after it. This is Islamic upbringing. Do you know it? Perhaps you do not know it in thought and knowledge, so how do you know it in practice? You do not know it. Where are you going to learn it? There was no knowledge from the past. Now, some of the correct knowledge has started to spread among people. From the knowledge that was unknown in knowledge and abandoned in practice—and this is something no one can deny, unfortunately—his saying (peace be upon him): . Now, how many fathers and how many mothers care about the matter of the child's prayer when he starts at the age of seven, and they continue with this command from time to time until the child submits to this noble command? If he does not submit for three years and it enters his life at the age of ten, at that time he is beaten. Where is the father today, let alone a mother, who beats his son because he has become ten years old and he does not pray? Where is that? Therefore, we must know and act upon what we know, otherwise the knowledge that we do not act upon will be an argument against us.
Yes.