How to Utilize the Free Time of Children

Question:
You mentioned that one of the causes of children going astray is the free time they experience. What is your opinion regarding the solutions and steps a parent should follow in raising their children so that they do not feel the weight of their free time?

Answer:
There is no doubt that free time is one of the greatest causes of falling into much evil.
Indeed, youth, free time, and wealth
are a corruption for a person, a great corruption.
If free time is not occupied with what is right, then souls will occupy it with what is false. Therefore, it is necessary to fill the free time with what is beneficial. If a child has free time that occupies him, whether through reading, or through competitions that are beneficial in some aspect of knowledge and religion, or through beneficial clubs where good lectures, useful words, and righteous admonitions are delivered, and the like of that, it is necessary to occupy the free time with something that is beneficial and not harmful, even if it is merely permissible, so that he does not fall into falsehood, and so that he does not fall into the hands of bad companions. It is necessary that he occupy his free time with what benefits him, such as reading his lessons, being directed toward good, being occupied with reviewing lessons with his father, or with a good man, or with his brother. Find things in the house that occupy them away from falsehood, permissible things that occupy them away from falsehood... Then they should go to bed early, not staying up late. It is necessary to do something that benefits them, either in religion or in worldly affairs.