Alhamdullilah. My daughter turned 8 two weeks ago. She has been fasting since she was 5. Half days initially then full days. She has yet to complete a full month, but it doesn’t matter to us. The idea is just to get her accustomed to fasting. Sometimes she fasts for 2 days and takes the next 3 days off. She doesn’t fast on the days when we take her on outings. The max number of days she has fasted? Probably 21 days.
She gets to choose what she wants to eat for Iftar, usually chicken with egg noodles or rice. This year, with her interest and taste in food widening, she has helped plan a menu of something healthy and simple which the whole family will enjoy( and it’s not easy to plan when she prefers chicken and my husband doesn’t eat birds). But her sehri/predawn meal has to be wholesome. Wholemeal wraps with fish or chicken or eggs. Malted chocolate drink, a teaspoon of honey and zam-zam. After Iftar and solat Maghrib, she has to have laban and fruits.
This year, we insisted she perform fajr before going back to sleep. It’s summer vacation for her now, so we have planned some Islamic Studies programs at home. She gets to play before dzuhr, then for 2 hrs, her time has to be occupied with reading Seerah and understanding the mandatory surah al fatiha and 3 quls (1 surah/week). I have downloaded a Ramadan fun pack, from which she gets to colour, as well as getting a geography and math lesson thrown in for identifying Muslim countries. And MasyaAllah, in teaching her the basics, I am learning too. For example, I hadn’t known that when we recite verse 5 of Surah Al Fatiha, Maliki yaum mid deen…Allah will say: My servant has glorified me. This is Hadith Sahih. And this is just one of the lessons I have learned from the 1st surah. I’m looking forward to our learning journey together.
Bearing in mind the intense desert summer heat, we have told her she can break her fast should she find it intolerable. This year her 1st day didn’t go too well and she broke fast after 11 hours. Perhaps more from the torture of watching her 4 1/2 yr old brother having breakfast, lunch and snacking. We have rectified that by making sure the little one has his breakfast before his sister wakes up.
Hopefully she will find the rest of Ramadan easier. She has said during our lesson yesterday that she wishes it were Ramadan all the time because Shaytaan gets locked up!
