Parenting workshop recap: faith, screens, and the long game

Last weekend, fifteen parents gathered at the community center for our spring parenting workshop, "Faith, Screens, and the Long Game." It was a smaller group than usual. The conversation was unhurried, the questions honest, and we left with a clearer picture of where the next workshop should aim.

What we covered

The evening ran two hours, broken into three short sessions with breaks for tea and snacks in between:

1. Faith as a home practice. Three parents opened up about what rituals they currently keep in their homes, anything from a daily Fajr that everyone rises for, to a weekly family Qur'an half-hour after dinner. We did not propose a "right" pattern; we shared what was working, what had stopped working, and what each family wanted to revisit.
2. Screens, attention, and the household rule. The honest conversation. We talked about screen-time for kids seven and up, the way family meals shift when a phone is on the table, and parent guilt, a lot of parent guilt. We sketched a few practical rules that families could adapt instead of adopt: devices out of bedrooms at night, no phones at the dinner table, a shared family charging station in the living room.
3. The long game. A short reflection on how the parenting literature tends to focus on the seasons that test them most, toddler defiance, teenage rebellion, and how the harder, slower work is being a steady, present adult in a child's day for the eighteen or twenty years that they live under your roof. The traditional Prophetic du'a we recited at the end (Rabbi habli mina-s-salihin) lands here more than anywhere: the request is for righteous children who will outlive you, not for short-term wins.

What we heard back

We sent a short feedback form. A few themes came back:

"It helped that no one was telling us what to do, we were just talking about what we already try to do, and the workshop helped us name it.""I realized my screen 'rules' had collapsed quietly over the last year. Time to restart.""Would love one of these just for moms / just for dads, fewer people, more honest."

We are listening. The fall workshop will likely repeat the format with the requested splits.

If you'd like to register for the next one, or suggest a topic, see our events page or email programs@mupla.org.