Your child’s World Religions class teacher asserts that all religions are derived from man-made myths. There is no such thing as God he claims. He challenges your child during a class discussion to prove if God exists in front of all his friends. He is the only student in the class who hesitates to accept the teacher’s assertions yet all he sees at home are cultural practices from which he can derive no answers to these important challenges that he faces. His parents give him unsatisfying explanations, yet want him to stick to his traditions while doing great in school. Perhaps his teacher and all his friends are right. Their explanations seem so logical and convincing. Is there a magic pill that can save your child’s faith? Fortunately the answer is “Yes”. Can you force him to take it? Unfortunately the answer is “No”. He has to take it himself.
The secret at the disposal of your child is the Quran – Allah’s (SWT) Everlasting Miracle. It is not enough for you to make your child complete its Arabic reading without understanding once when he was 10 long time ago. It is not exaggeration when we call it a “miracle”. It has a tremendous impact on the mind, heart, soul, nay the complete self of the listener. Its cadence, choice of words, eloquence, style, message, etc. is literally out of this world! It is literally divine! The listener breaks down in sobs by just hearing its verses. Yet it does not only impact the emotions. It engages the mind and gives logical arguments, points to ponder, explanations, similitudes, etc. that are tailor made to impact man’s thought process to convince the listener of the worldview of its Real Reality. If Allah (SWT) gives taufeeq to your child to truly experience this once, he is hooked for a lifetime. Thereafter his life is like a cruise missile guided by Allah (SWT) personally to hit the target. All he needs to do is go on autopilot, on cruise control, take the precautions Allah (SWT) advised and enjoy the ride.
You will not be around forever to always oversee whether your child is acting according to your wish. Your wish might not always be what is right for your child. The wise thing to do is to connect your child to Allah (SWT) and trust in Him to guide him throughout life and then LET GO! To be affected by the Quran, some work is required. Some time is required to study Quranic Arabic formally in courses. These days there are very professionally conducted courses taught in English which can achieve this via online classes on weekends, e.g. see http://www.shariahprogram.ca/ or http://www.alhudaonlinecourses.com/english-courses/taleem-al-quran-english-course---weekends Sunday school is not enough in my opinion. Neither is it professionally conducted, nor is the knowledge deep / comprehensive enough. In most cases where parents did not formally spend the time regularly to study and implement Islam from the beginning, a complete overhaul of the mind is in order. In that case, I would recommend a gap year in secular education so that the child might study Arabic/Quran full time. This might be done ideally right after high school, or if need be in the middle of university education, after graduation or even during a professional career life. It is worth taking time to develop the right vision to see things as they are, rather than running blindly after false goals forever.
After this education, the child will not need to prove the existence of God. He will feel/sense/experience the Truth in his bones. He will be living it. It will be a part of him and he a part of it. His life will become part of a natural cosmic order it was meant to be, opposing which will never be possible for him.
