A New Member in The Village

At first, the decision to send her to a non-religious school gave certain guilty feeling inside. It was among many (important) things that didn’t go according to initial plan.

But then, since when (big things in) life goes according to your plan?

Never mind. The more important thing is while the goal should be rigid, the strategy needs to be fluid.

The bright side of choosing non-religious school where religious study is not the main menu (and far from adequate), it opens many opportunities to explore other possibilities of good teachers.

Done with a Quran teacher, next searching that I have been doing for months is a (proper) Islamic teacher.

When gender is not a problem for the Quran teacher, as long as the person is qualified and speaks English well, which we go with a male teacher, for Islamic, I strictly want a female teacher.

Why female teacher? Because she will soon go to puberty, where many drastic changes would happen. A period of many turbulences which she needs someone to hold on to, to share things with other than her parents (since maybe the parents would be one that she would have conflict with), someone who understands what she has been going through, more importantly, someone with proper knowledge about the know-how according to our religion. For me, that’s one important thing that I surely couldn’t handle alone.

Been looking around, reading many profiles, did some trials and not working well, until I bumped into a good looking profile in one of the platforms on the internet.

Sent short paragraphs of introduction explained what I looked for, what kind of lesson I expect to have and the learning purpose. Explained thoroughly about her condition and my expectations.

A reply received in an instant. The conversation went well and the first meeting set up right away.

Alhamdulillah, the first lesson done as good as expected. On time, well-prepared, and I loved how the lesson delivered.

Hopefully, the relationship will be as good as the first lesson.

It takes a village to raise a child. Surround her with good and qualified teachers on the subject that we consider important and where the parents don’t have adequate knowledge about, is part of our efforts to provide proper village for her to grow.

(Switch to Bahasa mode)

Menuju periode 7 tahun kedua, hati makin berat dari sebelumnya. Kenapa? Karena sadar ilmu yang diperlukan buat menghadapi periode ini masih jauh dari cukup.

Menghadapi 7th pertama yang udah belajar teorinya jauh sebelum prakteknya aja masih banyak ‘miss’-nya. Apalagi ini, yang baru mulai ‘serius’ belajar beberapa tahun terakhir.

Di parenting Islam, 7th pertama anak adalah raja (master) yang bebas tanpa tugas, main tanpa batas, masuk ke 7th kedua anak adalah ‘slave’ (once elaborated here).

Waktu dimana sudah harus belajar disiplin, ilmu yang baik, punya kewajiban dan tanggung jawab, bahkan boleh dipukul jika umur 10 tahun tidak melaksanakan kewajibannya.

Usaha mencari guru ini yang terlihat buat ngajar anaknya, tapi tujuan utamanya adalah buat ngajarin orangtuanya. Menghadirkan guru buat anak lebih untuk supaya orangtuanya lebih punya ilmu yang benar buat menghadapi ‘battle’ yang akan lebih berat dari sebelumnya.

Seperti dokter yang harusnya lebih tau dari pasiennya, bos lebih jago dari bawahannya, masuk akal kalo tuan harus lebih pinter dari hamba sahayanya. Jadi, ngga ada cara selain belajar lebih keras dari sebelumnya. Anak-anak itu fast learner, yang lambat itu orangtuanya.

Hari-hari menuju akhir 7th pertama, hati lebih sering gentar dari sebelumnya.