15 Ways to Teach Like the Prophet ﷺ

Michael Abraham opens with a pair of answers. A young man asks the Prophet ﷺ whether he can kiss his wife while fasting, and is told no. An older man asks the same question and is told yes, because, Michael recounts, the older man can control himself. From this, Michael argues that there is no single script that works with every child: what an older child can handle a younger one may not, what worked with a first child may not work with a third, and siblings can be quite different from one another. Parents, he says, can aim to know the specific child in front of them, including their level, temperament, and what they can handle right now, rather than the child in a parenting book. He then walks through fifteen moments from the Prophet’s ﷺ teaching, and he encourages listeners to verify these narrations with people of knowledge.

Many of the examples center on lowering the pressure before teaching. Michael describes a young man who asks the Prophet ﷺ, in front of everyone, for permission to commit a serious sin. The companions react with shock, but the Prophet ﷺ brings the young man close, asks him a series of easy questions about his mother, daughter, and sister, and then makes du’a for him. Michael notes both the reasoning the questions invite and how the Prophet ﷺ eased the tension first. In another report, a man named Muawiya ibn al-Hakim speaks during prayer and is corrected calmly, and Michael argues that a gentle correction can build respect while a harsh reaction builds a wall. He also points to the man who asks for brief advice and is told not to be angry, and he says his own two words for people working with young people are “be calm.” Before teaching about sensitive matters, the Prophet ﷺ reminded his companions that he was like a father to them, which Michael applies to hard conversations with children: lower the temperature first and remind them that you are on their side.

Michael then turns to teaching in a way that a young person can take in. He points to reports that the Prophet ﷺ repeated important words three times, sent Mu’adh to Yemen with instructions in a set order, and spaced out his reminders so people would not get bored, and to companions who learned Quran ten verses at a time. He suggests that parents slow down, repeat what matters with calm and purpose rather than frustration, break things into small steps, and pick their moments rather than turning every interaction into a lesson. He also draws on the river example, in which the Prophet ﷺ asks an easy question about bathing before connecting it to the five daily prayers, and on the lines drawn in the sand to represent the straight path. His takeaway is to start with something a child can picture and answer, then walk up to the bigger idea.

The last group of examples is about presence and affirmation. Michael points to the Prophet ﷺ demonstrating how to skin a sheep and teaching companions hand in hand or with a hand on the shoulder, and he suggests that modeling and physical closeness often reach a child better than instructions shouted across a room. He describes the Prophet ﷺ calling Mu’adh by name three times, pausing in between, and reads it as a way of gaining full attention first, which he applies to getting near a child and creating a moment of quiet before saying something important. He also highlights the Prophet ﷺ patting a companion on the chest in congratulations, which he distinguishes from bribing children with candy and stickers: a warm, genuine word of approval when a child does something right. Finally, he points to the Prophet’s ﷺ comparison between a mother reunited with her infant and Allah’s mercy, and draws from it that parental love can be the foundation underneath discipline, something he says children need to feel consistently.