It was a quiet, lovely weekend spent in the company of home, some creatively cooked meals, nearly-missed sahurs and a couple of great football games last night. Nice.
A young friend of mine, Kiki, who is just turning 8 or 9 this year, has just starting fasting. His tale is quite interesting: if he completes the 30 days of fast, he will receive RM2 for each day, or RM60 for the whole month. I remember what's its like to be 8 years old, and RM60 would seem like a ton of money. Its always difficult to motivate children to do the right thing; they are still not able to rationally decide with complete accuracy what is right or wrong, after all. So is money the correct motivation to use on him with regards to fasting?
I suppose the purists would say no. Fasting is a religious obligation that is cheapened through the motivation of money; and its wrong to even offer him money to fast. He should be taught what's right, rather than dangled the carrot for proper behaviour.
I don't know about this. I look back into my childhood and remember that my parents rewarded my for fasting too, though perhaps not in money terms: a favourite dish for iftar, or a trip to the nearby 7-Eleven for ice cream after tarawih. Things like that. Not money, but the principle of reward for desired action was still the same. Did that make me any less of a person today? I guess not; no offer of rewards are made to me now for fasting. I fast because i want to, for His pleasure and rather not my own.
Children, perhaps more than adults, need motivation to do the right thing. Perhaps there is a "wrong" way to teach them the right thing, but i think, especially for someone so young, its the lesson that's important rather than the method in which the lesson is learned. The training of fasting that will serve him well as he becomes an adult is certainly worth much more than RM60.
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