UNAIR NEWS – In Ramadan, all Muslims will fast from children to adults. However, sometimes many parents have difficulty teaching their children to participate in fasting.
Dr. Dewi Retno Suminar, Dra., M.Si., Psychologist., a child psychology expert at Universitas Airlangga (UNAIR) said that children can be taught to fast as early as possible. However, added Dr. Dewi, parents still have to pay attention to the portion of thoughts and physical strength of the child in fasting.
Furthermore, Dr. Dewi revealed that there is an appropriate way to teach children to fast without being forced. First, according to her, parents must understand how old the child is because age determines the child’s cognitive development and this is also related to how to communicate or how to teach children to fast.
For children under seven years of age with a period of preoperational cognitive development, continued Dr. Dewi, the best way to teach fasting is by giving direct examples or giving children the opportunity to imitate their parents’ behavior. For example, when the child wakes up sahur, according to Dr. Dewi let the child see what the parents were doing and explain why they have to eat sahur.
“Providing an atmosphere of Ramadan in the house, with sahur, fasting, and tarawih prayer together will strengthen the imitation process of children in fasting,” explained Dr. Dewi on Thursday, May 6, 2021.
Meanwhile, for children aged seven years and over with a period of concrete operational cognition development, the best way to teach fasting to children according to Dr. Dewi is to provide rewards and reinforcement when the child is able to fast for one full month consistently. The reward given can be in the form of praise or a gift, it depends on each family because sometimes there are children who are not sufficiently given praise but must be given a gift.
“Apart from that, it is important to pay attention to the physical condition of the children. Parents can provide nutritious food and, if necessary, parents can provide vitamins to children, ” she added.
Dr. Dewi stated that teaching fasting to children as early as possible is very important thing to do. The way to teach something to children is to become accustomed to doing good and staying away from bad things. If the child is used to it, she continued, then the child will easily do good things and will not feel burdened in carrying it out.
Some of the benefits of teaching fasting to children as early as possible include being able to teach children to be pious children, teaching children to be able to respect those who are not lucky, teaching children about empathy for others, forming children to be more grateful for what they have and can help children to exercise (self restraint).
“By learning fasting from an early age, it will be easier for children to be taught about empathy, about respecting others and being grateful. Fasting can be used as a medium so that children understand when people don’t eat, so they will feel grateful when they can still eat and they will also understand other people who cannot afford food or experience famine,” she concluded.
As the best university in Indonesia, UNAIR supports its human resources to develop themselves so that they can contribute to society. (*)
Author: Dita Aulia Rahma
Editor: Khefti Al Mawalia
