Child Well-being in Islamic Perspective

Abstract

This study aims to reveal the Islamic perspective on the concept of well-being and its relevance and implications for children’s lives and parenting practices. It is important to understand the role of the religious value system as a driving force for parenting by paying attention to the various dimensions of children as a whole human being. The conceptual essence of the scope of well-being in an Islamic perspective can be drawn by studying a number of verses in the Qur’an and the Prophet’s hadith. By using the results of research and literature review, this conceptual essence was developed into a description of a number of well-being principles as the basis for the implementation of parenting. The approach and method used in this writing is to collect the texts of the verses of the Qur’an and al-Hadith—which are assumed to contain the idea of well-being—then interpret it based on the paradigm and theoretical principles of education, kinship, and psychology to obtain the basic framework of well-being in an Islamic perspective. These paradigms and principles include, the purpose of life to obtain worldly and hereafter happiness; children are holistic human beings in all aspects of their lives; the development of all aspects of children’s lives is the responsibility of their parents or families; child care must be in accordance with the child’s growth and development; and Islamic spirituality is a fundamental factor that animates the optimization of aspects of children’s lives, which include spirituality or religiosity, intellectuality, emotional/mental/psychological, physical, social, and environmental aspects. Well-being, in each of these aspects, is achieved through various treatments of parents toward their children in parenting.
 Keywords: well-being, parenting, Islamic perspective