Muslim families with pre-teen girls

[Laffydaffy]

DD has a friend who is half European and half Syrian. Friend's mum converted to Islam before marriage. Initially, it was not obvious they were practicing Muslims. No talking about it, no hijab, liberal (alcohol in house), among other things, until recently. Recently, the pre-teen friend fasted with her family for Ramadan, mum has just started wearing a hijab in the last fortnight and dad has forbidden friend to visit anyone's house without mum accompanying for the whole visit.

My question is, if the family is becoming more devout, about which I have no problem with, how common is it for 11 year old girls to need constant supervision when not at home or at school?

Not sure why you're laying into the OP about reporting the family when she has never once mentioned reporting them.

I think some posters are a bit unfair to OP. She was not the one who suggested reporting to school. And by mentioning pro-Palestinian conversation she was trying to work out what could cause possible changes. And not wanting to spend 3 hours chatting with another mum is normal as well. It doesn’t mean you are unfriendly it means you are busy and this mum is not your close friend.
By the way OP, it’s probably about hitting puberty (and starting periods).

As I said on a thread yesterday I just wait for the thread du jour along these lines.

The sudden religiosity and increased control is concerning. To go from drinking to hijab because your husband wants it is a bit hmm.

DD is only little but I know that DH would struggle with sleepovers from a safeguarding perspective, definitely wouldn’t be happy about it and we aren’t muslim. He would probably be ok if there were only females in the house but even then I’m fairly sure he would worry over it.

I think there is a lot more information about safeguarding out there so many people don’t want their children to be exposed to risks if they can avoid them.

OP@Laffydaffy has your daughter told her friend about the CSA? Perhaps if she has told her parents then they may be concerned about who she is associating with . Otherwise I agree with previous comments, if your daughter's friend has started her period then they may be going down the path of restrictive practices. ( the mum may have started to wear a hijab because the father wants the daughter to). Sadly restrictions on women can kick in at any age, I once worked with a degree qualified health professional who had to give up her profession when she got married.

I was the poster that originally recommended informing school. Not because they are Muslim or their views on Palestine but because they have had a fairly radical change in behaviour.
This would apply to any family/child regardless of faith or political ideas.

Nothing will happen if the school is told, it will just be noted on the Safeguarding software as a 'Notice of Concern' and is valuable in building up the wider picture from a social outside school aspect. If there are other concerns from within school this will be added too and then action taken if necessary as per the school's safeguarding policy. If there are no further concerns then it's fine there will be no further action.

As others have sad, it is personal choice.
My Muslim friend and her husband had always been very liberal. The husband smoked and drank wine. They would both go clubbing etc.
Their two preteens had a lot of freedom and they attended the local state school.
Then one day she arrived at my house with her daughter and they were both wearing hijabs. The daughter was removed from the local school and was sent to an Islamic school.
I asked her about the sudden changes and she said that her husband was now a devout Muslim
I think that this is more common than one would think.
It is probably akin to someone becoming a born again Christian

she did say in another comment if she soulf report them and some people have suggested that she does.

A lot of these "restrictive", "misogynistic" behaviours could be argued to come from a genuine concern to keep girls safe from abusive men.

I suspect many Muslims go too far on this, and doubtless some are coloured by other motivations too. But let's not pretend Western culture has got this right either. We've often allowed children into harm's way far too easily.

A PP asks why do little girls need to wear trousers and head coverings, who is looking at them sexually at that age? Possibly far more people than you might like to think ...

Well said.

I can't believe the OP was thinking about reporting this to safeguarding, when she herself doesn't allow sleepovers. Should OP be reported too as being controlling?

As a non-Muslim, I find this thread bizarre. Pray for Rafah.

I think its rather presumptuous of you to suggest the wife stopped drinking and wore hijab solely because of her husband -
OP made no mention of this in her post?

I do however agree with more people understanding safeguarding and like to put measures in place to prevent harm.

Seems very OTT that the girl isn’t allowed out without a parent chaperoning. Seems to be controlling of the dad. Also if he’s tried to engage you re Palestine/Israel he’s trying to suss out your views I’m sure and wasn’t doing it in an innocent way.

Talking about current news is trying to suss out someone’s opinion?

We are a Muslim family.

We have grown up ourselves in a very Islamophobic age. My best friend had a random man whisper a death threat at her at an ATM. I and another friend had full bottles of beer thrown at us from a car as we were walking down a high street one evening. These are the examples that gets everyone saying "oooh that's awful" but actually the worse is the rising, self conscious, sick feeling when you realise someone you liked or respect has Islamophobic views, will try to make you personally apologise for the actions of ISIS or brings everything around to Islam and how bad it is. Those people wouldn't think they're like that at all "we're just having a conversation" "they're important questions" "I wanted to know the other side" and so on- but we can see it a mile away.

The point of the above is, we are extremely protective of our children, as is our whole community. We don't want our precious, brilliant children living their lives feeling like they have to justify their religion to those who already don't like it. They're just kids and they deserve innocence. If I get even a whiff that someone's parents are Islamophobic, that's the last time my child will be alone at their house. And my children are all boys.

Might be worth reflecting on why, OP, you think putting on a headscarf and caring about the death of 15,000 children in Palestine make you uncomfortable. Yes I know you said you didn't mean it like that. But there's a reason you raised them in that way.

exactly this. many women wear hijab against their husbands wishes. my ex and certain family members(also muslim) gave me a real hard time about wearing hijab - wanting me to look more glam when going out. I know several ladies forced/coerced to take their hijabs off post marriage by husbands/in laws or even just their own families - funny how you don't hear their stories.

of course not. clearly he was recruiting for hamas. what other reason could there be for raising the most topical news issue of the day?

Also this man is Syrian; if not himself then he would personally know people who were killed, injured or displaced in the Syrian war, and the situation in Palestine would be extremely triggering, but when he tried to raise it you "shut him down"? Sorry but I would not be happy with my kids to be somewhere so uncompassionate either.

So it looks like ‘separate development’ is the way forward then. What a shame for all of us who fought against the first time round.

My experience from the Muslim friends of my girls has been that the girls are allowed to come over during the day but no sleepovers.
I have actually become very good friends with one of the families and their Dd has been allowed too stay with us for very special occasions.
I would find this sudden restriction on the child’s freedom concerning and sad if it was me. Not sure it’s enough to do anything about it though.

No you won’t hear those stories as it doesn’t fit the narrative. Then these mumsnetters wont have any drama to type up whilst havin a brew.

Im flabbergasted at these racist comments that are rightfully being removed. Live and let live. Some people have too much time reading into other peoples lives and personalities but could do with a few therapy sessions of their own.

My 9 year old has a friend from a strict Muslim family, when her daughter comes to play the mum comes too. I’ve stopped inviting them as it’s a bit much, I quite like it when the kids play at play dates and I just get my jobs done, make their tea and then the kid gets picked up. Instead I’m entertaining mum too! Lovely lady but I don’t have time.

This isn’t just a muslim thing. This can be a Hindu thing too - eg I don’t feel comfortable with my child having unsupervised playdates outside people with a similar culture to mine (hindus and muslims of Indian origin). For others I try to supervise playdates.

I am from a foreign-born Christian family, kids in my family were not allowed sleepovers at other people's houses until we were at least 15. At 11 girls would have definitely not been allowed unsupervised visits either. This kind of approach was very common with most families we knew when I was growing up, although there were some who were more permissive. So it's definitely not a Muslim thing necessarily. Of course, my childhood was a while ago, but I'm a Millennial, so not massively old.

I would encourage the OP to try flip the angle of their perspective: look at the enthusiasm for sleepovers and unsupervised visits from children as something specific to your culture, which other people may not share. In fact it is entirely possible for people from other cultures to judge this as excessively permissive or imprudent, the same way you are judging the opposite position as limiting children's freedoms.

@ICantThinkofAnythingClever that's a really good point.
tbh judgement and disparaging comments go both ways. they may not be on mumsnet enmasse but in my experience many parents asian/non western cultures have a lot to criticise say about how children are parented in the west. I'm not saying they are in the right but while criticising and being shocked by other culture's parenting, maybe remember that they are probably raising eyebrows at your parenting culture too.