Daily mosque attendance for 2 hours (classes).. My nephews are exhausted!

[saimaxx]

I'm worried about my nephews (aged 7 and 8), they seem constantly exhausted and never get any time to rest/relax in the evenings after school. The usual routine is quickly get home from school, quick tea, wash, get changed then out to mosque. With all the travelling (public transport), they're rarely home before 9pm. Then straight to bed and up the next day to repeat the same routine. This is 5 days per week (Mon-Fri).
Their homework isn't being prioritised and they're never allowed to do "other" activities after school like playing football with their friends, extra curricular clubs (plenty of exciting ones at their school) or have friends over to play at the house. Their whole period from finishing school to going to bed on weeknights revolves around the mosque.
We were raised Muslim but mosque attendance was never forced on us. For example, my sister (their mum) and I used to attend once per week (on a weekend day) to a study group for 2 hours and that was all. The rest of the time we had the chance to play out with friends after school, play sports, visit friends and so on.
I feel sad to see my nephews looking so exhausted but all their parents seem to care about is how well they're doing with their Quran learning. Obviously this is a nice thing, but I don't think it should come at the cost of being so exhausted.
I've tried broaching this with my sister but she won't entertain the idea of sending them to mosque any less. Feels they'd "fall behind".

Feel for them, but unfortunately they're not your kids so really nothing you can do. Hopefully as they get older they will be able to express their own opinions.

Maybe you could gently suggest online learning for them. Often progress is much faster than the traditional setting after school and they get more time to relax at home.

Mosque class formats have changed. When I was a child like OP it was just the weekend, now it is daily as such my dc doesn’t attend classes as it is very full on. The problem is there are limited other options, maybe your sister is a bit stuck.

OP.When we were young,we had the same hours.It's good your sister is prioritising mosque classes.Your nephews have the weekend to relax and play.

Firstly the sessions seem too long but it could be travelling to and from. What you need to realise is this should only be for a short period in their lives maybe a year or two maximum and once they've mastered the Quran they can enjoy their life. My son goes for 3 hours per day but it's literally round the corner and he has a routine to do his homework after mosque and enjoys his company otherwise I would have looked at other options. He knows this is another year in his life and also tends to have a break in the week for football and drama class. You have to ha e balance

I mean other parenta do this with sports. Kuffars push their kids to attend recitals / gym / football / etc etc and oractice above all. I think it is exceasive. But school hours are also exceasive. There needs to be balance of Dunya and deen. Hence why we home school. I could never just let the kidw slqve away with kuffwr and dubya education and forget the deen once a week os pathetic for Islam and the deen. It should be little and often and Quran needw to be orwcriced daily. 2 hours no.
But at age 7 and 8 secular educatio. Should be 3 hours max a day. Thats what Educqtors qnd Psychologists say. So issues with secular education first. Islqmic schools do 50 / 59. My neices and nephew attend one where deen studies AM qnd then secular studies PM. Perfect balance then Fridays are off for Jummuah and doing the Sunnah.

2 hours a day is not excessive if the school hours were appropriate i.e 9am - 12pm and then 2 hours of Deen and then free time in the evening and revision and homework.

Although the balance between education and free time is important, my humble opinion is we only start looking at taking from the Islamic education portion and not their academic education, which risks giving the child a very unbalanced education overall if the Aakhira is a central or even peripheral objective of education.

Having said that despite Madrassas improving over time, still have a huge job to do in being able to adequately educate children in light of time constraints and modern challenges. They can only do this if parents work with them and not abandon them.

If Madrassa options are not suitable for various reasons mentioned in previous posts then there are online institutions which are less taxing in terms of time and still fulfill the objectives of a fundamental Islamic Education.

We run a face to face Madrassa but also have a separate online setup which can be accessed on the website below.

www.elmtuition.com

I hope this is helpful in Sha Allah.