FBF 35: Sawdust & Soil

Five ways Muslims can apply the gardener's mindset to help their children thrive

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I came across a poem yesterday that stopped me in my tracks:

If I asked most parents what they want most for their children, they would say success. In today’s fast-paced and highly competitive world, the pressure to raise “successful” children who live “extraordinary” lives is immense. This poem offers a path to extraordinary that truly resonates with me.

The approach we take to encourage success can have profound implications on the emotional well-being and resilience of our children. After nearly 20 years in the classroom, I noticed that there were two different types of parents: those who tried to plan out every step of their children’s lives and those that gave their children the freedom and space to chart their own course.

I was thus delighted when I came across a book called The Gardener and the Carpenter by developmental psychologist Alison Gopnik that assigns names to these two schools of thought that dominate the parenting landscape: the Carpenter’s Mindset and the Gardener’s Mindset.

The Carpenter’s Mindset

In the Carpenter’s Mindset, parents see their role much like that of a carpenter: measuring twice, cutting once. The carpenter has a blueprint, a vision of the exact outcome they want. They purchase materials specifically suited for this project, and every hammer stroke serves the final goal.

Parents who adopt this mindset tend to micromanage their children’s lives. They chalk out a definite career path for them, filling their hours with specialized extracurricular activities and tutoring and often schedule their children down to the minute.

While this may appear to be responsible parenting, there are many drawbacks to the carpenter’s mindset. Carpenter’s children often feel under constant control, which fosters an environment of “us vs. them.” Some feel that they are living in an Orwellian surveillance state, where their parents are authoritarian dictators rather than nurturing caregivers.

The Carpenter’s Mindset leaves little room for the child to make mistakes, to learn, or to develop their sense of self. It leads to enormous anxiety on both the part of the parent and the student, exacerbating the mental health crisis teenagers are facing as they come out of the pandemic.

The Gardener’s Mindset

In contrast, the Gardener’s Mindset shifts the focus from a predetermined outcome to a focus on process. A gardener cannot dictate how a plant will grow. Instead, they create an ecosystem—well-irrigated, fenced to protect from predators, and filled with nutrients. They provide the conditions for growth, and then they step back, allowing nature to take its course.

Parents adopting this mindset aim to provide a rich and fertile environment where children can explore, make mistakes, and discover their own talents and ambitions. The goal is to give the child the tools they need to grow into whoever they will become, rather than forcing them into a preconceived mold.

By focusing on the process over the outcome, the Gardener’s Mindset removes the heavy burden of expectation and the anxiety that comes with it. It fosters a more open, trusting relationship between parent and child. There’s less stress about “getting it right” and more emphasis on learning, growing, and being. Most importantly, it equips children with the emotional and psychological flexibility they need to adapt to an increasingly complex world.

I strongly believe that most Muslim parents lean towards a carpenter’s mindset. The outcomes of this type of parenting vary based on the temperament of the children. While some of these carpenter children end up achieving significant worldly success, they tend to have more distant relationships with their parents and lack the resilience and creativity of gardener children.

Today’s FBF will explore how the teaching of Islam advocates for a gardener’s mindset.

1. Children as Seeds

One of the most compelling ways to approach parenting through the Gardener’s Mindset is by looking at children as seeds. Seeds carry an inherent potential. Despite all the advances in science, no scientist can recreate the miracle of a seed that might become a glorious sugar maple or a stunning dahlia.

The gardener parent recognizes that the eventual fruit of the tree is not entirely in our control; our role is to provide the optimum conditions for that seed to sprout and grow.

In the Quran, Allah asks in Surah Al-Waqi’ah (56: 63-64):

Allah is showing that it is He who is in control of how the seed will develop. He is in charge of the growth and sustenance of all things, including the personal and spiritual growth of our children.

So how can a parent adopt a gardener mindset when raising their children?

The key comes down to focusing on niyyah or intention over outcome. The foundational hadith in Nawawi’s 40 hadith is “Verily actions are by intentions,” and most Muslims know that we are rewarded based on our intentions.

What few probably know is that the root of the word “niyyah” in Arabic is the same as “nawa,” meaning seed. When we set intentions with our children rather than insisting on specific outcomes (high SAT score, Ivy League acceptance, career as engineer or doctor), we honor them for the seeds that they are.

Focusing on intention is how we arm our children with an Islamic worldview, one which will not come crumbling down when they get a rejection letter from Top Choice University.

Carpenter parents mistakenly believe that colleges and employers are more concerned with resume virtues—skills and achievements—while most admissions and hiring decisions are made on the basis of eulogy virtues—those upright character traits that get mentioned at funerals.

By embracing a Gardener’s Mindset, we align ourselves with a parenting model that is not only psychologically sound but also spiritually uplifting. We do not just prepare our children for success in this world; we prepare them for eternal success in the Akhirah.

2. The Invaluable Lesson of Failure

Creating an environment that grants children autonomy is crucial for their growth. Much like a gardener can’t control every weather condition, parents shouldn’t aim to control every variable in their children’s lives. Modern parenting often errs by putting up numerous guardrails to prevent children from experiencing failure.

Meanwhile one of the Common App prompts asks, “The lessons we take from obstacles we encounter can be fundamental to later success. Recount a time when you faced a challenge, setback, or failure. How did it affect you, and what did you learn from the experience?”

How can a child genuinely respond to this prompt if they’ve never been allowed to navigate challenges or experience setbacks?

The Prophet (SAWS) gave us a beautiful way to reframe the concept of failure when he said, “I am amazed by the matter of the believer. Verily, all of his affairs are good for him. If something pleasing happens to him, he thanks Allah and it becomes good for him. If something harmful happens to him, he shows patience, and it becomes good for him.”

Failure, then, can be a source of barakah (blessing), teaching us lessons we wouldn’t learn otherwise.

In short, by fostering an environment of autonomy where failure isn’t merely tolerated but is seen as an integral part of growth, we align with both sound psychological principles and the wisdom of Islamic teachings. Adopting the gardener mindset prepares our children to face not just college application questions but real-world challenges, whereas the carpenter mindset constructs a box around our children that stifles their growth.

3. The Wisdom of Play

Ali ibn Abi Talib (RA) gave us a profound piece of advice when he wrote: “Play with them for the first seven years of their life; then teach them for the next seven years; then advise them for the next seven years.”

In my experience modern Muslim households and Islamic schools often do the exact opposite. My daughter was getting homework in kindergarten and tests in 1^st grade. We eventually pulled her out of the school and began homeschooling in 3^rd grade because we saw the detrimental effect of this early emphasis on achievement.

During our exit interview, we shared our concerns with the principal. She told us that she agreed but that this heavy emphasis on academics is what the parents demanded. The carpenter mindset strikes again!

Too many Muslims neglect the essential role of unstructured play in a child’s cognitive and emotional development. Alison Gopnik’s work offers empirical backing for the wisdom of play. In her research, children were divided into two groups: one was told explicitly what a toy did, while the other was given no instructions.

Results showed that the child left to explore the toy without guidance was significantly more creative in finding various functions for it and played with it far longer than the one who was shown what the toy could do, who lost interest far more quickly.

When we tell young children how the world works rather than giving them the freedom to figure it out on their own, we short circuit their natural inclination towards curiosity.

High-pressure environments created by carpenter parenting can not only stifle creativity but may also have severe negative consequences. As the African proverb goes, “The child who is not embraced by the village will burn it down to feel its warmth.”

Some Muslim children feel so boxed in by their childhoods that they rebel in distressing ways, turning towards drugs and other haram pursuits, because it seems to be the only way to get authentic emotion out of their carpenter parents.

4. Tips for the Aspiring Gardener Parent

Emotional connections and open dialogue between parent and child are among the hallmarks of happy, well-adjusted children. Yet, many Muslim parents wall themselves off from their children.

Fathers will return home from work and expect their chai to be made and their children to be out of sight. Many Muslim parents talk “at” their children rather than “to” them. Conversations often devolve into shouting matches and bruised feelings, and the practice of family “shura” or mutual consultation is rarely to be found.

While researching this piece, the following quote came across my Facebook feed:

I compare this to the “shib-shib” style adopted by some Muslim parents where raised voices and the threat of thrown slippers are used to keep children in line. We must never forget the hadith of the Prophet (SAWS): “Kindness is not found in anything except that it beautifies it.”

Carpenter parents who are always busy in the woodshop should remember this message I saw on Twitter:

Successful gardeners know that their gardens need constant gentle attention. By prioritizing love and openness, we can connect more deeply and authentically with our children.

One practical way to cultivate an atmosphere of communication is to engage in low-pressure activities together. Cooking dinner with your children, for instance, can serve as a metaphorical “garden in the kitchen.” It’s an environment where real conversations can happen, set against the backdrop of a shared task.

Once children reach the age of puberty when they are mukallaf and responsible for their own actions, parents need to recognize that it is time switch into the passenger’s seat and allow their children to drive.

5. Raising Purple Cows

Some may argue that the Carpenter’s Mindset is vital for children to remain competitive in today’s fast-paced economy. And it would be foolish to discount the positive outcomes that some carpenter children have achieved. Every child is different and some definitely need more structure in their lives than others.

But the idea that controlling every aspect of a child’s life prepares them for college and future careers is increasingly outdated. Colleges and employers are looking for students and workers who are intrinsically motivated and naturally curious. The “creator economy” that our children are inheriting prizes creativity and adaptability over rote skills that will soon be replaced by AI.

By raising children with a Gardener’s Mindset, you grant them the freedom to discover their motivations, passions, and strengths. When children are intrinsically motivated and given the space for self-exploration, many naturally gravitate towards enriching experiences such as high-level internships.

What’s more, upper-middle class parents are all singing from the same hymnal. Their children are caught in the same rat race of overscheduling and high-stakes extracurriculars as all of their peers.

In the admissions landscape of today, children need to be what Seth Godin calls a “Purple Cow.” They need to be so different and have such a surprising profile that they pop off the page. As Godin writes about the downsides of conformity, “The center of the herd may be comfortable, but the view is terrible.”

The Gardener’s Mindset allows for the cultivation of unique qualities and interests, enabling children to be those ‘purple cows’ that stand out.

The Prophet (SAWS) told us in a hadith that, “Islam began as a something strange, and it will return to being strange, so blessed are the strangers.”

Holding fast to the deen in a time of so much fitna and fasad automatically will automatically set our children apart as a “stranger.” If we want our children to be able to hold fast to their convictions, we need to adopt a Gardener’s mindset where they have learned to live both through times of drought and times of abundance.

We must never forget when planting our most precious seeds that “Mighty oaks from little acorns grow.”