Sabahat Fida
Kashmir
“Play with them for the first seven years, discipline them for the next seven years, and befriend them for the final seven years.” Imam Ali (a.s) . This profoundly structured hadith of Imam Ali provides a timeless framework for nurturing the developing human being. It divides the formative years of a child into three distinct phases, each tailored to the psychological, emotional, and moral needs of that age: The first seven years are marked by play, emotional warmth, and imaginative exploration. The child is seen as a king of their world, free to roam, question, laugh, and build their inner world without the burden of performance or conformity. The next seven years are dedicated to discipline and moral formation. Here, the child is no longer simply indulged but guided, corrected, and shaped. In the final seven years, from roughly age 14 to 21, the young adult is no longer a passive recipient of orders but a friend and companion, capable of dialogue, trust, and shared responsibility.
Imam Ali’s structure not only mirrors the psychospiritual development of the child, but also offers a stark contrast to the contemporary collapse of boundaries in modern education. Today, we see a reversal or worse, an obliteration of this model: play is often denied, discipline is neglected, and true friendship between generations is rare.
While traditional Islamic pedagogy, as seen in Imam Ali’s model, emphasizes a phase-wise moral formation, modern psychological research too underscores the centrality of discipline in child development—not as coercion, but as structured engagement. Yet, paradoxically, in today’s classrooms and households, we are witnessing a curious inversion: teachers are micromanaged, monitored, and evaluated relentlessly, while students are often spared the burden of accountability. This asymmetry is not simply inefficient it is morally and developmentally corrosive.
Psychologist Ross Greene, known for his “Collaborative & Proactive Solutions” model, argues that discipline must be collaborative, respectful, and developmentally appropriate—but never absent. He stresses that many behavioural issues in children stem not from wilful defiance, but from lagging skills, and that discipline should be a dialogue, not a monologue. Yet even Greene maintains that a child’s frustration or struggle should not exempt them from boundaries; to do so is to deprive them of the scaffolding they need to grow.
Similarly, developmental psychologist Jane Pigott affirms that moral reasoning emerges from a child’s interaction with rules, authority, and the social order. When children are shielded from correction, or left unchallenged by limits, they fail to internalize the structures necessary for empathy, justice, and self-regulation.
But in many schools and families today, these insights are ignored. Children are given excessive emotional latitude without guidance, while teachers are held to impossible standards. The result? A widespread erosion of authority, where the child is no longer disciplined, and the teacher is no longer trusted.
Far from being a relic of authoritarian models, discipline is widely recognized across developmental psychology as essential to the formation of responsibility, empathy, and self-regulation. Whether framed in behavioural, cognitive, or psychosocial terms, prominent theorists from across the 20th and 21st centuries affirm what Imam Ali outlined centuries earlier: that discipline is not domination—but formation.
Diana Baumrind, a pioneering developmental psychologist, famously identified three major parenting styles—authoritarian, permissive, and authoritative. Her research revealed that the most emotionally balanced and morally grounded children emerged from authoritative homes, where discipline was enforced with warmth and clarity, not fear. Baumrind warned that permissiveness breeds entitlement, emotional instability, and weak moral fibre, especially when children are not held accountable for their actions.
Erik Erikson, whose psychosocial model maps human development through crises of identity and responsibility, emphasized that each stage of development requires the internalization of social rules. During the stages of initiative vs. guilt (ages 3–5) and industry vs. inferiority (ages 6–12), children learn to balance personal agency with the discipline of the collective. Without moral guidance or structure, Erikson argued, children fail to develop a coherent sense of self and may struggle with purposelessness or inferiority later in life.
B.F. Skinner, though known for his work in behaviourism, reinforced the need for clear consequences and structure. While Skinner’s approach focused on external reinforcement, it still supported the idea that consistent and fair discipline shapes behaviour over time, especially when consequences are meaningful and predictable.
Laurence Steinberg, a leading voice in adolescent psychology, argues strongly for boundaries and guidance during the teenage years, especially as the prefrontal cortex—the centre of judgment and impulse control—is still developing. He writes that “adolescents need authoritative parenting as much as toddlers do”, and that the absence of discipline during these formative years can lead to risk-taking, moral confusion, and poor emotional regulation.
Donson, though less widely cited than others, offers insights into discipline as attunement. His framework emphasizes that children feel safest when adults hold consistent boundaries, and that this predictability nurtures not fear, but trust. According to Donson, a child without discipline is a child without orientation.
Together, these perspectives dismantle the modern myth that discipline is inherently repressive. Instead, they point to the opposite: that when discipline is fair, collaborative, and consistent, it becomes the scaffold for moral reasoning, emotional maturity, and ethical selfhood.
The crisis of discipline in education today is no longer just about permissive parenting or bureaucratic schooling—it is now deeply embedded in the very architecture of attention. What began during the COVID-19 pandemic as a temporary measure introducing smartphones and digital platforms to maintain learning continuity, has now metastasized into a permanent fracture in the classroom. The smartphone, once intended as a tool for connection, has become a portal of disconnection, unmooring students from both their teachers and themselves.
Psychologist and sociologist Sherry Turkle, in her landmark book Alone Together, captures the heart of this crisis. Turkle describes how constant engagement with screens creates the illusion of intimacy without the demands of relationship. Students can now attend class without being present, appear online while remaining emotionally and cognitively absent. As she puts it, “We expect more from technology and less from each other.” The result is a culture of emotional disconnection, where students grow up more comfortable texting than talking, more attuned to screens than to souls.
Post-COVID classrooms are now populated by what can only be called digital zombies—children and adolescents who are physically present but mentally scattered, their attention hijacked by the dopamine loops of short-form content, gaming, and algorithm-driven feeds. These students are not just distracted; they are dismembered split from their inner emotional worlds, unable to sit with boredom, silence, or interpersonal discomfort. The very capacities required for learning attentiveness, patience, reflection, and moral resonance are being dissolved by the incessant pull of devices.
The irony is stark: devices were introduced to maintain contact with the teacher, but they have instead shattered the teacher–student bond. Where once the teacher’s voice anchored the moral and intellectual rhythm of the classroom, now it competes with YouTube, Instagram, and endless notification streams. The classroom, once a sacred space of presence, discipline, and dialogue, is now a fragmented echo chamber, where students flicker in and out of focus, no longer rooted in time or relationship.
In this new cognitive environment, platforms like Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube Shorts have not just changed how students consume content—they have reshaped the architecture of their attention. These ultra-short videos, designed to deliver quick dopamine bursts, train the brain to seek constant novelty, instant gratification, and rapid emotional feedback. The result is a profound attenuation of listening skills. Children are no longer able to sit with a single speaker, narrative, or idea for more than a few minutes without restlessness or irritation. What once was a 30-minute class—a normal unit of time for thought, dialogue, or contemplation—now feels like an eternity to students accustomed to swiping every 10 seconds.
This isn’t mere impatience. It is a neurological reconditioning, where the student’s mind begins to reject sustained thought as boring, and instead craves stimulation loops flashing images, fast transitions, and emotional highs. Attention has become a series of micro-engagements, not a capacity for sustained presence. Thus, the teacher is no longer seen as a voice to dwell with, but a delay to be endured.
The teacher is now competing not just with noise, but with a neural addiction.
When students see the teacher as one among millions of YouTube tutors or AI instructors, they no longer approach knowledge with humility. Instead, they seek speed, clarity, and ease—qualities that oppose the slow moral refinement education traditionally required. , the moral decay of society begins when the teacher is desacralized.
“When the Compass Fails: Firsthand Encounters with the Moral Drift”
In my eight years of teaching, I have seen not just academic stagnation but a deeper unravelling of character, responsibility, and inner compass in our adolescents. The erosion is subtle, but it cuts deep. I recount two instances that have haunted me, not because of their surface content, but because of what they symbolize.
1. The Restaurant Incident: A Glance of Defiance
One evening, I walked into a local restaurant and noticed a student from my school still in uniform sitting intimately with a girl, presumably his girlfriend, amid a large public crowd. I was caught off guard. It wasn’t just the setting, but the complete lack of self-awareness, privacy, or shame that startled me. Feeling deeply uncomfortable and out of place, I left without saying anything.
But what stayed with me was what happened the next day:
He walked into school, made eye contact with me confidently , unapologetic, even defiant. No remorse, no hesitation. As if nothing had occurred.
That single look was emblematic. It wasn’t about the act itself it was about the loss of moral grounding, the detachment from accountability, and the birth of a new normal where boundaries no longer exist.
2. The online Game and the Vanishing Aim
On another day, I asked my class a simple question:
“What drives you this morning?”. One teenage boy looked up, completely unabashed, and said: “To reach the next level in Freefly.” (an online multiplayer game)
That response stung not because he played a game, but because he said it with such earnest emptiness. No shame. No hesitation. No ironic laughter. It was not a joke. It was his day’s goal. There was no spark of identity formation, no sense of time as precious, no drive toward something greater. The sacredness of time, the dignity of purpose, the discipline of dreams all seemed to be fading.
Imam Ali (a.s) said, “He who teaches me one letter, I become his servant.” This is not hyperbole it is a spiritual ethic that elevates the teacher to a sacred position, and learning to a moral act. When students no longer see teachers as guides, and classrooms lose their moral gravity, society begins to drift into confusion and disrespect.
We must urgently restore the sanctity of the classroom, and with it, the ethics of adab and akhlaq. Discipline is not about fear or punishment it is about orienting the soul, developing character, and nurturing self-responsibility.
The great scholars and saints of Islam have always taught that children must be raised according to the values of the Ahl al-Bayt (a.s) not in submission to modern trends, but in alignment with timeless standards of virtue, discipline, and reverence.
When students see the teacher as one among millions of YouTube tutors or AI instructors, they no longer approach knowledge with humility. Instead, they seek speed, clarity, and ease qualities that oppose the slow moral refinement education traditionally required. , the moral decay of society begins when the teacher is desacralized. Rebuilding reverence for the teacher not just as contend delivers but moral exemplars and guides is the need of the hour.
