Slowly I started observing that many of them were under age. I guess many of them were below five. I started feeling that the smiles I could see on their faces were fake. I realized that they were not happy with this. They were never satisfied with this life. How could they be? A child who is supposed to be with his parents, enjoying the ultimate family love and care at that age, how can he feel good at some madrassa where he would wash his own clothes, worry about the unpredictable mood of Qari sahab and bear his strange roommates?
Many children all over the country are sent to madrassas at a very young age. These seminaries offer full time religious education. Students enrolled here are supposed to live here throughout their period of education. It is like a home for them. A home without parents and siblings. A home with no childhood joys. A home with immense fear of Qari sahab.
While discussing them with my friend, I came to know that for every single time mostly the children out for playing games in the nearby ground were beaten by Qari sahab when they were late to return. Now imagine being in that child’s place for a while. You see your age mates playing in the ground, wearing quality shoes and sports kits. On the other side, you are a child who has no sports shoes; a child wearing low standard cloths; a child with no family. Seeing these high standards of your friends at some ground, wouldn't it be easier to convince you all rich or high standard people have no right to live on this earth because you are deprived and they aren't?
This is one of the biggest factors that this type of people can get depressed and have some serious mental illness. They are sexually abused at their very early age. They are kept deprived of almost everything enjoyable in life.
In my personal opinion, a mother's lap at early age of a child is the best institute. There can be no alternative. A child should learn how to eat, sit, talk and gossip with siblings. He should learn the business of daily routine life. No other institute can get him the education that is provided at home.
Yes, you should get them proper education, whether it's religious or formal, but kindly don't deprive them of their childhood. Don't make them mentally ill. Don't let them be victims of sexual abuse. Get them family and love. Let them be with their family. Enable them to witness how a family lives. Let them enjoy their life first. Please, don't send your children to madrassa at a very young age.