How do you educate your children?

My take is learning is life long. It is not a race nor does it stop after a decade or two. This is critical. The Qur'an lays out the aim clearly and concisely: "O you who believe! Save yourselves and your families from a fire whose fuel is man and stones." (Qur'an 66:6) The Sunnah suggests education (ta'dib), from the root adab (disciplining) requires the complete disciplining of body, mind and soul: The Messenger (saw) said, 'My Lord educated me, and so made my education most excellent' Then informal learning, language development, memorization of poems, duas, verses etc occurs through play till around 7 years of age... 7 to puberty is a little more formal, systematic and regular based on the child and how he responds... the aim is to create someone who can become a good servant of Allah and succeed in the test of life. Beyond that one learns what they need in the situations they encounter. Ali ibn Abi Talib (ra) said: "Play with them for the first 7 years (of their life); then teach them for the next 7 years; then advise them for the next 7 years (and after that)." Typically it will entail familiarity and the ability to read and understand revelation (ideally have much of it committed to memory), act on the ahkam Shari'a, convey it, have a good personality, develop the ability to fight for and defend oneself and others and have the skills to generate an income to live off. Styles and means can be adopted to achieve this that will vary based on your situation. The education process and content was outlined by the Messenger (saw) whereby a child should be able to serve Allah by puberty: The Messenger of Allah (saw) said: "Teach your children to pray when they are seven years old, and smack them (lightly) if they do not pray when they are 10 years old, and separate them in their beds." (Abu Dawood (459) and Ahmad (6650)) The Messenger of Allah (saw) said: "Teach your children Swimming, Archery and Horseback riding." I tend to have a very loose approach based on the individual needs of my children varying according to their mood, weather, interests etc thus on a sunny day we will do more outside stuff, if they are bored with reading we will play games and so on... the key as ever is a little but regular and adapting things to each child.