bilal elcharfa was pouring cereal for his children before school this month when his 7-year-old daughter, maaria, walked into the kitchen, calling for him. <u+201c>baba, i had a scary dream,<u+201d> she said, hugging him tight. <u+201c>about donald trump .<u+201d> it was the morning after the second presidential debate, which the elcharfa family<u+2019>s two youngest daughters watched in the basement of their staten island home with their parents. in the middle of the night, maaria went to her parents<u+2019> room twice, unable to sleep, and walked to the living room and checked her family<u+2019>s security camera. that morning, mr. elcharfa, 52, asked his daughter what she saw in the nightmare. <u+201c>he was so mean to us,<u+201d> she said. <u+201c>he had a scary face, like a zombie or something.<u+201d> in the dream, maaria later said, mr. trump came to the home of every muslim family in the country and put each one in jail. <u+201c>don<u+2019>t worry,<u+201d> he told his daughter, comforting her. <u+201c>he<u+2019>s just talk.<u+201d> he tried to sound convincing. but her nightmare unsettled him. mr. elcharfa and his wife had fled war in their native lebanon in the hopes of raising a family in safety in the united states. mr. elcharfa, a taxi driver, had dealt with his own share of anti-muslim sentiment, like the time a passenger refused to pay his fare because he said muslims needed to pay for the sept. 11, 2001, attacks. but for innocent maaria, who still loves playing dress-up and pretending she is a princess, to experience it? never had he felt so helpless. <u+201c>i<u+2019>m trying to let my kids live in peace,<u+201d> he said. <u+201c>i don<u+2019>t want them to worry.<u+201d> maaria is just beginning to understand that her family<u+2019>s faith sets her apart in her public school, where she is one of only a few muslims in her second-grade class. but she does not fully grasp how it could be used against her, and she lacks the ability of even her older siblings, in their teens, to absorb the blows. <u+201c>they cannot defend themselves,<u+201d> mr. elcharfa said about maaria and her 9-year-old sister, zaynub. <u+201c>they<u+2019>re still young.<u+201d> across the country, muslim parents have been facing such moments almost daily, riding each tumultuous wave of the news cycle, including mr. trump<u+2019>s incendiary rhetoric and calls to ban muslims from entering the country and the recent bombing in manhattan. but how to explain such harsh realities to a young child? even as some muslim parents try to shelter their children from the news, they cannot prevent them from hearing hurtful words in their classrooms and at the playground. their children come home asking their parents why a classmate said mr. trump, the republican nominee, wants to kick their family out of the country. they ask why, if their religion is one of peace, they so often get called terrorists in the hallways. many muslim parents fear that the tensions could push their children away from the faith entirely. they are struggling with how to balance guiding their children in practicing and defending their religion, and letting them embrace it <u+2014> or not <u+2014> on their own terms. <u+201c>we don<u+2019>t know how to handle it sometimes,<u+201d> mr. elcharfa said. <u+201c>maybe someday they won<u+2019>t believe in anything.<u+201d> the pressures are intense on staten island, a republican stronghold and new york city<u+2019>s whitest borough. a few blocks from the elcharfa home in the south beach neighborhood, a large flag for mr. trump<u+2019>s campaign flaps in the wind, and a trump sign is prominent in a yard around the corner. many of the family<u+2019>s muslim friends have pulled their children out of public school and put them in private islamic schools. one of them, somaia saie, made that decision more than a year ago for her youngest children, ages 9 and 11, because she felt it was the <u+201c>only way to keep the kids in a safe environment.<u+201d> <u+201c>i have no clue how we can raise children like this,<u+201d> ms. saie said. <u+201c>as grown-ups, we can take it. with children, it<u+2019>s another story.<u+201d> last spring, the elcharfas<u+2019> 9-year-old, zaynub, was sitting on the carpet in her third-grade classroom when two boys said to her, <u+201c>if donald trump becomes president, he<u+2019>s going to kick you out of the country.<u+201d> that night, frightened, she asked her mother about it. <u+201c>are we going to get kicked out? where are we going to go?<u+201d> her mother, nayla elhamoui, assured her that no president could do that. <u+201c>that will never affect us,<u+201d> she told her daughter. <u+201c>we belong here.<u+201d> she called the school<u+2019>s parent coordinator the next day. the principal met with the students and instructed them to apologize to zaynub. mr. elcharfa first came to the united states in the mid-1980s, and ms. elhamoui joined him about a decade later, after marrying him in lebanon. their five children, ages 7 to 18, were all born in the united states. ms. elhamoui tells them the story of a terrifying night in beirut when a bomb exploded across the street from her house. she was about 8 years old. the shrapnel hit her leg, leaving her with scars. it took years before she could sleep without holding somebody<u+2019>s hand. <u+201c>see, be thankful we brought you up here,<u+201d> she said to her children on a recent afternoon, as she served them a lebanese wheat dish called freekeh at their dining room table. the elcharfas<u+2019> home is dotted with references to arab and muslim culture. their couches are gold-trimmed. a kitchen clock marks the islamic call to prayer. their children speak fluent arabic and have taken quran classes. but they also could not be more stereotypically american. the four youngest children all attend public school. abubeckr, 13, loves video games and dreams of playing in the n.b.a. maaria puts on makeup in her pink-walled bedroom, and zaynub, a gymnast, does flips in the kitchen, wearing a pink shirt that says, <u+201c>leave sparkles wherever you go.<u+201d> mr. elcharfa often tells his children they are american first, before they are lebanese. <u+201c>we tell them this is your country,<u+201d> he said. <u+201c>you<u+2019>re lucky you<u+2019>re born here.<u+201d> but sometimes, in school, classmates only see the children<u+2019>s muslim names and arab heritage. in the hallways in abubeckr<u+2019>s school, boys will sometimes make sounds of bombs exploding and yell out <u+201c>allahu akbar<u+201d> <u+2014> arabic for <u+201c>god is great<u+201d> <u+2014> as he walks by. on the bus after school, a classmate once said to him, <u+201c>you<u+2019>re a terrorist, and your mom is a mastermind bomber.<u+201d> he told the principal the next day, but he did not tell his parents. he is used to the jeering at this point, abubeckr said, and does not want his mother to <u+201c>make it a bigger deal than it is.<u+201d> his father has taught him to tell an adult, but not to react physically or verbally. <u+201c>if you ignore it, it<u+2019>s better,<u+201d> abubeckr said. but mr. elcharfa sees the taunts taking a toll on his children. they frequently ask him not to speak in arabic in front of their friends. after the explosion in the chelsea neighborhood of manhattan last month, his 15-year-old, ismail, told him, <u+201c>that<u+2019>s your islam, baba.<u+201d> abubeckr, who was in italian class when he heard the news, thought to himself, it was a muslim, wasn<u+2019>t it? <u+201c>i was like, here we go again,<u+201d> he said, recounting that day while sitting with his father in the family<u+2019>s living room. <u+201c>why do you say a muslim; why don<u+2019>t you say a person?<u+201d> mr. elcharfa asked his son. these are the moments that worry mr. elcharfa and his wife. they fret that their children are starting to distance themselves from their religion and their culture. these are also the moments when the couple<u+2019>s parenting styles clash. mr. elcharfa wants his children to be freethinkers. he does not want them to be practicing muslims simply because they inherited the religion from their parents. sometimes, he said, he wishes their religion could be hidden from view. he said he felt pangs of regret for giving them muslim names: <u+201c>why didn<u+2019>t i name them tony or george?<u+201d> his wife scoffs at such comments. <u+201c>i<u+2019>m totally different,<u+201d> ms. elhamoui said. <u+201c>we have to guide them. i have to push him and the kids to pray, to go to the mosque.<u+201d> their contrasting approaches played out in their kitchen this month, in a conversation over whether zaynub should begin wearing a hijab. ms. elhamoui encourages both zaynub and maaria to wear a head scarf to school a couple of times a year, as <u+201c>practice,<u+201d> she said. she bribes them, offering ice cream or chocolate. <u+201c>zaynub says, <u+2018>i don<u+2019>t want to wear hijab; it<u+2019>s embarrassing,<u+2019><u+201d> mr. elcharfa told his wife, while he chopped peppers and cooked beans over the stove. he did not want his daughter to face the taunts that often come. <u+201c>let her choose,<u+201d> he said. <u+201c>it<u+2019>s o.k. as long as she dresses nice and conservatively. it<u+2019>s not the way you look. it<u+2019>s the way you believe.<u+201d> ms. elhamoui insisted they should encourage their daughter to try it. <u+201c>it<u+2019>s in the religion,<u+201d> she said. similarly, when maaria turned 7 a few weeks ago, she began to pray multiple times a day with her parents, in exchange for a $10 allowance at the end of the week, which she keeps in a blue bear-shaped bank. mr. elcharfa acknowledges the importance of prayer, but does not agree with his wife<u+2019>s incentives. <u+201c>it<u+2019>s not easy, believe me,<u+201d> he said about these parenting disagreements. <u+201c>that<u+2019>s why we keep fighting.<u+201d> one decision was easy for the parents to make: during the third presidential debate on wednesday, and other future speeches by mr. trump, the children would not be watching it. <u+201c>i don<u+2019>t want her to be scared,<u+201d> ms. elhamoui said, thinking again of maaria<u+2019>s nightmare. maaria said that if mr. trump became president, <u+201c>i<u+2019>m going to stay in my room forever.<u+201d> mr. elcharfa expressed frustration at what his family<u+2019>s life had become. he thought he had left behind conflicts over religion in lebanon, where sectarian tensions cast a long shadow. <u+201c>i came here and found the same things following me,<u+201d> he said. sitting in the family<u+2019>s living room one recent morning, ms. elhamoui asked one of her daughters why she liked being a muslim. the 9-year-old said she felt proud thinking about the prophet muhammad and the way he led his friends and followers in spreading peace. ms. elhamoui reminded her daughter about the time the boys in her class made the comment about mr. trump<u+2019>s threat to kick muslims out of the country. she asked, <u+201c>what did you do to follow the prophet muhammad?<u+201d> zaynub said she forgave the boys. her mother smiled, nodding. <u+201c>we forgive,<u+201d> her mother reiterated. <u+201c>so we can always live in peace.<u+201d> a version of this article appears in print on october 26, 2016, on page a24 of the new york edition with the headline: muslim parents grapple with how to explain a tumultuous election. order reprints | today's paper | subscribe
<u+2018>i had a scary dream about donald trump<u+2019>: muslim parents face a tense election
samantha schmidt