Early childhood is a crucial period for the formation of life habits that can develop into integral components of a child’s character. From an Islamic perspective, clean living behavior is grounded in values contained in the Hadith, which need to be internalized through the family environment. This study aims to analyze parents’ understanding of Hadith teachings on cleanliness, their role in instilling clean living behavior in early childhood, the obstacles they face, and the strategies they use to overcome them. The study employed a descriptive qualitative approach using a field research method. The research informants consisted of 12 parents of children aged 4–6 years who were selected using purposive sampling. Data were collected through an open-ended online questionnaire using Google Forms and analyzed using the Miles and Huberman interactive model, which involved data reduction, data presentation, and conclusion drawing. The credibility of the findings was strengthened through member checking. The results showed that parents understood cleanliness from two main perspectives: as part of thaharah and worship among informants with a religious education background, and as a matter of physical health among those with a general education background. Despite these differences in interpretation, Hadith values were contextualized in parenting practices through the habituation of clean behaviors. Parents played the roles of role models, guides, habituators, supervisors, and reinforcers, with role modeling emerging as the most dominant strategy. Key obstacles included inconsistent child behavior, children’s strong orientation toward play, environmental influences, and parental time constraints. These obstacles were addressed through repetition, guidance, enjoyable approaches, positive reinforcement, family communication, and increased role modeling. These findings indicate that although parents understand Hadith values differently, they contextualize them into concrete parenting practices, with role modeling serving as the primary mechanism linking religious values to children’s clean living behavior.