Teaching Your Children to Pray
Teaching your child how to pray is one of the best life skills you can teach them. I realized a few months after my daughter could start putting sentences together that I could teach her how to pray. She also goes to a Mother’s Day Out program at my church and she prays at school. It occurred to me that she didn’t pray at home.
I believe prayer is real and God hears our hearts. He wants to speak to us. I want to teach my daughter that she can always pray and that God is accessible anywhere. This is a life lesson that I don’t want to fall short on teaching her. I am also excited that later on I get to teach her how to hear God too.
This fall we began praying with my daughter as part of the bedtime process. Here are some tips that can help you with praying with your children.
1. Keep the prayer simple. We pray the same prayer every night. We sit together, close our eyes, and each of us clasps our own hands together and pray. This is what we pray, “Dear Jesus, thank you for today. Bless Mommy, Daddy, and Brother. Help me sleep well. I love you, Jesus. Amen!” It is fun, because sometimes my daughter will include others in the list of blessing. She doesn’t always say the whole thing out loud, but we ask her to say “I love you, Jesus. Amen.” We made up this prayer, but you can make up your own too! Just keep it simple.
2. Sing a song. I have some friends that know prayers that are like songs. It is is seriously adorable to hear them sing their prayers. You can sing ‘Jesus Loves Me’ or other songs like this one.
God is Great
- With these additional lines, it is sung to “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star“:
God is good and God is great.
And we thank him for our food.
By his hands we all are fed.
Thank you, Lord, for our daily bread.
God is great and God is good,
And we thank him for our food.
3. Make a routine. The best way to remember to pray with your kids is to include it in a routine every day. It can be done before they eat a meal or in a bedtime routine. Here is an example of a meal time prayer:
Thank you for the world so sweet,
Thank you for the food we eat,
Thank you for the birds that sing,
Thank you God for everything.
4. Pray for someone when they get an Ouchie. You can teach your child how to pray for their friends when their friend gets hurt or doesn’t feel well. I have seen a friend’s child do this and it warms my heart to see that child learn compassion. The prayer can be something as simple as “Dear Jesus, please heal my friend. Amen.”
5. Be an example. Pray in front of your kids! Let them see you reading your Bible and praying. Include everyone in the family when praying with your child. In our bedtime routine I may read the bedtime book, but Daddy always comes in for the prayer time. We all pray out loud together. You can also model it by having Daddy pray for Mommy or the other way around. They may not seem that they are paying attention, but it certainly sets the tone that prayer is a normal part of life.
How have you taught your children to pray? Do you have it in a routine? What sing-songy prayer do your children pray?
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I made a prayer board for my kids. I laminated wallet-size photos of family members and friends and put a piece of magnetic tape on the back. The pictures went up on a magnetic message board that I hung in their room. Every night they to pick 2-3 pictures to pray for. Sometimes we talk about the person they picked and what we might pray for them. It has provided opportunities to talk about the many different things we can pray about and how God takes care of all of our needs.
Wonderful thoughts to share. I think we often forget about the importance of this and how we truly need to start young and incorporate this in our homes. Be an example is the best thing you can do – thank you for the reminder!
We pray every night before dinner. The 18-month-old has already started to make “prayer hands.” It’s very cute!
Here is one you didn’t mention…
Thank you, Father (Thank you, Father)
For our food (For our food)
And our many blessings (And our many blessings)
Amen (Amen)
It’s a song. And everything in parenthesis is an echo.
I love your blog post and intend to link to it from my http://www.honeycombfamilies.wordpress.com which is pretty new. I will check back often.
Thank you for this wonderful summary and reminder, Amanda. Although my little ones have flown the nest and are now adults, praying on their own, I can tell you from this mom perspective I am so glad I developed this habit early on in their lives. Nurturing an interior life is a pre-requisite to learning how to pray…Maria Montesorri used to say, we have to let children “make silence.” I agree with you and her–it’s in that silence they hear the voice of God. Blessings to you, the mom crowd and your families this holiday season and throughout the new year.
We always pray with our kids before bed and they are beginning to enjoy praying on their own. If we walk out of the room at night and forget to pray, well… they let us know! I think it’s cool that now when we’re driving down the road and see a wreck or something, my daughter says, “Mom, we need to say a prayer for them.” And she’ll pray. I have to remind myself sometimes that this is one of the most important things we can teach our kids.
Great post again Amanda… I truly believe that once they start to talk, they are ready to pray. I have even been praying with our youngest every night since she was born. She started saying her own prayers when she was 18 months old. It’s too sweet! We also pray for “ouchies”. Everytime we see an ambulance, we stop and pray for the people in it and for the medical personnel who are treating them. In our family, we have dealt with enough illness that we all understand the importance of prayer during that time.
[...] Teach about Jesus year-round and not just at Christmas – The more your children hear about the goodness and mercies of Jesus all year, the easier it will be for them to understand the importance of Christmas. Daily read books and the Bible with them and encourage them to pray. Amanda gave some great tips on teaching your children to pray yesterday. [...]