Teaching Children to Pray
By Heather Tietz
Prayer training and potty training have something in common. They both develop from routine. While some children must be lured to the toilet, others simply watch the bathroom habit of everyone else and then one day decide they are done with diapers. I believe training children to pray comes about in a similar way.
Children of Orodox Jews watch their fathers pray Shacharit, Mincha and the Arvit, morning, noon and night, literally, three times a day. Children of Muslims observe the ritual prayers of their parents five times a day. Christian children, as a whole, are encouraged to talk to God anytime. But in reality this great advice is often left without practice to make it routine. It really isn’t taught…at least at our house it wasn’t. Quick prayers in the midst of hunger pains and sleepy heads didn’t seem to be getting into the hearts of our children. The most meaningful prayers at our house came unscheduled and desperate, like after phone calls from sick grandparents or when a loved critter seemed to be ailing. But they weren’t enough. They didn’t happen often enough. And those prayers though heartfelt were more about others, and we needed changing of us, our relationships, the atmosphere of our home. We needed to shape the hearts of our kids and we needed God to do it. So after some thought (and prayer) we established a 10 minute moment at our house, a routine time for my husband and I to put our hearts before God.
Near the end of dinner (if possible) I have an old journal that I jot down the date and then two things: What we are especially thankful to God for on that particular day and secondly, what issues do we have that need God’s working hands. Everyone is not required to contribute, but often they do. After our meal, when the kitchen is in hurricane status, my husband and I literally get down on our knees beside a couch and go through our prayer list. The first time we did this we explained to our children that they were welcome to go and play or stay quietly with us. We were surprised to find how intrigued they were.
I am finding that prayer can’t be forced like a bedtime or a cooked carrot. But, time and time again our children are staying to listen and even pull on one of our sleeves and whisper that they too have something they want to say to God. Our hope is that these routine daily moments of prayer will first begin to change us and the atmosphere that we create in our home, and secondly, that they will grow in our children a desire to give God an unrushed, wide-awake piece of their day where they can talk to God with sincerity and passion.
I love the journal idea.
When I was little we always said prayers before going to bed. When I got to about 10 years old my parents decided to establish a devotional time where we read from the day-by-day calendar & then we joined hands & had prayer time before the school day began. My parents would always ask if there was anything we needed to pray about for that day. To start with we weren’t that forthcoming, but gradually we all got the hang of it & were comfortable sharing prayer requests.
Heather, I love this idea of intentional prayer times with our kids. When I first read it I thought, “I wish I’d done that more with my kids when they were young.” But now as I look back, I can think of times and seasons where we did exactly that. Like Wendy, we prayed with our kids before they left for school and often included their friends in that time if they were there to pick them up. We also had bedtime devotions and prayer times with our youngest. Wish we’d started that earlier when our older children were young. Thanks for the great ideas. Blessings!
I love your approach to teaching prayer to your children. It is so real and natural.
Thanks for reminding me to be intentional in teaching my children the importance and habit of prayer as part of a relationship with God.