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Praying Children In 6 Simple Steps
When my family prays sometimes I will look around and see that my children are looking around and are not paying attention. Even the one saying the prayer. How can I do better in this area?
1. Get caught praying. You will instill in your children a sense that prayer is reverent. Your children will see your head bowed and arms folded and will naturally do better when they pray.
2. Use prayer to find lost toys. This is one of my personal favorites. Toys such as stuffed animals and such are so precious to children. As a parent you know that the toy is somewhere but if you stop and say "Let's say a prayer first" and then start looking your child will believe that it is Father in Heaven who found the toy for them. Who is to say that it wasn't?
3. Rituals. My wife tells our children to always say their prayers when ever they wake up and go to bed. Also at meal times a prayer is said over the food. This very quickly becomes habit forming.
4. Make prayer personal. You can teach your children to develop a relationship with God at a very early age. They can learn to make their prayers conversational.
5. Spiritual stage fright. As adults sometimes we feel nervous when we are asked to say a prayer in public. Perhaps we are afraid we will stumble over our words. An imperfect prayer from the hear is far more meaningful that eloquent prayers that are repetitious. Our children we learn from our example.
6. Short prayer? A short prayer is better than no prayer at all. I once read a quote that I liked, "Do not say you are going to pray, just pray." For me this means instead of saying, "Oops, I forgot my morning prayers so I better say them at noon," stop and pray right then even if the prayer is short.
In conclusion, teaching children to pray can be fun. Using meal time, bed time, and finding toys as opportunities to get our children to pray are habit forming for children.
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