“God, you are the awesomest. Amen.”
“Jesus, please help mom remember to get pudding at the store. I ask every day and she always forgets.”
“Dear Lord, I really don’t like third grade. The boy next to me has bad breath. Please fix it so I don’t have to go. Thank you.”
Innocent, uncomplicated, and brutally honest.
Your child’s prayers are music to God’s ears. He wants nothing more than to have a loving relationship with your child (and with you, too!).
What Your Child Learns
As your child learns to pray and continues to pray throughout their life, they will learn that:
God is real.
God loves them and listens to their prayers.
When they make a mistake, God is willing to help them and to forgive them so they can make it right.
They can pray about anything. Nothing is too big or too small for them to talk to God about.
God wants us to come to him just as we are.
How to Pray
There is no one right way to teach your child to pray, but if you’re having trouble knowing where to start, here are some ideas for what you can do.
Modeling Prayer - Let your child see and hear you pray. Pray out loud while holding your babies. Pray out loud at mealtimes, bedtime, and when you need help.
Prayer Posture - It is helpful to have a prayer posture like folded hands and bowed heads to help your child know that something important is happening. It also helps them not to be distracted by others in the room. Quiet lips and listening ears teach respect for God. Folded hands also provide a way for children, even a just a year old, to participate in prayer before they know how to speak or what to say.
When to Pray
The two most common times to pray are before meals and before bed. You can also look for other routine times and natural opportunities to pray throughout the day. You might say prayers when you get in the car or when you hear an emergency vehicle siren. When your child expresses a specific fear (thunder, the dark), say a prayer together. When your child is having a hard time, say a prayer.
What to Say
Learning rhymes and poems is important for children’s language development in general, so don’t feel the need to shy away from prayers like that. Here are a few mealtime prayer ideas:
Come, Lord Jesus, and be our guest. Let these, your gifts, to us be blessed.
Let us give thanks to the Lord, for he is good; his mercy endures forever.
A B C. 1 2 3. Thank you, God, for feeding me.
Our hands we fold, our heads we bow. For food and drink, we thank God now.
God is great, God is good. Let us thank him for our food. By his hand, we all are fed. Thank you, God, for daily bread.
As your child gets older (by older, I mean two, three, or four years old), you can start to teach them to make their own prayers. You can help them by starting the prayer with a prompt and then have them finish the prayer in their own words. You could start with:
God, thank you for _______.
God, please be with ________.
God, please help me ________.
Some families like to share the highs and lows of their day with one another. When your child shares a good thing about the day, thank God specifically for that thing. When your child shares something that was a bummer, help your child take that to God in prayer too.
Remember that we all need Jesus
Your child carries burdens, too. They need help listening to mom and dad, potty training, doing well in school and other activities, getting along with others, etc. Help your child take their troubles to God now so that, as they grow, taking their bigger troubles to him will be natural for them.
