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Praying with your children is a powerful faith practice. Teaching children to nurture their relationship with God by continually being in conversation together is so very important. Figuring out how to do it, however, can sometimes be a challenge.
Perhaps like many of you, prayer was part of my childhood rituals. Mealtime and bedtime prayers were a regular practice for both my husband and I, and therefore, it was a practice that we planned to continue when we had children of our own. When my oldest was born, I began reciting with him the prayer that I had said every night with my mom when I was growing up.
Now I lay me down to sleep
I pray the Lord my soul to keep
If I should die before I wake
I pray the Lord my soul to take
Wait a minute…What? One night, as I rocked my precious son, I thought about the words I had just said, “If I should die before I wake.” Were those the words I wanted my child to drift off to sleep thinking about?
Now to be clear, I don't remember being traumatized by this prayer at any point during my childhood. As a matter of fact, there was something quite comforting in knowing the routine of the nightly prayer and ritual that would happen. Thinking about it, however, did begin to lead me down the path of considering what I wanted prayer to be about for our family and our children. Was I going to be satisfied with rote prayer (i.e. simply repeating recited prayers)? The answer was – yes and no.
The first thing I did was slightly change the words of the familiar prayer I knew to something that seemed easier for little ears to take. There is power in rote prayer and sometimes we dismiss it too easily. Sometimes we can find great comfort in reciting prayers from memory when we find ourselves in a moment for which we have no words. When our worlds are crazy and our normal is interrupted, the routine of a regular prayer can be comforting and can help us keep talking to God instead of avoiding it because “we don't know what to say.”
I wanted my kids to have the comfort and routine that can be found in the words of a familiar prayer.
However, if we never take it a step further, we are missing out on a great opportunity! So over the years I have had to get creative in the ways we introduce new prayer practices. If I leave it entirely up to my kids, we often get long lists of “God bless mommy, daddy, grandma, grandpa, the neighbor, that person in the white car…” Sometimes I'm not sure if my kids' hearts are that kind and caring or if the list is growing because it stalls bedtime. (I'm sure that never happens in your house.) But I digress.
Here are a few prayer enrichment tips we have found helpful over the years:
• Christmas Card Prayer Ring – Take all the Christmas cards and letters you receive from friends and family this year and save them. After Christmas, punch a hole in the corner of each one and put them on a key chain or tie them with a ribbon or string. Use this to pray specifically for each of these families and friends (depending on how many you have, pray for one family a week/day, etc.). Consider calling or writing a note to ask how you can pray for them specifically if you don't know.
• Prayer Basket – Make up a basket where all members of the family can put prayer requests. Young children can draw pictures. Older children and adults can write out requests. Cut out newspaper articles of things you want to pray about. Place a candle in the basket. Every day after dinner light the candle and pray through the requests in your basket.
• Meal Time Prayer Cube – Do you get tired of deciding on a prayer before meals? Consider going to your local craft store and buying a large wooden block. Write out your favorite meal time prayers on each side (or type them out and decoupage them on if you are craftier than I am). Take turns each night “rolling” the die to see which grace you will say before your meal. Consider having one side say “make up your own prayer” or something of that nature.
• Practice “On the Spot” Prayers – Did you just hear an ambulance go by? Say a prayer for the person in that ambulance, right now in the car or in your home. When someone asks you to pray for something, consider asking if you can pray for them now, and let your children see you doing it.
Putting in place meaningful prayer practices for your family can be an amazing blessing for everyone. What kind of prayer tips do you have?
