How to Pray More with your Children
I recently watched this free prayer summit, and it was so inspiring. I consider myself to have grown a lot in my prayer walk over the past couple of years, and the speakers provided many challenges and practical ways to grow in prayer and to “pray without ceasing.”
The host speaker mentioned how she started this summit because she asked her kids if they thought mommy prayed a lot, and they said they didn’t think she did. She was shocked by their response because she was a woman of prayer. What she realized was she was not praying enough out loud in front of her kids. She had her quiet time with the Lord, and that is essential, but she also needed to show the example of prayer more often to her kids.
I decided to ask my children the same question, and to my surprise, received a very similar reaction that the host did. They knew we prayed at mealtimes, but besides that couldn’t remember many other examples of mom praying. Wow, that was a shocker, and so decided to try and implement some of the practical ways to teach children to pray.
Like most things, it starts with being an example. Prayer is definitely something we grow in as we grow as a Christian. If you aren’t as comfortable praying in front of your children, start small and continue to grow from there. You can start with praying at meal times, and once that becomes habit, add in praying at bedtime. I love this sweet time of hearing what’s on their hearts and praying for their needs. Other practical ideas to add prayer into your day include:
- Having a morning time reading the Bible during or after breakfast and starting with praying for your day. Add in having your children pray for their day too to give them opportunities to pray.
- Praying for other nations, missionaries or people you study about in your homeschool as you learn about them.
- , I pray for our day, and then have each child take a turn to
