At snack time we will have grace and then each child will talk to God as we go around the table. They tell him what they are thankful for.
I tell the children they can pray by thanking God for their blessings and talking to him.
I started this with my first grandson at bedtime when
he was 3.

We now use something we call the “prayer jar”. You can read more about it on our blog here http://gofletch.blogspot.com/2009/10/prayer-jar-engaging-our-kids.html Basically, we put requests in a large jar and each night everyone from our family takes one to pray for. Once a prayer is answered, we hang it in our dining room where we can see all the ways God has answered.

One thing we need to work on is helping our kids be more thankful in their prayers. Well, we need to be more thankful in general, but especially as we talk to God. It’s easy to just ask for things, remember a friend who needs something, etc. But, we want our kids to start by praising God and recognizing Who He is. Prayers take on a whole new significance when we take time to reflect on just Who we’re talking to.

I introduced my child into doing her own prayer at age 4. At first, she would only do the bedtime prayer. I told her to close her eyes and talk to God as if he were standing right there with her because he is always with us deep in our hearts. She knows of death and people “going with God” so I related it that way. It awsome to hear the things she is thankful for: friend and bringing family together, birds and trees. Recently I explained to her basic needs and how he always provides so now she sais “thankyou for the food in our mouth, the clothes on our backs and the roof over our heads. I believe that she understands. I appriciate the PRAY guide from Joyce above because she is will be 6 next month and I have yet to introduce repentance. It is now my goal to introduce sinful nature and repentance. We can do it together, I definetly need to spend more time in my relationship with our father.

I remembered something about my 2 year old talking to his daddy who had been deployed to Korea. He didn’t understand that he could talk to him on the phone. That phone WAS NOT HIS DADDY! His older sisters and I would make videos and he thought that was weird too. We kept talking to a video camera like it was his daddy. It is funny to watch his reaction and then later see a total transformation as he too would run to the camera and say “hi daddy”. When we begin to play videos of my husband telling him he loved him and my son could see for himself that he was getting through to his daddy by talking in this weird way and he was able to see himself on the TV saying “hi daddy”. He began to understand that this was a way to reach his daddy. God hears the prayers of your little one. Let God do the work as you teach that child that this is a way to reach the ears of God. God will teach them things that you will be totally clueless to. Thanks for the article. Good stuff.

When you started praying with your child, did they understand what they were doing?
Since my kids were older, they understood because they witnessed prayer in the church.

What does your child pray about?
When my kids and I started praying aloud, I recall a pastor who used the following as a guide:

PRAY:
P: Praise and thanksgiving to God
R: Repentance of our sins so our prayers will not be hindered
A: “Ask” for those who you want to pray about
Y: Yourself

Though at first I feared my prayer life to be contrived by following the above, as I prayed more often with the kids, then my prayers were not so scripted. At first the kids were shy, but eventually they too started leading prayer. My son, now 10, pray with the above guidelines but not really being aware of it. My daughter is questioning her faith right now so she refuses to pray.

You are right, praying with a child is beautiful. I’ve been brought to tears and humbled by some of the prayers my son has led, especially when he prays for the salvation of his father, my unbelieving husband.

Bottom line, I just remind them that Praising Him is first and foremost…

God bless you!