Christians, how do you teach your children to pray??

[susanmt]

We have been using the model I found in a Scripture Union Book called 'Dear God Can You Wink?' (now out of print) - the 'teaspoon' prayer, tsp thankyou, sorry, please

This has been working really well for us, and I wondered if anyone else had come across a way in which to help your children to realte to Jesus. Dd1 has been playing 'hide and seek' with Jesus recently. She says that he is perfect to play with cos he is always there but you cant see him!

I think I must be introducing something right to my kids!!

[fisil]

Hide and seek with Jesus is very very cute.

No answers as ds is only 15 months, but I like this: the vicar said to me on Sunday that he is sorry he is leaving before ds gets to the really cute age when he thinks that the vicar IS Jesus!

We do God blesses and the Lords prayer every night. Currently has a calming effect and not much more - hopefully will develop with his speech (if we tried it now, God would just get a whole bunch of duck and cow noises and requests for bananas).

[jodee]

Susanmt, I like that - the Teaspoon Prayer! How old are your kids? DS is just 4 and we will do a 'thank you' and 'God Bless' prayer at bedtime (or more like 'I' will do it, and he says 'amen' at the end - I'm trying to get him to think of things to say thank you for; at the moment he is only at the 'thank you for Thomas the Tank Engine' stage)!

Tried to introduce grace at dinnertime, but he refuses to co-operate, insisting we should only pray at bedtime, so leaving that one for now.

Do you think they get a confused message when we refer to both God and Jesus - do you stick to just God or mix the two in prayers?

[carla]

'God' and 'Jesus' totally confuses dd1 (5).

[juniper68]

Never heard of the tsp prayer, it's v cute

Carla, the trilogy confuses a lot of adults never mind kids.

I just let my boys pray for whatever they want and try to encourage thanks. Thanks for this thread because it's reminded me I need to spend more time on prayer with the boys, keep forgetting I don't mean spend a lot of time doing it, just doing it!

[muddaofsuburbia]

We pray together with ds (19 months) at bedtime. We just call it "talking to Jesus". Usually along the lines of thank you for my friends and biscuits and teletubbies. Although when we've mentioned the tubbies, our peaceful routine flies out the window. Then we say "Night night Jesus" and night night to all the other things in his bedroom.

We've got a lovely Bible which we use for bedtime stories now. It's called "The Bible in Pictures for Toddlers" by Ella K. Lindvall. It has gorgeous illustrations and the stories are in really short sentences. For ds, seeing a picture of Jesus and joining in the story has helped when we pray. So we can now say "who are we going to talk to now?" and he'll answer "Deesus!' (although occasionally the alternative is Noddy )

The song "Prayer is like a Telephone" is a big help for older children.

[Mog]

I'm a committed christian but I think 19 months is far too young for children to make any sense of prayer - hence your little one confusing Jesus and Noddy! I feel we really have to think through why we might be doing this. Is it for us or does it really give them a sense of understanding of God. I'm afraid I'll wait to mine are a little older and can understand these concepts better.

[donnie]

this is very interesting. Our dd is 2 and a half and we say prayers every night after story, with her on our lap.We say the Lord's Prayer then go through a sequence of God Bless ( grandad, uncle D,etc)and we have a couple of nice little prayer books too, with pictures.Not sure how much she understands but at least she is getting familiar with the language of prayer. There is a sweet little family service every month at our church which we take her to, pretty noisy but very nice.Our vicar is relaxed about the noise - just as well really!

[Megali]

We have been praying and reading a Bible story most nights with our 2 dds (now aged 8 and 6) since they were old enough to have a story. We have used various picture bible story books and simple prayers - God bless family etc. Both dds now pray themselves including thanks, prays for friends, worries etc. Eldest dd recently asked to be baptised (she was dedicated as a baby) as she had asked Jesus into her heart.

[deegward]

My dh's Gran has just died, and dss (4 & 1) were taken to see her (when she was alive) when we were in Edinburgh at Easter. Ds1 was told that she had passed away, he said "does that mean she is dead?" and then said that "well Jesus will be looking after her now"

I was so touched, (goes to a church school, but didn't even know they had talked about such things) we did his first prayer this evening, when he asked Jesus to take care of daddy's gran. It was lovely, I like the tsp prayer, and think we might start to use it

[muddaofsuburbia]

Mog - I'm not expecting ds to make any sense of prayer from an adult's perspective at his age. In the same way I don't expect him to be able to say please and thank you without being asked, or be able to share his toys. But that's not to say I don't want to allow him to experience God's presence. We take him to church because as Christians we believe that in some way, he will be able to experience something of God's presence - in whatever way God may wish to reveal himself to him.

Ds reads books about crocodiles and koal bears - neither of which he's seen in reality - would it be better to wait until he saw one in real life before introducing him to the idea that they exist? Dh and I don't really want to hide our faith from ds until an arbitrary "appropriate" age. Like Donnie said - it's about encouraging familiarity with prayer language which I think is important. If ds can ask me for help when he's fallen over then he is at an age when we can introduce the idea of Jesus helping us in other ways too.

[susanmt]

This has been really interesting. My kids are 4, 2 and almost 6 months. We also refer to it as 'talking to Jesus' and dd1 now is getting very good at thinking of things to pray about. Ds (2) just shouts 'manda' (his childminder!!) and 'shay-shoo' (little sister Rachel) when we say we're saying thankyou, which is pretty sweet really.
We also read Bible stories, and use 'The Beginners Bible' which is at a great level for our 4 year old. We say 'Thankyou' for meals, which can be embarrasing at my (out and out athiest) Mother's house! Out of the mouths of babes .....

I don't think that my children yet have any real concept of what all this means, but liek mudda, I am trying to get them used to the 'language of prayer' so that when they are older it will be something (I hope and pray) that they will want to and be able to do for themselves.

[Tommy]

I have always sat with DS1 at bedtime and had a chat about the day - this has turned into prayers - thank you God for a lovely day etc and we also do the God bless Mummy, Daddy etc (whoever else happens to be in mind at the time!). I agree that they don't really know what it's all about but you have to start somewhere and then it will become part of their bedtime ritual too. I think DS1 is a little confyesd about some of the gestures though - hid Godmother and I were trying to teach him to make the sign of the cross at Church last week and he did Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes... bit of work needed there I think!

[fisil]

This is soooo cute - at our children's service each week everyone goes up to the altar rail for a blessing. Ds intently watched the vicar come along the line blessing everyone. When the vicar got to ds, ds got in their first and put his own hand on his head!

[miranda2]

I have always said the lords prayer (or sung it) when putting ds to bed, and given him a blessing. Last year, when he was about 2, i started sometimes singing a simple version of 'Father I place into your hands'; i couldn't remember the real words, so our version goes:
Father i place into your hands the things I've done today,
Father i place into your hands my work and rest and play,
Father i place into your hands the things I'll dream tonight
For I know i always can trust you.
The last couple of months (he's now 2.9) he's been joining in with this and bits (last words of phrases) of the lord's prayer. I sometimes ask if there is anything he wants to thank god for or ask for but not always.
I think he has got some grasp of what is going on, as the last few times I've asked this he has said 'Sorry god for breaking cup' - he broke a pottery communion cup when he was playing with it in church about a month ago!! He obviously knows firstly that the cup was specially 'Gods' in some way, and secondly that prayer is for saying things to God... Not sure he's quite grasped forgiveness or free grace yet though!!!

[Tortington]

the kids say grace before we eat and make it up on the spot.

also if they have something big splanned at school i always say - " i will say a prayer and see if god can help" and they follow my example becuase when i have something on at work i get a big kiss and one of them always says - " i will say a prayer that it goes ok mum"

i think its nice if you can slip god in in a more informal way throughout your week, then he never seems like a chore