Family prayers?

[KerenHappuch]

I always assumed then when I had kids we'd "do" family prayers as it was part of my upbringing and encouraged in church etc etc, but DH hasn't had that tradition and isn't very keen. Boys are now 3 and 5 mths and we have never had a "prayer routine". I have prayed with DS1 a few times and for them both a lot. Bedtime DH does stories and bed for DS1 while I feed DS2.

So, does anyone do family prayers, when and how? And has anyone got any ideas for different ways of doing it? Thanks.

when they were little i used to have it as part of the bedtime routine - simple 'god bless nanna, god bless grandad.'...etc

it got to 'god bless the dog, god bless billy's dog'

My children say "Gentle Jesus up above send the world lots of love".

They have always said don't quite know where it came from they just say it as they go to bed every night.

do grace before meals, sometimes said, often sung!

eg, to Addams family theme tune

der der der dum, bang bang (on table) x2
der der der dum, der der der dum,
der der der dum, bang bang (on table)

Lord, we are so grateful
for every cup and plateful
we thank you that you're faithful
and we're in your family
(repeat intro)

or to 1,2,3,4,5 once I caught a fish alive

1,2,3,4,5 thank you God that I'm alive
6,7,8,9,10 thank you for this food, Amen!

also always did prayers with children at bedtime when they were smaller, and do pray with them as and when now when they are worried about something, or can't sleep etc.

We do prayers when we hear about people who need praying for. And prayers at bedtime, if the children aren't too tired.

Here's a grace we use, before meals, to the tune of 10 green bottles

Thank you father for all you have to give
Thank you father for all we need to live
Let us share with others so everyone will know
We want to thank you father, everywhere we go

We do grace before meals.

Also before bed we do "teaspoon" prayers - tsp - thankyou, sorry, please.

We all say something and then someone we are thankful for, something we are sorry for, something we are hopeful for for the next day.

We got this idea from a fabulous book about praying with children Dear God Can You Wink which is out of print but you can get it 2nd hand.

Our kids are now 10, 8 and 6 and it works really well - it has got more sophisticated with the older ones now but still works really well.

oh yes - our bedtime prayers are modelled on the tsp idea.

we also sometimes ( often when on holiday) do 'best bit, worst bit' discussion about our day around the tea table - each person says what they enjoyed most and least, then wil often do a thankyou and a help type prayer based around these.

We have that Wednesday word thing from school and we use that as a focus as it has the Gospel reading for the following Sunday....

Whats the Wednesday Word thing? I've not come across that, sounds really interesting!

Oh, we get it from school every Wednesday - but I think there's a website (www.wednesdayword.org which has links to other children's pages).

Hope that helps

Thanks, it looks really useful!