Teaching Children to Pray (Part 1): Setting a Foundation

We hear about prayer in our churches all the time. We hear our priests preach about its importance. We hear reminders to pray regularly. We hear invitations to communal prayer opportunities within our parish setting. We are encouraged to come and pray in front of the Blessed Sacrament. However, amidst all of this talk of prayer, many find themselves asking questions like, “what exactly is prayer” and even more importantly as parents, “how do you teach a child to pray.”

It is normal to find ourselves simultaneously familiar with and yet feeling unequipped and uninformed when it comes to prayer. We are raised being told to “pray”, but often aren’t taught what a full, deep, and personal prayer life is and how to have one. If you are like me, you have stumbled through it at times and still have room to learn. If you are like me, you also want more for your children. So, here are 5 steps for forming a foundation of prayer in your kids. I have learned some of these from trial and error and some from the wisdom of others in my life. Hopefully, you find them fruitful for you and your family too.

1. Explain Prayer to Your Children. Before anything else, it is beneficial to help your children understand what prayer is. For much of my life I know I struggled to define prayer and because of that, I would often fail when trying to improve my prayer life. Simply defined, prayer is a dialogue with God. It is forming and fostering a relationship and spending time with Him. Now there are many expressions of that and many nuances as to how it is lived out with each individual, but if we can help our children to understand first and foremost that it is a relationship of time and conversation with God, we will set our kids up on a strong foundation. When our kids realize that prayer is simply time with Jesus, it takes away the fear that they might be doing it wrong, or the anxiety of not knowing what to do. If they spend time with you as a loving parent, they can spend time with Jesus in prayer.
2. Make Prayer Normal. Explaining what prayer is may be the first step, but it will end there if we don’t also strive to make prayer normal. Many adults never formed a prayer life because it was not made normal when they grew up. We make prayer normal by both talking about it regularly and doing it together. If a child is never encouraged to pray when they are scared, or thank God when they are happy, they won’t think to initiate it on their own when you’re not there, and even worse may not even feel comfortable praying in those situations. If we truly believe God is who He says He is, we need to make prayer common and not just a last resort.
3. Model Prayer for Your Children. Of the many things I have learned as a parent, there is one thing I am reminded of regularly, and that is my actions matter. Our children are constantly watching us and growing from our behavior. Prayer is no different. If we talk about prayer, but our children never see us pray, or only see us pray at meals, they will think we don’t pray. And if they think we don’t pray, they won’t feel a need to pray. Be the spiritual leaders of your house! Let your children see you pray. Invite them to join you or let them know when you need quiet to spend time with God. Even better, lead them in prayer when they are scared or anxious. You don’t need to be perfect and your words don’t need to be articulate. Your imperfection is actually a gift to them that helps them see that they don’t need perfect words to pray to God either.
4. Start Simple and Build. As you begin to model prayer for your children and attempt to form a prayer routine for them, start simple and grow. Some great places to start are times that are routine and you are all together as a family, such as mealtime and/or bedtime. After those become regular, add in mornings with time to thank God and ask for help for the day (breakfast and car-rides to school/daycare are great for this). Identifying special circumstances for prayer can also be a great way to build on a prayer routine, while making prayer normal. Our family’s favorite is to stop and say a prayer when we hear a siren. Other ideas could be saying a prayer when passing a church, finding out someone is sick, or sitting in traffic. Let your children be part of coming up with these situational prayers by asking when they think would be good opportunities for prayer.
5. Teach Them Memorized Prayers. One of the easiest ways to begin forming a prayer life is with memorized prayers. Memorized prayers can give words to the feelings in our hearts, and can teach us the kind of things we should be doing in prayer, such as praise, thanksgiving, repenting, interceding, and asking for help. Some of our family’s favorites are the Hail Mary, Our Father, Glory Be, Guardian Angel Prayer, and the Rosary. For younger ones you can even adapt the Rosary to be more toddler friendly. We will sometimes just pray a decade together, or for our younger kids, do what I like to call the “simple rosary,” where we just say the names of the prayers on each bead. This was something my mom taught me and I have found to be a great introduction to the rosary for kids and something our toddlers can do on their own during their “prayer time.”

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​So try out these 5 steps and remember that as long as you are trying to grow in prayer and form your children into Joyful Little Catholics that pray, God will give you the graces you need. You don’t need to be perfect and by setting this foundation, your children will find prayer to be a comfort and joy as they grow older.