Teach Your Children to Pray: Simple Prayer Routines for Kids

This blog post contains simple prayer routines that will help you confidently teach your children to pray.

We had just finished saying Grace after dinner when my youngest child, not quite one year, started wildly waving her hand in front of her face. While this may appear rather odd to some, it was her attempt at making the Sign of the Cross.

As Catholics, it is customary to begin and end prayer by crossing ourselves and saying the Sign of the Cross. Even in her short life, she picked up on this small habit of prayer and was already trying to imitate what the rest of the family was doing.

So often, this is how you teach your children to pray. It is a habit that is “caught” rather than taught.

Teaching your children to pray starts with your own habit of prayer

If there is one thing I’ve learned in motherhood, it’s that our kids are going to pay much more attention to our actions than our words. I know I’m not the only one guilty of yelling while saying the words, “don’t yell,” at the same time.

It works the same way with prayer. How often do your children see you pray?

Maybe you didn’t have very good model for what it looks like to pray either and don’t know where to even get started. If that’s you, check out my post, Daily Devotions for Moms for the Busy Holiday Season. While I wrote it for those who are trying to figure out where to fit prayer in their lives during the holidays, there are also some tips that are applicable in any season.

Instead, maybe you struggle to fit prayer into your life. If that’s you, you may also like, Productive Morning Routine for a Stay at Home Mom. In this post, I go more into how to use your morning wisely so that you don’t spend your whole day stressed and frazzled, while also knowing that the important things (like prayer) are taken care of.

While it is important to first make sure your own prayer life is in order so that you can be a model for your children, there are some prayer routines that you can start to incorporate into your daily life with your kids.

Invite them to pray with you

It’s not out of the ordinary to sit or kneel down to pray in the peace and quiet of the early morning, only to have the silence shattered by the sound of waking children. If your children are anything like some of mine, it’s not the quietest sound either.

For many, it would feel that all is lost. The moment for prayer is gone and we must go on with our day. Yet, that is far from the truth.

This is a great opportunity to invite our children in to pray with us. Have some religious board books handy for them to read, or read the scripture or devotions aloud to them. Ask them if there is anything or anyone they would like to pray for. You can remind them that this is a quiet time with Jesus, and if they have no interest in joining you, tell them that they can play quietly with a special toy.

Other prayer routines that help teach your children to pray

Children’s morning prayer

The morning is a great time to initiate a special time to pray with your children outside of your private prayer time. This can be around the breakfast table, in the car on the way to school or homeschool coop, or after breakfast during circle time.

I love to use this time to teach my children new prayers that they can turn to for the rest of their lives. Some of my favorites include: The Morning Offering, St. Francis’ Prayer, The St. Michael Prayer, and the Act of Contrition (really great to incorporate for those who are about to have their First Penance).

Prayer before meals

Never hesitate to model and encourage your children to thank God for the food before them before eating. This simple gesture is an act of love from us to our Lord who has given us all things.

It can be as simple as “Thank you Jesus for our food,” or the full Grace Before Meals prayer: Bless us, O Lord! and these Thy gifts, which we are about to receive from Thy bounty, through Christ our Lord. Amen.

Right now, my family does both! You could also have the children take turns saying an impromptu prayer to conclude the “Grace Before Meals” prayer.

Family evening prayer

We have a long-standing practice of saying some special prayers in the evening before the kids go off to bed. Everyone sits in somewhat of a circle in the family room.

We start with each child taking turns thanking God for two things and asking God to bless others in a special way.

Then we sing the refrain of a religious song. “Immaculate Mary” has been our song of choice for a while now.

Finally we close with a prayer my husband came up with asking God to bless each family member, extended family, and some specific people in our lives, and for the angels and saints to pray for us.

A work of life

Teaching your children to pray can be as natural as teaching them how to eat properly and much more important! Yet you don’t need to implement it all at once.

Write down the ideas that you want to implement and pick ONE to start with. Then give it at least two weeks of practice before implementing anything else.

Before you know it, daily prayer will be just another part of normal, everyday life for you and your kids!