It’s never too early to teach our children about a loving God and prayer. Children can be taught that prayer is a little talk with God. God wants us to know him. He is interested is how we feel. We can tell him anything.
Children can learn that there are many different kinds of prayers. Here are a few…
Praise Prayers: Praise is something nice we say about someone. So we can tell God that we think he is nice. We can say, “God, I love you. I love how you made the sky, birds, flowers and trees. “
I’m Sorry Prayers: These prayers let God know when we’ve messed up. So we can say, “I’m sorry I lied. I’m sorry I got in a fight with my sister. Please help me not to do those things.”
Grace Prayers: This is when we thank God for our food.
Asking Prayers: This is when we need God’s help with something. God is not like Santa Clause. We don’t give him a list of everything we want because we’ve been good. We can also ask for things other people need. We can say, “Lord, please help me be a nicer person. Please help my sick Nana. Please let my daddy get a job.” We can ask God anything. God answers our prayers. God is like a loving parent so sometimes his answer is yes, sometimes no, sometimes maybe, and sometimes it’s wait awhile.
Good Night Lord Prayers: A little prayer we stay before we go to bed.
Although we want our children to learn to talk to God from the heart, there is nothing wrong with memorizing a few little prayers to get them started. Grace prayers and good night prayers are a good place to start.
Thank Prayers: This is when we let God know we are thankful for all he does for us. We can keep a list of all the things we are thankful for and tell God. Some ideas about what to be thankful for would be: our parents, a sunny day, our grandparents, our friends, our brothers and sisters, and so on.
Here’s a popular grace prayer…
God is great
God is good
Let us thank Him
For our food
By His hands
We are fed
Thank you God
For daily bread
It always irritated me that “good” and “food” didn’t rhyme, but I’m a little OCD. It gets the message across and is far better than…
Look out mouth
Look out gums
Look out stomach
Here it comes
Many start with this little good night prayer, which I think is horrendous…
Now I lay me down to sleep,
I pray the Lord my soul to keep,
If I shall die before I wake,
I pray the Lord my soul to take. Amen.
There’s nothing quite like thinking about death to get a good night’s sleep – especially for a child!
I highly recommend a modified version like one of the following.
Now I lay me down to sleep,
I pray the Lord my soul to keep
May angels watch me through the night,
And keep me safe till morning’s light.
Or…
Thank you Lord for another day,
The chance to learn, the chance to play.
Now as I lay me down to sleep,
I pray the Lord my soul to keep.
Or make one up… Or we could have our children make one up. They are very clever! And we are never too young to start praying.
