We incorporate prayer into our family life by praying before the girls leave in the mornings, before meals, and before bed. The girls usually do the before meal prayers and the bedtime prayers. When they were younger, we taught them some of the more common kids prayers. But as they got older, I tried to get them to make it and pray more from their heart. That ended up in either a fight, or them repeating a made up prayer over and over.
Recently, it dawned on me that since they're always the ones that pray before meals and before bed, they don't have anything to model after other than the standard "Now I lay me down to sleep" and "God is good, God is great" prayers. So, I've been trying to make a better effort to model prayer for them. There's no reason for THEM to always be the one to say the prayer before dinner now. So, this week I'm going to try to say the prayer at least once before a meal and I've been trying to pray with each of them before bed time where I say the prayer (usually in addition to their own prayer).
How do you teach your kids to pray from their hearts?
Recently, it dawned on me that since they're always the ones that pray before meals and before bed, they don't have anything to model after other than the standard "Now I lay me down to sleep" and "God is good, God is great" prayers. So, I've been trying to make a better effort to model prayer for them. There's no reason for THEM to always be the one to say the prayer before dinner now. So, this week I'm going to try to say the prayer at least once before a meal and I've been trying to pray with each of them before bed time where I say the prayer (usually in addition to their own prayer).
How do you teach your kids to pray from their hearts?
