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Teaching a Child to Pray

By JKS

Teach me to walk in the light of his love;
Teach me to pray to my Father above;
Teach me to know of the things that are right;
Teach me, teach me to walk in the light.

“Teach Me to Walk in the Light,” Children’s Songbook, p.177

My brother recently mentioned that he and his wife had been discussing how to teach their son to pray. His wife wanted to have one parent say the words that their son would then repeat. My brother’s opinion, however, was that perhaps a child should wait until he really understands prayer and can pray on his own. As I like to think of myself as being a “wiser” older sister, and his only older sibling with children, I went ahead and gave him my two cents.

Teaching prayer by having children repeat words is a perfectly legitimate way to do it. It’s not like you can wait until he’s 15 to start trying. What age would be the magic age to understand what he is doing? I think my nephew is old enough to understand prayer in a simple way. How many adults truly understand prayer anyway? It’s something that one keeps learning about.

I then, however, had to point out to my brother that children are individuals. You don’t always get to choose whether they learn what you teach. You don’t know what they will or won’t respond to.

Here is how my three kids “decided” to learn to start praying:

1st child: When she was two and a half, our independent and energetic first child wanted her turn to pray. She bowed her head and start mumbling. She had no interest in repeating our words. She had her own words, thank you very much, even though we weren’t sure what they all were. She had much to say in those long prayers. She still prayed like this when she went to Primary at age three, and gave such long, unintelligible, softly muttered prayers that the entire room kept opening their eyes to check to see what was going on.

2nd child: Our late-talker child was shy and quiet. He couldn’t speak when he was two. He wouldn’t speak when asked to give a prayer at three. Finally around four I pushed him, gently but firmly, as I had pushed him for so many other little daily things. We helped him by saying the words and he would repeat. He responded and eventually didn’t balk at taking his turn for a prayer.

3rd child: We recently got back into the habit of family prayer. She is two and speaks so well that we offered her a turn to pray. She very happily repeats after me when it is her turn for prayer. I’m guessing she’ll soon start saying prayers on her own.

A very common way to teach anyone any new skill is to show him first, then let him do it with your help. Then when he is ready, he can move on to doing it on his own.

I don’t think there is any one right way to teach a child to pray. I do know that a child probably won’t learn if he never sees or hears his parents pray, or if he isn’t taught about how to do it, or if it isn’t emphasized as something meaningful, or if he never tries praying.

JKS is thirty-five and lives in the Seattle area. Her strengths and interests include financial management, British history, taxes, Shakespeare, Tim McGraw, and her children’s education. She loves to attend the ballet and play games.
Her recent accomplishments include: organizing a playgroup, using a power saw for the first time and putting up new molding, going to an IEP (Individual Education Plan for children with special education needs) meeting for her kindergartener and hearing the principal say she was the “most prepared parent he’d seen.”
She has a BA in History (after going through many majors) and worked as a bookkeeper for several years. She’s been married for 14 years, and has three children..

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 3rd, 2006 at 5:00 am and is filed under True and Living. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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