Teaching children to pray can be accomplished with consistent application of 5 simple techniques.



1. Are you seen praying? Your children will learn to praying and will see the importance of praying when they see you praying. Leave your door open when you pray so your children will see your example.

2. Lost toys. I encourage my children to kneel down and say a prayer when they cannot find their lost toy. You will notice these prayers become quite fervent. Afterwords make sure your child finds the lost toy and then point out that Heavenly Father heard their prayer.

3. Rituals. My wife tells our children to always say their prayers when ever they wake up and go to bed. Also at meal times a prayer is said over the food. This very quickly becomes habit forming.

4. Teach the power of personal prayer. Accepting Jesus Christ into our lives is a very powerful experience and it comes through personal prayer. Our children can tell God anything and this is an important step.

5. Spiritual stage fright. You have probably had the experience of saying the wrong thing while praying in public. I have a friend that was once giving a public speech and when he was finished, because he was so nervous, he said "In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen." For him this happened in school and it took him years to live down. Praying in public is necessary though for our children's development.

6. Short prayer? A short prayer is better than no prayer at all. I once read a quote that I liked, "Do not say you are going to pray, just pray." For me this means instead of saying, "Oops, I forgot my morning prayers so I better say them at noon," stop and pray right then even if the prayer is short.

In conclusion, teaching children to pray can be fun. Using meal time, bed time, and finding toys as opportunities to get our children to pray are habit forming for children.