How to pray with Toddlers

At this stage of our children's growth we should probably continue to say their prayers for them. But we need to begin to teach them that this is their prayer time, not ours. We can spend a few more minutes praying with them and help them to close their eyes, to be still, and to concentrate on god, who is listening and loves them.

If you need help motivating your children to be still, try putting a little active play in their schedule. That way you can help htme be still by letting them look forward to the play time that comes next. Or if your children get a snack or drink before bed that they look forward to, put it right after prayer in the routine; then they'll be motivated to concentrate on prayer so that they can get to their snack. Don't worry about some restlessness; praise them and reward then when they're still, and continue to encourage them by telling them how much God loves them and wants to hear from them. The concentration will come eventually. Prayer time isn't a very good time to get all bent out of shape about discipline and about having your children respond to you perfectly. If prayer time becomes a battle, it will be hard for you to help your children look forward to it and want to learn more about it.

At this stage we should pray about things that emphasize God's care and love. Probably around the time our children are four or five years old, we can begin to involve them in deciding what we're going to pray for them. This confirms to them that these are their prayers and that eventually, as they get bigger, they'll say them for themselves, the you're getting-bigger-and-growing-up motivation. We can ask them what they'd like to pray about, giving them some suggestions from things that we know are currently of interest to them, things that happened that day, special events that are coming up, or events scheduled for the next day. Once they've agreed to one or two items, we should pray simply and briefly, again using words they'd use themselves, keeping the prayer upbeat and praising them for thinking of good things to pray about.