Praying with Your Toddler

Praying with Your Toddler

With our busy schedules, it is hard to find time to have all the family together. My husband and I decided that we would at least try to have family prayer before bed with our children.


The kids and I also have morning prayer, prayer before meals, and they pray at church.

How to Get Started

When the kids were just infants, we began just having family prayer in front of them so they could see this is what mommy and daddy do. We also would had them in our laps and hold their hands together for them. At first, they didn't like this, sitting still and having to be quiet for a long period of time.

After a while, my daughter began doing it on her own. She would see that it was time to pray and hold her hands together. Now she didn't do it the entire time, but it was a start.

We then learned a prayer primary song in church that works wonderfully for keeping them quiet and in position the entire time during prayer.

What to Pray About

When we started praying with the kids, we just prayed what we would usually pray as adults. This did make them bored and restless because their language development wasn't as strong as ours. So I began "translating." We still prayed what we would pray, but after each sentence I would bring it down to their level. If my husband would say, "Lord please forgive us for our sins and help us to follow the example Christ set for us," I would say, "God we are sorry for our no no's, please help us be good girls and good boys like Jesus."

How Long to Pray

We try to do a normal length prayer so the kids can learn patience, discipline, and train them for praying in church. However, if our children are extremely restless or cranky, we will shorten it.

Allowing Your Child to Pray

It doesn't take long for your children to want to mimic the prayers themselves. At first they may just be speaking gibberish, but let them. This is their beginning communication with God, and we should encourage them to speak with him-not tell them to quiet down while the real prayer is being said. Even if you are in mid sentence-let them speak. There are times when my children say "let's pray" and we do. We let them say their prayer, and if they don't say anything we say a short "We love you Jesus, Amen."

Using Prayer to Avoid Bedtime

Once my child caught on that she had to sleep after she prayed, suddenly she was filled with the Holy Spirit and wanted to pray over and over for looong periods of time. I did not want to discourage her from praying so we allowed her to pray a few times, until it gets to the point of being ridiculous. Then we say, "It is time for bed, but we can talk to Jesus again tomorrow. If you really need to talk more with Him now you can pray in your bed after mommy and daddy say goodnight."

Have Patience

Sometimes kids are just not in the mood to sit still, but it is important to reinforce and be consistent. Once they see that prayer is expected and they cannot get away with messing around during prayer, they won't, and they grow to enjoy prayer time. If they become restless during prayer in church, it is understandable to leave the sanctuary or children's training room. I try not to let my children play or get out of my arms is they are misbehaving, because it just shows them that if they act up in church they get to leave and have fun.

Live By Example

As long as you are consistently showing them that you are praying, they should eventually pick it up on their own. Our children learn from our actions on how to live their own lives. Showing them that it is important to you will eventually raise curiosity in them to want to learn more about prayer.