The Five Best Tips for Praying with Kids
I couldn’t be more excited about sharing these five tips with you - it feels like praying with kids brings us down through all the layers of our busy lives to the heartbeat of our homes. The ways we talk about God and the ways we talk to him and the stories we tell about what he’s done weave the fabric for who our families become.
Prayer is foundational in discipling your kids, and I hope these tips (and a great children’s book recommendation, too) equip and encourage you.
In my few short years of parenting, I’ve found that one of the most universal and effective parenting strategies is to model what we hope to see. If you want to raise kids who walk and talk with God, it starts with you! If your prayer life feels stagnant, just start talking to God today, about anything! Exciting, personal, life-giving conversation and friendship with your Creator is available to you, like right now!
Most importantly, what I don’t want you to hear is another list of do, do, do. Prayer isn’t something you write on a to-do list. It’s a way to live, an on-going conversation as you’re going about the to-do list. You’re inviting the wisdom and presence of God to shape the things you’re already doing. And while I’m going to share some tangible ways you can more intentionally make prayer part of your every day, you could do none of the things on this list and still model prayer beautifully for your kids. Praying about everything speaks directly to this, so let’s start there.
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Praying with Kids Tip #1: Pray about Everything
Last Sunday was the true definition of a perfect spring day. We pulled in the driveway after church, and I knew we would not be getting Henry in the house anytime soon. He bolted to the backyard, and as I came up behind him, he was squatting down near a patch of grass, saying, “God, would you help me find Mr. Buggy?” He had seen a small, black bug with large wings, and it had disappeared behind a blade of grass. Before I could say anything, he found it and jumped up with both hands in the air, “Thank you, God!”
Praying about everything has become one of my favorite parenting hacks. Henry loves Jeeps and airplanes and excavators, and if one goes by, he’ll ask to see another. Of course, I can’t make another airplane appear above us, so instead we’ll just pray that God would send another one! It takes a moment that could be otherwise frustrating for him and makes it into something sweet for both of us (while we stand squinting into the sun with our necks cranked to the sky, and I silently ask God that he really would, and quickly! 🤪)
Driving down the interstate, looking out your living room window, playing in your backyard - show your kids that they can pray anywhere and about anything. Pray out loud. Keep it short and sweet. When you ask God for the things that seem small and ordinary, you get to see him move on normal days about normal things. Not every prayer will be answered right away, of course, or even ever, but inviting God into the day-to-day will stir up faith in your home and set a foundation of prayer for your kids.
Praying with Kids Tip #2: Prayer Heads
All right, friends, I hope you’re feeling inspired to make prayer FUN in your home because this idea is just as hilarious as it is effective. When my husband and I were student teaching in our final semester of college, we lived with our youth pastor and his adorable family. His wife, Molly, has modeled prayer for me in a way that has, quite honestly, probably changed my life.
At the time, their kids were toddlers, and Molly took photos of people in their life, cut them out, laminated them, and picked one or two people to display on their table as a way to pray over them. Here are the photos of my husband and I when we were in college. 😀
You can do so much with this, and we’ll talk about routines in tip four, but this is a tool that could definitely support a routine of praying around the table at breakfast or dinner. You could switch the photos out every day or every couple of days, and you could also display a verse that you’re praying over them!
It’s helpful to have a little stand where the prayer heads can easily sit and a pencil box to hold the photos, so you can switch them out. If you’d like to give prayer heads a try, here are a couple of things to help you get started (if you don’t already have these things around your house!):
Something else I love about this idea is that it makes the people in your life feel so special! They might laugh awkwardly when you ask to take their picture, but when you tell them what it’s for, I promise you - they’ll feel loved. When we’re brainstorming ideas for praying with kids, we want it to be memorable and fun, and this is both! It really is a win for everybody.
Praying with Kids Tip #3: Prayer Walks
I’m not sure if it gets more fun than prayer heads, but prayer walks are a blast with little ones, too. How often do you walk with your kids around your neighborhood? It’s almost everyday at our house, and it’s the best time for quality conversation because there’s just something about fresh air (and your toddler being strapped in a stroller 🙃) that resets everyone.
If you know the names of your neighbors, you can pray for them by name as you walk past their house, and if not, you can still pray for their house and an opportunity to meet them!
Pray out loud as you go so that your kids are learning by listening, and get creative. Pray for their pets, their garden, their kids, their school. Hands down, the best part of this is hearing your kids begin to pray with you and contributing their own ideas of ways to pray for your neighbors.
And just like I mentioned at the beginning, this doesn’t have to be an extra thing you put on your calendar. If you’re already walking, all you have to do is start talking.
Praying with Kids Tip #4: Have a Routine
Having a prayer routine includes both the when and the how.
If you grew up in a Christian home, it’s likely that you prayed before meals or before going to bed, and those are great to keep up! But can we be super real for a minute? If that’s the whole of your prayer routine, it can start to feel boring at best and ingenuine at its worst. Here are some other times you might find prayer fits well into your family’s day:
Anytime around the table, but prayer is particularly powerful at breakfast as a launching point for the day
When you get in the car to drive somewhere - pray for the event, the people, safety, wisdom, anything :)
Pray when you hear sirens go by! My husband is a firefighter, so we love to pray for the professionals on the call and the people affected.
Pray when you see someone in need - for their protection, health, community, access to resources.
Special occasions! Probably my favorite :) Showers and birthday parties are such sweet opportunities to bless the growth and change in someone’s life.
And also the how - keeping it fresh helps to keep it real. Here are three ideas to consider:
If you typically pray at breakfast or dinner, it’s great to take turns! It doesn’t always have to be mom or dad. Invite your kids to take the lead.
Use Scripture to guide how you pray (next week’s blog is going to be all about that!). Pick a verse and insert someone’s name into it, like, “I pray that _______ would love you with all of their heart and all their soul and all their mind and all their strength.”
Jot down requests on a sticky note and post them on a prayer wall. It’s so much fun to wait and watch God answer, and if you have a picture to go with it, add it to your praise wall! (Check out tip #5.)
Kids thrive on consistency, and we include routine in so many other parts of their life. Keep routine in mind when it comes to praying with kids, too!
Praying with Kids Tip #5: Remember! Create a Praise Wall
There’s a kind of encouragement that comes from hearing about how God has shown up for people when they’re down to the wire. We love being reminded that God is miraculously in the mundane. It’s easy to be amazed at how God has moved in other people’s lives, but the pace and busyness of our own lives can keep us from noticing how he’s leaning in and listening and showing up for us. The wonderful truth is that, if you’re talking to him, I promise you that just like it says in James 4:8, he’s drawing near to you.
Are you able to slow down enough to notice when he answers?
My friend, Molly, who came up with the clever idea of the prayer heads, wrote an entire book of God stories - ways God has knit threads together in her life or answered prayers in ways only he could - called Cheeseballs for Jesus. And my favorite part about this book isn’t the stories themselves, although they really are hilarious and encouraging and you should read it, but the way the book acts as a reminder of all the things God has done.
It is powerful to remember that God is faithful, and praying with kids is a lot more fun when you stand in awe afterward at how he was listening.
For a while now, I’ve wanted to put up a frame in our house, kind of like this one, to hang pictures that remind our family of our own God stories - prayers that have been answered or ways he’s moved. It’s a simple way to involve your kids in remembering that God is up to great things in your family and to tell those stories again and again as a means to shaping the culture of your home. That’s actually what this whole thing, Home + Story, is all about.
I haven’t created a praise wall yet, but maybe writing this has inspired me to, and if you get to it before I do, I’d love to know how it goes. :)
And if you want to see all the cool things Molly is up to, go find her on Instagram or TikTok at Cheeseballchick!
Any Time, Any Place, Any Prayer by Laura Wifler
And, of course, I wouldn’t leave you without a children’s book recommendation for praying with your kids: Any Time, Any Place, Any Prayer by Laura Wifler is wonderful for so many reasons, but these are the top three:
It clearly presents the Gospel story and the power of prayer throughout.
There are loads of everyday examples of when kids can pray.
The illustrations are super fun!
I shared some of my favorite pages and illustrations on Instagram, so come find me over there at Home + Story, and I’ll show you why it’s just so great for teaching your kids about prayer!
If you try any of the ideas I’ve shared here, I’d love to see it! Send me a picture, and let’s be friends. ☺️
