How to teach your kids to pray

Let them overhear you first

The disciples never asked Jesus for a course on prayer. They watched him pray, and afterwards one of them asked to be taught. That order matters: the request came from seeing, not from being enrolled.

So before anything else, pray audibly in front of your children — short, plain, unimpressive prayers. In the car. Over a phone call that went badly. Thirty seconds before the food. A child who never hears an adult pray will experience prayer as a school subject; a child who hears it every morning will experience it as something people in this house do.

One day in a place where Jesus had just finished praying, one of His disciples requested, “Lord, teach us to pray, just as John taught his disciples.”

Luke 11:1, BSB

Give them two sentences, not a paragraph

The smallest workable prayer for a child is two sentences: one thank you and one please. Thank you, God, for the dog. Please help me with the spelling test. That is a complete prayer and nothing needs adding to it.

This is exactly what the Thank and Ask steps already are, which is why children slot into the morning rhythm so easily. Paul's shortest instruction on prayer is about the same size: be glad, keep praying, say thank you. If your five-year-old can do those three things in eight seconds, they have understood more than most adults manage before coffee.

• Thank — one true thing, said out loud, however small
• Ask — one real need, theirs or somebody else's
• That is the whole prayer; do not extend it for them

Rejoice at all times. Pray without ceasing. Give thanks in every circumstance, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.

1 Thessalonians 5:16-18, BSB

Teach the prayer Jesus actually gave

When he was finally asked, Jesus did not describe a technique. He handed over a set of words, and those words have been the backbone of children's prayer for two thousand years because they are short and they hold everything: God's name, God's kingdom, bread for today, forgiveness, and help with what is too big.

Take one line a week. Say it together in the morning, and once during the week ask what that line means in your house — what does bread for today look like this week, who do we need to forgive. A child who has one line of it in their memory has something to reach for at three in the morning in twenty years' time.

So then, this is how you should pray: ‘Our Father in heaven, hallowed be Your name. Your kingdom come, Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.’

Matthew 6:9-13, BSB

Let them pray true things, not nice things

Children work out quickly which prayers earn approval, and then they perform them. If the only sanctioned prayer is a grateful one, you will get grateful ones and never hear the rest. So praise the honest prayer, not the polished one. God, I am scared of the new school. God, I am angry at my brother and I do not want to stop being angry yet.

The psalm invites people to pour out their hearts before God at all times, which assumes there is something unattractive inside to pour. If your child prays something that alarms you, thank them for saying it. You have just been trusted with the thing they usually keep.

Trust in Him at all times, O people; pour out your hearts before Him. God is our refuge. Selah

Salmo 62:8, BSB

When a child will not pray

Some children refuse, some go silent around age nine, some are neurodivergent and find speaking on cue impossible, and some are simply not interested this year. None of this is failure, and pressure at the table converts a temporary no into a permanent one. Offer a job instead of a performance: they can read the verse, hold the list, pick who goes first, or say amen.

You can also pray over them rather than requiring them to pray. Jesus took children in his arms and blessed them; nobody recorded the children saying anything. A hand on a shoulder and one sentence at the door is a real spiritual practice and it costs a child nothing to receive.

And He took the children in His arms, placed His hands on them, and blessed them.

Mark 10:16, BSB