Do you spend time teaching your kids to pray? If so, how do you do this?
Let’s look at this sample prayer:
“Dear Jesus,
Thank you for mommy, daddy, and my brothers. Help us to win our basketball game tomorrow. Thank you for our food. Amen.”
Does this kind of prayer sound familiar? While I’m happy my son knows God is interested in all aspects of his life, I want his prayer life to develop more depth as he gets older. I want him to learn to pray in the way Jesus taught his disciples to pray.
If you desire to do better at teaching your kids to pray, I invite you to read on (and see the printable you can download to help you and your kids remember these steps at the end of this post!)
A Biblical Model for Teaching Your Kids to Pray
When Jewish teachers wanted to teach their disciples to pray, they would use a technique called “index prayers.” These were short model prayers, but every line was packed full of meaning. This is exactly what Jesus did for His disciples when he provided the Lord’s Prayer. Each line is a reminder of something important about prayer.
According to the Westminster Shorter Catechism, the Lord’s Prayer can be divided into 6 petitions. As it turns out, there are also 6 letters in the word “prayer,” so I came up with an acronym for my kids to remember how to pray, using the Lord’s Prayer as the model: Praise, Remake, Attitude, Yummy, Expose sin, and Rescue.
I recently used the following model to teach families that attend Wednesday night church group how to pray Biblically. We had tons of fun revealing what the letters stood for each week.
6 Essential Steps to Teaching Your Kids to Pray (aka P.R.A.Y.E.R.)
Praise
“Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed by thy name.” This is an opening line of praise. It speaks of God who is both high above us (in heaven) and lovingly near to help (Our Father). In this petition, “hallowed be thy name,” we are praising God how great and holy He is, but we are also asking God to show the whole world how great and holy He is.
When teaching your kids to pray, ask your child to complete one or more of these sentences when they pray with you…
- “Lord, what I love about you is…”
- “Lord, I thank you for…”
Remake
“Thy kingdom come.” God’s kingdom is anywhere where He he treated and honored as the king. Some day, His kingdom will come to the earth when Jesus returns and He remakes the world into His perfect kingdom again. We should pray that this day will come soon. Until then, Jesus said the kingdom has already come near to us, so we pray that he will remake us into people who honor Him as the king.
Ask your child to complete one or more of these sentences when they pray with you…
- “Lord, I look forward to the Day Christ returns because…”
- “Lord, remake me into someone who…”
Attitude
“Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” Doing God’s will starts in the heart. Real obedience isn’t just a matter of doing what God tells us to do; we should love what God wants us to love. When we pray that God’s will should be done, we are praying that our attitude and the attitudes of others will be changed so we obey God from our hearts.
Ask your child to complete one or more of these sentences when they pray with you…
- “Lord, I want my attitude to be more…”
- “Lord, as a family, help us to have an attitude of…”
Yummy
“Give us this day our daily bread.” This is a daily request for God to provide for our needs. It shows a great dependence on God’s provision and a thankfulness that He provides. When we think of the word “yummy” we remember that God not only provides the things we need, we are also expressing to God how much we enjoy those things.
When teaching your kids to pray, ask your child to complete one or more of these sentences when they pray with you…
- “Lord, give this person…”
- “Lord, what we need in our family is…”
Expose Sin
“Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.” This petition asks for God’s forgiveness for our sins—both known and unknown. Often we aren’t even aware of all the ways we have hurt others or offended God, so we should ask God to expose our sin to us and expose it to the light of his forgiveness.
Ask your child to complete one or more of these sentences when they pray with you…
- “Lord, show me if I have the sin of…”
- “Lord, forgive me when I…”
Rescue
“Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.” God always provides a way of escape so that we can stand up under temptations. This is a request that God will rescue us from our sinful tendencies, from things that might be tempting to us, and from the Evil One himself.
Ask your child to complete one or more of these sentences when they pray with you…
- “Lord, I am tempted to sin when…”
- “Lord, rescue me from temptation when…”
Download P.R.A.Y.E.R. Poster
Need a constant reminder of this P.R.A.Y.E.R. model when teaching your kids to pray? Click on the image of the poster below to download. It will remind you and your kids about the meaning of each parts of the Lord’s Prayer. Using in your teaching times together.
What tactics do you use when you are teaching your kids to pray? Tell me about it in the comments!
More Resources for Parents for a Biblical Home:
- 7 Ways to Develop a More Prayerful Child
- 6 Things to Pray for Your Kids Every Day
- Kids & the Bible: 10 Ways to Help Them Focus on God’s Word
- 5 Ways to Create a Bible-Saturated Home
- 10 Strategies to Creating a More Meaningful Prayer Life
- Making Family Devotions a Priority when Life is Busy
Thank you so much for sharing this model of prayer! We found it very helpful for the entire family! Being raised a catholic and being taught to recite prayers as a way to pray has been very misleading! Your explanation has helped put things in much better perspective! Thank you!
Glad it helped. Rote prayers can be very helpful if taught in the right light, but many kids don’t get that kind of education.
This is a great break down of the Lord’s Prayer. I can’t wait to share it with the whole family!
So glad you like it!
Thank you for this. I am taking a Religion course as I teach for the Catholic school board. I am doing a project about teaching children to pray (kinder) and I want to acknowledge where I got this idea from. I will use the Lord’s Prayer as my starting point and teach my kinders the acronyms you have created.
Blessings.
Glad you like it, Brenda. Hope it is helpful for the kids!
Thanks for the prayer. Model useful for the children at family, church and other institutional upbringing. Be blessed.
I’ve been really feeling the need to take my son more about prayer. I’m personally reading Andrew Murray’s book about the School of Prayer and WOW! So when this popped in my email from a trusty resource (that’s you Gilkersons), I know it’s a good thing! Thank you!
You’re welcome!
A wonderful piece. Really praiseworthy. Thanks!