I don't know how to teach my kids to pray

[aspietroll]

I'm opposed to the LDS way of teaching kids to pray by having a family sit in a circle session every day. Kids hate quiet settings, get bored easily, don't want to sit still too long and are lacking in patience. You'll succeed in getting the kids to pray a few times before they end up openly displaying apathy at the thought of prayer.

You can have the occasional family prayer for teaching the kids how to pray, and strengthening a concept of solidarity. As the children age, more regular prayer can be moved into life.

While they're young, teach that God is like a father that gives to us which we need but whom we should be afraid to anger. You teach your kids how to repent. You teach them how to give thanks. And you teach them how to give in their prayers to others.

The repenting is the most important part though I don't know if it should be the first thing you get kids to understand. Man by nature sins. He is imperfect. The ten commandments state man shall love and honor his mother and father, always. No one has respected their parents always. God gives us so many commandments that we break with sins and bad behavior we can't avoid because we do these things by the very nature of being made by God as a human. You teach your kids to apologize for jealousy, apologize for putting personal pleasure before work, apologize for performing day to day business instead of praying non stop, apologize for putting too much energy into daydreaming or fantasizing about things that will never be, apologize for not giving the whole truth to others sometimes, apologize for emotional controlling our reason, apologize for allowing fatigue to carry us away from God, and on and on. Repent, go out in the world and repeat our routine the next day and hope we can make ourselves better this time around.

You teach your kids to give thanks for the food God has provided. One of the sins they'll commit by being human is to be unable to thank God for every bit of food they eat. They'll accidentally act, eat the cookie or whatever, and not give thanks before hand. Shame on you if your kid has ever made himself feel ashamed for eating candy without praying when he has snacked while you weren't in the room. You do teach them to give thanks to God for a meal that is made with a lot of time and preparation by someone in the household. A salad or casserole made with the correct combination of the correct ingredients and food, produced by a disciplined cook taking the time to put all the care into the process of making that meal PERFECT. This meal is symbolic of the human ability to create, to constantly improve and create more and aim at perfection. This power to create is given to us by God, the ultimate creator. You thank God for allowing us to create and remember that no matter how ingenious or wonderful a thing man can create, God can create the same thing in heaven but a thousand times better. In heaven is wines, meals, music, architecture and plants created by God that excel what man created. Thanking God for allowing man to create stuff the way he creates stuff is necessary to get to his heaven where you may witness all God has created.

You teach your kid to pray for others. All man is sinful, and many either suffer greatly to other man's sins or are enslaved to their own sins. Man exists in mortal bodies prone to suffering, which weaken day by day until we die. You must pray for others to find peace. You must pray for people you owe no prayers for at all. You must pray for those traumatized by all the wars in the world to not fall captive to the grief created by tragedy. You must pray for people you know that are imperfect. You must forgive others whom are imperfect. You must pray for God to give us men and for good men to prevail. And you must teach them that because they're human, they cannot pray for every conceivable thing to pray for.

Ultimately, teach your kids that they must have an individual relationship with Jesus. A personal relationship, one on one, which you form by praying on your own, regularly, and knowing what to pray for.

[eddie]

Set the example of prayer, the correct wording, thee, thy and thou and then just listen. There is nothing as pure as a child's prayer, let them teach you.

Heavenly Father isn't hard to please. When my daughter was young she thanked Heavenly Father for clean water everytime she prayed, how sweet is that? Right back to the basics, I never tired of hearing her express that, and I know Heavenly Father didn't either.