Dads, let your children see you pray

It can be hard to pray.

Where do I find time? How should I pray? What should I pray about? Does God listen? Why doesn’t he always answer? I’ve wrestled with all these questions over the years. I probably own and have read more books on prayer than any other topic, and it’s still hard.

As a father, there’s one more question I can add: how do I teach my children to pray? There are already many great resources on how to pray with your children at different ages and what to pray about with them. Yet there’s something more fundamental that needs to come first: your children need to see you praying.

From earthly to heavenly Father

Children often think of dad as someone who can fix things—or at least give it a good go. Light bulb blew? Dad’s replacing it. Leaking roof? Dad’s up the ladder. Broken toy? Dad’s taking the whole thing apart and hoping he can remember how to put it back together again.

But whether you’re handy around the house or not, your kids will see you as someone who knows what to do when there’s a problem. And in those moments, they rely and depend on you. So how powerful is it to see Dad the fixer, the problem-solver, the strongman, turn to God with his problems? They need to see you rely and depend on your heavenly Father so that they know to do the same.

At all times, prayer is the right response to show our children. ‘Pray without ceasing’, Paul says in 1 Thessalonians 5:17. We are to cast all our anxieties on God because he loves us (1 Peter 5:7). We are to be thankful (Colossians 4:2). We are to confess our sins (1 John 1:9). We are to pray against sin (Matthew 26:41). We are to pray for others (Matthew 5:44). And we can trust that when we bring these things to him, he hears us (1 John 5:14). It is always a good opportunity to show your children what it means to depend on their heavenly Father.

Modelling prayer

After all, children take their cues from their parents. They use the words you use. They tend to respond to situations how they’ve seen you respond to them. You are their model for life, whether they realise it or not.

It’s not just prayer formulas or praying at set times of the day that will teach children to rely on God (though these can be very helpful). Instead, it is seeing you, their father, regularly praying because you know that God hears, God answers, and that God is the one in control of life. They need to see that you truly believe prayer is an absolute necessity.

What do you model for your children when it comes to prayer? What do your children see you do when you’re worried? What do they see you do when you’re thankful? What do they see you do when you sin? Do they see you take those things to God? If not, then they have no model to learn from. If they never see you pray, or they only see you pray with them at dinner time or bedtime, then they are not seeing what it means to rely on God at all times.

One of the greatest gifts you can give your children as a Christian father is a model of what it means to be a godly man of prayer. You don’t need to find a quiet time to pray, you can and should do it in the busyness of everyday life. In his book The Essentials of Prayer, EM Bounds wrote:

It is man’s business to pray, and it takes manly men to do it. It is godly business to pray, and it takes godly men to do it. And it is godly men who give over themselves entirely to prayer.

Prayer is one responsibility of a godly father. We should pray for our children, both alone and with our wives, but we also need to pray in front of our children. There is no better way to teach them what to pray or how to pray than by letting them watch you.

Building the habit

For your children to see you pray, you need to be building the habit of prayer yourself. The more your children can see you returning to God, the better. When you hear a friend or family member is sick, pray for them out loud with your kids. When someone’s had a good day at work or school, praise God. When your kids have been disobedient or you’ve lost your temper with them, confess it to God together. When someone is worried, don’t just tell them you’ll pray for them, pray with them in the moment.

It doesn’t need to be perfect, and sometimes you’ll forget or find it awkward, especially at first, but the more you do it, the more it will become the natural response. And don’t just do it at home. Let your children see you pray for and with others at church. Pray in the car before or after school drop off. Pray when you’re having dinner at a restaurant—even if it’s busy.

My wife and I pray in front of our five-year-old daughter sporadically at best: sometimes over breakfast, sometimes in the car, sometimes in response to something that’s just happened. Often we forget. And yet, even doing it so imperfectly, by God’s grace I can see her slowly learning that prayer is a normal response to life. She will sometimes add, after seeing or hearing about something, ‘We should pray about that’.

Prayer can be hard, and practising doing it in front of your children will take time, but they need to see it. As their earthly father, they know instinctively to come to you. Show them that they need to go to their heavenly Father too.

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Andrew Barker is the Communications Lead at Compassion Australia and lives in the Southern Highlands of NSW with his wife Amelia and their two young children. He is a passionate writer who is striving to bring his children up in the training and instruction of the Lord.

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