Our children are in competition to see who gets to pray at every meal. Honestly, it becomes a fight as to who will get to pray. It has even gone so far as this: Someone sits down and starts to pray out loud while the whole family is doing other things. In addition, prayers frequently start way after the kids have started eating, since they sit down first. As you can probably imagine, this is not how we want our children to behave–and especially not when it comes to thanking the Father.
Self-control and a right spirit are areas we really need to work on.
So, in order to get back to the spirit of why we pray and how it should look, we set up some “rules” to get around the fighting. Are we the only ones who have this happen? I hope not…
Our desire is to teach our children self-control and for them to better understand why we are praying, not see who can pray first!
This idea was one that our children actually came up with. The new rule is: The most patient person gets to pray–the person who has been sitting quietly and has not started eating his/her meal. Let me tell you, this is quite a feat in our home some days. But I am happy to say it has been working beautifully!
Now, I don’t want you to read this and see it as a very legalistic, strict way to get to prayer. When it comes to my children, I have learned they need rules and parameters so they can get a sense of how things need to work. My children desperately needed to learn self-control, and this little tool has helped them understand and practice it three times each day!
I am amazed at how satan gets in there and changes even the most innocent of situations. But I love how it turned into such a great teaching opportunity for us.
Anyone else have a great tool they used to change the atmosphere in their home around times like prayer? I would love to know!
We have a routine. One son prays at breakfast every day, the other prays at every lunch, and one of the adults prays at dinner. Period. They know what to expect, so no more arguing.
When I was little we would have a day in which we were responsible for. Since including my parents we were 5, two days of the week were king of bonus days. I would like to do this in myhome now but my kiddo is a little too young.
There were four of us growing up so we each had our own week where we got to lead prayer at meal times. As we got older, we had a chart and we all rotated through various chores (this way even though we hated some chores and loved others we would all know how to take care of house in its entirety when we moved out!). We were assigned one chore that was ours for the month. We decided it made more sense (and was easier to keep up with) to attach leading the family in prayer at mealtime to one particular chore. We chose keeping the kitchen clean (I’m not sure why that particularly). Maybe that would be something helpful as your children get older?
I think its great that your children have such a desire to pray — and that you’re concerned about their heart, not just their action! Keep up the good work =)
I’ m glad to hear someone else has this same problem! Some days I didn’t know if I was happy that they both wanted to pray or sad that it became a race to see who would actually start praying first!
We are still trying to come up with a solution so will keep your ideas in mind for sure!
Whoever sets the table that night prays, although sometimes they act silly while praying or rush through it. So we’re working on that…we want them to be truly thankful and not ‘just say it’ just because it’s their night. We end up correcting them, especially the youngest, during or after prayer time. It’s frustrating and just doesn’t ‘feel right.’ I’m glad we’re not the only ones who deal with these things at mealtime!
Since my son was born on an odd-numbered day, he says the blessing on all odd-numbered days. Vice versa for my even-numbered daughter. Works well most of the time.
When my husband was young, his mom had a fun plan for, well, pretty much everything. Their initials were J, A, & P. She wrote their initials on a calendar day after day, week after week. Whoever’s name showed up that day, got to pick all the fun things, bed time book, restaurant if they went out, etc.. BUT they also had the chores to do all day, dishes, taking trash out and so on. I’m not sure what their prayer routine was, but I think I’m going to implement that plan as well… after we have more kids that is 🙂 We only have a 9 month old right now. I’m counting the days until he can do dishes!
We have a schedule, posted right by the dinner table. It works great. No fighting and I don’t have to try to remember whose turn. I need to update the schedule to include my daughter who is old enough to pray now. We are a family of 6 so Daddy will get 2 days.