22 JUNE 2025 www.goodnewsfl.org Good News • South Florida Edition PARENTING We talk about prayer. Most parents reading this article would say prayer … communicating with God is extremely important. Many still reading know the verse in Jeremiah says God knows the plans He has for us (Jeremiah 29:11) and that we are each fearful and uniquely made by God so that we can fulfill those specific plans (Psalm 139). That being said, do we as parents actually put the training of prayer into our parenting curriculum? Do we teach our children to pray? What if we really believed it was important to communicate with God? What if we believed that communicating with God was more important than academics or sports. That being the case our parenting schedules would reflect this priority. Maybe it’s not a matter of knowing that prayer is important. We all know that praying, actually communicating with God, is extremely important. Maybe the challenge is how… how do we train our children to pray? Training children to pray Training our children to pray must start with making sure the children knows that prayer is a serious lifetime privilege. I can teach that by setting an example. Do my children see and hear me pray? Recently my brother Robey shared how he remembers growing up in our home. One of his most powerful recollections is getting up each morning before school and seeing mom sitting in a green chair. It was (and still is) a green chair sitting in the loft of our home. Robey said, “Even when I was in college, far from home, I knew each morning Mom was in the green chair praying for me.” We have to set the Example. Setting the time for personal prayer, sets the priority of prayer in the minds of your children. Setting aside time We need to do more than let them watch us pray, however. We need to expose them to the privilege and power of prayer. Find times when you can pray as a family as well as times when you can pray with each child individually. Each morning at the breakfast table we read the Bible and prayed. We did this while we were eating breakfast. Yes, that does mean we had to wake up a little earlier each morning. Before you groan about that thought, think about the other things you find yourself getting up earlier for such as swim practice, unfinished homework, or getting to the bus stop before dawn. These are all events we deem worthy of getting up a little earlier for. Surely building the routine of spending fifteen minutes at the breakfast table, reading the Bible and praying is worth far more than any other reason for which a family gets up early. It’s also important to find that personal time to pray with each child. At the side of their beds at the end of the day seems the most obvious. This is a time to help a child or teen experience personal prayer. Every night one of us prayed with a child. We began by asking them if they had any personal prayer requests. “What do you want to ask God about?” There seems to be a special connection between the innocent prayers of a child and the heart of God. Waiting for answers When I was five years old, I started taking piano lessons. We didn’t have a piano, so we arranged with the church we were attending to let me go to the church a few times a week to practice. One night I remember asking mom if it would be okay to ask God for a piano in our home. She said it was certainly okay to ask God for a piano as long as we didn’t tell Dad about the prayer request. (As an adult I realized he may feel pressure to try to purchase something he couldn’t afford … helping God out) and as long as they were willing to hear the word “no” or “not now.” We prayed for many things each night for the next couple of weeks but always included asking God for a piano. (And we didn’t tell Dad.) A couple of weeks after this particular prayer request began, Dad got a call from a friend, Ed Shambo. He indicated he was moving things around in his home and had an old upright piano that the family no longer wanted. Could we use it? Dad responded with, “I have no idea. Can I call you about it after I talk with Rosemary?” That night at the dinner table Dad asked, “The Shambos want to know if we want their piano?” Before he could finish the sentence mother and daughter were jumping up and screaming so loud he thought someone was having a heart attack. Then we explained that we had been praying. We got the piano, and I even had it in my own home for many years, but this was much bigger than a piano. This was God helping a little girl know that prayer is important and prayer really works! This connected her to her real Father. As for Dad, he always joked about having me pray for a Corvette … only kidding! Visit parentingonpurpose.org for more advice from Dr. Bob Barnes and Torrey Roberts. - Dr. Bob Barnes and Torrey Roberts - Sheridan House Family Ministries What If Prayer Was Important?
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