Inside: A delicious idea and free donut printable for Teaching Kids To Pray in family home evening, primary, sunday school or seminary!
At some point in a child’s life, they will wonder … Why do we pray? Who are we praying too? And why do I have to wait to eat my pizza until someone has blessed the food?
In This Post You’ll Get Links too:
- Prayer Lesson Handout – Printable
- Prayer Reminder Punch Card – Printable
- Links to questions, quotes, scriptures, and a prayer coloring page
How do kids learn to pray?
For the most part, kids learn to pray by watching and listening to others. Kids are masters at the copycat game.
At first they may copy the words we say but eventually, kids start to catch on and in tiptoe things like “Bless us to get lots of Candy trick-or-treating” or “Please make dinner taste good” or one of my own personal favorite’s was when my son prayed “Bless my muscles to get bigger”.
Going one step beyond kids learning through copycat, it’s important to TEACH KIDS THE WHY for praying.
Teaching Kids To Pray in Family Home Evening
My husband and I try to hold family time each week we call Family Home Evening (FHE). We aren’t perfect at holding FHE, sometimes it feels like we are drowning in soccer, reading slips, and karate practice, but carving out time for FHE is something we are trying to focus on.
Family Home Evening usually includes a conversation about a Gospel Topic, a treat, possibly a game, and a primary song. How fast can you sing Head Shoulders Knees and Toes?
Donut Forget To Pray
One night my husband and I were making up a Family Home Evening lesson on the fly and we decided to teach about Prayer. After discussing the basics of prayer (see some tips below) my husband brilliantly rattled off the saying “DONUT forget to Pray“. Clever guy.
After the lesson, and another round of Head Shoulders Knees and Toes, we took the kids to get Bowman’s donuts. Anytime you walk into Bowmans you get smacked in the face with the deep-fried, maple glazed smell and suddenly even if Donuts weren’t on your shopping list a dozen donuts slide in your cart.
The kids each picked their donuts from the glass case and repeated “Donut Forget To Pray” between bites of donut and even weeks later when we tucked the kids in for bed they would say “DONUT forget to Pray” as they got on their knees to say bedtime prayers. Prayer lesson success!
Ways to use the saying “Donut Forget to Pray”
- A Trip to the Bakery
- A Box of Donuts you pick up ahead of time – Donut Printable Below
- Small packages of Mini Donuts – Printable Below
- Donut Suckers – Printable Below
What to talk about in your Prayer Lesson…
You can opt to have a more casual conversation about prayer. Depending on your kid’s age, that might be all you need! If you have older children you can follow a more specific outline. I have gathered some good resources for you below.
Who can pray?
- Teach children that everyone can pray with no restrictions.
What are the 4 parts of a Prayer?
- Dear Heavenly Father
- We Thank Thee…
- We Ask Thee…
- In the Name of Jesus Christ, Amen.
In the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints Handbook for Families, it says: “As we explain prayer to our children, we may include (1) expressing gratitude, (2) pleading for unity and love, (3) asking for help in time of need, and (4) seeking strength to resist or overcome.”
Where and When Should We Pray?
We have been commanded to pray in secret, in our families, and in public. In the Sermon on the Mount, the Lord gives his disciples instruction on praying—in secret and with motives that are pure. (See Matt. 6:5–15.).
Scripture to Read About Prayer
Here is a long list of Scriptures about Prayer. Here are a few of my favorites:
Quotes About Prayer
- “Vital prayer is never a three-minute pause on the way to a good night’s sleep. Rather, we need to invite the Lord into our thoughts and, in the light of his guidance, subject our life-style to our most penetrating scrutiny. At such moments of total concentration on our part new thoughts may flow into our minds.” (Ensign, Jan. 1976, pp. 32–33.)
- President Gordon B. Hinckley has said, “I know of nothing that will ease family tensions [better] than will praying together, confessing weaknesses together before the Lord, and invoking the blessings of the Lord upon the home and those who dwell there.” (Improvement Era, June 1963, p. 531.)
Prayer Activities – Coloring Pages
Here is the link to a super cute Prayer Coloring Book Page you can download and print!
Teaching Younger Kids to Pray? (Ages 1-5)
This gorgeous picture book “I Can Pray Everyday“ covers the who, what, where, when, why and how of Prayer! Our copy of this book has love marks, AKA torn pages. This is one of those books that will give you some momentary mom relief. Meaning, the book will be teaching and you won’t have to be preaching to your kids, hoping they eat up your words better than do their vegetables. They will love this book.
BONUS Printable –
I have also designed an “I Can Pray Reminder Punch Card” – Download it at the end of the post! Use this punch card to challenge kids to say personal prayers for 30 days in a row!
Use these mini hole punches to mark off each day!
(The set linked above has 3 punches – all different sizes – and for the price of 1 punch)
Bottom Line: I hope this post is helpful in teaching kids to pray! Enjoy handing your kids a Donut and saying “Donut Forget to Pray” and hopefully, it helps them make a habit of praying. Because when you give a boy a donut, he will say a pray to go with it.
Related:
This is fantastic and something I know my kids will cozy up to. Teaching about prayer, and reminding my kids to pray often seems like such a struggle, but the addition of donuts, and I think we may start seeing a change in our kids attitudes to prayer.
This is fantastic and something I know my kids will cozy up to. Teaching about prayer, and reminding my kids to pray often seems like such a struggle, but the addition of donuts, and I think we may start seeing a change in our kids attitudes to prayer.
Hey Stephanie! Sometimes they go to spam. But I’ll email it to you just in case! :)