If you’re a parent, how do you pray with your young children? The last few months have been an eye-opening experience for me, as my wife and I have been teaching our our daughter to pray.

If you’re a parent or otherwise work with young children, I’d love to hear about how you approach the task of teaching a toddler to speak to his or her Creator.

I’ll throw a few questions out there, along with some of my thoughts. Please chime in if you have anything to share!

When did you introduce the act of prayer into your child’s life? We started leading our daughter in prayer before bed  by then she had witnessed many other people praying during church services, at dinnertime, and at other times. Once she could start communicating in more or less coherent sentences, it seemed time to introduce the concept. What about you?

When you started praying with your child, did they understand what they were doing? In our case, I don’t think our daughter has much of an idea of what she’s doing during prayer. On the one hand, I don’t like leading her through a religious ritual that she doesn’t understand; but on the other hand, my hope is that she’ll grow to appreciate the practice at her own pace, once it’s more of a habit.

What does your child pray about? In my own prayers, I try to incorporate repentance, thanksgiving, and specific requests. Thus far in my daughter’s prayers, we focus on just thanking God for the basic blessings that define her life: family, food, friends. What about you—how and when do you help your child incorporate more advanced concepts like forgiveness and repentance into prayer?

One thing is certain: praying with a young child is a beautiful and humbling experience, one that sheds new light on the familiar phrase “childlike faith.” Have you ever helped a child learn to pray, and if so, what advice can you share? Did it impact your own faith or prayer life in any way?