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Children and Prayer: A Shared Pilgrimage
"Have you tiptoed into your child's bedroom to catch a glimpse of him or her in peaceful sleep?
Children are truly a gift from God. Yes, even when they're awake and unruly!
It's an awesome responsibility to nurture the spiritual life of kids among all the other demands. For parents, teachers and caregivers who wonder just how to do that when their own spirituality may at times feel tenuous, Children and Prayer will be a welcome guide.
""If we as people of faith value our children, we will recognize that one of our most significant responsibilities is to help them stay in touch with their spiritual selves,"" writes author and Christian educator, Betty Cloyd. ""For children to be able to do this, they need to be allowed time and space to grow in their understanding of God.""
More than a theoretical exploration of children's spirituality, this is a very practical book for parents who want specific help in developing a life of prayer and spiritual awareness in their homes. Cloyd explains the concepts of teaching faith to children and includes prayers written by them, prayers you can pray with children, interviews and resources for further study.
""Betty Cloyd has an intimate understanding of prayer,"" writes one reviewer. ""She also has a clear understanding of children. In putting together these two 'loves,' she has written a helpful book for adults who care about children.""
Provide the spiritual grounding that will give a child's life meaning and hope for years to come through this pilgrimage of prayer.Written by a Christian educator and diaconal minister, Children and Prayer helps us enrich the prayer lives of children. This easy-to-read volume answers the difficult questions children and adults often ask about God and prayer. This comprehensive guide includes interviews with children about prayer, articles on how children relate to God, prayers written by children, prayers for adults to recite with children, and rituals and activities designed to enrich a child s prayer life."
Children are truly a gift from God. Yes, even when they're awake and unruly!
It's an awesome responsibility to nurture the spiritual life of kids among all the other demands. For parents, teachers and caregivers who wonder just how to do that when their own spirituality may at times feel tenuous, Children and Prayer will be a welcome guide.
""If we as people of faith value our children, we will recognize that one of our most significant responsibilities is to help them stay in touch with their spiritual selves,"" writes author and Christian educator, Betty Cloyd. ""For children to be able to do this, they need to be allowed time and space to grow in their understanding of God.""
More than a theoretical exploration of children's spirituality, this is a very practical book for parents who want specific help in developing a life of prayer and spiritual awareness in their homes. Cloyd explains the concepts of teaching faith to children and includes prayers written by them, prayers you can pray with children, interviews and resources for further study.
""Betty Cloyd has an intimate understanding of prayer,"" writes one reviewer. ""She also has a clear understanding of children. In putting together these two 'loves,' she has written a helpful book for adults who care about children.""
Provide the spiritual grounding that will give a child's life meaning and hope for years to come through this pilgrimage of prayer.Written by a Christian educator and diaconal minister, Children and Prayer helps us enrich the prayer lives of children. This easy-to-read volume answers the difficult questions children and adults often ask about God and prayer. This comprehensive guide includes interviews with children about prayer, articles on how children relate to God, prayers written by children, prayers for adults to recite with children, and rituals and activities designed to enrich a child s prayer life."
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First published February 1, 1997
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
February 4, 2019
There are actually a lot helpful insights in this little book. The quoted prayers of children’s of various ages are a great addition. I also love the way Cloyd puts Jesus’ idea of children as “ideal member of the realm of God” (16). So good! And I appreciate how much it bothered her when she overheard a caregiver in church say to a group of three year olds “God and Jesus won’t like you if you do that” (27). Awful!
She writes of the importance of blessing children by name and quotes Henri Nouwen on the nature of a blessing or benediction being “to affirm, to say ‘yes’ to a person’s Belovedness. And it is more than that: to give a blessing creates the reality of which it speaks” (59). Doesn’t that just make you want to go give someone a blessing right now? She writes about the importance of rituals and repetition, emphasizing Klink’s point that “if we do not invent ceremonies for children, they make them up themselves” (61). And she offers a concise but pervasive list of options for different approaches to prayer, passages for meditation during times of pain or suffering, and an alternative for that scary line in “Now I lay me down to sleep” about the possibility of dying before morning. (It’s “Thy love guard me through the night, And wake me with the morning light” (122)).
But for all the great content, I had trouble connecting with this book. Part of that is that the content feels a bit dated and, if I’m being honest, judge-y—Cloyd assumes all children are churched and that most parents are abdicating spiritual training to ‘Sunday school teachers’ (13). But that said, as I’ve reflected on what I took away, it’s one I’m glad made its way onto my shelves and one I’ll be returning to as a resource.
She writes of the importance of blessing children by name and quotes Henri Nouwen on the nature of a blessing or benediction being “to affirm, to say ‘yes’ to a person’s Belovedness. And it is more than that: to give a blessing creates the reality of which it speaks” (59). Doesn’t that just make you want to go give someone a blessing right now? She writes about the importance of rituals and repetition, emphasizing Klink’s point that “if we do not invent ceremonies for children, they make them up themselves” (61). And she offers a concise but pervasive list of options for different approaches to prayer, passages for meditation during times of pain or suffering, and an alternative for that scary line in “Now I lay me down to sleep” about the possibility of dying before morning. (It’s “Thy love guard me through the night, And wake me with the morning light” (122)).
But for all the great content, I had trouble connecting with this book. Part of that is that the content feels a bit dated and, if I’m being honest, judge-y—Cloyd assumes all children are churched and that most parents are abdicating spiritual training to ‘Sunday school teachers’ (13). But that said, as I’ve reflected on what I took away, it’s one I’m glad made its way onto my shelves and one I’ll be returning to as a resource.
July 7, 2021
Raising, teaching and nurturing children is also about being taught ourselves. Children are learners,, but they are also teachers, as Cloyd demonstrates in this simple, practicle but insightful book.
And in this act of being learners and teachers, there is no better practice to form their lives around than that of prayer. This is what empowers them to make a relationship with God and others truly their own. Cloyd believes that children have a unique spiritual nature, and prayer can allow them to develop this. Thus when we provide the space for themto pray this evokes a sense of participation in the world. It awakens and broadens their world towards it immense imaginative properties.
If Jesus' ministry was often to the little ones, then there is a sense in which we join Jesus on this pilgrimage when we embark on teaching children to pray, giving children the tools they need to navigate each step of their common development. In doing this we help acknowledge in them that what they hear and learn from God has equal worth as anyone else. Their experiences and emotions just as relevant and necessary. And helping children to know that prayer is their personal response to a loving and faithful God can frame it in language that they can make sense of and understand. It is precisely because children find glory and magic and wonder in what we might find mundane that leaves them open to seeing the breadth of God's presence that perhaps gets harder to see the older we get..
The book is ultimatley interested in the practical ways that we can encourage all of the above, and being so serves as an encourgement towards possibility. And as it does so it allows the wonder of the child to be awakened in our own life and slumber.
And in this act of being learners and teachers, there is no better practice to form their lives around than that of prayer. This is what empowers them to make a relationship with God and others truly their own. Cloyd believes that children have a unique spiritual nature, and prayer can allow them to develop this. Thus when we provide the space for themto pray this evokes a sense of participation in the world. It awakens and broadens their world towards it immense imaginative properties.
If Jesus' ministry was often to the little ones, then there is a sense in which we join Jesus on this pilgrimage when we embark on teaching children to pray, giving children the tools they need to navigate each step of their common development. In doing this we help acknowledge in them that what they hear and learn from God has equal worth as anyone else. Their experiences and emotions just as relevant and necessary. And helping children to know that prayer is their personal response to a loving and faithful God can frame it in language that they can make sense of and understand. It is precisely because children find glory and magic and wonder in what we might find mundane that leaves them open to seeing the breadth of God's presence that perhaps gets harder to see the older we get..
The book is ultimatley interested in the practical ways that we can encourage all of the above, and being so serves as an encourgement towards possibility. And as it does so it allows the wonder of the child to be awakened in our own life and slumber.
October 10, 2013
Slow read..talks quite a bit on child rearing from a psychological perspective. prayer talks is a bit more theological than practical. overall this book is a good resource if writing a research paper.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews