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Seniors: a managers best punching bag.
^when the client puts you on actuals^
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We’ve had three kids at that age, and modeling that behavior was most effective for us. At that age, more is “caught than taught”. For example, when we’re at the restaurant or food court, and the server is less than nice to us, we overtly demonstrate patience and kindness when our kids are present so they can see it in action. And then reinforcing with principles helps lock it in.
I caveat all that to say it’s a tough age and requires some persistence before it sticks :) keep going dad!!
I’ve heard a story describing children’s religious upbringing to a painting — any individual brush stroke doesn’t look like much, but all of them together paint a beautiful picture. Especially with a pre schooler and prayer, there will be a lot of running and yelling “prayer times”… but when your child gets older, they will remember the consistency and how important it is to you. So hang in there!
Hindu dad here. I am following this thread for perspectives. I am only making an observation here and not providing an opinion .
I am religious ( and not superstitious as some Hindu customs might be) - I meditate daily ( for the past 35 years or so), visit the temple at least once a month and I attempt to understand the meanings/significance of the prayers I chant. I tend to question (within my mind ) and discard Practices that I beleive are superstitious or outdated ( such as the place of women in religious rites ) My high school son had this argument when we tried to get him to pray and essentially said that while he believed in god, he didn’t believe in any of the rituals and didn’t see any benefits. We have been having some interesting dinner discussions these days on our contrasting perspective and actually has made me dive deeper into certain Hindu theology that I was previously ignorant of.
We do daily family worship time which includes prayer, 1-2 songs, and a family devotional (age appropriate devotionals are out there).
There's a good book on it, Family Worship by Donald Whitney. The key, he says based on his own family's experience, is not to be too overbearing with it. Kids are going to roll around and get distracted. His point is if you make this time intentional it will stick with them over time even though you won't realize it at first.
We've only been doing it for about 2 years but our kids (now 7, 10, 12) came to expect it and generally look forward to it. And sometimes we're late for bed time so we'll cut 1of the 3 out for the night, but that's better than only doing it 4 nights a week because you were too busy to spend full 15-20 mins doing all 3.
When they're of reading age, letting them read some of the devotional or verses helps engagement.
In Christ
Mormon here: we attend church as a family weekly and send our little ones to Primary Sunday School. We read “kids version” of the scriptures 10 min each morning. We sing gospel centered songs at home often. And we listen to the “Christian Rock” radio station in rotation with other music. We try to make gospel learning and living a daily experience.
It’s super difficult. I tell my wife that what we teach them at home has a lot of weight as our home is a domestic church. I’ve seen friends who grew up agnostic become very religious and friends who were very religious become indifferent. So we take it a day at a time. It’s hard to make the time for religious instruction at home but it’s doable. When they make a conscious decision at 18+, I hope it resembles what we are teaching them because it comes from a place of deep love.
I. An only pass along a funny story. At my parents for Christmas a few years ago when the kid was around 4 years old. I said “ok go get changed, we are going to church for Christmas Eve.” Response by kid while throwing up arms “ugh, we just went for Easter” ….Dagger eyes from my mom were not good
Catholic with 5 kids here. We attend mass weekly, day nightly prayers, and kids go to Catholic school. Im not sure any of my kids thought much about faith at preschool age. They just learn to follow the routine and the continuous reinforcement of God in our lives.