Tips for Doing Devotions with Your Kids

Learn how to do family devotions with these four powerful and effective tips! If you struggle to make time for family Bible time, this advice will help!

Over the next couple of weeks, I’m going to be re-sharing a few posts that I wrote last year as part of a series called Spring Into Summer. My blog has grown much, thanks to all of you, in the past year, so many may not have seen these posts. I hope to give you some tools to prepare ahead of time for a fun, creative and relaxing summer. 

Because even though we got 6 inches of snow yesterday, I know it’s spring somewhere!

Today we’ll start with something that’s close to my heart: doing devotions with your kids!

Deuteronomy 6:6-9 says,

“These words, which I am commanding you today, shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your sons and shall talk of them when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way and when you lie down and when you rise up. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand and they shall be as frontals on your forehead. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.”

You may be wondering why this is “spring into summer” related, but it’s because I think that this season is a great time to begin devotions with your kids or to restart them if you’ve gotten away from a regular devotional/prayer time.

Family devotions for us are a time to dig into God’s Word with our kids from the oldest to the youngest and also to teach them that they can pray to God anytime about anything!

Here are four steps to starting family devotions with your kids!

1. Choose a time of day. Morning, evening or at the dinner table, whatever works best for you. Try to find a time that can stay consistent. If you know that you have evening activities several times a week, night time probably isn’t the best option.

2. Make it a relaxing atmosphere. Some families like to light candles before they pray or include music and family singing time. You don’ t need to know how to play the guitar or piano to make a joyful noise to the Lord!

3. Pick a devotional book that is age-appropriate for your children. This can be easy or challenging, depending on the age-range of your kids. Of course your Bible is the most important book for devotions but there are many biblical devotionals that can serve as go-alongs. {I talk about one of the books we use in the video below.}

4. Encourage prayer. Praying with your children strengthens their faith and encourages them, especially when you pray over them.

If your child struggles with praying out loud, I share in my video a tool that has worked for us to jump-start our children’s prayer time. Make it grace-filled and don’t force it.

You can also read about 8 simple tips for helping a child who is hesitant to pray.

To explain a couple of the tools we use to make devotions enjoyable and teachable at the same time, I’ve made my first-ever vlog! {It has different info than the post.}

If you can’t see this video, click here. {And can someone tell me how I can be sure I’m looking directly into the camera? I thought I was, but now as I watch it, I don’t know…}

More Resources for Family Devotions

There are some really solid and wonderful resources for family devotions, and these are a few that we recommend! We are very picky about what we choose to teach our children and want our devotionals and children’s Bible storybooks to be accurate, true to Scripture and emphasize what Jesus has done for us (rather than what we’ve done for God).

4 Must-Have Children’s Bible Storybooks

My ABC Prayers/My ABC Bible (Perfect for the littlest ones!! It is out of print but there are many used copies on Amazon and all four of my kids have loved it. And I’ve memorized it, haha!)

Illustrated Children’s Bible Stories

To Every Nation: 12 Missionaries and Their Great God (our three older kids, ages 5, 7 and 10, loved this study!)

Hide and Seek Devotional (great for ages 3 and up!)

God’s Amazing Creatures and Me: Devotions for Boys and Girls ages 6-10

Developing a Quiet Time (helpful for older kids who are wondering what to do during their own devotional time!)

Minding Your Mouth (10 Bible study lessons on taming the tongue)

I hope these tips and suggestions have given you the confidence to begin (or restart) family devotions in your home!

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*The Story Bible from Concordia Publishing House, St. Louis, Missouri.