Podcast: How Do I Teach My Children to Pray? (Kristen Wetherell)

October 20, 2025 by: Crossway

This article is part of the The Crossway Podcast series.

Explaining to Your Kids What Prayer Is and Why It’s Important

In this episode Kristen Wetherell talks about how parents can teach their kids to pray. Kristen analyzes the challenges that parents might encounter when explaining prayer to kids and how parents can make prayer more than just asking God for things by fostering prayerful environments.

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Teach Me to Pray

Teach Me to Pray

Kristen Wetherell

Organized alphabetically, Teach Me to Pray offers a rich collection of prayers to help children navigate a wide range of emotions, explore significant life and church topics from a biblical perspective, and deepen their connection with God.

Topics Addressed in This Interview:

00:37 - Challenges We Face When Explaining Prayer to Kids

Matt Tully
Kristen Wetherell is a wife, a mother, a writer, and a speaker. She’s also the author of several books, including a new book for kids called Teach Me to Pray: Praying God’s Word from A to Z from Crossway. Kristen, thank you so much for joining me today again on The Crossway Podcast.

Kristen Wetherell
I love being back. This is great.

Matt Tully
As all parents listening will know, praying with our kids is one of the most meaningful, one of the most special things that we get to do with our kids at times. And yet at other times, it can be one of the most challenging things that we want to do with our kids. We’ve all been around the meal table when we’re trying to pray for the food, and one of the kids is kicking the other kid or they’re keeping their eyes open and they’re telling on each other. But you’ve written this book that’s really designed to help parents teach their kids what it looks like to pray, and pray in a more substantive way than just at mealtimes. We’ll get into the book in just a little bit. If you were going to sit down with an eight to ten year old and explain what prayer is and why it’s important to a kid, what would you say?

Kristen Wetherell
Well, my daughter is about to be eight years old, this is real life. And we have talked about this before. I would explain it simply as prayer is talking to God. It’s talking to the God of the universe, who we know is a living person, but we can’t see him. And honestly, that’s one of the reasons prayer is hard, and I’m sure that we’ll get into that, but it’s hard because we can’t see him. And yet we have this amazing privilege of talking to God and telling him what’s on our minds, on our hearts, what’s great, what’s hard, and ultimately worshiping him—what’s great about him. I often like to think of this as any other kind of important relationship that I have. It would be weird if I never talked to my husband. You would say I don’t have much of a relationship. Or my daughter. So we want to talk to God. That’s what prayer is.

Matt Tully
You’ve already brought this up, but I know I’ve had this conversation with my kids, and they do pretty quickly get to that next logical point and say, "I understand that I’m supposed to talk to God. That’s part of a relationship is talking to somebody. But he doesn’t talk back. I don’t hear him speak back to me, and I can’t see him." And so it feels very different and hard. And I’m sure there are parents out there listening who also, if we’re honest, can say that we feel that way at times as well about prayer. How do you think about explaining that to kids?

Kristen Wetherell
We will often talk about this divine dialogue that we have with the Lord, and it involves more than just talking to him; it involves him talking to us. And so that happens through Scripture. We know that scripture is God’s word to us. It’s the very voice of Jesus given to us in a book, which is such an amazing gift, if you stop to process that and think about it.

Matt Tully
Why do you say that?

Kristen Wetherell
We’re worshiping the Lord of the universe, and we are mere human beings who have rejected him and strong armed him and said, "I don’t need you. I’d rather be independent." And yet God has been so kind to communicate with us in a way that we can understand, in a way that we can see and feel with our hands and with our eyes. We can’t see him, but he gives us this amazing book that we can see with our eyes and touch with our hands. So, with prayer, he doesn’t necessarily respond in an audible voice in the moment that we’re talking to him, and yet we know that this divine dialogue continues as we open his word. And sometimes I find that after I’ve prayed about something in particular and then I’m reading the word, sometimes God’s answers will come or become clear as I’m reading Scripture. For example, if I’m praying about an answer to something that our family needs guidance about, and then the next day I’m in the word and I’m reading a particular passage, the Lord might really help me by sending his Spirit in that moment to press whatever passage I’m reading into my heart and to bring some clarity about what path we’re supposed to take. Now, the answers aren’t always super clear. And sometimes we do feel like because we can’t see God and we’re not hearing an audible voice, we feel like our prayers are maybe bouncing off the ceiling a bit.

Matt Tully
Or like, what’s the point? I just did this thing, and now I’m still in my room. It’s quiet. Nothing’s clearly changed.

Kristen Wetherell
Exactly. And yet God leads us over time in his own way. I also think about the importance of the body of Christ as wise counsel, as a way that God guides his people and answers prayers. How often am I confused, perplexed, needing guidance about something, and the Lord uses my small group. He uses these precious women to speak truth into my heart. He uses the word, and then it all comes together and you realize, Oh, Lord, this is the way that you’re leading us.

Matt Tully
And that’s one of the things I love about this book and just, obviously, what you’re saying more broadly about prayer, that if prayer really is talking to God and if we do believe he talks back to us, we really can’t separate prayer from Scripture. When it comes to talking to our kids about this, even if reading God’s word and praying to him are two different things, they really do need to go together. And so it’s maybe a helpful thing to keep in mind as we talk about this. In the book you actually do bring in Scripture in a really important way that we’ll get to in a little bit. But we always need to keep those two things together as we talk to our kids about the importance of this.

Kristen Wetherell
Absolutely. A number of authors have described it as as breathing. So you’re breathing in and you’re taking in the word, and then you’re breathing out and you’re responding back in prayer. And I love that illustration. Something as natural as breathing. And yet it doesn’t always feel so natural, does it?

Matt Tully
Yeah. It can be hard. In your experience as a parent, as someone living in the church with friends who are parents as well, what are some of the biggest roadblocks that parents tend to face when it comes to teaching their kids how to pray?

Kristen Wetherell
Attention span. We could start there.

Matt Tully
That’s the obvious first one.

Kristen Wetherell
Yes. I love how you opened with this story about the dinner table, because we are often just so perplexed about why it is so hard to just pray at dinner. Someone just starts talking and interrupting, or someone spills something at that moment, and chaos ensues. It’s so hard!

Matt Tully
This is a whole other book or a whole other conversation about just the hard work of pursuing sanctification in the midst of family devotions or family worship. Sometimes it’s those moments when you are trying to help your kids know the Lord, speak to the Lord, and read the Bible, and things are going off the rails. And we can, as parents, almost feel ourselves going off the rails in light of the chaos that that can feel like.

Kristen Wetherell
It’s very rarely ideal, especially when you have young kids and they’re just not at a place of maturity yet. It’s rarely ideal, and yet I love what you just said. Isn’t that our walk with the Lord? We’re coming to him in the mess. We’re coming to him because we don’t have our acts together. And so I think pushing through that is a great example for our kids. We’re just going to keep praying. Let’s back up. Is everybody listening? Tune your ears. But I think attention span is really tough, especially when you have young ones. I think the pace of our lives and the influence of tech has made it very hard to be people who are able to focus—for five seconds, for ten seconds in prayer. And pushing against that as Christians and saying, We have something better to fix our attention on, to fix our eyes on, that’s huge.

Matt Tully
And that’s not just the kids that are struggling with the attention.

Kristen Wetherell
No, it’s the adults, surely, but that’s something we can certainly model and push back against in our homes. As strangers and aliens in this world, our lives will look different. And I think it’s definitely a challenge for us.

Matt Tully
One other challenge that came to my mind as I thought about my own desire to help my kids learn how to pray is sometimes we can feel hesitant, perhaps, to talk to our kids about prayer or even model prayer because we ourselves feel self-conscious about our own struggling prayer life. We don’t feel like we’ve got it all figured out, and so it just maybe feels awkward to try to engage our kids. Maybe this is especially for older kids, like preteens or teens, where they can kind of see our own faults, they can see our own limitations, and so it just makes it a little bit tricky for them. Have you ever wrestled with that, and then how do you get through that as a parent?

Kristen Wetherell
Oh, absolutely. There are so many times when I will start to pray for my kids, maybe before bed, and I realize my mind is not in the right place at that moment, my heart is not in the right place at that moment, and you just sort of feel like, Oh, Lord, I don’t just want to pray the same prayer over and over again. What do I say? And honestly, I’m so helped by this passage in Luke 11, where the disciples say to Jesus, "Lord, teach us to pray. We don’t know what to say." There’s so much freedom there to realize we are learners. We are all disciples. That’s the meaning of the word disciple is to be a learner. So, Lord, teach us to pray. And I think as we model to our kids even a stumbling, slow, faltering prayer process, they’re going to learn too. And I think it’s lovely when a parent says, "Me too. I’m also learning." I also do think it’s a challenge for us, though, to grow and to say to the Lord, Okay, I can’t pour out what I don’t have first. So, would you teach me to pray first so that I can teach my children?

10:43 - Misconceptions to Guard Against When Teaching Kids to Pray

Matt Tully
Maybe this leads into some of the biggest misconceptions that you think parents can tend to have about their kids and prayer. What are the things that you would say we should guard against thinking a certain thing when it comes to how our kids can or should engage with prayer?

Kristen Wetherell
Oh, I might have to think about this for a minute. That’s a hard question. I think very basically, just expecting them to know how to do it. If we’re, as adults, struggling to talk to a God that we can’t physically see, I think our kids are probably going to struggle with that too. And kids think concretely. It’s not until they’re older that they’re able to think abstractly and reason their way through that. I think we can just show a lot of grace, and again, modeling is so important there, but just keeping things very simple. And then I think at other times I sometimes expect my kids, especially the older ones, to pray the way that I would pray. And I so badly want my prayers to be within the Father’s will. I want them to be conformed to Scripture. And so I probably have some wrong expectations, when it would just be lovely to hear my kids say, "God, thank you for this food." Something as simple as that, expressing childlike need. Jesus said, "Let the little children come to me. The kingdom of heaven belongs to them." So honestly, I should probably be praying more like my kids pray—just very childlike and desperate sometimes.

Matt Tully
Sometimes, especially around other adults, we can feel pressure and this inclination towards some sophisticated or beautiful, eloquent prayer. But that’s not necessarily what God’s calling us to.

Kristen Wetherell
Right. And I think what we already touched on—this idea of the room being perfectly quiet and having these expectations for a certain type of prayer time when a lot of life is just lived in the normal. It’s lived in the noise and the chaos. That doesn’t mean we can’t be teaching our children to fold their hands and quiet their lips while we’re praying, but I think we can also show them that prayer is to be continual. Pray without ceasing. That’s just breath prayers all the time too.

Matt Tully
How do we help our kids to do more in prayer than merely ask for things? I think that’s something that I’ve observed with my kids at times, and I think we as parents struggle with this too. Prayer can be little more than just, God, I want this, or God, help me with this.

Kristen Wetherell
The vending machine.

Matt Tully
Yeah. And obviously, that’s not wrong. That is a big part of what prayer is. It’s coming to God with our supplications. But to use that ACTS acronym, there’s a lot more to it than just supplication. How do we help our kids to see that and start to do that themselves?

Kristen Wetherell
I was actually very convicted about this just the other day. I said, Lord, I am really good at asking you for things, but it is not as natural for me to praise you and to stop for a minute and think about how faithful you’ve been and thank you for answers to prayer or ways that I saw you at work today. So I do think a big part of that is modeling. If all I’m modeling for my kids is, God, I need . . . God, I want . . . Lord, would you do this? then that’s probably how they’re going to pray too. So many of my mom friends will say that their kids are just little mirrors of themselves.

Matt Tully
It’s terrifying.

Kristen Wetherell
Our kids really portray who we are in a lot of ways. And so modeling is huge. And looking at the Lord’s Prayer. When the disciples say, "Lord, teach us to pray," Jesus’s response is to say, "Father, hallowed be your name." It’s to take them through the Lord’s Prayer. And what do we see in the Lord’s Prayer? We do see "give us to stay our daily bread." Certainly. And of course we want to ask God for what we think that we need, because he’s our Father, and he cares for us. But there’s "honored be your name"—we want to praise him. And it’s "Your kingdom come, your will be done." How often are we praying for the kingdom of God to come? I don’t pray for that very often. How often are we praying for forgiveness for our sins? Lord, forgive me for my sins, and then help me to turn and forgive my brother and my sister from the heart. That’s hard. I think having a model like that is really helpful. You mentioned ACTS—following that before your kids
before bedtime.

Matt Tully
For those who maybe aren’t familiar with it, you want to walk through that?

Kristen Wetherell
The acronym is ACTS: A is for adoration, C is for confession, T is for Thanksgiving, and then S is, as you said, for supplication or asking the Lord for things. Going through that before bed, just very simply. I have a friend who, before she tucks her boys in for bed, she just says them fill in the blank: "God, I praise you for being . . ." And then they just fill in the blank.

Matt Tully
Oh, that’s wonderful.

Kristen Wetherell
"Lord, I am sorry today for . . ." And she really encourages them to think of something specific. "God, thank you for . . ." and, "Lord, would you please . . ."

Matt Tully
What a great way to model that and set them up to then be thinking about these meaningful things without having to find all the right words.

Kristen Wetherell
It’s so simple, right? It’s so simple. So, I think keeping it simple, but modeling it is huge.

Matt Tully
Alright, another quick question before we talk about the book a little bit. How can we create a home environment that makes prayer feel like an organic, natural part of what we do rather than a chore or some kind of forced activity? Sometimes we can feel like that. We’re trying to wrangle their attention. We’re trying to get them to sit down, because we’ve got to do this thing, this important thing, and the kids just roll their eyes. They don’t want to be there. They want to be distracted. Any advice for helping us to weave prayer into the normal life rhythms?

Kristen Wetherell
I love this question. It’s a question my husband and I are asking all the time because there’s certainly a place for more concentrated times of prayer during—maybe if you do family worship, and in church with your church family. And yet so much of life is lived just in the cracks, and we’re just going about our day. So I actually love the illustration of breathing because there are times when I need to breathe heavily for my good. I need to get my heart rate up. I need to get on my bike and push myself. And that kind of parallels the more concentrated times of prayer. We want to bow before the Lord before we eat our meal. We want to have family worship. We want to do that before bed. But during the day, I am also just breathing. If I don’t breathe, I don’t live. I don’t survive. And so what does that look like to stop and pray with my child when they’re having a really hard time because they just fell and scraped their knee, or they’re really having a struggle sharing with their sibling? It doesn’t have to be long and elaborate. What does it look like to pray in a disciplinary moment, or when I need to apologize because I’ve sinned against my kid and I was sinfully angry with them? We can pray together. It’s very simple, but we just do something like that. Our family does a send-off blessing before we go about our ways and our days, and that to me is just a sweet way of praying. It takes thirty seconds.

Matt Tully
What does that look like?

Kristen Wetherell
We actually took it from the book Habits of the Household. I sort of made it my own, but it came from that. We hold hands and we say, "Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, thank you for this day. Bless us as we serve you, as we learn and work and play. Amen." It’s very simple, but I think it just helps us to dedicate our day to the Lord and acknowledge him as being King and on the throne and the source of true blessing. Because it doesn’t come from any other place. It comes from him. So I think just looking for all these little breath ways to say, "Help, Lord! Love you, Lord. Thank you, Lord."

Matt Tully
I just love that prayer too. That is a legitimate prayer that’s. You’re not sitting down in a circle. You’re probably not even closing your eyes. You’re taking just a minute, just a second, to ask the Lord for something and to express our dependence on him. And that counts as a prayer.

Kristen Wetherell
It does. I mentioned I want to be better about rehearsing God’s faithfulness, and that can just come about in normal conversation. We’re talking about school with our older daughter, and we’ll just say, "How did you need God’s help today? Where did you see the Lord’s kindness through your classmates today?" Just trying to get her to think, and it’s a way that we can, even in conversation, celebrate him and praise him for his faithfulness.

19:34 - An Encyclopedia for Prayer

Matt Tully
Let’s talk about your book. It’s called Teach Me to Pray, and it’s a really wonderful, beautiful book that is illustrated for kids. What age range would you say that it’s intended for?

Kristen Wetherell
Intended for ages eight to twelve, but I’ve given it to kids younger than that who are reading on their own or whose parents could read it to them.

Matt Tully
One of the things I love about the book is the way the book is really helping kids, and I would say probably their parents, to see that prayer is relevant for so many things. Getting back to our tendency to just ask for simple, daily things or the same old things every time that we pray, the book really helps kids to see that prayer is relevant for all these different issues and situations we might face in life. And you actually call the book "an encyclopedia for prayer." So I wonder if you could just explain why you like to describe it in that way.

Kristen Wetherell
The subtitle is Praying God’s Word from A to Z, so what I did is thought of two emotions or situations per letter of the alphabet, and then we organized them that way. So you can go through and look from A to Z and say, Which of these am I struggling with or walking through right now? Which of these do I need help praying through right now? So there’s everything from discouragement to anger, to praying for justice, respect, and parents—all different kinds of topics.

Matt Tully
So there’s two topics per letter, and you’ve actually written a little rhyming prayer for each of those topics. How did you go about choosing the topics in there? You said you were trying to hit a broad swath, but what did it look like to narrow things down a little?

Kristen Wetherell
Well, it helped to have a framework to say these are the letters that I need to follow. I think just as I was thinking and praying about it, I was thinking about topics or scenarios that we see very clearly in God’s word. And then also things that are relevant to kids. Where are those pressure points? Where are they really struggling, and what do they need to pray about at this age? I was thinking about my daughter, who’s going to be eight, and at the time she would’ve been six when I was writing this, and so just thinking about what she goes through and what’s important to her.

Matt Tully
What does each "encyclopedia entry" include? There’s more than just this topic and more than just a prayer. You sort of add in some other components.

Kristen Wetherell
Yes. There are a few little sections. You have the Teach Me to Pray About topic, which is a prayer and rhyme. And the first two lines are in italics. So the challenge is, could you memorize the first two lines and just take that with you as something simple that you can pray to the Lord when you’re in need? And then on the following page, each entry has a Read About It section. It’s what the prayer is based on. It’s a passage of Scripture so that you get into God’s word. Then there’s a Think About It section, and I just wrote a paragraph explaining what’s there—what can we learn about this topic from this passage of God’s word?

Matt Tully
So the idea is that a parent could even just read that paragraph?

Kristen Wetherell
Yes. Almost like a small devotion. You could think about it that way. And then there’s a Learn About It section. If you wanted to do more of a deeper dive into the Bible, there are three other passages of related Scripture that you could look up as a family or on your own. And then finally there’s the Do Something About It section, which is an application that just gives you a little jumping off point. How could I apply this to my life and do something about it?

23:00 - Sample Prayers for Honesty and Obedience

Matt Tully
Maybe to give parents a little taste for what you’re doing here, I thought it could be great for you to read the prayer for Honesty. I thought that was really good and very relevant. If you’re a parent, you know what it’s like to catch your kids saying something that isn’t true, and then the question for us is, What do I do? How do I help my kid to understand the importance of honesty? So, can you read that prayer for us?

Kristen Wetherell
Sure. I’d be happy to. Teach me to pray about honesty:

"Dear Lord, help me to say what’s right, to speak your truth, and walk in light. Teach me to hate deceit and lies and any sinful compromise. I’m sorry, Jesus, for my sin, for when the darkness seems to win. You’re faithful, and your truth endures. Create in me a heart like yours, an honest heart that loves what’s true, that longs for peace just like you do. In Jesus’s name I pray, amen."

Matt Tully
So wonderful. As you were working on these prayers, how did you think about the importance of how you intentionally weaved in the gospel and the fundamental hope that we have in Christ?

Kristen Wetherell
Well, faith comes from hearing the word of Christ, and so unless we’re hearing the gospel of Jesus Christ—that he’s Lord and we’re not, we’re sinners and we’re in need of a Savior, but he saved sinners by grace through faith. The gospel message is as simple as that. It’s turn and repent of your sin and take hold of Christ, and he will save you. I just really, really wanted that to be throughout the book so that as people are praying it’s not just an exchange; hopefully my heart, as I pray, is being conformed to that message and I’m seeing my need for a Savior. That’s my hope and prayer for the book.

Matt Tully
Can you read one more prayer—the one for obedience?

Kristen Wetherell
Sure. Teach me to pray about obedience:

"God, change my heart so I’ll obey. Transform me so I’ll love your way. Your word is good and it is best. The Bible stands above the rest. Within my heart I feel a fight, resistance to the way that’s right. Please give me strength to follow you, to love what’s lovely, like you do.
Bear forth in me your Spirit’s fruit so holiness is my pursuit. In Jesus’s name I pray, amen."

25:22 - Tips for Helping Kids Pay Attention During Prayer

Matt Tully
Kristen, a few final practical, real-world questions for parents listening who are saying, "Okay, I want to do this. I want to help my kids learn to pray. I want to be more proactive in this way. What are some tips for helping my kids to pay attention? When we’re trying to sit down together, we want to have a family time, a little bit more intentional time, of prayer." Is there anything that you’ve found that can be helpful to help kids to kind of stay engaged for that five minutes that you’re doing?

Kristen Wetherell
Oh, boy. I’m laughing because I just don’t know that I’m the person to ask. Our dinner table is a wild place these days, Matt.

Matt Tully
How many kids do you have?

Kristen Wetherell
We have three kids, and we’re very much still in the little years. I have a two and a half year old, a five and a half year old, and an eight year old. We do try and remind them, "Is this how you sit in class in school?" And they’re like, "No, I sit quietly with my hands folded." And we’re like, "Great! Let’s do that." So we do talk about quieting our body, holding hands either with each other or with your own self. Putting them in your lap.

Matt Tully
I remember the moment as a parent when I realized, Oh! The whole idea of folding your hands was for kids. Someone came up with that to help their kids to actually stay still.

Kristen Wetherell
Yeah. We’re definitely working on that—just the ability to exercise self-control before the Lord and fold our hands, remembering his worthiness. He’s deserving of our attention and our respect. Because we do want to teach our kids the fear of the Lord in that sense, that he’s worthy of our respect and our awe. I also think inviting our kids to participate is great. That’s one of the reasons that I wrote this book. This is a resource that, especially if your kids are reading, you can just hand it to them and say, "Okay, it’s your turn to read the prayer. Read this for our family." But maybe you use that ACTS model and you just go around. We will say at the dinner table at the start of our week, "How do you need God’s help this week? How can we pray for you?" And I think just giving our kids the spotlight for a second and letting them contribute and talk helps (usually) the rest to kind of quiet down a little bit. But believe me, it is far from perfect. There’s a lot of noise.

Matt Tully
I’ve found in our family with our three kids that one thing they’ve really seemed to enjoy is the opportunity to pray for each other. And so doing that whole circle thing where you pray for the person on your left, giving them a chance to actually pray themselves, praying for one another seems to be something that they’ve latched onto.

Kristen Wetherell
I love that idea. That’s great.

27:49 - Helping Kids Who Are Shy

Matt Tully
Another practical question. What if my kid is really shy and just doesn’t like to pray aloud? They really struggle with that. Have you ever experienced that, and how might you help a child who has that hesitancy?

Kristen Wetherell
Well, I think there are shy adults too. Some people are just more predisposed to quietness, and that’s okay. I have found that when my kids say, "No, thank you. You can pray," that’s okay. And I just end up praying for us and for them. But I have also found that in time they tend to come out of their shells. And I think some of that is probably in certain relationships when trust is built, maybe it’s a small group setting or in an Awana group setting where kids are praying together, they’re just learning to trust. Can I trust people to hear me talk in this way? It’s vulnerable when we’re praying out loud. But I think also it’s just trusting the voice that God’s given you, and that just takes time. My littlest one (she’s only two and a half, so she’s very, very little) said the other day she, "I pray." And I said, "Oh. Okay, you pray." I’ve asked her before, "Do you want to pray, ’Thank you, God, for this food’?" And she says no. But finally it was, "I pray." So I think just giving it time and realizing that we all have different comfort levels when it comes to prayer. I’m not sure. Do you have any thoughts on that as a dad?

Matt Tully
I think that’s so true—not pressuring our kids to do that before they’re ready or in contexts where they don’t feel quite ready. I found that praying at church or in a small group context with other other people is one thing. It’s different than praying at our dinner table, which is different from praying in bed, just me and one of my kids. And so kind of trying to be sensitive to where each kid is at and where they feel comfortable. It’s interesting to see how that can change, though, over time.

Kristen Wetherell
Right. And I do wonder if giving them some words will help.

30:44 - How to Build a New Habit of Prayer

Matt Tully
Yeah. I like that idea from your friend of just kind of spelling out the ACTS model and letting them fill in the blank with whatever they’re thinking about. That is one thing that I feel like we’ve seen as parents, my wife and I, that even when kids are reticent to say something, reticent to share, reticent to volunteer, when you do have those moments where you get a little insight into what they’re thinking, oftentimes there’s a lot more going on than it might seem like on the surface. They’re really wrestling with something deep or they’re asking questions of the Lord that are pretty profound. And so it’s cool to see glimpses of that even if maybe the day to day feels a little bit challenging. How do we make praying together as a family a habit? You’ve mentioned a few things that you all do as a family, but what advice would he give to a parent listening right now who they would just have to say, "We just aren’t doing this that regularly. Maybe we do a quick prayer at dinnertime, but praying together as a family, praying even just individually with one of our kids, just isn’t something that we’ve done super well"? How do you get going with that?

Kristen Wetherell
Usually the most significant things are the hardest. And so sometimes it’s hard to form these habits, but it’s worth it. It’s significant. So I would say just keep that in mind. I love your desire. That is a significant desire. And the Lord loves that desire. And then I would say just do one thing. It can feel overwhelming to feel like, I need to do fifty things throughout the day. What’s one thing that you want to implement? What’s that one habit? And then go for that thing. Don’t go for fifteen. Just go for one thing. Ask the Lord to help you lead that as a parent. If your spouse is able to help you keep accountable to that and you’re able to say, "Let’s kind of tag team this, and if one forgets, let’s remind." Set a reminder on your phone if it’s a certain time of day. But we know that habits are just made over time, doing things the same way. And so I think if we grasp the significance of it and then just make that one change, that can be huge. That can yield huge spiritual fruit in the lives of our families.

Matt Tully
That’s such a powerful insight. So often in life, in general, in any kind of habit formation, or in certainly our spiritual lives, I think we can feel overwhelmed by the amount of progress that we feel like we need to make or the ways that we need to grow, and we can try to do everything all at once. And that usually doesn’t work.

Kristen Wetherell
Yes. I don’t know if you know if others feel this way, but in the internet and social media age, you’re just seeing what everybody else is doing, and it always looks idea online. And to me the possibilities can feel overwhelming to the point that I can feel paralyzed. Just do the one thing. Just pick the one thing, and go for that.

Matt Tully
Maybe as a final question, thinking about your book and what you’ve done with the book, what would be a couple ways that people could use your book as that first thing to really start to make this a habit in their family’s life of praying together? What are some of the possible use cases for the book?

Kristen Wetherell
I’ll share two. One is before bedtime. The idea of the book came from our oldest daughter being scared one night before bed. And my husband came in and he wrote her a little post-it note that just said, "Dear God, I feel scared. I feel alone. But I know you’re here. I know you’re great. Help me sleep. Amen." And I thought that was so simple. And what a beautiful thing to give her the words to say. So before bed, open up a topic, something that they’re walking through right now, and it could be as simple as just using the prayer before bed, or you could dive into the other sections and talk about that as a family. So that’s one use case. Another is maybe before dinner. I gave a copy of the book to a friend from life group, and she just shared with me yesterday how they’re using it at dinner, and it’s changed the dynamic of their dinner table because now they have something to pause for. They just said not only are our kids engaged now in talking to one another, but we’re talking about the Lord, and it’s just been really sweet to have a place to go in his word. We’re not wondering what we should read. It’s just here’s what we’re going to read tonight. And so that blessed me so much just to think that it’s already helping this one family who we love so much.

Matt Tully
That’s such a big part of that habit formation thing is having a plan, not having to figure out what you’re going to do in the moment every single time. So again, a book like yours could be such a great plan to use that, even for us as parents, helps us to kind of know what we’re going to do each time. Thank you, Kristen, so much for speaking to us and helping parents by casting a vision for what it looks like for us to teach our kids to pray. We appreciate it.

Kristen Wetherell
No, believe me. I’m right there. I’m in it with you all. Thank you so much.

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