Instilling Prayer
Every night before bedtime, my four year old daughter and two and a half year old son would be bouncing off the walls with energy. I would put them to bed in their room together, and they would spend upwards of two hours talking and making shadow animals on the walls. The next morning, they would wake up exhausted because of it. I knew we needed a reset between pre-bedtime playing and actual bedtime, and so, we instituted “snuggle time.”
During snuggle time, we all pile into my bed and sit in the dark and talk for five minutes in order to wind down from the day. Taking a page from a girlfriend, I decided it would be a time for us to do two things: reflect on our day and thank God, or HaShem as Jews call Him, for what we were grateful for from that day.
Growing up in a fairly non-religious household, the idea of teaching faith to my children was something of a mystery to me. While my mother didn’t raise me in one particular faith tradition, she did do a good job of raising me with an awareness of and love for God. God was who we went to for favors, and who we prayed to when we saw a passing ambulance or fire truck. I knew I wanted to teach my children to do the same; and they do.
Given how increasingly self-centered my generation and subsequent ones can be, I didn’t want God to just be who my kids went to in order to ask for something. I want them to be thankful; for what we give them and for what we are given by God. Showing gratitude isn’t just important for the person on the receiving end, but also on the giving end as well. Psychology studies indicate the positive effects expressing gratitude can have for our mental health, and even for our stress hormone levels. When you walk around feeling grateful for what you have, and less time feeling like you’re entitled to more or resentful for what you don’t have, it has a way of making you a happier person.
Just as gratitude has a positive impact on an individual basis, its expression has also been proven to improve relationships as well. It’s with this in mind I want to have my children expressing their gratitude, in the form of their prayers, to God. In so doing, it doesn’t just improve their own mindset and sense of gratefulness instead of entitlement, but also helps build their relationship with God on stable footing.
Thus, their first conversations with Him are asking for his grace for individuals in danger, whenever my children hear a siren, and thanking Him for his favor for anything that springs to mind: their warm home, a joyful Hanukkah, or whatever activity we did that day. They will hopefully grow up feeling far more comfortable than I was talking to God, and far more appreciative of what they have been given.
Bethany Mandel is a part-time editor at Ricochet and columnist at the Jewish Daily Forward. She is a stay-at-home mother of three kids, four years old and younger. She also is a co-host of That Sethany Show and LadyBrains Podcast.
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