In continuing with my passing on the faith to your Catholic kids series, today I am talking about how to start incorporating praying the rosary with your kids and in your home. Praying the rosary is a beautiful Catholic devotion, and obviously worthy of passing onto the next generation. How do we do this? Well I believe that in order to make an impression on children, we need to make things relevant and appealing to them and also on their level, but without watering it down. And what better time to focus on the rosary than in October, the month dedicated to the rosary!
With the rosary, I also think it’s a great idea to start the children early, and have it as part of your home and your routine for as long as they can remember. There is no wrong time to start praying the rosary as a family. The time is now! So let’s take a look at how to accomplish praying the rosary with littles.
Also, be sure to check out my video here with tips for starting kids on the rosary.
Ideas For Praying The Rosary With Kids
- Don’t expect a longer attention span from your child than is developmentally appropriate for their age and/or personal situation. That is just a recipe to frustrate everyone. It might be better to start small and build up their habit of paying attention. Think of this as a zero depth entry into a pool rather than jumping straight off the high dive.
- Start by teaching your children the prayers in the rosary. Of course, hearing the prayers repetitively during the rosary will help with this process, but sometimes they just learn to say the sounds they hear without actually understanding what words they are praying. I recommend prayer copy work when they are a little older to make sure they are actually getting all the words.
- Have a variety of rosaries for children to choose from. Kids love digging through the rosary basket and finding something sparkly, colorful, or whatever is appealing to them. Make sure to have some child friendly ones, and put the ones you would rather they didn’t use somewhere else before the choosing begins. I have had waaaaaay too many of my beautiful rosaries snapped by children! Lol.
- Display your rosaries prominently in the home, such as on hooks or in an easy to get to location in the living room. Perhaps they would work well somewhere near your home altar. Don’t hide them away under a bushel basket!
- Work to have good associations with rosary time. So when I am starting preschoolers on the rosary, I allow them to hold it however they like as long as they aren’t swinging it around in a manner that might hurt someone. So if they want to wear it like a necklace, I let them. I will instruct them as to what bead to hold, but if they don’t hold that one, that’s ok. It will come with time.
- Set a prayerful atmosphere. This could involve turning on some music, turning off the lights, and perhaps even lighting some candles.
- Pray the rosary around your children, even when you aren’t expecting them to participate. This sets a good example, and again, when they are older and ready they will begin joining in. Their season is coming- they won’t be little forever.
- Start by praying just one decade at a time. I used to pray one decade of the rosary with my children each time we got in the car. This worked beautifully because they were strapped with with nowhere to go- a perfectly captive audience lol. Bedtime, or breakfast time could also be a great time to incorporate praying one decade of the rosary. Be creative in thinking about where this could fit into your family life.
- Move onto praying a shortened version of the rosary. You may try saying just 3 Hail Mary prayers per decade while still teaching your littles. This may give more of an authentic “rosary feel” rather than just saying 1 decade. You can increase the number of Hail Mary prayers you say slowly as the children learn the habit of attention.
- Eventually, try praying one family rosary per week. My mom did this when I was little, rotating the mysteries each week, and it really made me familiar and comfortable with the rosary. You could also try incorporating the rosary once a month before the family attends confession together.
Bonus Tip For Praying The Rosary With Kids…
Just pray it!!! In the end, if the kids just are not “there yet” in the praying of the rosary, just pray it anyway in their presence and enjoy their joyful noises they are making to the Lord.
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Rosary Crafts And Activities For Kids
If you are looking for fun rosary crafts, activities, snacks and more, be sure to check out my rosary for kids resource page! It’s chock full of ideas!
Real Life At Home also has some great tips for praying the rosary with kids, and the Religion Teacher has a great list of rosary resources as well.
It was nice when you said that you can place rosaries in an easy-to-get location in your living room. As you said, you place them near your altar. This is something that I will remember so my children will always be reminded to pray the rosary even when I am not at home. My husband and I are planning to shop for wood rosaries that the whole family can use when praying. Thanks for sharing this.