Hilary Robinson, author of Paws Together For God (SPCK, illustrated by Mandy Stanley), offers advice on how to pray with children
My family and I spent five years in Nigeria when I was young. This was the 1960s and a newly independent Nigeria was full of hope and ambition. Our parents were lecturers at the Ahmadu Bello University, in Zaria, but within two years of our time there civil war broke out and bitter and catastrophic hostilities were to last almost three years.
I remember the chaos, the uncertainty, the concern. I also remember the violence which, at one point, involved dad breaking curfews to support humanitarian efforts and my parents’ difficult decision to hide our Igbo nanny in our house before she eventually decided to return to the relative safety of her homeland in the south of the country.
As one of four daughters I also remember the ritual of evening prayers with dad which became a source of comfort and solace. Our prayers were simple, direct and meaningful and distracted our minds, helping us to find a place of peace amongst the disturbance. While Grace stayed with us I found she prayed on a deeper level, sometimes out loud and sometimes silently. I thought this was the grown-up way.
Our prayers always started by reciting Jesus friend of little children, be a friend to me, keep me safe and always keep me close to thee. Then, each of us, in turn, would ask for God’s blessings for friends and family members both in Nigeria and back at home in England.
At weekly Sunday School, which was frequently taken by local pastors or American medical missionaries, we prayed for the wider community, asked God to help those that were sick (including, at one time, my mother who was desperately ill with malaria), and we prayed for peace.
These two dimensions – of praying in the comfort of our own home and as part of a communal gathering – taught me that finding space in our life and our mind is the key to finding peace in our souls.
Now, when I visit schools of all faiths I am reminded of that time and how an introduction to prayer at a young age can be a helpful construct in managing our hopes and fears as well as nurturing a spirit of community.
The routine of engaging in regular prayer, at the same time each day, can help children on many levels. They develop thinking skills, appreciation for our natural world, moral values, selflessness, empathy, compassion and forgiveness. As adults helping children, we may discover their inner concerns and we can guide them down the right path.
There are my tips for helping young children to pray:
* Keep it short and simple. No abstract thought patterns or complicated language.
* Pray out loud.
* Find a short rhyming prayer to begin, one that children can recite at will.
* Encourage children, to add their own personal reflection or blessing.
* Inevitably from time to time, children may feel confident to voice a personal concern and prayer then offers a line of communication to help them .
We never did discover if Grace reached her homeland safely, but we did know that she would pray for us – and she knew that we would pray for her. Through prayer we were connected in mind and spirit and that notion was a source of strength during a difficult time. Today I often think of her and that is also a form of prayer on a subliminal level.
As Elder and Berry, our characters in Paws Together For God, find peace amongst the noise by understanding that God is always listening to us, we hope that children too will share that experience, be comforted and feel loved.
• Hilary Robinson is a network radio producer for the BBC Religion and Ethics department and has written over 70 books and picture books for children, including Mixed Up Fairy Tales, The Christmas Star and God’s Love in a Nutshell. She has won several awards and been nominated for the Carnegie Award
• Mandy Stanley is an award-winning illustrator, author and designer who has published more than 200 picture and story books for children, many of which have been translated into other languages. She is best known for her book about Lettice the rabbit and is also the illustrator of God’s Love in a Nutshell
