The purpose of having a personal daily devotional time (or Quiet Time) with God is to draw close to him, in the sense of visiting with your friend every day. It is a time to hear from Him fresh every day so that you can have His Words and His ways close to you as you go through your day. Of course, God is with us all day and all we need to do is call out and He will answer, but committing a small portion of our day to focusing on our friendship with Jesus will build a stronger friendship. Once our children want a relationship with Jesus this practice is something we can model and teach to our children so that they too can grow in their relationship with Jesus.

Teach your Children How to Have a Daily Quiet Time with God

One of the realisations I had a young mum was that if I wanted my kids to see my relationship with Jesus, and my love for God’s word, they had to see me reading it and referring to it.  So often mums are told to wake a little earlier than their kids to have this devotion time, but I was already waking early.  And if I had my devotions behind close doors or when they were asleep how would they know it was important to me.  

So I started to invite them to join me.  If they woke and I was reading my Bible I would invite them to sit beside me.  They would get their children’s Bible and read quietly.  Though I would give them a cuddle as a greeting, beyond that, they knew that this was mummy’s talking to God time – and they needed to be quiet.  When I was done, I would read from their children’s Bible and we would pray together.  This didn’t happen every day, but it happened often.

I believe that having a personal daily Quiet Time is something that Christians do.  So I never expected my kids to have a Quiet Time unless they were a Christian. Until that point, we read the Bible, read children’s bible stories, talked about God, prayed together, referred to God’s word but I didn’t expect them to have a quiet time on their own.

It is impossible to put an age on our children’s readiness for a Devotion Time.  We cannot prescribe their spiritual growth.  But when our kids started to be interested in what I was reading, and would interact more personally about the Bible story we read, I started to talk to them more specifically about their faith.  This time was no longer about being quiet so mum could have her quiet time – we’d do that – but then I’d switch over and help them have a specific Bible time.  

We would still read Bible stories, because that is what very young children understand, but our discussions, and prayer time became more personal and focused on the child’s faith in Jesus.  

Little kids understand God far more than we often give them credit for. After all, they understand God; unseen and yet loving – that is a very abstract kind of thought. It is at this stage that we start introducing the concept of a personal relationship, of daily time spent reading and talking to God. (It is for this reason that I really don’t like putting an age on this – whenever your little one is developing this heart for God is a good time to begin).

It is tricky in a Christian home when kids are surrounded by God’s word and existence.  They may not have a sinners prayer moment where they decide accept his forgiveness and invite Jesus in their heart.  It may not be as clean and documented as that.  But they will make a decision to follow Jesus, and acknowledge all that you teach as true.  You know and they know when they become a Christian – it might just look different than your testimony.

A Daily Quiet Time for Kids

Our early “Quiet Times” went something like this

• We read a Bible Story (Sometimes praying first asking God to open our ears/heart)
• The child then gave me a retell – when they put what they heard into their own words, it helped me understand what spoke to their heart – which lead into discussion and prayer
• We would then discuss what they learnt about God, His ways, and their heart
• They would then write or draw in their “God Book” (aka journal)
• We close in prayer, always asking the Holy Spirit for help to remember God’s word through the day.

It is a good time to mention that our children need to know that though we call many parts of the Bible – especially those in Children’s Bibles – we call them “Bible Stories” they are true and we can believe all that the Bible says as true. Sometimes I would think it would be good to change our language but the words – Bible stories – are so entrenched it is a hard phrase to shake – but it is something to be aware of.

As our kids got older I introduced Kids Devotional books and how to use them as a guide in our devotion times. We would read the reference Scripture first and often discuss that in the same way we used to discuss a Bible story passage.  If there was time we would move onto reading the devotional part which we would also discuss. I think it was helpful showing our kids how to use these Devotional readings – and how to continue to depend on God’s word, not just the devotional itself.

But if you prefer to read straight out of the Bible there are many different ways to do this.  You could choose a theme, such as Beatitudes, or Parables, or Proverbs etc, and read a short section each day, continue to discuss, apply and pray about the Word of God. 

As I said we would often get the kids to draw or write in a journal – they called it their God Book.  This wasn’t a requirement but to be honest, they saw me journaling, so it was a failry natural thing for them to do.  They would draw or write a few sentences to help them remember what we talked about, sometimes they would draw or write a prayer or prayer list.  As they grew older they also would write out verses word for word to memorise.

Remember it is about a Relationship with Jesus

Don’t forget your goals or reasons behind this time; it is to help your child build a relationship with Jesus.  If your child is not interested in a relationship with Jesus then adding a ‘Quiet Time’ in your day for them is just going through the motions.  You can continue to teach them about God and His love in your Family Devotion time or your Bible Study time if you are homeschooling, but leave Personal Quiet time to when they want to know more about Jesus and spend time with him.

I wanted my children to learn a few things from our devotional time together before they had a Quiet Time on their own:

• the habit of setting aside time to spend with God
• to turn to the Bible for wisdom and purpose
• to learn to pray
• but most of all, to learn what God is like, who He is and how to respond to Him from their own heart.

We would continue in this way with one-to-one time, until the child was a independent reader and were in a place where they wanted,  from their own heart, to pursue God. Then I would transfer these habits to doing it on their own. When they were ready to do it on their own, I made sure we had a time in our day, that they could do that without any other distractions happening during that time. 

Little children so often delight in God, they see Him simply as their God. As parents,with far more baggage in our life, we have to be careful not to complicate things and not to have expectations on our children. Our job is to introduce Jesus to them,and help them respond to Him.  Once they’ve done that our job is to disciple them so that they become followers of Jesus, disciples of Jesus.

Heart-focused Parent Action Step

What you can do after listening to this is to ask yourself – How can I help my child in their relationship with Jesus?

If your child is a little older – maybe you can ask them that question – and be open to their input.

Make yourself available to your child so that they can grow in establishing the habit of having a daily quiet time with Jesus.

4 Ways to Encourage your Child's Faith

Hi there! I'm Belinda and I'm glad you are here!

I am a family life coach and help parents to raise their kids with faith, values and life skills in a way that is intentional, relational and heart-focused. Read more in my Introduction page

You can learn about heart-focused parenting through my podcast, blog and weekly email (Heart Boosters).

If you need help you can book a coach call or email me here.

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