The most direct way to encourage your children to ask for help is to teach them to pray. Most kids like to pray once they learn how and will do it naturally in some form or another anyway. My sister Cuky once told me a story about my nephew concerning prayer.

Cuky was pregnant at the time, and she and her son Sean were walking hand in hand to the park. Halfway there, Sean looked up at his pregnant mother's belly and said, "Mom, there's just one thing I've got to know."

Expecting him to ask about the baby and how it got into her belly, Cuky braced herself for an explanation. "Yes, Sean? What do you have to know?"

He paused, thinking about it for another minute. "Well," he said thoughtfully, "just what the heck is Mrs. God's name, anyway? I have to ask her for something, and I don't know what to call her!"

Very few people I've encountered pray in a productive way. I've observed that while people do pray, they do not release their prayers into the heart of the Universe with any confidence that the Universe will work on their requests. Instead they continue to hold on to their worries with a viselike grip.

The key to successful prayer is learning to release the prayers to God. Once you have prayed, release the problem. Whenever my mom prayed with us, we always ended our prayers with a squeeze of her hand and the message to let it go. "It's done. Now let's relax!" By doing this, we infused our prayers with faith. That squeeze of the hand seemed to be the indefinable something that transformed them from wishful thinking and fearful whining into a powerful and profound sense of conviction. When the hand was squeezed, the Universe was on the job!

Praying with kids can be done in any way you like. Prayers can be said in a formal way, in the morning or at night. They can be said on your knees, at the table, in bed. Or kids can be taught to be in a state of constant prayer, asking for help as the need arises, all day long. The best way to teach children to pray is to have them watch you pray or, better yet, to have them pray with you. Example is the best teacher.

I have a friend, Wendy, whose grandfather was a faith healer and prayed all the time, out loud. She remembers many times when she and her four siblings would be riding in the car with Grandpa, indulging in their usual squabbles, and Grandpa would burst out in prayer. "Dear God, we pray to Thee to heal all the temperamentalness of someone in this car! We won't say who it is, so as not to embarrass anyone, but he or she knows who they are. Amen."

Laughing, Wendy recalled, "Every time Grandpa said this prayer out loud we'd all get very quiet. After all, we didn't know what 'temperamentalness' meant, but it didn't sound very good, and besides, we didn't want to be embarrassed by admitting to being the guilty one. Corny or not, his prayers always worked. And because they've worked for him I've prayed it myself to this day, especially when I'm around someone causing trouble. And it works as well for me as it did for him. Especially if I pray out loud." She smiled.

My own mother's prayer style was praying anytime, anywhere, asking for whatever the situation required, from finding her keys to sending healing energy to a sick friend. All it required was a bowed head, closed eyes, and inward reflection. Sometimes she prayed out loud, sometimes not.

My best friend Suzanne's mother also prayed, but her praying style was more formal. She preferred to kneel down and say rosaries in the morning. My friend Lu Ann's mother created a sacred atmosphere for prayer, enlisting the aid of holy water and candles. Another friend's mother plays religious music, usually Gregorian chants, when she wants to pray.

Whatever approach you take, the truth is that you can choose how you pray. After all, prayer is really having a private chat with God. Any way is valid if you are sincere. Whether you pray spontaneously or with a more ritualized approach depends upon your temperament, the situation, and what feels right for you at that moment.

This article was excerpted from the book

The Wise Child: A Spiritual Guide to Nurturing Your Child's Intuition
by Sonia Choquette Ph.D.

Reprinted with permission of the author. ©1999. The Wise Child was published by Three Rivers Press, a division of Crown Publishers, NYC, NY 10022.

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About The Author

SONIA CHOQUETTE Ph.D. is the author of The Psychic Pathway and Your Heart's Desire, as well as other books. Sonia is a world-renowned revolutionary psychic, alchemist, healer, and spirited teacher. She specializes in instantly transforming people’s vibration from a five-sensory paradigm of limitation and fear to a six sensory paradigm of creative possibility and personal power, leading others out of the dark ages and into the 21st Century. She lives in Chicago with her husband and two children. She can be reached through her website: www.soniachoquette.com.