Christian devotions at home for children with additional needs are hard but worth working at

Hands up if you feel pressured by your church to do family devotions every morning. In some areas of our wonderful church, we can be left feeling that having daily family devotions is compulsory and doing it in the morning brings extra holiness points.  

But if you have children with additional needs there are morning stress points. Adding morning devotions to this mix can create negative emotions around devotions full stop. For some of our children, the issues can be about anxiety and fear, for some it’s the rigid thought process of “God stuff is done in church” so doing it at home feels wrong. There are so many reasons that praying or reading the Bible at home is just beyond reach - morning or evening. 

So, I’m here to say: “God understands.” 

Yes, it is good to turn our thoughts to God daily, but have we created rules that aren’t biblical, are difficult to fulfil and end up making people feel unnecessarily guilty? Children with additional needs need something different from the so called ‘norm’ and so do many adults.