8 multi-sensory ways to encourage your children to pray

When I swim, I pray. As I put my head under the water, or even sometimes put earplugs in, I find I have a moment to stop and bring myself before God. This gives me a chance to hear what he’s saying and to pray for individuals I want to bring before him.

I wonder if there are activities that you do which help you to engage in prayer? They may be quiet and contemplative or loud and use our whole bodies.

The more we understand how our brains take in and process information, the more we can help our children and young people to engage in prayer

We all process the world through our senses. The more we understand how our brains take in and process information, the more we can help our children and young people to engage in prayer. I am a children’s occupational therapist and as part of my job at Growing Hope I often talk to parents and carers about sensory processing. We have an incredible multi sensory God who has created our brains that enables us to learn and connect in so many different ways. Often when I talk about sensory processing some individuals are not be aware of our eight senses. Most people have come across the first five- sight, small, taste, hearing and touch but they may not be as aware of our sense of balance (vestibular sense), body awareness (proprioceptive sense), and internal sense of whether we’re hungry, need the toilet etc. (interoceptive sense). If we can engage in all of these senses we’re all more likely to be able to engage in conversation and learning.

As we adjust to caring for our children and understanding their needs we may find that our hopes and dreams have to change

Having a child with additional needs can be challenging, learning to pray and do life in a different way can be an incredible opportunity to grow in our own relationship with God. I’ve learnt lots through praying as I move around with young people or finding moments to pray as I play with a child in front of me. In my household, prayer is often very practical, we have prayer sticks with people’s names on that everyone can pick out of the pot to pray for and we often write or draw as we pray.

As we adjust to caring for our children and understanding their needs we may find that our hopes and dreams have to change. Growing Hope host a When Dreams Change course (which you can also train to facilitate) which gives parents the opportunity to process what it looks like for our hopes and dreams to change because of our children’s needs, to connect with each other, and share our experiences.

So how can we use our senses to pray? I’ve written some practical ideas and activities for each sense which can help us all to feel more calm and regulated and able to join in with connecting with our Heavenly Father:

Sight (visual sense)

• What can you see? Take a moment to say thank you to God for the things that you can see around you. This can work particularly well when you’re on a walk.
• Choices- using pictures of different people or places take time to enable your child to pick a picture to say thank you to God or to pray for the person or place that they have selected.

Smell (olfactory sense)

• Spray some perfume onto your wrist or onto a piece of paper and pray that God would help you to be a ‘pleasing aroma’ for him. (2 Corinthians 2:15).
• Do some calming prayer where you thank God for your child or young person and who God has made them to be. You could do this with scented massage oil or body lotion. Try doing a hand massage and squeezing their hand firmly between your two hands and circling their palm. This deep pressure touch input can also be calming.

Taste (gustatory sense)

• Taste and see the Lord is good! (Psalm 34:8) enjoy your favourite food and say thank you to God for it.
• Eat a bag of crisps or a box of raisins and see if you can think of something to say thank you to God for each time you eat one.
• Have different prayer options for different colours of snack (e.g. red – please, green – thank you, yellow – for people to know Jesus).

Hearing (auditory sense)

• Go outside and listen to the different sounds and thank God for his creation.
• Spend time listening to God and see if he puts any thoughts or pictures into your head – maybe have some pictures or objects on the table you could choose from that God might speak through.
• Listen to a worship song lying under a parachute or a blanket. Pray over your children and young people for God’s blessing.

Read more:

Neurodiversity isn’t a problem to fix, it’s a gift to the church

5 steps parents can take to make church work for children with trauma

Touch (tactile sense)

• As your child or young person plays with different objects use that object to spark prayer. For example, if they’re playing with a car pray that they know God journeying with them wherever they go. If they’re playing with a mirror pray they always know how Jesus sees them.
• Play with some clay and use this as a way to create a model of a person or a heart as you pray for someone else or yourself.
• Wrap your child or young person up tightly in a blanket and pray they know God’s protection hemming them in as they feel that deep pressure. (Psalm 139:5)

Balance (vestibular sense)

• Play by running around the room and then freezing. When you freeze say thank you to God for something or ask him to speak to you in the stillness.
• Pray whilst bouncing by saying thank you or just by bouncing as an activity of prayer which uses our bodies. (linear movement is calming for our vestibular sense).

Body awareness (Proprioceptive sense)

• Go on a prayer walk and pray around your street or house.
• Knock over a tower of blocks and pray that you may have boldness like Joshua and that God gives you courage.

Internal awareness (Interoceptive sense)

• Stop and be still and ask God to give you and your child or young person a feeling of peace in your body.
• Pray for God’s healing if something seems to be hurting.

My prayer is that as you try these activities you will hear God speak through the power of his Holy Spirit.

Resources

Growing Hope – Occupational therapy resources & accessibility training