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graciefaith
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I have a 3.5yo and a soon to be 5yo and i have not attempted to pray the rosary with them. Honestly, i dont think they'd even be able to sit through it. How do you start family prayers? I read about kids growing up with the rosary and loving to pray when they are older. I was not one of those kids. We did not do the rosary until i was in my teens and even then, i dreaded it. It was not until late last year that we got more involved with the church, church teaching and just trying our best to live our Faith. But even now, it's hard for me to be consistent with the Rosary. I think it would be great if we can incorporate into our daily lives as a family. Tell me how you did it or any ideas to do it with young kids.
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aussieannie
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I what you mean - look at the Fatima children before the apparition of Our Lady, "Our Father, Hail Mary, Hail Mary, Hail Mary..."  That says alot! But we do know that the apparition changed everything for them as they were lead to understand more of their faith in very dramatic ways, in very visual ways. So we know it is not beyond them. This is why we read "Rosary stories" to our children - to impress on them as best we can in a way children relate and understand best...vivid stories that are miraculous and true a very 4Real way.
I always look for ways to can cut things at the feet, so as to speak. If I am being sorely tempted, I offer the suffering of the temptation for the conversion of a sinner about to fall into Hell - I'd like to think if the devil has had his part in it, he wouldn't like to hear that and hopefully back off from the intensity of it.
If starting something new like this, the rosary can be offered for the children, that they will grow to love this devotion as adults, not dread it (I can relate to what you said, has been my experience too.) The rosary can be offered also for us and our lack of consistancy, for the family to find a way to make it special and enjoyable - as much as prayer CAN be for the less than saint-like (I am definately in that category, we struggle with everything I'm afraid  ) These intentions can be permanent and first of the rank to mention at the beginning of the rosary - or like this:
1st mystery: pray for the virtue of a deep love of the rosary
2nd mystery: pray that we can always find ways to enjoy the rosary more
3rd mystery: pray that our children will love and cherish the rosary always into adulthood
4th mystery: pray that we possess the virtue of consistancy in saying the rosary
5th mystery: pray the rosary be a family heirloom passed onto our generations till the end of time
So you are using the rosary to conteract the problems associated with the continual reciting of it. (That must make the devil mad!  )
How about saying the rosary as a family but have the children say one decade only, then go straight to bed? (the five year old could say it, the 3 year old listen, both looking at beautiful pictures of the mystery) then with you and dh continuing on? The tradition is there, the children meet it at their level at this stage. We do this sometimes with our younger ones or if we are all generally tired (like the Von Trapp children saying good night! ) I don't think that they need to be forced to kneel at this stage - we pamper our bigger ones too, with cushions under their knees (except when one child tries to kneel on five at once )
Start it during a penitental time of the liturgical year to help keep you on course for continuing for a length at a time. If I think I'm going to terribly tempted to run off track during that period with some sacrifice or added spiritual commitment to something, I stop that by asking God to grant a particular grace for my children on their death beds - that gets me everytime! Just got to continue with it then!
Plan ahead with the right visual, physical things you think you will need for your children to help them enjoy it as much as possible - do some prepartory reading with them (5 year old) about the beautiful, miracalous stories connected with the rosary - I read a story from an adult book and adjust my reading of it to the children, it is like reading a fairytale, they really love it!
There is a few thoughts, I will look forward to hearing other women's ideas myself!
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aussieannie
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I've just climbed out of bed to write this (after 10pm Aus time) because I have just remembered this one!
We live on a peninsula - almost like an island still attached to the main land, in an enormous bay (a real island is between us and the open sea.) We are surrounded by gentle beaches.
In summertime this year (we are now in winter) we were going for daily family evening walks and we would stop somewhere along the beach. The children would build a castle/mound of sand, and decorate it with sea shells, and other such seashore things. I had a lovely little statue of Our Lady, we would bring along and the children placed Our Lady in the middle of their creation for her. Then we would say the rosary, looking at the stars, and with not many distractions, I might add! (It is statue of Our Lady that is on the dashboard of our car that we have to re-fix with blue tac each time we take it off, but I have my eye on this statue or this lovely one, they have an ancient feel to them - I would love to have just for these sort of occasions (have to put that on a communal birthday wish list, I think - would be lovely for next summer)
There could be other similar ways to incorporate nature, family outings and the rosary. Once again it is about creating beautiful memories for the children so they will look back on it that way.
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graciefaith
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Thank you so much Anne! Those are great ideas. Are there any books you can recommend that tell about the Rosary on a child's level?? That would be great for them. I think we will try out just saying one decade with them and then putting them to sleep. That is a great idea!
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graciefaith
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Anne, that is beautiful! Thats something i want for my family one day...to enjoy and look forward to praying together. It's hard to get dh to pray with me, although he knows he should. It's so easy to just pass up but it's so important that we shouldnt. I want my girls to grow up in the Faith, unlike i did. I want them to understand and love our Faith and God. Thank you so much. That was inspirational!
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aussieannie
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Have to go to bed now, baby just cried out, but will get back to you on that, next morning! (Aus time)
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jdostalik
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My husband went on a retreat over three years ago and during spiritual direction, the priest told him that he needed to begin leading his family in the Rosary each evening! Well, he came home and told me and I was excited and scared at the same time...I mean, could our family of rambunctious kids do this? 
Well, we have, every night, with very rare exceptions--like maybe 2 or 3 times a year we will not pray it...
Tips:
1. Keep it simple. At first, we prayed the whole five decades each night but did not expect perfect attention. We did have picture books that we have collected over the years on the Rosary available for the children to look at and we didn't expect anyone to sit still the whole time, just to be quiet and as attentive as possible...
2. Over time as we have added more children to our family, we have scaled back. We now have the three oldest children pray a decade and that's all. About once or twice a week, we will pray all five decades, but mostly we just pray the three.
3. I know that over the years my little ones have enjoyed this DVD on the dvd on the Joyful Mysteries. I played it during the day occasionally to get them accustomed to the ebb and flow of the Rosary.
4. Make sure you have a crucifix and a statue or icon of our Lady in full view as you pray. This helps ME to stay focused. And do not get discouraged...my mother always tells me that a poorly prayed Rosary is better than a Rosary not prayed at all! 
5. I recently bought these tablets called Rosary Reflections for Kids. that Alice mentioned a few months back. I am going to pull them out a few times a week for my youngers to use if they want to...
6. Make it personal for the kids. Let them choose a special intention to pray for--this makes the prayer more meaningful to them.
7. If I could do it all over again, I would start with one decade and gradually work up to all five over time...
I have to say that the blessings our family has received from praying the Rosary each night are countless...and it always heartens me to end the day with our Lady's prayer on our lips...
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Jennifer in TX
wife to Bill, mom to six here on earth and eight in heaven.
Let the Little Ones Come
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marihalojen
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One of my favorite memories of praying the rosary was at a friend's house when I was a kid, two larger families together, bunch of kids piled in front of the adults and a rosary of votive candles on a low table. Gorgeous! Each child would rotate up to the table and blow out one candle until we were left in near dark with only the candles in front of the statues lit. Not something for every night, but a definite memory maker!
I like beautiful music low in the background, candles (obviously!) and pictures, either on-line rosaries or a select few for each decade. I love Anne's outside idea, praying in gardens and nature are great, our church has a circular walkway I think would be great to pace slowly about like a European prayer maze. The rosary doesn't have to be sleep inducing (though nice perk for littles sometimes)
Check out Libby and Trip's adventure!
So I guess all this is to say that variety is the spice of (prayer) life!
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SSR = Sailing, Snorkling, Reading
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graciefaith
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| Posted: July 14 2006 at 9:29am | IP Logged
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What wonderful ideas ladies!! Jennifer, the candles are a great idea especially. I think they would enjoy that. I like that dvd and i think we'll get it. Thank you ladies so much. We dont have an altar in our living room but i think i'll go ahead and get a small table(since i was going to get one for Catholic Mosaic anyway) and put that out in the living room. We're going to start tomorrow. We really need to pray more. I love praying and our life is so much better when we do it. It's just making myself do it. Its so easy to use the excuse of being tired or doing something else that might seem more important or fun that gets us so easily. I REALLY want to pray though and we want to educate our girls in the Faith but we have to live it as well and prayer is a good start. Thank you ladies!!
**I have started going to daily mass with both my girls. They behave pretty well and i love mass.
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Meredith
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I second Jennifer's post, that's excellent!! I also mention some ideas here Maybe you could take just the very basics of this idea, and pair it down for the little ones. My 4 yo has always been present when we say our nightly rosary as well as the baby, and eventually they just "get it". HTH.
Having our own "issues" regarding prayertime as well
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ALmom
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The candles really motivate the littles to stay around as they look forward to blowing it out at our house.
We also have a bound book of 8 1/2 X 11 pictures of each mystery of the rosary. The littlest is in charge of turning pages. We all like to look at pictures. Every once in a while we will watch a video of the rosary in the holy Land or something. We start gradually - 1 decade then 1 mystery etc. and build from there. It is fun to occassionally get together with another family doing the same thing - especially if they have some older and younger dc - the youngers tend to imitate the older so it is easier when there are a few older dc.
Sometimes we talk about it. I have a really nice book of scriptural rosary (1 passage from the Bible for each Hail Mary) and sometimes we do one decade of this (more would be too much for the littles as this takes a bit longer).
We really loved the rosary walk at Mt ST. Mary's in Emitsburg for anyone living near there. We have also prayed the rosary while walking or just before bed so the littles just fall off to sleep and we just tell them their guardian angel finished the rosary for them.
I think that the hardest part is being consistent. I think you can expect chaos a bit for a few days after one or 2 good days - I think someone told me it might be temptation to give up because the rosary is such a powerful prayer. Anyways - thanks for bringing this up as this is a reminder that we need to go back to laughing at the difficulties sometimes. Once our toddler climbed on top of the slide in the middle of the rosary and started shouting at the top of his lungs - He really sounded like a preacher giving a great fire and brimstone sermon and we couldn't help laughing and then going back to praying. I guess that might be considered irreverence - but we just saw it as part of family life and kept on going. (St. John Vianney used to laugh every time the devil assaulted him figuring a great sinner was on his way to confession - and when on about his business of prayer, fasting and hearing confessions).
One other thing - we have a collection of special rosaries and everyone picks the one they want to use.
We also try to keep any out-loud meditations short and sweet - it might be just the intention of that mystery.
I really think the dc don't always show exteriorly what is going on interiorly - and then all of a sudden, seemingly out of the blue, they have these little pearls of unbelievable wisdom. Sometimes looking at dc becomes my meditation .
Janet
Janet
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graciefaith
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Thank you! Last night i found 20 8x11" pictures of all the decades and im buying that. Tonight will be our first night and im very excited to start. Thank you ladies for all the great ideas. Keep 'em coming!! =P
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aussieannie
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The main book I use to inspire the children with 'rosary stories' is The Secret of the Rosary by St Louis de Monfort - it is an inexpensive book and the total reading of it will inspire you in every way! As for the stories I enjoy inprovising with and reading to the children, here they are in the book as listed:
pg 15-16 "A Rosebud" - for the children (the whole little chapter)
pg 26-27 "Seventh Rose" - Crown of Roses
pg 28-29 "Eighth Rose" - Marvels of the Rosary
pg 30-31 "Tenth Rose" - Miracles (two stories in there)
pg 63 "Twenty-Sixth Rose" - Sublime Prayer
pg 67-68 "Twenty-Seventh Rose" - Benefits
pg 74-75 "Thirty-First Rose" - Blanche of Castille-Alphonsus VIII
pg 75-76 "Thirty-Second Rose" - Don Perez
pg 76-79 "Thirty-Three Rose" - A Diabolical Posession
pg 80 "Thirty-Four Rose" - Simon de Montfort, Alan de Lanvallay and Othere
pg 81 "Thirty-Sixth Rose" - Freed from Satan
pg 82-83 "Thirty-Seventh Rose" - A Monastery Reformed
pg 93-95(start at bottom of page 93) "Forty-Four Rose" - A Good Method
When looking at these pages and when you read them, you will find the 'story' in them easy enough.
You may look at all these little stories and you may say, "My children aren't ready for this (possessions etc) or not my sort of thing" you pick and choose what you like to share with them. Your children are young but you may find that you can read more of the stories as they get older, so they hear them bit by bit, maybe on the feast of the Holy Rosary each year is a good time to read another new one, or re-read them. This is our way of expressing our faith and we personally love these little gems and so do the children, but if nothing else the book will inspire you!
You would need to read the story first and then improvise(I love doing this and very used to doing it) for the children - each mum sharing a story would put in and leave out different things, it is all personal preference in the way we 'storytell'.
I will think about other rosary books we use during the rosary and get back, but you could read my posting on this thread here where I mention a beautiful rosary book and other craft ideas for making books.
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Cay Gibson
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I read this book years ago. It truly is inspiring and was the first "rosary" book that had me understand the what and why of praying the rosary.
I need to dig mine out of the closet.
Cay
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Maddie
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One thing that helps my little guys during the Rosary is the Saints coloring books like the ones TAN sells. Mother of Our Savior also sells a Rosary coloring book and a few saint ones.
We keep the Rosary short and sweet while little ones color. They will pick up their Rosary and pray with us sometimes or just color and pray. It works for us. They usually will have questions about the pictures they are coloring which gives us the opportunity to discuss the Faith with them.
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teachingmom
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I remember dh's brother sharing an idea that he got from a good priest regarding praying the rosary with young children. This priest recommended praying a "trinity" instead of a decade for each mystery. By that I mean that you would pray all five mysteries each night, but only say three Hail Marys for each mystery instead of 10. That would make it shorter, but more complete in a way, compared to praying just a decade or two.
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graciefaith
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Ladies, thank you again! I bought a small table with some drawers and a glass door underneath to put our prayer books and our rosaries. For now there is just a plain old table cloth but next month i'm going to be ordering Catholic Mosaic and the linens so those will replace the table cloth. I was so excited to set the altar up. The girls right away kneeled and prayed the prayers they knew. My younger one got out one of my prayer books and started looking through it. They both know it's not for play. I also have a picture of Our Blessed Mother and Jesus Christ that my mom made us. It's beautiful and im very excited to start our prayer routine. Thank you again for all the ideas and the links to books and dvds. I'm going to get them all, in time. You ladies are great!
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4Real Forums : Domestic Church
Topic: how do you pray with young ones?
