# Timing For Family Worship with Young Kids



## Kinghezy (Jan 13, 2019)

Ryan&Amber2013 said:


> This kind of thing so often happens when we try to worship as a family. The kids just lose it, and I'm tempted to say "o well, God, I guess you don't want to be worshipped by us tonight."



My recollection is your kids are in the 2'ish range with another on the way. I am curious what are the logistics for your family worship? Right now, what we do is have it as part of supper. The kids are (hopefully) already sitting down and it is not cutting into them playing or too close to bed. That seems to work reasonable well for us, so maybe tweaking when you are doing family worship would help.

Now, sometimes things do go haywire and I have to cut it short or bail. And I think that is okay, and at the very least is allowing me to work on my patience.

I think it has taken us a couple years to figure timing of family worship (of some sort) and for the kids to adjust. The kids evetually get use to it and our youngest (20 mon) take cues from his elder siblings. So it is a struggle but worth continuing to work at. I figure whatever we can expose our kids to, even if we do not do as much as we would prefer, God is going to bless it.


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## timfost (Jan 13, 2019)

Yes, dinner time normally works best, although we often do right before bed. With young attention spans, short, sweet and regular is our aim. I also do personal devotions and devotions with my wife. 

(My three-year-old calls her Bible her "Bible reading.")


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## Ryan&Amber2013 (Jan 13, 2019)

Kinghezy said:


> My recollection is your kids are in the 2'ish range with another on the way. I am curious what are the logistics for your family worship? Right now, what we do is have it as part of supper. The kids are (hopefully) already sitting down and it is not cutting into them playing or too close to bed. That seems to work reasonable well for us, so maybe tweaking when you are doing family worship would help.
> 
> Now, sometimes things do go haywire and I have to cut it short or bail. And I think that is okay, and at the very least is allowing me to work on my patience.
> 
> I think it has taken us a couple years to figure timing of family worship (of some sort) and for the kids to adjust. The kids evetually get use to it and our youngest (20 mon) take cues from his elder siblings. So it is a struggle but worth continuing to work at. I figure whatever we can expose our kids to, even if we do not do as much as we would prefer, God is going to bless it.


Thanks for the encouragement. We do a devotion a the table for breakfast before I go to work, and then we do worship before bed in the boys' bedroom. It's the before bed worship that sometimes goes haywire. It's tough because we want to continually train our kids to sit still and listen, so that they will be better trained for corporate worship. That's why we try to create an environment that is separate from our other doings in life, so they know worship is a special time. Please pray for us.


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## ZackF (Jan 13, 2019)

You will have to move it from time to time. Don't get caught up on that. The point is you are having FW. We just toss our 15mo in the pack an play. Sometimes she is asleep an we're certainly not waking her up to 'worship' with us.


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## jwithnell (Jan 14, 2019)

The time and content likely will shift with age. A hymn sung to sleepy babies can morph into singing together and a few catechism questions a bit later. A formal time with discussion works great in the elementary school years. We've hit a slack time since dinner and bedtime vary so much with teens and we're encouraging them to develop their own time in scripture. Right now I'm incorporating hermeneutics during school but would love to have actual family worship time again.


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## Jack K (Jan 14, 2019)

Dinnertime works very well for many people, especially when the kids are still young and when work allows for dinner together. As your kids become teenagers, be prepared to get more creative and flexible. They will be driving, working jobs, and exploring various interests—all good parts of learning to be independent—and you will have to take that into account. Family worship is not something where you learn the best way to do it and then stick with it rigorously, forever. Form good habits, but also be willing to be flexible.


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## Ask Mr. Religion (Jan 14, 2019)

I generally conducted family worship time within sixty to ninety minutes after the evening meal. Gave everyone time for food to digest past the point of glucose induced sleepiness and left enough time for other evening routines by all concerned. I always felt the worship time should come a moderate interval before actual bedtime to capture shifting attention spans.


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## Kinghezy (Jan 14, 2019)

I have found it encouraging (and this may sound strange) to hear that family worship can be difficult at all ages, not just with young kids. And if you feel like you "have not yet arrived", it isn't necessarily and infictmind on you.


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