Five Smart Things to Pray for Your Kids This School-Year

This morning I check my Facebook feed and love seeing all the first-day-of school pictures. Now that my kids are scattered all over, it’s easy to miss the excitement and anticipation of a new school year. Once kids are in college and grad school, they don’t send mom first-day-of-school pics.

If yours do, you are a shoe-in for Mom-Of-The-Year for accomplishing the miraculous!

Though my kids aren’t sporting new shoes and a fresh back pack today, I still pray for them as they begin a new semester. In the spirit of looking back, here are five smart things I prayed for my kids during the middle and high school years.

God’s word is wisdom for any age, so join me in praying these verses for your own children, or maybe even for yourself! You may not have considered these verses for parenting, but they cover important areas of growth and faith we all want for our kids.

 

Pray for God-Confidence

For You are my hope; O Lord GOD, You are my confidence from my youth.–Psalm 71:5

Let’s pray that kids will trust God and put their confidence in Him. Just think of the mental/spiritual/emotion angst they can save if they have a confident trust in God.

As a parent, it’s easy to get overly focused on the importance of building self-confidence in our kids. I am not implying that self-confidence is unnecessary, but developing God-confidence will bring them through many challenges that self-confidence can’t touch. In addition to praying for God-confidence for my kids, I am asking God to give me wisdom and diligence to encourage them with both my words and my example.

 

Pray for God-Motivated Work

Pray that our kids develop God-focused motivation in their work, as well as develop strong work habits. This verse is talking about putting your heart into what you do, seeking to honor God.

While we’re at it, let’s pray our kids develop the self-discipline to do the things they don’t always want to do–homework, room cleaning, dish washing, more homework–without whining and complaining. Hmm. . . I better pray this for me as well!

Pray Kids Learn Wisdom From Mistakes

As a dog returns to its vomit, so a fool repeats his foolishness.–Proverbs 26:11

You may not be familiar with this little gem, tucked away in Proverbs 26. Though rather graphic in imagery, (kid’s like that, right?) this wise saying refers to our tendency to keep repeating the same foolishness again and again. In other words, we can be slow to learn from our mistakes.

Pray that God would bless our children with the desire and the wisdom to learn from their mistakes and foolishness. Self-awareness of their own folly is far more effective than the lecturing or nagging of a parent.

This was a great prayer for the year my 12-year-old decided it would be cool to do push-ups in the middle of a four lane road while waiting for the bus on the first day of school. What can I say. . . sixth grade is just a nutty time!

Pray for Wise Words

There is one who speaks rashly like the thrusts of a sword, but the tongue of the wise brings healing.–Proverbs 12:18

This one is pretty simple: pray that our kids would develop wisdom and thoughtfulness in their speech. Middle and high school years can be filled with emotional drama that often stems from thoughtless or hurtful words.

Taking this concept one step further, pray that our kids would go the extra mile to speak words of encouragement to others.

[tweetthis hidden_hashtags=”#backtoschool, #prayingmom”]5 smart things to pray for your kids this school year.[/tweetthis]

 

Pray for Self-Control

Who doesn’t struggle with self-control at times? I’ll get in line first on this one. Let’s pray our children develop Spirit-given self-control, which is very handy character trait for sure!

 

What are a few of your best Smart-Mom prayers for your kids this year?