Blessing Cards for Kids
In all the chaos of bedtime (in our house, this usually looks something like: kids shouting "Are my clothes dirty?!", lots of chasing each other from room to room, toothpaste falling off their toothbrushes and splatting on the floor, and definitely many runs to the potty as they can't seem to remember if they actually went yet or not), it often seems impossible to muster a bedtime prayer with carefully chosen and purposeful words. A few years back, I read Growing Grateful Kids by Susie Larson and was introduced to the idea of reciting blessings over the children. I loved the idea of having a prayer ready for them, with words that spoke life instead of my scrambling attempt at the end of an exhausting day.
In her book, Susie Larson says, "What will we do with those formative years? Will we bless or will we curse? Will we build equity into our influence to set our children up for success? Or will we drain the authority God has entrusted to us by misusing our privileged authority? Will we speak life to them, or will our words and choices drain life from them?".
That's a lot of responsibility, but also, what an honor! As parents, we get to show them who God is and how God sees them. We get to instill value and encourage them, breathing life and calling them into who God created them to be.
Over the years, we've put this into practice in different ways. When the kids were little, we wrote the blessings on notecards and put them in an index box placed up high on the dresser (mostly so they couldn't grab them and rip the paper). Recently, we've laminated the blessing cards and put velco dots on the back of them. We made a poster to mount the velcro dots to, so they can "pick" their blessing for the night. The poster hangs on a corkboard in their room. Pretty simple, but the rewards are great!
These are my favorite books with blessings and prayers for children:
Growing Grateful Kids by Susie Larson - I LOVE this book. I've read it three times, through different seasons of my kids' lives and it's always relevant.
May His Face Shine Upon You by Susie Larson - A book solely devoted to Biblical blessings for mother and child.
Habits of the Household by Justin Whitmel Earley - Really practical ways to change your habits into more biblical and intentional routines.
Mama Bear Apologetics by Hillary Morgan Ferrer - A great read for empowering your kids to challenge the cultural lies. There are prayers at the end of every chapter to pray over parents and children.
I've compiled our 12 favorite blessings, from the four books above and the Bible. They are available for purchase in The Products tab above! You'll be redirected to my Etsy site and receive a downloadable link after purchase. Here is a sample of one of the hand-painted cards (all cards are notecard size to fit in an index box):
