The Ages They Are Now

A parent of a three-year-old and a parent of a seventeen-year-old are not praying about the same things. So why is almost every prayer book for parents one undivided pile?

This one is sorted by the age your child is today. Six sections, eleven prayers each, and you can ignore five of them tonight.

EVERY VERSE PRINTED IN FULL

Most books in this category give you the prayer and then a list of references - Isaiah 41:10, Psalm 34:18 - and leave you to look them up. Almost nobody does. You are praying at half past ten with a sleeping child down the hall; you are not going to fetch a Bible and find a chapter.

Here every verse is printed out in full, on the same page as the prayer it belongs to. King James Version throughout, in the public domain, reproduced without alteration - which is exactly why it can be printed in full instead of referenced.

WHAT'S INSIDE

- 66 prayers in six sections by age: Before They Can Answer You (0-3) · The Small Years (4-7) · The Middle Years (8-12) · The Years They Pull Away (13-15) · The Last Years at Home (16-18) · When They Are Grown

- Three pages per prayer: what the prayer is for with the verse printed in full, then the prayer itself, then a lined page for your own words

- The specific pages nobody writes: the first night they are home · when they are left out · when they lie to you · when their faith goes cold · when there is silence between you · the last ordinary morning

- A section for the adult child, which lasts longer than all the others put together

- An index of prayers by need, for the night you do not want a section - you want the page for this

- All 44 verses gathered at the back for learning by heart

- A page on when the prayer is not answered, written honestly

NO WARFARE LANGUAGE. Plenty of books pray for children in the language of battle: war plans, weapons, the enemy. For some parents that is exactly right. For others it raises the temperature of a house that is already anxious. These prayers are plain, quiet and specific. They ask.

AND NO PROMISES. This book will not tell you that praying hard enough guarantees how your child turns out. That implication is cruel to every parent whose child struggles anyway.

PERFECT FOR a baby shower, a dedication or baptism, a new parent, a grandparent, or the parent of a teenager who has gone quiet.