Giving Kids the Gift of Faith

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Don't wait for the holidays to make religious traditions a part of your life. Saying grace before meals and prayers before bedtime are two proven ways to foster your child's spiritual awareness. Coming up with your own variations of these rituals can make them even more meaningful. Before dinner, Angie Ito, a mother of two in Napa, California, leads her kids -- Taylor, 3, and Dylan, 8 months -- in a prayer she adopted from her grandmother: "For this time together, for this food we share, for this love we feel, Father in Heaven, we thank you."

Rachael Kosal, who is Lutheran, uses prayer in everyday moments to further her 2-year-old's religious development. For example, if Kosal hears an ambulance pass their home in Knob Noster, Missouri, she'll say "Keep them safe, Jesus," together with her daughter. "I want Kaelyn to know that God is always listening," Kosal says.

Helping those in need is a central tenet of every major faith. It's also great for your child's spiritual health. When Colleen Burke, a Catholic mom in Rockford, Illinois, started volunteering for Meals on Wheels last year, she brought along Kate, 6, and Will, 4. "We went to poor neighborhoods and met people who were too weak to leave their apartments," Burke says. "My kids could see how lucky they were to have warm clothes and enough to eat, and how satisfying it was to share our good fortune. That spoke much louder to them than a sermon."

Many congregations offer charitable opportunities for children. So do hospitals, scouting groups, and nonprofit organizations. When you encourage your child to ride in a cancer bike-a-thon, ladle soup at a shelter, or sell lemonade to help needy kids, you teach her that all people are family -- perhaps the most spiritual lesson of all.

God, death, and heaven are difficult concepts for young kids to grasp. "Keep your answers simple and honest," says pastoral counselor Jean Grasso Fitzpatrick. These responses will reassure your child and spark further discussion.

A: When a person has lived a very long time, the body stops working. But our family believes that when a person dies, his soul goes to heaven. That's what happened to Grandpa.

It's the part of a person that makes us who we are. Aunt Rose's soul was the part that loved to tell silly jokes and cook you dinner. That part of her will live on forever in our memory.

I think it's a beautiful place, beyond the moon and stars, where everyone is happy and free.

Nobody knows for sure. But I believe animals have their own heaven, where they get to run around as much as they want. What do you think?

In our family, we think it's nice to be around other people who pray and sing together, in a place where there's nothing to do but think about God.

Different groups of people see God in their own way. But all faiths agree on one thing: You should treat other people just the way you'd like to be treated yourself.