Prayer · Family

Catholic Prayers for Children

Protect your children from evil

A short Catholic prayer for children: “Lord Jesus, you took the little children in your arms and blessed them. Bless my children now. Keep them safe, keep them close to you, and help me to raise them well. Holy Mary and Saint Joseph, pray for them. Amen.” Below: prayers for their protection and health, for adult children, bedtime prayers, and how to bless them.

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Lord Jesus, I lift up my children to You. They are Your gift to me, and I entrust them back into Your loving hands.

FOR THEIR PROTECTION:

Lord, place Your holy angels around my children wherever they go. Protect them from physical harm, from predators, from accidents, and from illness. Shield them from the spiritual attacks of the enemy.

FOR THEIR MINDS:

Guard their thoughts, Lord. In a world that bombards them with lies, help them recognize truth. Protect them from harmful content — on screens, in conversations, and in the culture around them. The primary angle of attack right now is on the family, and children are the most vulnerable. Lord, be their shield.

FOR THEIR HEARTS:

Fill their hearts with Your love. Let them know they are deeply loved by You and by me. Protect them from rejection, bullying, and isolation. Give them true friends who will lead them closer to You.

FOR THEIR SOULS:

Lord, I pray that each of my children will come to know You personally. Plant the seeds of faith deep in their hearts. Protect them from the lies of the world that would pull them away from You. Even if they wander, pursue them relentlessly with Your love.

FOR THEIR FUTURE:

Lord, I trust their future to You. Guide their steps. Open doors that You want opened and close doors that would lead them astray. Give them purpose, calling, and the courage to follow Your will.

Blessed Mother Mary, take my children under your mantle. Saint Joseph, patron of families, protect them. Guardian Angels, watch over them always. Amen.

Go deeper

A daily prayer for your children

1 min read

For a parent, grandparent or godparent to pray each day, naming each child where the prayer has “N.” Parents in Scripture pray for their children one by one: Job offered sacrifice “according to the number of them all” (Job 1:5), and Hannah said of Samuel, “I prayed for this child” (1 Samuel 1:27).

Heavenly Father, you gave me these children,

and they are yours before they are mine.

I bring you N., and N., and N.

Keep them safe today, in body and in soul.

Let the faith they received at their baptism take root and grow.

Give them good friends, and the wisdom to choose them.

Help them to grow, as your Son grew at Nazareth, in wisdom and in favour with you.

Where I fall short as a parent, make up for what I lack.

Let them know that they are loved, by me and above all by you.

Holy Mary, Mother of God, and Saint Joseph, pray for them.

Holy guardian angels, watch over them.

Amen.

Grandparents can pray it word for word: Timothy’s faith, Saint Paul wrote, “lived first in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice” (2 Timothy 1:5).

A prayer for your children’s protection

1 min readFor the fears every parent carries: roads, screens, strangers, and the things you cannot see and cannot stop.

For the fears every parent carries: roads, screens, strangers, and the things you cannot see and cannot stop. The Catechism teaches that from infancy to death human life is surrounded by the angels’ watchful care and intercession (CCC 336).

Lord God, you see my children where I cannot.

Guard them on the road, at school, online, and with the people they meet.

Keep them from harm to body and to soul,

and from anyone who would lead them away from you.

Send your holy angels to watch over them.

Take from me the fear that does not help them,

and leave me the care that does.

Amen.

More protection prayers are on A Prayer for My Children, and for the whole household in the prayer for family protection.

A prayer for a child who is struggling or in danger

1 min readFor a child who is anxious, depressed, bullied, hurting themselves, caught up in something dangerous, or being harmed by someone.

For a child who is anxious, depressed, bullied, hurting themselves, caught up in something dangerous, or being harmed by someone. Prayer belongs here, and so does action. If a child is in danger or may harm themselves, get help now. If you think someone is harming a child, report it to the police or your local child-protection authority.

Lord Jesus, you know what my child is carrying,

even what they have not told me.

Stay close to N. in the dark hours.

Put the right people in their path:

a doctor, a counsellor, a friend, a teacher who notices.

Give me the wisdom to listen, and the courage to act.

Where someone has hurt my child, keep my child safe, and bring the truth to light.

Hold N. when I cannot, and do not let them believe they are alone.

Holy Mary, Mother of Sorrows, pray for us.

Amen.

Faith and medicine are not rivals: a child’s anxiety or depression belongs with a doctor as well as with God.

A prayer for a sick child

1 min readFor a child who is ill, in hospital, or waiting for results.

For a child who is ill, in hospital, or waiting for results. Parents in the Gospels bring their sick children to Jesus again and again.

Lord Jesus, you healed the official’s son and raised Jairus’ daughter,

and you did not send away the mother who kept asking.

I bring you my child, N., who is sick.

Ease their pain and calm their fear.

Guide the doctors and nurses who care for them.

Give me strength for the waiting.

If it is your will, make them well.

And whatever comes, keep them safe in your love, and keep me close to you.

Amen.

Ask your parish to pray, and ask a priest to visit. A seriously ill child who has reached the age of reason can receive the Anointing of the Sick, which is not only for the dying (CCC 1514); a younger child can be blessed and prayed over. More are in Catholic prayers for healing.

A prayer for adult children, and for a child who has left the faith

1 min readThe Church asks parents of grown children to respect their freedom, offering counsel rather than pressure (CCC 2230), which leaves prayer as the one thing a parent can always do.

The Church asks parents of grown children to respect their freedom, offering counsel rather than pressure (CCC 2230), which leaves prayer as the one thing a parent can always do. For a son or daughter who has stopped practising the faith, the patron is Saint Monica, who prayed for her son Augustine for years before his baptism; her story is on the patron saint of mothers.

Father, my children are grown, and their lives are their own.

I thank you for who they have become,

and I give you what I no longer control.

Bless their work, their marriages, their friendships and their children.

For N., who has walked away from you:

I do not ask you to force them. I ask you to find them,

as the father in the Gospel watched the road for his son.

Keep my heart open, so that I am ready when they come.

Saint Monica, pray for my child.

Amen.

A parent’s example still speaks when words no longer can; parents who can admit their own failings to their children are better able to guide them (CCC 2223), at forty as at four.

Bedtime prayers and short prayers to pray with children

2 min readThe Catechism calls the family the first place of education in prayer, and says that for young children daily family prayer is the first witness of the Church’s living memory (CCC 2685).

The Catechism calls the family the first place of education in prayer, and says that for young children daily family prayer is the first witness of the Church’s living memory (CCC 2685). In practice: a few short prayers, the same ones every night, said together. These are the ones Catholic children learn first.

The Sign of the Cross. “In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.” The way every Catholic prayer begins (CCC 2157). Guide a small child’s hand from forehead to chest, then left shoulder to right.

The Guardian Angel prayer.

Angel of God, my guardian dear,
to whom God’s love commits me here,
ever this day be at my side,
to light and guard, to rule and guide. Amen.

Its history and a longer form for adults are on the Guardian Angel prayer; the memorial of the Holy Guardian Angels on October 2 is a good day to teach it.

A simple bedtime prayer.

Thank you, God, for today.
I am sorry for anything I did wrong.
Please bless my family and everyone I love,
and keep us safe tonight.
Jesus, Mary and Joseph, I love you. Amen.

Let a child add their own names and thank-yous. A child who says “and thank you for the dog” is praying.

Grace before meals. “Bless us, O Lord, and these thy gifts, which we are about to receive from thy bounty, through Christ our Lord. Amen.”

For frightening moments. “Jesus, I trust in you.” Short enough for a four-year-old, and for their parent.

Then the Our Father and the Hail Mary, and in time a decade of the Rosary together; how to pray the Rosary walks through it.

How to bless your children

1 min readParents may bless their children.

Parents may bless their children. Every baptised person is called to be a blessing and to bless, so lay people may lead certain blessings, while those most bound up with the sacraments are reserved to bishops, priests and deacons (CCC 1669). A parent’s blessing asks God to bless the child, usually with the Sign of the Cross (CCC 1671); it is not a priest’s blessing and does not try to be. At bedtime or as a child leaves the house, trace a small cross on their forehead with your thumb and say:

May God bless you and keep you, N.,

in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

Amen.

Some parents use the blessing of Numbers 6:24–26 instead: “The LORD bless you, and keep you. The LORD make his face to shine on you, and be gracious to you. The LORD lift up his face toward you, and give you peace.” Either way, a parent is doing what Jesus did when he took the children “in his arms and blessed them, laying his hands on them” (Mark 10:16).

What the Bible says about children

2 min readQuoted in the World English Bible, Catholic Edition.

Quoted in the World English Bible, Catholic Edition.

Mark 10:13–14. “They were bringing to him little children, that he should touch them, but the disciples rebuked those who were bringing them. But when Jesus saw it, he was moved with indignation and said to them, ‘Allow the little children to come to me! Don’t forbid them, for God’s Kingdom belongs to such as these.’” What made Jesus indignant was his own disciples keeping children away from him.

Psalm 127:3. “Behold, children are a heritage of the LORD. The fruit of the womb is his reward.” A gift held in trust, not a possession.

Proverbs 22:6. “Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it.” A proverb, not a promise: parents of a child who has wandered should not read it as a verdict on themselves.

Luke 2:52. “And Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and men.” The Son of God grew up in a family, obedient to Mary and Joseph, and the Catechism sees in that everyday obedience the beginning of his saving work (CCC 532).

Matthew 18:10. “See that you don’t despise one of these little ones, for I tell you that in heaven their angels always see the face of my Father who is in heaven.”

What the Catholic Church teaches about parents and prayer

1 min readParents are their children’s first teachers of the faith, its “first heralds”, beginning in the child’s earliest years (CCC 2225–2226).

Parents are their children’s first teachers of the faith, its “first heralds”, beginning in the child’s earliest years (CCC 2225–2226). Their right and duty to educate their children is “primordial and inalienable” (CCC 2221), and it starts with a home where tenderness, forgiveness, respect, fidelity and service are the rule (CCC 2223). That includes teaching children to pray (CCC 2226).

The family is a domestic church (CCC 1656, 2204), where parents and children live out the priesthood of the baptised through prayer, the sacraments and ordinary charity, and learn to forgive again and again (CCC 1657).

A child belongs to God first. Parents are asked to regard their children as children of God (CCC 2222) and to respect the vocation God gives them, even when it is not the one the parents would have chosen (CCC 2232–2233).

The Holy Family is the model, and the help. Catholics ask Mary and Saint Joseph, who raised Jesus at Nazareth, to pray for their families; see the prayer to Saint Joseph and the Saint Joseph novena. The patron saint of children is Saint Nicholas.

Questions

What is a good Catholic prayer for children?

A short one, said daily and by name: “Lord Jesus, you took the little children in your arms and blessed them. Bless my children now. Keep them safe, keep them close to you, and help me to raise them well. Holy Mary and Saint Joseph, pray for them. Amen.” To pray with young children, start with the Sign of the Cross and the Guardian Angel prayer, “Angel of God, my guardian dear”.

What prayers should I teach my child first?

The Sign of the Cross, then the Guardian Angel prayer and a simple bedtime prayer of thank you and sorry, then grace before meals, the Our Father and the Hail Mary. The Catechism calls the family “the first place of education in prayer” (CCC 2685): the same few prayers, said together every day, teach more than a long list.

Can parents bless their children?

Yes. Every baptised person is called to bless, and lay people may lead certain blessings (CCC 1669). Trace a small cross on the child’s forehead and say: “May God bless you and keep you, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.” It is a prayer, not a substitute for a priest’s blessing.

What does the Bible say about praying for children?

Jesus blessed children and was indignant when his disciples turned them away (Mark 10:13–16). Job offered sacrifice for his children “according to the number of them all” (Job 1:5), and Lamentations 2:19 urges: “Pour out your heart like water before the face of the Lord. Lift up your hands toward him for the life of your young children.”

How do I pray for an adult child who has left the Church?

Keep praying, and keep the door open. Ask Saint Monica, who prayed for her son Augustine for years before his conversion, to pray with you. Respect your child’s freedom (CCC 2230), and let your faith be visible without turning it into an argument.

For the woman who raised them: Bible verses for Mother’s Day — to honour a mother and give thanks for her.

Some worries belong to one child in particular: a prayer for my daughter — from the teenage years to a grown daughter far away.

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