Children davening in school

amother

Mustard

Wed, Oct 24 2018, 3:42 pm

Snow White wrote:

I would love to say just leave them alone. Forcing them to daven will only cause a bigger hatred toward davening. But I don’t think that’s answer ur looking for.

ITA!! I actually did this with two of my kids who had problem with davening. And the returns are wonderful. My son refused to daven until he was about age 9-10, it was too long and too boring for him. He slowly began participating more and more, and now his davening is something to be emulated. He concentrates on almost every word and the words are meaningful to him - all because it was something he decided to do on his own. I frequently receive praise from the members of the shul where he davens, because his davening really impresses them.

I'm doing the same for my 9 year old daughter now. And whenever she does decide to daven, she davens with the utmost sincerity.

amother

Seashell

Wed, Oct 24 2018, 7:26 pm

amother wrote:

I completely agree with this! I feel like we are really missing the boat with tefillah in our children's schools. In my daughter's beis yaakov they just sit there and monotonously chant the words and if there is a tune its usually pretty lame. The length of time is waaaay too long and they say a ton of tefilos just craming it it all in. This is not what davening is meant to be. The words are beautiful when said slowly and with a beautiful tune. Better go daven less with your whole heart then say the whole siddur like a mechanical robot. When she has a day off from school and its not shabbos we daven together with my davening playlist. It's just of collection of beautiful tunes to most of the tefilos of shachris. Hopefully she's getting the message that tefillah could be "more".

what's on your davening playlist?

amother

Navy

Thu, Oct 25 2018, 1:24 am

amother wrote:

what's on your davening playlist?

Davening playlist:
Mode ani - omer Adam
Hareini/mah tovu -elior cymbler
Adon olam-eitan Katz
Adon olam -moshav
Elokai neshama- avi kutner
Asher yatzar\ elokai - Debbie Friedman
Yigdal- lipa
Baruch sheamar- echad
Ashrei- abie Rotenberg
Ashrei- ari lesser
Halelu-lipa
Halelu-lev tahor
Yotzer or- Debbie Friedman
Aleinu- yosef karduner

If anyone has any suggestions of what else to add I would really appreciate it

amother

Violet

Thu, Oct 25 2018, 8:18 am

This is a big issue in schools I think. I also had issues wen I was younger bec 1) daveninh is supposed be about connection to hashem and young kids are not going to remember the meaning of words even if they learned it bec its still new language for them. So, just "saying words" is meaningless for kids which is why some kids refuse

2) SOME KIDS CANT READ FLUENTLY EVEN IN 3RD /4TH grade!! So, if a rabbi / morah are expecting kids to say ashrei and then yishtabach....well, usually they go too fast for someone who is struggling to read fluently so the child will just give up and wont keep up. I realized this was my sons problem so I spent a lot of Tim on shabbos reading"" the davening with him until he knew it fluently to be able to keep up with his class.

3) for kids who daven slower, well, schools usually dont allow enough time for the few older kids who daven with kavana. They say okay so now everyone takeout Chumash or....we are moving on...davening time is over...so these kids will give up too.

So, pls find out if ur children have trouble keeping up with the reading"" during davening. Can ur children read the prayers at the same pace as the class?? If not, this is why some kids give up and then are disruptive bec they are bored ...

If its a "reading fluently/faster" issue, this can be fixed by u practicing reading the prayers everyday until fluent. It will take Tim but it will help ur children feel more confident and they will then participate in davening.

(by the way, fyi, my son who had trouble reading fluently used to open and close his mouth and act like he was davening so he wouldn't get in trouble but I still worked with him bec I wanted him to actually daven.)

keym

Thu, Oct 25 2018, 9:25 am

amother wrote:

And its funny. My mother was into that. Singing all these davening songs. And I was never into it. The singing was not what inspired me either.

When I got older, I started reading and listening. Particularly to shiurim describing Hashem as our parent like R Shimshon Pinkus. That helped me connect to the tefillos. Also I started davening shabbos, yt, yomim noraim in a shul with a one way mirror balcony and I was able to get a front row seat.
Being able to see what they were doing in shul helped break up the tediousness of it.

Again I'm talking the 2nd-5th grade age range.