Stations of the Cross for Children

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Augustine3

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I’m planning to pray the stations of the cross with my children aged 7 and 5. If we pray the normal way, I’m quite certain I will lose their interest in about a third of the way. Does anyone have any suggestions how to pray this beautiful prayer with young children?
 
I think you need to define “the normal way” because we don’t know what that is.

Are you planning to do the Stations at home? At Church?

If at home, what are you using for stations? Are the children making stations? What do they already know about the stations?

There are many children’s stations books and online resources.

You could make your own stations-- whether from coloring sheets or as some sort of craft. Then hang them up around your house. Then do a pilgrimage around the house. Make the prayers short-- you don’t need to do the adult stations. Just one or two sentences about the station and a short prayer.

You can make up whatever you want to and make it take however much time you think you can hold your kid’s attention. With 14 stations, one minute per station is 14 minutes-- that’s probably as long as you will hold attention at that age. 30 seconds per station is 7 minutes.

So, decide how long you think it should take with your kids then design your stations accordingly. They can spend more time making the stations-- that is where you can spend your time teaching them about the stations, while their little hands and minds are busy coloring or gluing things.
 
I have three children, the oldest is 6.

This is how we do it. One year I bought 14 purple votive candle holders and 14 little votive candles. I found free printable stations pictures that I printed out and hodge podged onto the candle holders (they kind of ended up looking like this). On Friday evenings we do stations. The kids sit on one side of the dining room table. We turn off the lights. I light all the candles in a row. I read from the Children’s Stations of the Cross book, which is really gentle and not too graphic. I read the station name and say, “We adore you O Christ, and we Praise You” and they’re encouraged to say, “Because by Your Holy Cross You have redeemed the world.” (But usually I end up saying that myself.) Then there’s a short reflection/prayer found in the book (It’s stuff like, “Dear Jesus, it must have been so hard for you to get up when you fell the second time. Help me when I mess up to try again to do better.”) Then I extinguish that candle and move on to the next candle.

It doesn’t take too long (maybe 20 minutes?) and seems to keep their attention reasonably well. It moves quickly.
 
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