A prayer for raising my children

Master of the World, You placed small souls in my hands, and I do not always know what to do. There are days when I am patient and understanding, and there are days when I explode over a small thing, and afterward sit and regret it.

Let me know when to set a boundary and when to let go. Let me not be too harsh, and not so soft that I cannot stand behind what I said. Let me say no with love, and explain without preaching.

Help me educate first of all through deeds. The children see how I speak when I am angry, how I treat people, how much time I look at a screen. Let me be what I ask them to be.

Let me see each child as they are, and not compare them to their siblings or to other children. Let me discover what lights them up, and raise each one according to their own way.

And keep me from raising them out of exhaustion. At the end of a long day it is easy for me to shout instead of explain, to give in instead of insisting, to turn on a screen instead of sitting with them. Give me strength to be present in those hours too.

And when I am wrong, give me the humility to say sorry to them, so that they learn from me that adults too can make things right.

And let me rejoice in my children, and not only raise them. To laugh with them, play with them, enjoy them, and remember that the home in which they grow up must first of all be a home of love and joy.