Praying the Rosary as a family is a beautiful way to honor Our Lady and grow as a domestic church. However, in families with varying ages of kids and different attention spans and busy schedules, it can sometimes be a real challenge to manage…and keep everyone in a prayerful mood, shall we say?

Here are 21 ideas we have compiled over the years for how to enliven your family Rosary so you “pray it, not just say it.”

Spread the Rosary Out 

• Pray the 1st decade after breakfast, the 2nd decade before lunch, the 3rd decade in the afternoon, the 4th decade before dinner, and the 5th decade before bedtime. Mm & Dad decided that the schedules for the kids still at home are actually so weird and uncoordinated right now that each person prays 4 decades of the rosary throughout the day, separately, then together they pray the final decade of the daily mysteries when they are finally all together just before bedtime.

Have Kids Lead the Decades

• Give your kids leadership in the family Rosary and take turns leading the decades. This tool is incredibly helpful for encouraging kids to lead! You pay attention better when different voices (including your own!) lead the prayers. This is also a great way to help kids learn and memorize the mysteries!

Gather a Bouquet for Mary 

• Gather flowers (real or fake) to represent each Hail Mary and have kids add them one by one to a vase at the feet of a Mary statue while the family prays the Rosary. 

Explain the Stories

• Prior to beginning each decade, take a break and explain the Scriptural story behind each mystery. This will help kids begin meditating on the mysteries as they pray. With young children, Dad often made this question-and-answer format to ignite those imaginations!

Pray a “Decade a Day”

• An idea created by Pope St. John Paul II, for his youth group: split the Rosary by assigning each person just one decade to pray, carefully and slowly. He called it “a living rosary” and as a group, they covered with non-rushed and focused prayer the entire rosary every day. For example, for a family of 5, each person is responsible for praying one specific decade, so that at the end of the day, an entire Rosary is completed with everyone’s help!

Choose Intentions 

• Before each decade, ask, “Whom would you like to pray for today?” Breaks it up and calls to mind our fellow members in the body of Christ.

Turn Off the Lights 

• If your kids struggle to stay focused, minimize distractions by dimming or turning off the lights except those that can help direct attention to prayer. For night prayers, we turn off the lights and only leave on the light about our fireplace where we have on display these amazing images. They especially seem to inspire Caroline (aged 12), gazing upon them in the spotlight, as it were.

Pray a Scriptural Rosary 

• Before each mystery, read the appropriate Scripture passage and immerse your children in the Bible. Or before each “Hail, Mary” prayer you can read one verse of Scripture from the Bible about the mystery (we make it easy with 10 Scripture verses for each mystery in our rosary prayer book here).

Use Pope St. John Paul II’s Meditation 

• Use Pope St. John Paul II’s meditation style to stay focused by reading a reflection before each Hail Mary. He suggests several other ideas such as using great art, phrases during each “Hail, Mary,” etc.–all of them in his rosary prayer book here.

Pray in Latin 

• Mix things up by learning some of the repeated prayers in Latin (bonus if you eventually can pray the entire family Rosary in Latin!). We also did this some years ago to teach everyone the prayers in Latin. It worked great!

Take a Rosary Walk

• Put your kids’ energy to good use by going for a walk while you pray the Rosary. This is a great way to reflect on God’s beauty through nature while you pray. Dad said he went on a retreat several years ago in which every rosary was prayed together as they walked.

Pray with Audio Rosary CDs

• Sometimes popping in an audio Rosary CD is a great way to engage kids with family prayers. Praying along with the voices of other kids will help your kids stay engaged and involved in the Rosary. It also works well for a rosary in the car (hard to hear voices from the back of the car, isn’t it?).

Have kids “Tell the Story” 

• At the beginning of each decade, invite kids to take turns explaining the mystery you are about to pray. It helps everyone ponder and pray the mysteries, not just say the words.

Use Prayer Journals 

• With spiritual journals, kids can track their prayers and take ownership of their spiritual lives. These journals are complete with daily prayer lists, confession reminders, and space for reflection. Use them to write down thoughts, intentions, and so on before and after each decade or the entire rosary–helps minds be open to inspirations of the Holy Spirit!

Invite Friends and Families 

• Strength in numbers! Gather a group of friends and family to pray the Rosary together. Then you can pray it like around the campfire: each prayer being led by a different person in the circle (just count carefully so you know when you are #11 and need to lead the “Glory Be”!)

Utilize Car Rides 

• During daily rides to school or activities, utilize this time when kids are buckled in to pray the Rosary together. (Psstt–check out our Family Prayer Kit for all your car ride prayer needs!)

Have Kids Lead Certain Prayers

• For younger children who are perhaps not able to lead an entire decade, assign them to lead just the Our Father or the Glory Be or Fatima Prayer.

Pray a Candle Rosary 

• Using pillar candles for Our Fathers and votive candles for Hail Marys, light the candles as you move through the Rosary. In the end, you will have a beautiful light display of your prayers.  One priest responded when asked how to engage boys especially, “Fire.” Light candles before, during, after–flames excite the spirit while calming the squiggles!

Create a Prayer Corner

• Hang religious artwork for each Mystery, light candles, and leave spiritual journals in a specific space clearly marked for prayer. We, human creatures, react to our environment, so going to a place for prayer helps to move us out of the distraction in which we live.

Provide Coloring Books

• Coloring books are a great way to help younger children stay involved during family prayer time. Anyone involved with young children knows that they actually listen better when they are doing something with their hands–better than when they are trying not to fidget! The coloring books for the rosary come out only when you pray the rosary. Don’t just use random coloring books, but ones that reinforce the prayers, like our Life of Jesus coloring books. (Want to know the secret? These coloring books actually ARE the rosary, with 4 pictures per mystery! Each book covers one set of mysteries!)

Be a Witness

• There may be times when your kids will not be engaged in the family Rosary. Pray it anyway. Keep in mind that while your kids might not appreciate it now, they will one day remember seeing their parents faithful praying the Rosary. A good friend of ours, when we asked why he and all of his siblings have remained Catholic, said he attributes it to his father having EVERYONE–including guests, both Catholic and non-Catholic!–pray the rosary after dinner every night before leaving the table. He would simply pass out the rosaries to everyone who had eaten, then dive right into the prayers!

What ideas do you have? What works for your family? Please tell us in the comments below!