You keep fasting. Your kids join in gradually, starting small.
The Church doesn’t expect a three-year-old to keep the Great Lent fast like an adult. That would be absurd. But your children are watching you, learning what matters in your home, absorbing the rhythm of the Church year whether you’re teaching explicitly or not. So you fast, and over time you bring them along at a pace that makes sense for their age, health, and readiness.
Most Orthodox families start introducing simple fasting practices around age seven or eight, what’s traditionally called the age of reason. Before that, kids can participate in easier ways. A five-year-old might give up a favorite snack on Wednesdays. A preschooler might help you make a card for someone who’s lonely, learning that fasting isn’t just about food. It’s about turning toward God and turning toward other people with open hands.
Start Where They Are
If you’ve got young children at home, don’t try to implement the full fasting rule for everyone all at once. You’ll make yourself crazy and teach your kids that Orthodoxy is about misery and arbitrary rules.
Instead, model it yourself. Fast as the Church asks. Go to services. Pray more. Give things away. Kids notice. They’ll ask why you’re not eating cheese or why you’re going to church on a Thursday night. That’s your opening. Tell them simply: we’re getting ready for Pascha, or we’re remembering that we need God, or we’re learning to say no to ourselves so we can say yes to Jesus. Don’t overthink the explanation. Kids are fine with straightforward answers.
Then let them try something small. Maybe your seven-year-old skips meat on Fridays during Lent. Maybe your four-year-old gives up a favorite cartoon for the week. The point isn’t perfection. It’s formation. You’re teaching them that we don’t just do whatever we want whenever we want it, that our bodies and our appetites can be offered to God, that the Church has a rhythm we follow together.
The Practical Stuff
Here’s what helps: plan your meals ahead during fasting seasons. If you’re scrambling at 5:30 p.m. to figure out what’s for dinner and everything in the pantry has cheese in it, you’ll give up. Make a big pot of lentil soup on Sunday. Keep pasta and marinara on hand. Learn three or four fasting meals your kids actually like. Peanut butter and jelly is fasting food. So is hummus. So are beans and rice with some hot sauce if your kids can handle it (and in Southeast Texas, they probably can).
Pack fasting lunches for school that don’t make your kid feel like a weirdo. If there’s a birthday party with pizza, let your six-year-old eat the pizza. You’re not raising a Pharisee. You’re raising a Christian.
When your kids are old enough to receive Communion, and in our tradition that’s from baptism, they’ll need to keep the Communion fast. For young children that’s usually an hour or so before Liturgy, not the full adult fast from midnight. Talk to your priest about what makes sense for your family. He’ll give you guidance that fits your actual life, not some theoretical ideal that works for nobody.
What You’re Really Teaching
Fasting with young children isn’t mainly about the food. It’s about learning that we’re part of something bigger than ourselves, that the Church keeps time differently than the world does, that we can do hard things with God’s help.
Some years your kids will do great. Other years your toddler will have a meltdown because there’s no milk in his cereal and you’ll give him the milk because you’re not a monster. That’s fine. The Church gives dispensations for the young, the sick, the pregnant, the nursing, anyone who needs them. We’re not keeping the law to earn points. We’re practicing a discipline that heals us and draws us closer to God.
Your job isn’t to make your kids into perfect fasters by age nine. It’s to show them that fasting is normal, that it’s part of how we love God, that it’s connected to prayer and almsgiving and the whole Christian life. When your eight-year-old complains that fasting is hard, you can say, “Yeah, it is. That’s kind of the point.” When your ten-year-old asks why we do this, you can talk about the desert fathers, about Jesus fasting in the wilderness, about how we’re getting ready to meet the Bridegroom.
St. Basil the Great said we should fast with joy, not with a miserable face. Let your kids see that. Make Lent special in your home, more prayer, more almsgiving, more time together, simpler food but somehow the house feels fuller. Then when the feast comes, celebrate it. Let them see that fasting leads somewhere, that it’s the path to Pascha, to the wedding feast, to joy.
Talk to your priest about your specific situation. He knows your family. He can help you figure out what’s reasonable for your kids this year, knowing they’ll grow into the practice more fully as they get older. And if you’re just starting out with all this yourself, go easy on everyone. You’re learning together.
