You probably won’t. Not perfectly, anyway. But that’s not actually the point.
Your kids are already full members of the Church. They were baptized, chrismated, and given Holy Communion, likely before they could walk. The Orthodox Church doesn’t have a “junior membership” category. They’re Orthodox Christians who happen to be small, and they belong in the nave with the rest of us.
That’s the theology. Now for the reality: children glorify God by being children. A three-year-old squirming during the Gospel reading is still a three-year-old Christian standing in the presence of God. We’re not asking them to become tiny adults. We’re forming them into people who know that Sunday morning means standing before the Holy Trinity with their church family.
Start at Home
If your house doesn’t have icons, get some. Kids learn to venerate icons at home before they understand what they’re doing in church. Let them see you cross yourself. Let them watch you kiss the icon of Christ in your bedroom. They’ll imitate you because that’s what children do.
Talk about the saints like they’re family friends. “St. Nicholas loved Jesus so much that he gave away all his money to help people.” Keep it concrete. Read them the lives of the saints at bedtime instead of another book about talking animals. The Paterikon for Kids series works well for this.
And here’s the thing nobody tells you: the Divine Liturgy makes more sense to children than you think. It’s a feast for the senses. Incense, bells, candles, kissing things, the priest disappearing behind the iconostasis. Kids don’t need to understand the theology of the Eucharistic prayer to know something important is happening.
What to Expect (and When)
Babies glorify God by existing. That’s it. If your infant is fussy, you might step out briefly, but don’t feel like you need to keep them silent for 90 minutes. Impossible standard.
Toddlers can learn to kiss icons, make the sign of the cross (sort of), and stand still for short periods. Give them a small icon to hold. Some parents bring a play censer. The goal isn’t perfect behavior, it’s helping them participate at their level.
By four or five, kids can start to track the service. They should be present for the Gospel reading, the Great Entrance, and the consecration of the Gifts. These aren’t times to be in the parish hall or the bathroom. If you need to take them out because they’re melting down, fine. But don’t make leaving a habit during the important parts.
Older kids and teens should be standing with you, following along, receiving Communion with reverence. If they’re treating the chalice like a snack station, something’s wrong. Communion is a privilege, not a right. Better to skip it than to approach carelessly.
The Hard Part
You have to model what you want them to learn. If you’re checking your phone during the epistle reading, they notice. If you’re chatting with your friend during the homily, they notice. If you treat church like an obligation you’re trying to get through, they’ll absorb that too.
This is harder than it sounds, especially if you work rotating shifts at one of the plants and you’re exhausted on Sunday morning. I get it. Southeast Texas schedules don’t always cooperate with liturgical life. But kids are watching to see if this matters to you.
Some practical things: arrive early enough that you’re not stressed. Stand toward the front if you can, kids behave better when they can see what’s happening. Bring one quiet item for emergencies (a small icon, a board book about the saints), but don’t turn the pew into a toy store. And after Liturgy, talk about what happened. “Did you see Father cense the icons? That’s our prayers going up to heaven like smoke.”
What the Parish Expects
Orthodox parishes are child-friendly by nature. When your child was baptized, the whole congregation promised to help raise them in the faith. That means we’re all sacrificing some quiet for the sake of forming the next generation. An occasional squeal during the cherubic hymn isn’t a crisis.
But there’s a difference between normal kid noises and chaos. If your child is screaming or running laps around the tetrapod, yes, take them out for a minute. Teach them that church is different from the grocery store. We use our inside voices. We don’t climb on things. Basic civilization applies.
The goal isn’t to make your kids sit like statues. It’s to form them into people who know how to stand in God’s presence, who recognize the smell of incense as the smell of home, who can’t imagine Sunday without the Liturgy. That takes years. You’re not going to nail it by Pascha.
Be patient with them. Be patient with yourself. And remember that every parent in that nave has been where you are, including the ones whose teenagers now serve in the altar. We’ve all had that moment of walking out with a screaming two-year-old, wondering if we should just stay home. Don’t. Keep coming. This is how it works.
