A Prayer for Respecting Children

“We come to you in gratitude for the privilege and responsibility of bringing up children, with all their capacity for wonder and delight. We come to you also in sorrow that often our children receive so much less from us than they deserve, even to the point of abuse. We pray that you will move in the hearts and minds of parents, teachers, lawmakers and all people everywhere with an urgent desire for respect for our children and peace for our families. Give us humility to learn better ways than the ways of violence, and more creative paths than those of power. For what we have received in our children make us truly thankful and for what we have got wrong with our children make us truly penitent.”

– John Pritchard, Bishop of Oxford