Parents, do you praying for your children? Do you pray with them? In his book originally published in 1699, the Puritan Cotton Mather has some advice that is very applicable hundreds of years later…
Parents, pray with your children, as well as for them. Family prayer must be maintained by all those parents, that would not have their children miss out on salvation, and that would not have the damnation of their children horribly fall upon themselves. Man, your family is a pagan family, if it be a prayerless family….
But, besides your family prayers, oh, parents, why should you not now and then, take one capable child after another, alone before the Lord? Carry the child with you, into your secret chambers; make the child kneel down by you, while you present it unto the Lord, and implore His blessing upon it. Let the child, hear the groans, and see the tears, and be a witness of the agonies, wherewith you are travailing for the salvation of it. The children will never forget what you do; it will have a marvelous force upon them.
From Cotton Mather in The Well-Ordered Family.