Including your children in your craft

I have been practicing witchcraft for about 7 years now. My son Jack loves to practice right along with me. This makes my heart happy. I’ve always given my children free choice to practice “how” they want and believe “what” they want. They are exposed to many different beliefs and traditions. They have friends and relatives from many different backgrounds and I think this diversity is great. I’ve always wanted them to be open minded and express themselves how they see fit. I’ve known that Jack was an old soul every since he started talking. He’s told me about his past lives and his dreams of “living in the wild” some day. (His way of saying he wants to live off grid). So every time I do a spell or charge crystals or cleanse my house, I include him. I love watching him come up with his own rituals as well.

A few years back I found myself scouring Pinterest for any ideas of what to do with your pagan family. I started to feel like my kids had exposure to all these other religions and practices, from school, family and friends, but they weren’t really exposed to the pagan side of things. So I make sure to involve them as much as possible now, if they want to that is, they’ve Always had the choice. Anyway, on Pinterest I came across this adorable mealtime blessing that we say before every meal. It’s pretty much thanking the earth and sun for providing for us and passing on blessings to the world. (Disclaimer: I cannot remember who posted this or I would give give them credit. We did not come up with this on our own, I just thought it was sufficient for our family and easy for the kids to remember)

We decided to, as a family, make a painting of the prayer and hang it above the table where we eat. We did and it hung there for about 3 years. Unfortunately we lost our home to a fire in January of this year. We lost a lot of things but our family is intact. We went through quite a bit before we finally settled down in our new place. Through this whole time, Jack still made sure we said the prayer before every meal. No matter where we were. We said it in restaurants, in our hotel room, in the car (if we went through a drive-thru) and even at family members houses, whether they were pagan or not. (He was also very respectable and waited patiently for these family members to say their own blessings if they so chose)

Now that we are settled into our new permanent residence, Jack still saying the prayer never failing, he decided that we needed to remake our painting for the dining room. So we did! And you know what? It felt so good to be doing something with him again. I admit that I was so focused on making sure everything was taken care of and that my children were fed and were warm and continued going to school, that i didn’t practice any self care. I stopped meditating, missed holiday celebrations, barely picked up my book of shadows other than to display it on my alter. But I was slowly reminded every evening at dinner that even though we may be going through some stuff and may stray from our path from time to time, that the Gods will never abandon us and they are still there when we need them. Now that summer vacation has started, and everything is taken care of from the fire, I have been practicing again. I started this blog, and communicate with my tarot deck nearly every day. But I haven’t much include my family like I used to. I have realized however that because of the way I’ve raised my children, with open minds and open hearts, this family involvement was never really missing. Encourage your children to stand strong in what they believe in but to also respect the beliefs of others. We live in a truely diverse world and what better way is there to prepare our children for it than true honesty and love? Blessed Be All!