If you do, great! If you don’t, here you go.
In October 2010, the Des Moines, Iowa area hosted the Christ Our Life Conference. One of the esteemed speakers was Francis Cardinal Arinze who spoke about living out the faith well in order to pass it onto our children. In his characteristic rich Nigerian accent, he posed the following question to the faithful gathered: “Mama…Papa…Why you don’t bless your children when they go to school in the morning?”
Do you bless your children before leaving the home throughout the day? Before going to bed each evening? I certainly run hot and cold with the practice and was recently reminded of the importance of doing so while reading about the Feast of the Holy Innocents.
From the Catholic Household Blessings and Prayers, here are some simple yet effective blessings for you to use.
Daily Blessings of a Child
One of the following short blessings may be said by the parent at various times, such as when a child is going to play or to school, but especially when the child is going to bed each night. The parent makes the sign of the cross on the child’s forehead or heart and says one of the following blessings:
- May God bless you.
- May God keep you safe.
- God be with you.
- God be in your heart.
- May God bless and protect you.
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December 29th, 2011 
Thanks for the reminder! I am often hit or miss with this practice but I find bedtime blessings to be the easiest for me to remember because we aren’t in the rush of the day. My children love when I bless them.
I love this reminder – it doesn’t take but a few moments. I like to say the St Michael prayer over our little ones as well.
I have blessed my kids with holy water every night since they were very little. I always say the same blessing too. I keep wondering if they’ll ask me not to do it one day now that they’re getting older but they never do. I really think they like it. In fact, at times when I ran out of the holy water and just blessed them “dry,” they asked for a “real” blessing.
[...] Blessings can be done simply with a sign of the cross, holy water, and words of your own choosing. However, there are online prayers for a father’s blessings if you wish. Some of these are explained at Catholic Culture (such as here) and The Practicing Catholic. [...]