Should I Encourage My Children to Pray?

I will usually pray and thank God for His blessings when we are seated at the dinner table. Often, though, I will ask if any one of my four children would like to thank God for the food that we are about to eat. One will usually speak up and say that they would like to do it. I will also often encourage them to pray at bedtime – especially my two youngest boys.

My question is this: Is there any point in them doing that prior to their regeneration and salvation? If there is no such thing as an age of accountability (as I believe, which means that my four kids were conceived in sin, born guilty and sinful, and are currently considered unrighteous before a just and holy God), then does God even hear their prayers?

Consider this passage:

Behold, the LORD’S hand is not so short That it cannot save; Nor is His ear so dull That it cannot hear. But your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God, And your sins have hidden His face from you so that He does not hear. – Is. 59:1-2

Does God hear the prayers of the unregenerate reprobate?

Does God hear the prayers of the unregenerate elect?