The one rule: warmth before rules

Children fall in love with what their parents visibly love; they merely comply with what their parents enforce. The Prophet ﷺ, the most devoted worshipper alive, shortened the congregational prayer when a baby cried, carried his granddaughter on his shoulder during salah, and let his grandsons climb his back in sujud, and he told parents: no father gives his child anything better than good character. If your children see prayer as the thing that makes their home gentle, you have done most of the job; if they see it as the thing they get shouted at about, no curriculum below will save it.

Age by age

• 0-4 · Atmosphere: they absorb sound and mood. Bismillah before food, the bedtime du'a as ritual, Quran recitation as household background, and Eid as pure magic. Nothing is "taught"; everything is caught.
• 5-6 · First words: Al-Fatiha line by line (children this age memorise absurdly fast), the shahada explained as "who made everything?", copying your prayer movements for fun beside you: never corrected harshly, always welcomed on the mat.
• 7-9 · The prayer years: the Prophet ﷺ set seven as the age to teach salah in earnest. Teach wudu as a grown-up privilege, one prayer a day consistently before demanding five, and the why with the what ("we thank the One who gave us everything"). Story time becomes the prophets: Yusuf and Yunus were made for bedtime.
• 10-12 · Ownership: all five prayers as the norm, first half-day fasts building to a first full Ramadan day (make it an event: their chosen iftar, the family's applause), their own Quran progress, and their own charity money to give. Start answering "why" questions with real answers; this site's questions pages read aloud fine.
• Teens · Reasons and belonging: the stakes change: identity, peers, and the internet's version of Islam all arrive. Give them the intellectual case (you converted on reasons; hand them down, including the hard questions, before hostile strangers hand them the objections without the answers), a mosque youth group or Muslim friends (belonging out-argues everything), and room to ask anything at your table without shock. A teen who can ask you about evolution and hijab will not need Reddit to father them.

Islam at school

• Talk to the school early about halal lunch options, prayer space for older kids (schools are usually accommodating once asked), Ramadan (younger children fast partially or not at all; teachers should know either way), and Eid absence, flagged at term start.
• Arm them lightly for questions: a child who can say "we don't eat pork, like some of my friends don't eat other things" with a shrug is fine. Rehearse the shrug, not a sermon.
• If they're the only Muslim in the room, twin their identity with pride sources: the algebra-and-coffee page was half-written for exactly this child, and so were the famous Muslims.

For the convert parent specifically

Your children may have non-Muslim grandparents they adore; good. Islam commands honouring those ties, and children raised watching you love your non-Muslim mother learn something about the religion no lesson teaches. Don't manufacture conflict around Christmas visits and birthday cakes; scholars broadly distinguish between attending family with love and adopting worship, and a child secure in their own Eid can watch grandma's tree without theological crisis, especially when your Eid game is strong (decorations, gifts, absurd breakfast: out-sparkle everything).

And if you're learning the religion alongside them, say so, out loud: "let's find out together" raises better believers than pretended omniscience. A house where the parents are visibly still growing toward God is the most honest Islamic education there is. "Our Lord, grant us from our spouses and offspring comfort to our eyes, and make us an example for the righteous." (25:74)