I can't make my 3 and 4 year old to sit still during Prayer time, especially the Rosary. They fidget with their legs and hands, make noises, even stand on their heads! Needless to say, it is very annoying and makes it hard to concentrate. The only adult around is me (mother).

What can I do so they learn how to sit still?

I can't make my 3 and 4 year old to sit still during Prayer time, especially the Rosary. They fidget with their legs and hands, make noises, even stand on their heads! Needless to say, it is very annoying and makes it hard to concentrate. The only adult around is me (mother).

What can I do so they learn how to sit still?

It seems to me that some children are simply more physically restless, and I don't know why.

I have a sister-in-law whose daughters would not sit still while she tried to trim their hair.  She was afraid they might get poked with scissors especially while getting their bangs trimmed.  She asked me if I had any problem getting my daughter's hair trimmed evenly, and I thought she meant how to gauge the length of hair, so I started to explain how to hold the hair out straight away from the scalp and use a reference length, but she interrupted me and said, "I just wanted to know if she sits still."

I know one father who managed to keep his daughter still for reading time, by hugging her tenderly as he read to her.  Maybe that might work for prayers, too?

It should be all right to try different ideas, but one that might be problematic is to offer some kind of reward for sitting still, because then they might get into the habit of thinking while prayers are being said they're going to get a prize afterwards, which could induce a habit of easily being distracted from the prayers.  

Since you mention there are two of them, and they're close in age, they might be competing with each other.  You could try having two prayer times, one for each of them, while the one left out is minded by a helper.  Maybe having time alone with you will give them an incentive to calm down.  Or putting one on each side of you might help, so they can't see each other.  Try positive reinforcement by praising them for sitting nicely when they do.  

We live in an age where children see all kinds of things on TV or the Internet or movies that can give them ideas of how other children behave, and show business has been pushing images of hyperactive children for many years.  They want images of kids leaping all over the place because it makes for something to see on the screen (more activity to watch than a bunch of children sitting quietly!), so they produce what sells.

One last thought is it might be a spiritual problem, and you could ask the help of a priest.  Maybe there is some kind of blessing he can use.  If they get fidgety near first class relics of the saints, that would be something to bring to the table with the priest!

You didn't mention if they've been baptized.  If not, the traditional ceremony includes an exorcism, so if you missed out on that feature, maybe the priest could help out by doing a conditional Baptism or else just the omitted parts, I don't know.

When I went to Queen of Angels SSPX parish in Arcadia CA some years ago, I was amazed to see all the young children sitting completely still while a visiting priest gave a fairly long speech in the auditorium.  I mentioned this to some non-parishioners at a later time and I was surprised again when one woman suggested that I'd be unlikely to approve of the methods that parish used to accomplish that.  I never did find out what she meant.  But all in all, the behavior of those schoolchildren even in later grades was very impressive.  

So I would suggest getting in touch with a traditional priest in this matter, because the new church priests don't seem to think it's important for children to behave well, IMHO.

I must be too easy going, I don't sweat it until they reach Communion age then I expect them to be still during the Rosary.  During Mass I expect them to sit still from about 4 upwards but I let the small fidgety stuff slide, like ruffling through my missal or imaginary playing with their hands.
After their First Communion its time to knuckle down.

Even adults fidget when praying the rosary! It's normal. We humans are physical creatures; we're not angels, pure intellects; we are physical body and soul. Although prayer is an act of reason (prayer, oratio is "spoken reason;" oratio = lit. "reason (ratio of the mouth oris"), of the intellect, the body plays a very important role in serving the intellect. Normally, all of our knowledge comes through our five senses, even our knowledge of spiritual things, hence the importance and necessity of the sacraments, which are physical signs of spiritual realities.

Even non-Catholics know how physical the supreme prayer of the Church, Holy Mass, is: how much kneeling, sitting, standing there is! I've even heard someone describe it as calisthenics.

Also, cf. St. Thomas's question "Whether attention is a necessary condition of prayer?"