Journaling for Kids : 10 Reasons Why Your Child needs a Journal
One of the best way to encourage your child’s emotional intelligence, confidence and connection with you is to give them a Journal to write in . In this post, we talk about Journaling for Kids – why your child needs a journal and how to get started with them!
I gave my children their own notebooks from when they were very little. Little did I know that there were actually great benefit to it!
If you have a preschooler who hates writing or even an older school going child who is bad with their spellings, or maybe you want your child to express themselves better, Journalling is a great way to do it.
Journaling for kids is a fun way to record memories
When my eldest was born, I bought a diary to record his day to day activities and milestones. Two years later, by the time I had my second child, he was already scribbling into my notebooks. So, in order to save my stuff, I gave him his own diary.
It was the best decision ever. This diary was how I taught my son to read and write. We doodled nursery rhymes, played tic tac toe and more…
When my eldest daughter turned one, I gave her her own diary. I treasure her scribbles to this day although we lost her when she was just 14 months old.
I bought a doodle book for my third child when she was 3 years old. We were road tripping through America at that time. It was so hard for me to entertain a two year old and a three year old in their car seats for hours while we drove on from place to place. So, I would make simple shapes with a dry erase pen in her book and she would copy it. One month later, when she started kindergarten, her teacher was amazed how good her drawing was! Also, she loved to read and write.
My youngest child took on the habit from her sister and soon we had two little preschoolers who had good handwriting and amazing imagination. They wrote in two languages, entertained themselves on their own and would observe minute details in about everything!
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Journaling Prompts for Kids
Whether your choose to give your child ideas to journal on or you leave it to their imagination, journaling can be lots of fun!
A few years ago, at the beginning of Summer, I bought a long notebook for my children. We called it our Adventure notebooks. I want them to record all the things they did that Summer.
They scribbled, drew, practiced writing and copied ideas from everyone and everything around them! The book finished much before the Summer ended so we went on to buy another notebook for them. Since then, We’ve kept on writing Journals.
If you have been following my journey on Instagram, you may have seen the fun we had.
I gave them their books on the day we were making a road trip to Yanbu. They drew maps, were entertained all through the five day trip.
In Ramadan, we did the A-Z of Akhlaaq series on it and then when I went on my vacation to India, they chose to take nothing but these notebooks and a stationary pouch!
They took their journals everywhere they went. From shopping trips to long car trips, even on flight when we travelled to India! The book stayed in their tote while we went grocery shopping and then were picked up promptly to scribble what they bought at the store.
There were maps drawn and misspelled names of towns when we drove out of town…
There were stories with punctuations and lists of family words every few pages. I have lots of memories of what my girls thought at that age.
I was looking through their books yesterday and oh my Heart! <3 the memories the children have doodled and the stories they have written, no doubt I will treasure these for years to come!
10 reasons why your child needs a journal.
If you are still in doubts about why kids need journaling, here are ten reasons.
- Journaling is the best way to grow kids who love to draw and write. It is an easy way to help them fall in love with books and writing.
- The stories they tell now, they won’t say an year from now. Give them their own space to draw or write them!
- They are recording their view of the world in those notebooks! I love looking at their doodling. Sometimes they will tell me what they have drawn. It is mind blowing how they look at things!
- It is a super easy way to connect with their thoughts and feelings. A journal may or may not be a diary. I gave my eldest his own diary when he was 7 year old. We have a Mommy and Me Journal too. Last Summer we aued the Summer Fun Journal to record our adventures. The next year our book was called the ‘Best Year Yet’ Journal. Now he bought a sturdy thick diary and calls it his Book of Inventions. I am a notebook lover and somehow unintentionally I think I passed on that love to my kids too. There is a different conversation in each of their books. Their daily record goes into the diary, if they have something worrying them it goes into the Mommy and Me notebook but Journaling is all that fun stuff that you want to do.
- Journaling encourages their creativity and imagination. Journaling for kids is like giving them their own playground! Over the years I have seen my son use his notebooks for science experiments, as writing prompts, to draw, to write stories, record observations, make travelogues and what not. It’s the best form of kids activities.
- Writing those diaries improves their confidence and self reliance. It helps them practice a growth mindset.
- Journaling definitely helps them focus. It takes patience, perseverance, practice and the ability to turn their thoughts or imagination to words and drawings. Writing their thoughts help them train their mind to focus at the task at hand.
- Fosters the love of reading. I am still testing this idea if it was the journal that got my kids interested in reading or if it was the books that make them want to write. Whatever it is, there is definitely a connection between reading and wanting to write! Check out this example!
- They will need less toys. Okay.. So they will want more and more stationary but that’s fine, I say! I did buy my children a new set of coloring pencils, a water paint palette and some makers.
- It’s screen free!! This should be number one reason why I love my kids’ journals. They will gladly pick up their journals at home or while traveling because they have to ‘record’ their observations. Journaling can help children with their gaming addiction too.
Case Study about how Journaling helps children with screen addiction.
10 years ago, I treated a child who had dropped out of school due to bullying and screen time addiction. The tool that finally helped him and his mom was this: a doodle pad and pencil. He started taking interest in Manga Art and slowly decreased the amount of time he spent online or in front of a TV. His mother was able to connect with him by taking interest in his art.
He did not have words to express his emotions but he could draw. His art was enough to help his mom get through to him. If you have a child who is favoring screens over people, help him/her start a journal.
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