Your Kids Will Thank You for Keeping a Journal!

I’m being serious and I’ll tell you why. So fair warning, this post may contain some triggers, but it is something that everyone needs to know.

When I was around 16 years old, my mom passed away from a brain tumor. It was devastating for me as you can imagine. Losing your mom at any age is not a fun experience, but it’s especially hard for a teenage girl who is trying to figure out her own life.

So fast forward many years, I was reading her journal because I just became a mom and I wanted to see if she had any insights on how she raised me and my siblings. There wasn’t much because she had a lot of kids and was busy all the time! But what I did find has been life changing for me. So me and my mom had a similar experience when we were in our early 20s where we each had a friend die by suicide. That was a tragic event in my life and I always knew that it had happen to one of my mom’s friends, but I had never really thought about it. So as I was reading her journal I came across where she had talked about her experience and it was eye opening for me. I read about her struggles, how she felt about death and what she did after to become a better person. It helped me see how my own experience changed my life as well and how we can take a super negative and challenging event and turn it around to help others who have had the same experience.

Leaving something for posterity is a big reason why people journaled a lot back in the old days and why people still journal to this day. I feel that there isn’t such a big push to journal these days, but I think it is so important even now to journal about our every day lives and our thoughts and feelings. There are so many different ways to journal as well.

Traditional journaling: Just grab a journal from Barnes or Noble or many grocery stores and start writing.
Video journaling: Film yourself every day talking about your day and save it on your computer or a hard drive.
Bullet journaling: It’s a planner, a to-do list, and diary all rolled into one!
Gratitude journaling: Write down things you are grateful for that day and talk about why. This way of journaling has actually shown to boost mood and ease anxiety.
Art journaling: Where you combine your art or doodles with your written word. I also talk a little more about this in my post about journaling with your kids. You can read it here.
One Line a Day journaling: This is my personal favorite especially for those busy days!
Prompt journaling: Buy a journal with prompts on the pages or look up prompts on the internet for you to write about.

So now that you have some ideas to get you started on journaling what are you waiting for?

Have a blessed day!