Connect With Your Kids Through Guided Journals
We are homeschooling our 7-year-old son this year, and, as far as I’m concerned, as long as he is reading, writing, and playing, he’s getting exactly what he needs for a 7-year-old. The reading comes easy. We’ve read to him every day of his life and now he stays up late into the night reading his own books. But writing, of course, is an entirely different habit.
I think that having the ability to organize your own thoughts and put them to paper is both immensely useful and rewarding. I remember fondly a high school class where our teacher had us free write for the first 10 minutes of class every day. I quickly learned to look forward to those 10 minutes, because it always cleared my mind in a similar fashion to meditation.
I very much want our kids to make a habit of writing for their own pleasure - primarily because of the rewards for the mind, but also because of the simple fact that I want them to enjoy the benefits of having handwriting that other humans can read. That’s not too much to ask, right?
So basically we’re homeschooling our son and I want him to write more. But I also want it to be fun and meaningful. As a parent and a teacher, that is the state of mind I was in when we got our hands on a stack of keepsake journals from Katie Clemons and Sourcebooks. The journals are actually designed to be worked on collaboratively with your kids. And I honestly had no idea that they’d be exactly what I was looking for in more ways than one.
Disclosure: We received these journals from the publisher with no expectation of a review. All thoughts and opinions are our own. Some of the links in this article are affiliate links that will lead you to view the books’ listings on Amazon.com.
I had never considered the possibility of a guided journal before. I wrote in journals off and on as a child, but I never had a journal with prompts in it. But these journals are about so much more than clearing your head and storing memories, these are collaborative keepsake journals with connection and bonding with family at their core. And collaborating on a journal is much different than keeping your own. So when my son and I sit down to journal together - having the prompts is actually vital for getting us on the same page and much appreciated.
The journal that’s designed to be used between a father and son is called Between Dad and Me, and my son and I truly love it. At the same time, he’s also working on Between Mom and Me with his mom. When we write in it, we usually sit together and pass the book back and forth - but you can definitely take your time with your answers throughout the day and hand the book off whenever you want. And the books truly foster communication, because basically every entry is followed by a chance for the other person to respond.
Our son is particularly fond of the rules you get to set at the beginning of both books - especially the part for strangers about “what to do if you find this book”. Read it? Sell it? Destroy it? Turn it into a movie? It’s an important first decision to make together, and he gets a kick out of it.
The prompts are very thoughtful and well-designed for pulling meaningful messages out of your head. Even if you’re the nicest parent in the world and you tell your kids you love them every day, there simply aren’t many occasions in life to share an essay with your kid about why they make you proud. In many ways it’s very similar to writing thoughtful letters to your loved ones every day - along with the added bonus of having prompts to bring up random topics and help you actually get to know each other better.
A few of my favorite prompts in the book are:
I’m proud to be your dad because:
Dear Dad, Tell me about a time when you realized you made a mistake.:
Dear Son, Do you ever feel different from everyone else?:
Dear Son, What do you think it means to be a man?
Finding a good way to structure our writing practice and getting our son to put pencil to paper a little more often was the original intention of using these journals, but the bonding time is undoubtedly the gigantic pleasant surprise. This is truly meaningful time spent together, and it’s a way to say words that simply aren’t said often enough - if ever. And it’s hard to put into words how I can tell how much writing in the book together means to our son, but I can just tell.
He always gives me a big hug or kiss right after reading something I write in our book, and he tells me he loves me. For reference, sometimes our son says “I love you” when he calls our name from the other room but forgets what he wanted to say. And other times he says “I love you” just to reciprocate our “I love you”. But after we write together in these journals, without fail, he hugs me and says “I love you” in that spontaneous, heartfelt way with a big smile on his face that’s very genuine and special.
Katie Clemons has 5 collaborative journals right now: Between Mom and Me (mother/son), Between Dad and Me (father/son), Love, Mom and Me (mother/daughter), Love, Dad and Me ( father/daughter), and a shared gratitude journal called We Are So Thankful. My wife and I both look forward to the time when our 3-year-old daughter is old enough to do the daughter journals with us, and the next journal for our son will undoubtedly be Clemons’ solo guided journal Time Capsule - after we finish ours.
Our kids have developed a love for reading by being read to every night - and spending quality time with their family to associate those positive feelings with books. In much the same way I want them to develop their love for writing. It seems only logical that a love for writing can and should be developed through meaningful and positive experiences with people you love - as opposed to the writing exercises and essays from school that turn writing into a chore.
So whether your primary goal is to practice handwriting skills or to connect with your kids, these keepsake journals are an amazing place to start. Without a doubt they are showing our son how fun and meaningful writing can be. And I honestly believe they could be the kickoff point that makes writing for pleasure a part of our kids’ lives.
And let’s not forget perhaps the very coolest part. They are called keepsake journals for a good reason, and I can’t imagine how amazing it’s going to be to pull them out in 20 or 30 years and rediscover the things that we wrote back and forth with our kids. You know I’m a big sucker for nostalgia, and these journals are going to be cherished for a long time.
Do you or your kids keep journals? Have you ever worked on one together? Have you tried one of Katie Clemons’ journals? Let us know in the comments!
