Many of us grew up journaling and if we don’t still have our childhood journals, there is probably a part of us that has carried memories from our journaling experience along with us throughout the years.

Journaling is a good habit and one that can serve more than one purpose. Whether one is the creative sort who likes to jot down ideas for further investigation at a later date, or someone who just likes to recount the day’s events or catalog their feelings, journaling is a healthy writing habit.

Suggesting journaling to your daughter could lead to a hobby you can share together. Even if you are keeping a private journal, the act of formulating journaling activities or shopping for the right pen and journal to fill with your thoughts can be a bonding experience.

Some ideas to go over with your daughter about journaling would be the following:

- What type of journaling would you be interested in doing? Ideas for journaling would be a personal diary, reflecting on favorite activities (cooking, sports etc.), a scrapbook or photographic journal or a freeform creative writing journal either from scratch or with writing prompts. A combination of any of the above could also help keep the activity from encountering a writer’s block.

- Will it be a private journal? Or would your daughter like to share her creativity. It may make her happy to share a scrapbook or other artistic type of journal.

- Is there a time commitment she’d like to follow or a habit of picking a certain time of day to write during?

- Would she rather journal on the computer? Many enjoy computer journaling as well as handwritten journaling.

There are no real instructions to journaling except to keep it simple. Don’t add pressure to her journaling endeavor. To support her even if it is not exactly a team sport, you could journal at the same time as your daughter and pick a time during the week to share ideas or do a writing prompt together.

To get you and your daughter started, here are some wonderful websites to find additional information on journaling for kids and to keep everyone’s ideas flowing.

Journaling: A Perfect Way to Enhance Your Child’s Literary Skills by Day Penaflor

Gifts in a Jar: Child’s Journal Jar

Journal Writing by Barbara J. Feldman of Surfing the Net with Kids

Personal Journaling for Kids from Momscape

Helping Children Handle Deployment – Part II, a site that also includes coping information for kids whose parents have been deployed and other journaling links including A Special Deployment Journal for Kids.

Creative Journaling: The Secret to Getting Kids to Journal from Journal Buddies, this site also includes the article Writing Prompts for Kids: Free Teacher Resources with a link to a downloadable free e-book called 519 Journal Writing Prompts by Jill Schoenberg, the author and creator of the award-winning Journal Buddies Self-Esteem Building Journals for Kids.

And visit our link below to BellaOnline’s Journaling site where you’ll find journaling tips and prompts as well.