Do you journal your kid's life? Too busy to keep a journal? I want to suggest that you are too busy NOT to journal. Life goes by in such a whirl, our memories just can't keep up. All those neat things that happened just last week have quickly become your past, lost in all that white noise of our fast-paced, harried lifestyles. Keep a journal and sometime way out there in your kid's future, your grown child will be able to pull a diary down from a dusty shelf and relive an experience, even see connections and patterns to his adulthood and feel your presence.
Here's one incident I'll relive many years down the road: I was chaperoning my son's 5th grade field trip and at snack time, I saw him trade up the snack I packed him, fruit leather, for a bag of Doritos. I found out that he had been trading the snacks I give him for fancier stuff for a while.
Tips for journaling your kid's life:
- You don't need to have perfect handwriting. Look at mine, and that was on a good day. I've scribbled worse in a hurry. If it's legible, it's good enough.
- Write about the child, not the event. I could write about the 5th Grade field trip - where we went, where we had lunch, how many kids were there, but isn't it more interesting to write about my discovery of this young trader?
- Keep it short and sustainable. Better to write frequently, than to write one long journal entry once a year. Look for the Big thing in the little things. Journaling actually helps you be a better observer, you see things with your heart. Write a paragraph, write a sentence, don't feel pressured to write detailed, complete entries or it will become yet another 'chore' in your busy day.
