5 Ways Journal Writing Benefits Children
Journal writing benefits children by fostering self-expression, enhancing writing skills, and promoting emotional well-being. Through regular journaling, children learn to articulate their thoughts and feelings, which strengthens their ability to communicate clearly and reflectively. This process also supports writing fluency and vocabulary growth as they practice writing in an open-ended format without the pressure of grades or corrections.
Here are some journal writing prompts for children to answer available in our Canva library.
Emotionally, journals serve as a safe space for children to process experiences, work through challenges, and celebrate achievements, which can boost self-confidence and resilience. Over time, journaling can become a valuable habit that encourages mindfulness, creativity, and self-discovery.
Journaling and Mental Health
Journal writing is closely connected to our mental health as research shows that expressing thoughts can indicate our state of mental health.
Parents and their children can use this checklist guide as a means to keep emotions in check when it comes to their mental health.
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What is a Journal?
A journal is a record of a person’s personal reflections on topics. A journal is sometimes referred to as a diary.
However, a diary is often seen as a private collection of information to share with no one, and journals while personal, may often times be read in front of others, such as siblings and family members, because the author looks to share the information.
Journal Writing – with Promptly Journals
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In the busy world of parenting, where each moment seems to pass in the blink of an eye, the desire to capture and cherish the precious memories becomes paramount.
Promptly Journals have quickly emerged as a beloved choice among parents seeking a meaningful and efficient way to document the journey of parenthood.
In this fast-paced era, where time is a luxury, Promptly Journals offer a unique and cherished avenue for parents to chronicle the milestones, emotions, and fleeting moments that define the beautiful tapestry of family life.
They offer a variety of journal types that parents may benefit from. One particular journal type that they can benefit from is the Self-Love journals.
Parenting is not easy and often times situations can be hard to deal with. Writing in these types of journals can help parents take moments to remember how taking care of oneself is very important.
Before we as parents can take of others, we need to take care of ourselves.
Journal Writing and Children
When parents encourage their children to write down their emotions, it can help deal with negative emotions such as anxiety.
Promptly Journals now offers journals that can help calm anxiety in children. Getting children in the habit of writing in journal may benefit them in the classroom as well – since writing can help with our critical thinking skills and communication skills.
Visit the Promptly Journals website to explore even more styles of journals available for parents and children.
My personal favorite, other than the self-love, is the travel journal. The traveling teacher seems to be a good idea.
5 Benefits to Journal Writing
We now look at five benefits journal writing can bring to homeschooling students.
I. Improves Mental Health
Being able to hold a book in your hand brings our sense of touch into our mind. The sense of touch is important as it connects with mental health.
Just as holding an e-book doesn’t give the same sense of feeling as holding a book when you read, typing on the keyboard just doesn’t give the same sense of emotions as writing something down on paper does.
That is why, no matter how wonderful and easy technology makes our lives, there are just something things that need to rely more on our human senses to keep our mental health and well-being alive and in good health.
Our senses play an important role when it comes to mental health. In holding a pen to paper, our sense of touch comes alive and so does our sense of sight when we write.
In writing about things we love and care about, we bring happiness into our mind. Children may believe more in their own happiness if they give themselves time to connect their emotions through the use of their senses to write things down.
In writing down their own personal thoughts for the future, they may be inspired to direct some of that energy into organizing and managing their time to achieve their personal goals.
II. Helps With Achieving Goals
In making the transition to online learning during the COVID pandemic year of 2020, many children found they were struggling with meeting their academic goals.
Journal writing may be seen as an outlet for keeping track of personal goals, while also giving yourself some personal words of encouragement.
Seeing a personal goal or a “to-do” list written down on paper may motivate you more to accomplish that goal or to get that list done!
Journals are a great tool to have when organizing study plans, managing study time, or writing down goals for the future.
What makes a journal different than an agenda then?
In a journal you can give yourself feedback on how things went! Giving feedback on events that happened is a good way to build memory skills.
Journal writing connects emotions to words, and certain words can also help with memory retention.
So yes, keep reading.
III. Improves Memory Skills
This really shouldn’t come as a surprise since the events we often remember the most are closely connected to our emotions.
Writing about important events allows us to remember important details that we may be excited to share with others, such as birthdays, holidays, weddings, or the birth of a child or sibling.
Remembering important details is an essential part of learning. Often times children who are able to remember details about events are able to write them down in a way as to keep others excited to hear about what the have to say.
So in improving their memory skills, chilren will also improve on their written and oral communication skills.
With improved communication skills that can only mean that their level of creativity in journal writing can only continue to inspire and impress themselves and those around them!
IV. Inspires Creativity
Creativity in journal writing comes in all different ways one can express themselves.
You can choose a journal to record a special event or time in your life, or you could use a travel journal to record that trip you plan to take in the coming year!
Or you could just use a journal with a no specific reason other than you – and who is more important than you?
Journal writing is meant to give a person freedoom over their thoughts, emotions, and ideas and so there isn’t one way to keep a journal!
If you like using your journal to write down ideas, write them down so you don’t forget! If you are more of a visual person, why not include drawings in your journal as your own form of expression.
Travel Journal by Promply Jounals
But why does journal writing seem more closely connected to something girls would do, rather than boys?
While it is true that girls tend to enjoy communicating more when it comes to writing things down, boys can be just as creative in expressing their own ideas, thoughts, and emotions. Boys may prefer to draw instead of write and so they should be encouraged to journal write in their own way.
In building our creativity in all that we do we are benefiting our learning skills as you see through creativity we come to building the skills that help out most in life – which is our critical thinking skills.
V. Improves Critical Thinking Skills
Creativity leads to reducing anxiety and improves problem solving skills as part of critical thinking skills.
Journal writing gives children unique opportunities to show parents a look into their own thoughts, experiences, and ideas.
In being allowed the freedom to approach their journal writing in their own style, children feel more confident in approaching other subjects in their own unique way as well which allows for building and improving on their critical thinking skills.
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Related Topics
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- Parents Reflect on Education Policy in the Homeschool Classroom
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Final Thoughts…
Journal writing benefits children because it allows them the opportunity to express themselves in ways that may help them overcome stress or anxiety they may feel in school. Inside the homeschool classroom it benefits children because of the opportunity they have to share what they wrote with their parents and siblings. Outside the classroom it benefits them because of the time it gives them to reflect on their own thoughts, feelings, and emotions.
I hope you enjoyed reading this article and found it useful for believing in journal writing again, and how beneficial it can be for anyone who perfers to call themselves a student of learning.
Share Your Thoughts…
Leave us a comment below to let us know your thoughts on our ideas about how journal writing benefits students both inside and outside the classroom.
Excellent Article. Thanks for sharing
Thank you. Glad you enjoyed this article.