How Kids Benefit From Keeping A Journal – Moms.com

Kids have a lot of big emotions that they need to sort through in order to successfully navigate through childhood. Not only does the processing of these feelings help them to understand some emotions that they may have never experienced before but doing this can also help with seeing the point of view of others in their lives. And while working through emotions is necessary to remain mentally healthy, some kids do not have the desire to verbalize how they feel with others. As such, these kids would benefit from keeping a journal to write down everything they think and feel, sharing optional bits as they deem necessary along the way.

Journaling is an open-ended way that helps kids to work through emotions on paper that perhaps feel too jumbled to work through in the mind alone. By doing this, according to Scholastic, kids are able to process their thoughts while sorting through negative feelings. This helps kids to understand why they feel the way they do and perhaps see other perspectives as well. And because they know that nothing will be shared from the journal unless they choose to do so, there is a safety in being able to say whatever they want on paper that kids may not feel comfortable with saying otherwise.

Here are some benefits of kids keeping a journal.

5 Kids Can Process Their Emotions Through Journaling

Kids are bombarded with emotions daily. Some of those emotions are bigger than others to sort through, especially if not sure where to begin sorting. That is why a journal is beneficial because kids can write down how they feel without feeling judged or teased in the process.

According to the University of Rochester Medical Center, journaling is a very effective way to maintain a mentally healthy lifestyle. This is important because even though on the surface it appears that kids are carefree, they still have stressors that they face, along with problems and fears that they need to work through to remain emotionally healthy.

The emotions that kids feel are not always something that they want to share with their friends or family initially because they need a moment to sit with them. Sometimes, they do not share them at all. And according to the publication, not all emotions need to be shared. But if they can be written down and sorted through, that is all part of the process of living a healthy lifestyle that if continued through childhood will reap benefits as kids age.

4 Helps Kids To Find A Voice When Reluctant To Speak

While kids may be able to work through their emotions in their heads, sometimes it is necessary to get those feelings out and acknowledge them before sorting through them is truly done. And for those who are not able to effectively verbalize how they feel to others, writing in a journal allows them to do so.

According to the National AfterSchool Association when kids write down what they think and feel, they are able to get emotions, both positive and negative, out of their bodies and sort through them more effectively. When the feelings have nowhere to go because kids do not want to speak about them, they can fester if they are negative or continue to become more confusing for those never experienced before. As such, putting the pen to the paper helps to get thoughts organized, so that if kids decide they do want to speak with someone about how they feel, they have worked through emotions enough to be able to succinctly communicate those emotions to a trusted ear willing to listen.

3 Ranting Through Writing Helps To Vent Frustrations

Sometimes, kids just need to get their frustrations out. This could be with a situation, with friends, or even with family. And rather than take those frustrations out on others, journaling is a great way to ease those big emotions.

According to the Center for Child Counseling, journals are a fantastic outlet for letting kids work through the frustrations that they have with others be it through a first-hand account of an incident or through storytelling in which a character experiences the same frustrations as the writer. In both instances, kids are able to not only get the frustrations down on paper in front of them to read over, but they are also able to work through those frustrations as well. And by doing this, the hope is that a resolution can be found so that instead of venting face-to-face, emotions can be talked through in a calm and effective manner.

2 Kids Can See Different Perspectives Through Journaling

Sometimes it takes writing things down to understand where others were coming from during an interaction. Journaling is very beneficial in this regard.

According to CHOC, when kids are able to see things from another person’s perspective, not only do they gain insight about the other person but about themselves as well. By being able to see things in a new light can change the entire way that life is seen or lived.

It may take a while for the insight to come. But for those who review their writing, many times there is an “a-ha” moment had and clarity gained that allows a situation to be seen with fresh eyes.

1 Journaling Helps With Writing Skills

When kids pick up a pen to write in a journal, they know that they are not going to be judged on the content of their writing or how grammatically correct it is. Therefore, it does not matter how strong their writing skills are. Journaling consistently, however, has a way of improving writing skills without kids even realizing it.

According to Brain Balance, when kids are tasked with “meaningful writing” they do not feel it is a chore. They know that there are no wrong answers or judgments for what they write in their journals, so there is no longer a dread that comes with writing. When this happens, kids are open to writing more and with more writing comes more experience that can “springboard” into more “complex writing tasks,” per the publication. This makes kids more comfortable with writing in general and therefore strengthens writing skills across the board, all thanks to journaling.

Source: Scholastic, National AfterSchool Association, University of Rochester Medical Center, Center for Child Counseling, CHOC, Brain Balance

Journaling Has Become My Self-Therapy & It Works

I feel more accomplished about the small wins that I got during each day than I feel defeated about the items that didn’t get checked off.

Read Next

About The Author