Help Your Child Make Journaling a Habit This Summer

By Neha Patel with Hatchbrighter

There are lots of activities and resources and classes to help our kids work on their outer world. Most parents have that covered for their kids by signing them up for sports, music, tutoring classes.

The moment we become parents, we get inundated with stats and measurements – growth percentiles, grades, wins, GPA. So naturally that is where our focus goes… the things where we can see and measure progress and improvement.

Most of these things tie back to their Outer World… but what about their Inner World?

Their Inner World being things like…

How much you love yourself.
Your mental health.
How you manage your emotions.
Your ability to handle life’s ups and downs.

Our kids “Inner World” is invisible, it’s hard to measure, it’s hard to show off, it’s hard to quantify but it is the one thing that influences everything in our life – relationships, success, happiness.

“My inner world creates my outer world”

Ways to strengthen the Inner World:

• Journaling to help reflect on our experiences and emotions
• Connecting with nature
• Daily gratitude practice
• Breathing and quieting the mind (meditation)

Journaling is a great way to help our kids work on their Inner World. It helps them:

• Process hard moments by reflecting on their experiences
• Be confident in who they are by better understanding themselves
• Notice and be grateful for the good in their life
• Build emotional intelligence by be aware of and talking about their emotions

The most magical things in life are hard to measure and are invisible but they are, without a doubt, the most important. Don’t let the lack of stats and scores make you deprioritize Inner Work and Growth for you or your kids.

Tips to you prioritize the Inner World for your kids this summer:

• • Start small.
    Go through the list of activities you have planned this summer with your kiddos and find one thing to do consistently to strengthen their Inner World. Include them in the discussion and decision. It could be journaling, meditation, walks in nature, conversation.
    Ask yourself, “What’s the minimum I can start doing right now so it’s impossible for me to fail?”
    For example: If 10 minutes sounds like too much, start with just 1-minute a week during which you choose to just do an Emotional Check in or even just ask 1-question from the journal included above and build it up every week so you feel comfortable.

• • Focus on time, not outcome.
    Find the things that help them with their Inner World – pondering questions together, breathing, gratitude, self love – all these things help build our kid’s Inner World.
    Be less attached to any outcomes, and just focus on blocking out the time.
    Feel content and fulfilled with the time allotted even if ‘everything’ you wanted to get done didn’t get done exactly the way you wanted.

• • Focus on connection and presence.
    Didn’t make it through all the activity? So what? Were you present? Did you make eye contact with your kiddos? Did you have a meaningful conversation? Did you commit to your time? Well – that is more than enough!