My 10 year old nephew, a kid now stuck in the middle of what will certainly be a messy divorce, has been asked to keep a journal. I’m not certain if he asked for one first or if it is the result of him being asked to remember what he does and where he goes when spending time with each parent. These things will of course be requested of him when custody arrangements are considered eventually. But in any case it has occurred to me that simply giving him a bound journal-type notebook and telling him to start keeping a journal isn’t really enough information. Does he understand what a journal is? Has he ever kept one in the past for personal or school reasons? How exactly do you explain to a 10 year old boy what he should be writing and how often it should be done? The obvious purpose in is his parent’s eyes would be to have a log of his activities while they are not with him, but there is far more to it than that. Journaling is more about recording how you feel about things, but not in a literal sense. Now how do you explain THAT to a 10 year old?
I was probably about 11 or 12 when I was first asked by a friend to start keeping a journal. (Thanks Stacey!) I had no idea why, and quite honestly hated doing it much of the time in the beginning. Eventually my nightly routine of scratching out a few sentences about what I had done that day grew into a few paragraphs and eventually into multiple pages over time. Those pages were filled with little things about where I had gone, who I had been with, and how I felt about events. At the time, writing in a journal seemed silly but looking back on it now it is one of the best habits I ever picked up. Writing is a release for everyone who does it; even those who claim to hate it and not be any good at it. Writing is like everything else in life, with practice comes greater ease of doing and a journal can be quite beneficial to improving one’s ability to write. For those who keep hand written journals, it also helps to maintain and improve handwriting skills. I use to benefit from this, until blogger arrived on scene and I began to type journal entries rather than hand write them. My handwriting has suffered greatly at the loss of those journal entries as well! :-(
Having kept a personal journal off and on for most of my life now I guess you could say that I am partial to the belief that everyone should keep one at some point in their life. For those who claim they are “dumb” or “pointless” I would challenge them to recall what they did on January 1 the year they turned 14. For those who keep journals, that answer could be found by flipping through the pages of an old journal on the book shelf. Even if they did not record an entry on that specific date, reading through the entries just before and after the date in question will often trigger memories we have long since forgotten. Trust me on this; old journals can shed a lot of light on fuzzy memories and help us to more accurately remember important times in our lives.
Sure many of the entries found in an adolescent journal will be filled with rants about how unfair it is that we had to spend the day cleaning our room, or why we can’t go over to a friend’s house, but even those entries serve a purpose. At the time we write them, they help to release the anger we are feeling and move past the petty nature of the issue. When we are older and reading through those old entries, it might help us to remember what it was like being a kid again with no control over many things in our lives and feeling picked on because we were asked to do certain chores. This can be an invaluable tool in dealing with our own children who will undoubtedly feel the same anger and resentment toward us when we ask them to clean their room and tell them they cannot do something they have asked permission for. The benefits of keeping a journal are two fold, one for releasing our feelings while we are having them so that we can move past them, and two for remembering what happened to us and how we reacted to the everyday events of our past life.
With that said how do you begin to write a journal if you never have before? What do you write about, how much do you write, and how do you know if you have written too much? Here’s a few simple rules everyone, no matter the age, should follow when writing a personal journal.
1) It is YOUR journal, nobody else. That means you write whatever you want, about anything you want, and as much as you want. A general rule of thumb is to start by listing something you did that day, in detail, and how you felt about doing it. The rest will begin to flow naturally from your brain to your paper.
2) Not every journal entry has to talk about your feelings or what tasks you did during the day. I often write about things that stir up my emotions, good or bad, but have nothing to do with my own personal life. It is fun to go back through old journals from high school and read about my take on a political or news event and why I agreed or disagreed with it. Even some book and song reviews found their way into my journal entries over the years. Apparently I was never really a New Kids on the Block fan though I had just about every cassette tape they released and knew all the words. I pretended to like then just so I could keep up with my friends at school … who knew?
3) Write like no one is reading! It is your journal of your personal thoughts and feelings. You should write like nobody but you will ever read it, don’t worry about the spelling or grammar mistakes you may make, just write. It is however important to keep in mind that if not protected your journal may well find its way into the hands of someone who will read it. Make sure you don’t exaggerate the truth in your entries; you may one day have to defend them!
4) Write every day! The best way to make journaling a habit is simply to write every day, even when you think you have nothing to write about. If you sit down to write and nothing comes, turn on the radio or TV for a few minutes and write a few paragraphs about the song that is playing or the show that is on. Often times beginning with some sort of a journal prompt will lead you to write about things you didn’t even know you had in you. That is how I managed to note in an old journal my feelings toward NKOTB. By the end of that journal entry I had written something far more profound about how we tend to do things we don’t really like just to fit in at school. I was 13 and didn’t realize what I was writing at the time. However, as an adult looking back with a new perspective it is clear that I was very anti-crowd-following even back in junior high but knew some times we must hide behind a mask to protect ourselves from ridicule.
5) Have fun with it! Write about things that make you happy, and sad, and mad, and feel guilty. Write a song or book review, draw a beautiful picture of something stuck on your mind, or just doodle a carton about your silly brother/sister. Write about what you enjoyed about your day, and what you hated about it. What you are doing is logging where you have been, what you have done, and how you felt along your journey. It will help you to release those feelings before they fester into a larger issue, and it will be fun to look back on in your adult life and remember what you loved and hated about your childhood!
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