Keeping a Journal

Journal Writing Ideas and Tips for Children

family writing in a journal

Keeping a journal is a great way of expressing emotions. The skill of using emotional literacy will be developed as well as better self awareness

and self reflection.
 Sometimes we are not aware of our feelings and yet they influence us so much in our everyday lives. By encouraging your child to write in a journal this self awareness. will be begin to develop.

Journal writing can help children by freeing internal stress.

When we hold onto powerful emotions without expressing them, internal stress develops in our minds and bodies. Journal writing can help children to understand their emotions and feelings while experiencing a release of stress.
Keeping a journal about personal problems is known to help people by allowing for a release of the negative feelings surrounding the situation.

Therapeutic writing entails writing about the emotions, feelings and views surrounding a stressful incident. In fact, research shows that keeping a journal for short periods of time for several days in a row can lead to outcomes such as better sleeping habits, better attention in school and less complaints of feeling sick.

Developing emotional literacy is a key part of journal writing. By using the emotional word bank to use a variety of feeling words, children will develop their skills in communicating about their emotions.


Journal Writing Prompts


1. Provide children with a blank writing journal to start.

2. Give students a quote and ask them to respond in their journals. Discussion about the meaning of the quote will help to enhance this activity.

3. A list of suggested quotes can be found here. More motivational quotes and sayings are found here.

Keeping a journal with a response to literature is another great way to inspire journal writing in children.In this instance children will respond the the emotions and feelings of book characters and write about their own feelings in relation.

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