Babies grow before our eyes and before you know it, bam!, they’re off to kindergarten one day and university the next. Instead of having them all to yourself, you now watch them begin their journey into the great wide world. Your parent to child journal can be the raft to help carry them on that journey as much as it supports you as well.
Planning for the Facts of Life
Even if we want our babies to stay small forever, this is simply impossible. Watching the development of a child is at once miraculous and simultaneously heartbreaking. We want to shelter them, to always be their protectors and providers. The truth is, sometimes they need less protection and more wisdom and understanding. Just as we start to stress less about their physical demands we are thrown into the emotional and mental demands of parenthood.
Our kids grow independent of us in some ways and remain wholly dependent on us in others. We can use our parent child journal to reflect on that tug and pull. We can express the excitement of seeing them make leaps and bounds in their education, their arts, their sports. We can also write about the new challenges that arise as they start to form their own identity at school and with their friends.
General parent to child journal tips:
- Take time each day to journal about the small changes that you see, so that you’re never blindsided when the big ones come.
- Share wholeheartedly about the emotions that come up for you through the changes.
- Reflect on your childhood and the changes you remember going through.
- Seek support with any behaviors that are unfamiliar or upsetting. Reach out to other parents and specialists when you aren’t sure how to handle certain changes.
Big Questions For Your Parent to Child Journal
Journaling can be a great way to reflect on not only our own questions, but the questions of our children. As your son or daughter grows, they grow curious and you are bound to feel bombarded by all that they want to know. One thing that we don’t often learn as parents is that it is okay to say I don’t know. It is okay not to have all of the answers.
You can easily look up many of the practical questions like how long do spiders live and what makes your voice go funny when you inhale helium…but for the more philosophical questions, you need space to consider. Journal about the existential questions of life, individual purpose, cause and effect, theology, death, and the afterlife. Then you can learn how to communicate your own understanding of the world. When your child starts to get curious about life and death or other big questions, you have to be willing to open those conversations up for yourself. Never feel like you have to fill their mind with your own view of the world. However, you can always express the way you see things and ask your child their thoughts on things as well. Children will amaze you with their innate wisdom.
Parent to child journal prompts:
- What are some of your core beliefs and which of these would you try to pass on to your child? What do you want them to form their own opinions about?
- In what ways have you strayed from your parents’ values, customs, and beliefs?
- What happens to our relationship with our children when they learn that we are fallible? How can we build a relationship based on authenticity, respect and mutual trust?
- What are some of the questions you had as a child and where did you find the answers? How will you teach your child which sources of information are trustworthy and how will you show them how to educate themselves?
Unforeseen Circumstances
Just as we must grow comfortable with the development and independence of our children, we must also learn a difficult truth. We cannot protect them from everything. Rather than fold up into a ball of anxiety and stress, it’s important to open our heart to the shining world and recognize that whatever happens, we will be by their side and we will do everything in our power to support them.
Illness, injury, trauma, even death, these are the heartbreaking possibilities for every soul on the planet. It’s important not to dwell on the fear of tragedy. Instead we must overcome the defeating thoughts and emotions that plague our minds. We need to be realistic. We need to be firm in our resolve that we will serve our children better through our natural inner strength and compassion than through worry and strife. Worry and strife will arise, there’s nothing wrong with that, but we learn to move through them, we learn to respond from the part of us that is grounded and centered always.
Whenever something troubling comes up, remind yourself that you are enough. You are strong enough and wise enough. You have enough love in your heart to carry them through. As long as you know this, it won’t matter what happens. You’ll be able to make good decisions, ask for support where you need it, and be there for your child and the rest of your family as well.
Parent to child journal prompts for difficult times:
- What do you want to share with your child at this time, through your words and actions?
- Who are your teammates in this experience and what are their roles? How can you be easy on yourself when you aren’t able to do everything at once?
- How can you rest naturally when faced with fear and uncertainty?
- How does our own unforeseen circumstances reveal our true resilience?