Have you ever had one of those homeschool days when your child simply cannot focus? Maybe math has gone completely sideways, someone is annoyed with a sibling, and the history book might as well be written in another language because nothing is getting through. We can keep pushing through the lesson plan, but sometimes what our kids really need is a chance to stop and figure out what is going on inside their heads.
This is one of the reasons I love mindful journaling for kids. A journal gives them a place to put some of those thoughts and feelings into words instead of carrying all of them around while they are also trying to multiply fractions, conjugate a verb, or remember who won the Battle of Hastings. For some kids, that little bit of space can help them recognize what they are feeling and what they might need next.
There is research behind this idea too. A meta-analysis of 21 studies involving kids and teens ages 10 to 18 found that expressive writing produced small but significant improvements in areas including emotional distress, social adjustment, and school participation. Another study of eighth-grade students found that students who wrote about emotional topics showed increased optimism and decreased negative affect. Journaling isn’t going to magically make every hard feeling disappear, but there is good reason to give our kids writing as one of the tools they can use when those big feelings show up.
What Is Mindful Journaling?
Mindfulness can sound like a complicated term, but it doesn’t have to be. For our purposes, it simply means slowing down, noticing what is happening right now, and paying attention to your thoughts, feelings, and surroundings. Mindfulness journaling combines that awareness with writing, giving kids a place to stop and pay attention to what they are experiencing.
That may mean your child realizes she is not actually angry about her math assignment. She may still be upset about an argument with her sister that happened twenty minutes earlier. Your teen may realize he keeps rereading the same paragraph because he is worried about something happening tomorrow. Sometimes our kids know they feel bad, frustrated, worried, or overwhelmed, but they haven’t stopped long enough to figure out what that feeling actually is.
And naming that feeling can make it easier to figure out what to do with it. Instead of immediately trying to fix the problem or force the feeling to disappear, your child can acknowledge what is happening and put it on paper. The goal is not to make everything positive. It is to give your child a place to be honest about what is happening right now.
Their Journal Isn’t a Language Arts Assignment
I think this distinction is important, especially coming from me. I spend a lot of time teaching kids how to write well. I care about strong sentences, correct grammar, spelling, punctuation, and all the other things that make my language arts teacher heart happy.
But this is different.
We are not grading this journal. This isn’t a language arts assignment. The purpose is to give our kids a place to work through some of those big, scary feelings, and stopping every few words to worry about whether definitely has one f or two isn’t going to help with that.
So, spelling doesn’t matter. Grammar doesn’t matter. Complete sentences don’t matter. Your child can write a list, scribble words across the page, draw a giant circle around something, use arrows, write in all caps, or fill an entire page with one long thought. The writing is serving a completely different purpose here.
Give Their Journals Some Privacy
If we want our kids to use journaling to work through their feelings, then we have to give them permission to write what they actually feel. That means their journals may contain anger, jealousy, embarrassment, frustration, worry, or thoughts we wouldn’t necessarily choose for them. They don’t have to turn every difficult feeling into a cheerful thought before they finish the page.
They also need some privacy to work those feelings out. If your child thinks Mom is going to read every journal entry later, he may start writing what he thinks you want to hear instead of what he actually thinks. Talk together about what privacy will look like in your home and let your child know what he can expect.
You might even give your kids permission to fold over a page they don’t want anyone to read and glue or staple it closed. They can write exactly what they need to write, close the page, and know that those words are private.
Journaling for Emotional Regulation
Emotional regulation is really just learning how to recognize and manage those big feelings when they show up. That takes practice, and honestly, some days our kids will be better at it than others. The same can probably be said for us.
That’s where journaling for emotional regulation can be useful. We aren’t giving our kids a journal and telling them to stop being upset. We are giving them a tool they can use to slow down, identify what they are feeling, and think about what they need to do next.
You also don’t need to turn mindfulness journaling for kids into another subject in your homeschool. Please don’t add another box to your planner that needs to be checked every day. These are simply different ways your child can use a journal when thoughts are busy, feelings are big, or concentrating on school seems nearly impossible.
Try some of these ideas yourself first. Then teach them to your kids when everyone is relatively calm so they already know what to do when they need one.
Start With a Brain Dump
Have you ever had so many things running through your head that you can’t seem to concentrate on any of them? Kids can feel that way too. A brain dump gives them a place to write down all of those thoughts without worrying about organizing them first.
Tell your child to write whatever is taking up space in her mind. She might write about the science assignment she hasn’t finished, the friend who hasn’t texted her back, the fact that she can’t find her library book, or the argument she had with her brother. She can make a list, write sentences, scribble words all over the page, or simply put thoughts on paper as they come to her.
When she is finished, have her look at what she wrote. Is there something she needs to take care of? Is there something she needs help with? Is there something that can wait until later? The purpose isn’t to solve every problem on the page. The first goal is simply to get the thoughts out of her head where she can see them.
Notice and Name the Big Feeling
Mindful journaling starts with the present moment, so ask your child to stop and notice what is happening right now. He isn’t trying to decide whether his feelings are reasonable or unreasonable. He is simply paying attention to what he is thinking, feeling, and experiencing.
He might begin with a few simple questions. What am I feeling right now? What am I thinking about? Is there something I am worried about? What happened right before I started feeling this way? Encourage him to write honestly without worrying about what he thinks he should be feeling.
Sometimes he may already know exactly what is wrong. He’s mad. He’s embarrassed. He’s disappointed. He’s worried about something, and pretending he isn’t worried isn’t going to make that feeling disappear. He can begin with a simple sentence such as, “I’m feeling ______ because…” and see where the writing takes him.
This is where naming the feeling can be helpful. If your child can move from “Everything is awful!” to “I’m embarrassed about what happened at co-op,” he has a little more information about what is actually bothering him. That doesn’t automatically solve the problem, but it can help him begin to figure out what he needs next.
And remember, we aren’t correcting this writing. Let him spell words wrong. Let the commas fall where they may. This is journaling for big feelings, not Tuesday’s grammar lesson.
Try the 5-4-3-2-1 Exercise
Sometimes it helps to move away from all the thoughts inside our heads and pay attention to what is physically around us. The 5-4-3-2-1 grounding exercise uses the senses to bring attention back to what is happening in the present moment.
Have your child write down five things she can see, four things she can feel, three things she can hear, two things she can smell, and one thing she can taste. Encourage her to pay attention to the little things she might normally ignore. She may notice the hum of the refrigerator, the scratchy fabric on the couch, the smell of lunch cooking, or the way the sunlight falls across her notebook.
There is no correct answer to this activity. Your child is simply slowing down long enough to notice what is actually happening around her instead of concentrating only on the thoughts running through her mind. It is an easy exercise to add to a mindfulness journal for kids, but you certainly don’t need a special journal to do it. Any notebook will work.
Look for the Good Things Too
Gratitude journaling doesn’t mean we pretend the hard things aren’t hard. Your child can be completely frustrated with algebra and still be happy that the cookies just came out of the oven. Both things can be true.
Ask your child to record three things she is grateful for or three good things she noticed during the day. They don’t need to be life-changing events. Maybe the dog slept beside her while she read, she finally understood a difficult problem, the weather was nice enough to eat lunch outside, or someone remembered to save her the last brownie.
There is research behind this practice as well. In one study of early adolescents, students who regularly counted things they were grateful for reported improvements in gratitude, optimism, and life satisfaction compared with other groups.
I especially like keeping this part small and specific. We aren’t asking our kids to convince themselves that everything is wonderful. We are helping them notice that a difficult day can still contain a few good things.
Look for Patterns Over Time
One journal entry gives your child information about one moment, but several journal entries may help him begin to notice patterns. Maybe math consistently becomes harder right before lunch. Maybe concentrating is more difficult after a late night. Maybe a particular activity leaves him feeling stressed every single week.
Encourage your child to occasionally look back through the entries he is comfortable rereading and ask, “What do I notice?” He may not discover anything earth-shattering, and he doesn’t need to. Even a simple observation can give him useful information about himself.
Then he can ask one more question: “What might help next time?” Maybe he needs to eat before tackling math. Maybe he needs to break a large assignment into smaller parts. Maybe he needs to talk to you about something that keeps bothering him. The journal has helped him move from simply experiencing the feeling to thinking about what he might do with it.
Mindful Journaling Isn’t About Getting Rid of Every Feeling
This may be the part I want our kids to understand most. The purpose of mindful journaling isn’t to get rid of every uncomfortable feeling. Our kids are going to be angry, disappointed, jealous, worried, embarrassed, and sad sometimes because they are human beings.
What we can give them is a way to slow down and pay attention to those feelings. They can learn to recognize, “This is what I am feeling right now,” name that feeling, and give themselves a little space to think about what they need next.
Sometimes the next step will be returning to the math lesson. Sometimes it will be asking for help, going outside for a while, apologizing to a sibling, coming to us because there is something they really do need to talk about, or simply taking a break.
And sometimes the next step is a snack.
Mindful journaling doesn’t make those decisions for our kids. What it can do is give them a quiet place to work through some of the noise in their heads and begin to understand their own emotions a little better. Over time, that is one more tool they can carry with them when those big feelings inevitably show up again.
Hi, I’m Dachelle. I’m a homeschooling mom of 3 in the South. I love chocolate and have been known to hide it from my children. I can often be found reading a good book (or even sometimes just an okay book) and enjoying a jar of Nutella — don’t judge. I blog, here, at HideTheChocolate.com when I’m not creating book clubs and making lists…lots and lots of lists (it’s an addiction). Learn more…
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