In addition to being the year of the COVID-19 pandemic and our crash course in homeschooling, 2020 was the year all of our kids started keeping journals.
At the beginning of last year, Joy's youth leaders at church challenged her to record her thoughts in a little, handmade journal they gave her. It was meant to last her all year, but Joy wrote so much that she filled it up in a month. She then started typing her journal on a computer, so she could write faster and not worry about running out of pages. We started letting her stay up an extra twenty minutes or so after family prayer to write (or rant) about her day.
In September, Anna set a goal to be more grateful. She thought a gratitude journal might help her achieve that goal, so while Joy stayed up typing each night, we let Anna stay up writing three or four things she was grateful for that day. After a few weeks, I noticed that she was adding fun illustrations to each entry. I also noticed that she seemed much happier. She actually inspired me to start a gratitude journal too (without illustrations).
In November, Daniel asked if he could stay up to type in a journal too. He said journaling sounded like fun (and he liked the idea of staying up later). His entries tend to be short and lighthearted, with lots of exclamation points.
Last but not least, Todd climbed aboard the journaling bandwagon last week. His gratitude journal is mostly an ode to squishmallows, and I suspect his main motive for keeping it is that he gets to stay up with his siblings. Hey, you gotta start somewhere.
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