Tackle Children’s Anxiety with Journaling

Anxiety is rife right now. The Coronavirus Crisis has fully arrived and everybody is struggling to make sense of this new isolated world we have been thrown into at the deep end. 

Now, more than ever, we need to look out for our children’s mental health. I have written about 6 different ways to prevent or manage your child’s anxiety during this time with a suggestion of journaling as one of the options. I want to dig into the topic of journaling in this post and give some concrete examples of how to bring out its benefits over the coming weeks.

The Case for Journaling Right Now

Shawn Anchor is considered to be an authority on happiness. Shawn contests from his research that the small act of journaling has the potential to help us rewire our brains to scan for the positives instead of the negatives. This rewiring can lead to the writer developing a positive outlook on life in the long term with increased happiness and therefore, reduced anxiety.

As we adjust to this time of uncertainty, helping your child cultivate this positive mindset could protect them from the outside world – such as social media and news channels – that looks to sell fear and increase anxiety. 

There are added benefits to journaling that it will promote literacy skills through the act of putting their thoughts on paper while Shawn also states that happier people are more resilient and 31% more productive.

How to Journal for Children Who Can Write

Shawn suggests writing about the follow prompts for journaling to garner the maximum results:

• Spend two minutes a day writing down three things you are thankful for. These must be new things each day and can be as big as your family’s health or a small as your bowl of cornflakes.
• Spend two minutes a day writing about one positive experience you’ve had over the past 24 hours. 

Added prompts that may help create a more positive outlook are:

• Writing down 7 things you are excited for at the start of every day.
• Write about a “win” you had today. So it could be achieving a new personal best, an improvement in a skill, something difficult that you overcame. Write about why it’s important, how to progress and what your next step will be.

There are additional principles to journaling that are important if being used or attempted in the homeschool or school context.

• A journal is not be read if the writer does not consent.
• The parent or teacher can guide the child but there is no need to correct it and do not use this medium for correcting grammar and spelling.
• Modelling the act of journaling by completing it alongside your child or letting them see you do it is an effective way to encourage them.
• Using fun pens, markers and stationery is a great way to promote this. Let them choose their journal type with options like bullet journals and regular diaries being widely available online.
• Let them go off script and design and write what they like as well. A journal is a great way to put thoughts to paper, vent and stoke creativity. If your child is engaged, let their imagination run wild.

Journaling for Children Who Can’t Write

If your child is not at the stage where they are ready to write, but you feel that this is something either you or they want to try, you have some options.

1. The prompts can be completed by drawing pictures.
2. The prompts can be completed by having a trusted adult write for them.
3. The prompts can be completed by recording a video diary on a tablet or phone.
4. The language of the prompts can be adjusted to be age-appropriate in the following ways:

• “I am happy because”: Respond with anything that is making them happy.
• “I am excited to….”: Respond with three things (instead of seven) that they are looking forward to doing that day.
• “A good thing that happened today was”: Let them come up with a mini-win that they had.

Give it a Go!

In this unique time, we have an opportunity to teach skills for dealing with uncertainty and adversity. Journalling is one such tool that has stood to many of the world’s great creatives and leaders over time so it might be worth encouraging your child to experiment with it.

As always, this is one tool among many others that you can pull out and try to promote positivity and reduce negative emotions. It might not work for everyone but it is certainly worth giving a go!

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