Journals

I've kept a diary ever since I was a pre-teen.  I think that a diary is great for kids to have; it's a place for them to express themselves free of critizim, it's a place for them to figure out who they are and what they want in life. I think adults should even keep a journal.  I use to all the way up until after I had my daughter, then life just became too busy and I quite writing.  I do miss having that interspecive alone time and a place to save all my thoughts about what I'm going though at different points in my life.  I use to write almost every day, and every time I had any problem going on in my life.  It helped.

I saved most of my diaries, and love notebooks.  I love filling them.  I have many notebooks that I've filled as my journal, some are full of quotes, poems, places I want to go or things I want to do, give me a notebook and I'll find something to fill it with.  And I almost always save and cherish each of them.  With moving some many times in the last couple years many of my diaries have been packed and misplaced but here's a photo of just some that I have out now

I use to have a hard time expressing myself with words, how I felt, what I thought, and that was really had when I was in relationships and there was a fight, I'd clamp up and not know what to say or how to say it.  When I meet my husband I used my diary every time we argued or disagreed.  We'd stop fighting and I'd pour my heart into that notebook and hand it to him to read, then we'd be able to talk and work things out.

Parents, if you have a child who like me keeps a journal, by all means let them and encourage it!  But please don't read it.  I know what it's like to learn that your private place wasn't ever private, it hurts and it scares you.  When I was 14 or so my grandfather told me that he'd been reading my diary and knew what I thought and what I'd been doing, and shame on me for having such a potty moth in it.  I knew I had no privacy in the house but for some reason I thought that my diaries were safe from them.  They use to do random searches in my room, tear apart my purse and backpack and read all notes from my friends.  And trust me then had no reason to do any of that until I was in high school and had been going though that for a few years always being accused of doing drugs that then I started smoking, and not really caring.  Once I learned that my diaries were being read I didn't stop writing in them I just didn't bring them home, I kept them in school.

Parents, I know you want to know what your child is up to, and thinking about.  I know you want to protect them.  But trust me when I tell you that you'll have broken their bond of trust with you if you read their journals.  Be open with them, and let them know that they can ALWAYS talk to you no matter what you're there for them.  If you do that and have an open line of communication with them then you will not have to worry about what's in the diary.


If you know someone who has been a victim of abuse or know any emotional pain, give them a journal as a gift.  I know they will like it.