Journal prompts for your kids
The entries that survive are the specific ones: the exact sentence they said at dinner, the way they held the spoon, the thing they were afraid of this month and not the next. Ages and milestones are on record everywhere else. This is for what is not.
How to use these
One a week is a lot over ten years. Write the ordinary Tuesday rather than the birthday, and use their words wherever you can remember them exactly.
Who they are right now
These change every few months, which is exactly why they are worth dating.
- What did they say today that you want to keep exactly as they said it?
- What are they completely taken with this month?
- What are they afraid of right now, and how do they handle it?
- What do they do that is entirely theirs, that neither of you taught them?
- What does a normal day with them look like this year, hour by hour?
- What made them laugh so hard they could not stop?
- What are they proud of at the moment?
- What do they call things, in their own wrong and perfect words?
Letters for later
Written to them, to be read a long way off. Say the thing plainly; the date does the rest of the work.
- What do you want them to know about the day they arrived?
- What were you like before them, that they will never see?
- What do you hope they keep from this year?
- What would you tell them about a mistake you made, if it would help?
- What do you love about them that has nothing to do with anything they achieved?
- What do you want them to know about the people who raised them?
- What would you say to them on a day when they feel like nobody knows them?
- What do you hope is still true between you when they are thirty?
The days you would otherwise lose
Ordinary logistics age into treasure. Write down the boring parts.
- What did today look like from start to finish, with the dull parts left in?
- What is the house like right now, and what is on the floor?
- What did they eat, refuse, and negotiate for?
- Who are their people this year, and what are those friendships like?
- What was hard about today, honestly, and how did you handle it?
- What did you get wrong today that you would want to remember getting wrong?
- What did they need from you this week?
- What is a thing you do together that neither of you thinks is remarkable?
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