Eluna’s Expert Voices – Importance of Communication by Journaling

Looking for some new tools to communicate with youth beyond texting? Stacey & Tiffany from Camp Mariposa South Bend are big advocates of journaling at home and at camp. Here are some of their top journaling tips to do together with children & teens:

Family Meetings & Journaling

“We do family meeting and we do journaling at night. In our family meetings some of the things we do are:

• What was your rose and thorn today? How did you get through your thorn?
• Were you held accountable for your words and actions?
• What is happiness and what is contentment using the Happiness and Contentment Workbook.
• Shutting our minds down, breathing in, feeling the tingling in your fingers, hearing your heartbeats, and feeling your pulse.

I do a lot of stuff with my girls to work on self-regulating and communicating.” – Tiffany, Foster Mom

Permission to Get Mad and Mess Up

“It’s okay to get mad. We are all going to get mad, but it’s how you handle those moments that’s important. I don’t get mad when they mess up.

• “Okay timers on, 10 minutes, say it how you need to say it.” They get it out of their system.
• “Okay timer is over, now we are going to find a healthier way to express that feeling.”

It’s more important for them not to bottle their feelings up than it is to learn ways of getting it out. And sometimes that comes with a few F bombs, and that’s okay. We do a lot of stuff on working on communication in this house. A lot of that has also come from Camp Mariposa and learning communication tools at camp.” – Tiffany, Foster Mom

Journaling Doesn’t Have to be Words

“One of the things that I recommend is always a little bit of journaling. Some people can do it, some people can’t that’s fine. Explaining that it doesn’t have to be words, it can be art, it can be expression, it can be music, just getting something out that is identifying the feeling that you are expressing is a very important tool.” – Stacey, Mentor & Therapist

Communication Journals (AKA Old Fashioned Texting)

“I also really like communication journals. I recommend that a lot to teenagers who don’t want to speak to their parents. It’s like old fashioned texting. You just have a journal in the kitchen and you can come home from school and say:

• “I’ve had a bad day, please leave me alone for a while.

Because, as soon as they say something, then a parent is going say, What happened? What’s wrong? This way they are able to say I need a little time and then we can talk.” – Stacey, Mentor & Therapist

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