A family journal is exactly what it sounds like: a journal for every member of the family to contribute to. When children are young they can add scribbles and drawings to the journal, and as they grow older they can begin writing entries of their own. Along the way, you can staple or tape in letters from family members, newspaper clippings, photographs, young children’s dictated stories, greeting cards, movie- ticket stubs, footprints, handprints and anything else that strikes your fancy.

A family journal tells the story of your family and is an effective way to collectively record your family’s triumphs, tribulations and paraphernalia.

What’s more, experts say that keeping a family journal can help build your whole family’s self-esteem.

"Knowing your history builds self-esteem and self confidence and makes you feel that you belong someplace," says Lawrence E. Shapiro, author of "The Secret Language of Children," who recommends that every family keep a journal.

"Journaling in general is a healthy way to express ourselves and reflect on our values and our lives," adds Shapiro, who is based in Norwalk, Conn. "It helps focus the family on what it is that they hold important. That’s a difficult task these days with television and the media bombarding us all the time."

Advertisement

For Eric and Emily Strong, who live in Ashland with their children — Eliza, 5, and Harper, 2 — a family journal has been a way to express their goals.

"Eric and I have a journal that someone gave us at our wedding," says Emily Strong. "Every few months we sit down and write about what we want as a family and where we want to go. It’s just been awesome because we look back at it and we say, ‘Oh my God, I did that!’ "

"I think it is important to leave a record of my life," says Jura MacLean Sherwood, a Phoenix writer who has five great-grandchildren.

Sherwood, who has kept a family journal for years, believes it is important to record her family’s adventures as well as personal health information for the next generation.

"I’m sure my descendants will want to know about (my adventures)," she says. "They also need to know that breast cancer and diabetes run in the family. This will alert them to guard their own health."

Any blank book will work for a family journal but if your children are small choose an oversized art sketchbook with space for their scribbles.

Keep the journal on the table where they do their coloring, and trace their hand or suggest they draw a picture in it. Or sit with them while they are drawing and write an entry of your own.

Some families keep their journal in the bathroom. Anyone who spends a long time in there is required to add an entry to the journal.

You don’t have to be a writer to write in a family journal. "Journaling isn’t about creative writing," says Shapiro. "It’s about thoughts and feeling and expression, and it’s not difficult to do. If you can talk you can write a journal."

And that, says MacLean Sherwood, may be a service for generations to come.

"While researching our family genealogy I’ve come across many interesting characters and wished they had kept a record of their life," she says. "Imagine reading about a great-great-grandmother who sold ribbons and lace on the streets of London, or a soldier in the Revolutionary War who rowed General Benedict Arnold across the river to the hospital after he was shot in the leg."

Now it’s time to put down this newspaper and go get a bound book.

Jennifer Margulis is a freelance writer living in Ashland. E-mail her at properzioprose@jeffnet.org.