Family Planners: How to Use a Daily Planner With Your Kids
Writing in a daily planner doesn’t have to be a solitary activity. When you’re planning out the events and activities for the month, it’s good to know everyone’s on the same page.
Keeping a daily planner with kids might sound a challenge, but journaling can be an opportunity to teach young ones valuable life skills - and it can boost their confidence, too. Here’s how to use a daily planner with your kids.
Teaching Goal Setting and Organisational Skills
One of the best reasons to use a daily planner with your kids is that it helps them to learn organisational skills. These organisational skills will be valuable as they transition into school years and college, when they’ll be expected to maintain timetables for classes and lectures.
In a daily planner, you can help your children to plan out and prioritise their goals, amongst balanced play and rest time. Once they have their goals written down, ask which goals they feel are most important, and why? Is it better to watch TV or do homework first?
This way, children can understand why organisation skills are important. There is also space to plot in weekly and monthly goals, which helps children to understand advance planning and develop their long-term reading, maths and literacy skills through setting short-term goals.
Family Planner: Planning For The Week Ahead
Another great way to use a daily planner with your kids is to plot in your activities for the month. Family life can be hectic, and personal plans go in all directions - dental appointment here, after-school club there. Sometimes it's easy to lose track of who’s doing what.
Plan for the week and month ahead by plotting in events and appointments well in advance. Through using the daily planner with your kids, they can add their appointments and plans in, too.
Using a daily planner makes it clear which days are free for family time, and no one gets disappointed by a missed day out.
In university and the workplace, there are many situations where you need to let people know your plans. This activity teaches children the importance of prior planning, and keeping other people updated.
Gratitude Journal for Kids - Using a Daily Planner for Positivity
A daily planner isn’t just for planning, it’s also for positivity. Between social media and exam anxieties, young people have more pressures than ever before. It’s important for kids to develop confidence and self-esteem, and affirmations are a great way to boost childrens' sense of self-worth.
At the start of each day, encourage your child to write a positive affirming message to themselves in their daily planner. They can refer to this message throughout the day to boost their mood and remind themselves of their inner strength.
For example, on exam day, a message of ‘I am capable’ or ‘I am enough’ can remind young people of their skills, and that no matter the outcome, they are valuable exactly as they are.
Another way to use a daily planner with kids is gratitude journaling. At the start of every day, help your child to write down three things they are grateful for. This helps them to put negative feelings into perspective, and focus on the positives in their life.
It might be a friend they’re looking forward to seeing at school, a fun day out at the weekend, or a game they want to play in the afternoon. Whatever they feel grateful for, gratitude journaling can be a great way to boost resilience.
Many of the skills that can be gained from a daily planner are important for day to day living. Building organisational and resilience skills at a young age gives children a head start in life. Using a daily planner with kids also helps to structure daily life, creating more opportunities for family time together.
