Growing your Family with Love Notes

A great way to keep the communications open as your children get older is to start a notebook of notes together. In each of my children’s rooms is a simple little notebook and pen. At bedtime or in the morning they may write me a note. Sometimes the notes say "I love you" sometimes they say "Thank you for buying me new shoes" and at times the note asks me to come see them the next night to talk. I try my best to check them each day and respond. A few times I am the one to start it by telling them how proud I was of something they did. One example, the other night I wrote and told my son how proud I was that he had helped his dad stack wood for a neighbor. These notes will be kept for many years and I hope they will look back at it when they are feeling sad or lonely and see all the good things they have done to make their parents proud. My hope is that as they grow they will be free to write me anything and keep the communication lines open.

For your little ones, as soon as they can write simple sentences this is especially fun. My seven year old and I have a story going back and forth. She writes a sentence or two and I come in the next day and write another. We have a very long story now. I usually try to throw in some funny sentences to make her smile. The story we have going right now is about a cat that had kittens. I wrote “The mama cat began to dig under the fence" To which my daughter replied "The kittens bit their mom’s tail. She came back." We both have a good time writing and laughing. By writing back and forth it is also helping her to practice her reading, writing and story telling skills.