Building Resilience in Times of Crisis Through Journaling

Emotions are heightened with everything happening in the world right now. For our gifted children, the impact of intense emotions worldwide may be triggering their intensities even more. Although this can mean increased behavioral challenges and poor emotional regulation, now can be a great time to build stronger coping skills and develop resilience.

One of my favorite ways to develop social emotional skills is through interactive journaling and reflection sheets. These tools can increase self-awareness, develop emotional regulation and build resiliency skills.

But what should you look for when helping your children develop a journaling habit?

Start with choosing something with habit trackers. These sheets can help children develop self-care and wellness skills. Then add questions that lead to reflection. For gifted children, daily reflections of mood, intensities, and strengths can help children increases awareness into their unique aspects of giftedness. Finally, consider opportunities to write random thoughts like with a traditional journal.

If journaling isn’t quite your child’s thing, look into reflection books. Part self-help book, part workbook, these tools allow children to learn and practice different mental wellness skills.

Whether you choose an interactive journal or a self-reflection book, now is the time to help children develop their resilience and EQ skills.

If you want to find some good options for journaling or reflection books, I have produced several book specifically for gifted kids. The Intense Life journal series includes wellness trackers like the page above, as well as reflection tools and black journal pages. There are two styles of the journal currently – a geometric style, and a “hearts” style.

I also have two reflection-styled self-help books for kids: one focused on developing resiliency skills titled Letting Go, and another focused on helping teen girls develop strong self-advocacy skills, called The Girl Guide. Both books combine practical information with reflection styled workbook pages designed to build emotional intelligence. All of the books can journals can be purchased on Amazon and other retailers.

Resiliency skills are more than necessary during our global pandemic. Helping our gifted kids learn to navigate the intensity of their emotions is vital now and long after the crisis passes.